The Dark Warden (Book 6) (7 page)

“Very good friends,” said Ridmark. “Always.” 

Her smile was wider than it had been in some time. 

“Though given what awaits us in Urd Morlemoch,” said Ridmark, “always may not be a very long time.”

Calliande laughed, drawing a suspicious look from Morigna, who then glared at Jager. “Someday we shall have a conversation without you saying something gloomy, and then the sun will stop overhead and water will flow uphill.” She dabbed a little more blood from the cuts. “These can be healed safely now, I think. Brace yourself.”

“This is harder on you than it is me,” said Ridmark. 

Calliande shrugged. “I’ve healed much worse.” 

She lifted her hands, white light burning to life around them, and waved a palm over the cuts. One by one she healed the wounds. Ridmark felt a strange cold sensation as she did, and the pain vanished. He knew that she had to take the pain of the wounds into herself, that some Magistri simply could not heal because they could not endure the pain. Calliande did not cry out, though her lips thinned to a tight line and her eyes narrowed, a muscle twitching in the side of her neck. 

At last she sighed and slumped back. “Done. How do you feel?” 

“Fine,” said Ridmark. “A headache, but nothing serious.”

She frowned and placed a palm on his forehead. “You didn’t hit your head, did you? You’re likely dehydrated from the blood loss, though the healing will help with that. Go drink water until you’re sloshing like a barrel.” 

“As you command,” said Ridmark, and Calliande smiled and gathered up her supplies. “Thank you.” She nodded, and Ridmark retrieved a fresh tunic and jerkin and donned his gray cloak, returning the dwarven axe to its loop at his belt. 

“How are you feeling?” said Morigna when he rejoined the others. 

“Better,” said Ridmark.

“Quite remarkable, really,” said Jager, “given that I had seen butchered pigs with less blood upon them.” 

“Calliande knows her business,” said Ridmark. Morigna’s eyes narrowed a bit, but she said nothing. 

“It occurs to me,” said Kharlacht, “that if you slew two urvaalgs, others may be nearby. We must take precautions.”

“How will we guard against them?” said Gavin. “They’re hard enough to see in daylight. At night they’ll be almost invisible.”

“My spell,” said Morigna. “To sense when someone walks upon the earth. I can cast it around the base of the tower.”

Ridmark frowned. “Will you not have to stay awake to maintain it?”

“I can cast it as a ward,” said Morigna. “It will not be as effective, true, but urvaalgs are heavy. Their weight upon the earth will activate the spell. It will wake me at once, and I can sound the alarm.”

“What if one of those ugly ravens chances to land upon the slope?” said Kharlacht.

“That will wake me up, too,” said Morigna. “Given how close we are to Urd Morlemoch, one suspects that an overabundance of caution would not go amiss.”

“True,” said Ridmark, looking around. “Where’s Mara? Didn’t she…”

Even as he spoke, a column of blue fire swirled next to him, and Mara appeared out of nothingness. 

“It’s coming!” she said, the blue fire fading from her veins and eyes. “I think it followed me here!”

“What?” said Jager. “What’s coming?”

“The urhaalgar,” said Mara. “It is…”

A small dark shape darted through the arch of the ruined tower and skidded to a stop. The creature was gaunt, and about Jager’s height. Gleaming black scales armored its thin body, and hundreds of bony spines jutted from its back and the sides of its arms and legs, every spine dripping with poison. A long, barbed tongue rolled over its fangs, and its eyes burned like coals.

The creature was an urhaalgar. The urvaalgs had been war beasts, but the dark elves had used urhaalgars as spies and assassins and infiltrators. The creatures could move with perfect stealth, and when they put their minds to it, they were even harder to find than an urvaalg.

So why had this one shown itself? 

Before Ridmark could consider any further, the urhaalgar threw itself forward with a screech.

A blast of white fire shot across the ground, filling the ruined tower with dazzling radiance. Calliande’s spell slammed into the urhaalgar and threw it against the wall with enough force to crack bone. The creature staggered, the right side of its body a mass of smoking char. 

Ridmark took off its head with one sweep of his axe. The urhaalgar collapsed, black slime leaking from the stump of its neck. 

“Brace yourselves,” said Ridmark. “There will be more coming. Urhaalgars never hunt alone.”

“No,” said Mara. “It wasn’t after us. Gray Knight, there’s someone else out there. A man, I think, a knight of Andomhaim.”

“A knight?” said Ridmark. 

“He was wearing plate and chain and had on a surcoat, though I couldn’t see the sigil,” said Mara. “The urhaalgars were after him. I went to take a look closer, and one of the creatures pursued me.” She looked at the carcass. “I don’t think he realized that I had friends.” 

What would a knight of Andomhaim be doing in the Torn Hills? If the man lived, Ridmark could question him at length.

If the knight died, likely the urhaalgars would come for them next.

“Gather your weapons,” said Ridmark. “I will not leave anyone to fall to the creatures of the dark elves. Mara, lead the way.”

She nodded and headed for the arch, and the others followed suit.

Ridmark’s headache worsened as he headed down the slope of the hill.

Chapter 5 - The Swordbearer

Morigna put away her bow and lifted her staff. 

Arrows were useless against the creatures of the dark elves, and her staff could not harm them either. Yet the spells bound into the staff gave her the ability to command wood, and even the twisted trees of the Torn Hills were still made of wood. She could force the roots to erupt from the ground and entangle their foes, slowing them long enough for Ridmark and the others to land killing blows. Morigna looked at Calliande, the Magistria’s green cloak swaying from her shoulders. 

What had she been discussing with Ridmark? 

She pushed away the thought. She was not some child. Calliande had had her chance, and she had let it pass her by. 

Given the power of the foes they faced, she could not afford the distraction. 

A flapping sound came from overhead, and Morigna looked up, fearing that they were about to see an urdhracos. But a group of the misshapen ravens flew overhead, winging to the north.

“Can you bind any of them?” said Ridmark. She cast a spell and reached out with her thoughts, probing for the ravens’ minds. 

“No,” she said, scowling. “Their thoughts are too twisted by the corruption of the Torn Hills. They are not natural animals, and I cannot command them.” 

“Could not Lady Mara travel ahead and scout the foe?” said Gavin. He had changed a great deal from the hotheaded boy Morigna had met outside Moraime. The fighting had hardened him, made him quieter and steadier. It was growing harder to think of him as a boy. 

Mara laughed. “I fear I am not a noblewoman, Gavin.”

“You’re the daughter of a dark elven prince,” said Jager. “Technically you are a princess.” 

“Bastard daughter,” said Mara.

“Still counts.”

“In answer to your question,” said Mara before Jager could continue, “my travelling generates too much light. The urhaalgars would see us, and I expect the Gray Knight means to take the foe by surprise.”

“Correct,” said Ridmark. “Which is why we are going to stop talking now.” 

Jager rolled his eyes but fell silent, which was a relief, and they made their way through the dark hills. 

###

Ridmark’s headache sharpened, the pain throbbing through his temples with every beat of his heart, but something else occupied his attention. 

There was something odd about the fighting. 

Ridmark heard the sound of battle from the ravine ahead, the harsh roars of the enraged urhaalgars, an inhuman shout raised in command, and the hoarse voice of a man bellowing challenges. They had passed a dozen dead urhaalgars, and all of them had been slain by sword wounds. 

There was only one weapon that could inflict such wounds upon a creature of dark magic. 

Was the knight Mara had seen a Swordbearer? 

A Swordbearer might be a powerful ally. Or the Swordbearer might attack Ridmark on sight. Most of the Knights of the Order of the Soulblade knew him as the man who had been stripped of his soulblade and expelled from the Order, and he was traveling with a wild sorceress, a dark elven half-breed, and a master thief. For that matter, the Enlightened of Incariel had infiltrated the Magistri, and they might have made their way into the Order of the Soulblade as well.

But Ridmark would not leave any man to die beneath the talons of the urhaalgars. 

He crept over the slope of the next hill, the others waiting behind him, and looked at the fighting in the ravine below. 

Close to thirty urhaalgars filled the ravine, standing in a half-circle around the base of a hill. Trapped against the base of the hill stood a knight in chain mail and half-plate beneath a blue surcoat. In his left hand he carried a blue-painted shield adorned with the red dragon sigil of the Pendragons, its surface scarred from the slashes of claws. A full helm concealed his face, marred with bright streaks where the urhaalgars’ claws had struck home. 

In his right hand he carried a soulblade. 

A blaze of white fire crackled around the weapon, and the soulstone embedded in the base of the blade shone like a star. One of the urhaalgars lunged with a hiss, and the knight wheeled, catching the creature’s claws on his battered shield and striking with the soulblade. The glowing sword parted the urhaalgar’s right arm from its shoulder with the barest hesitation. The creature stumbled with a scream, and the Swordbearer took off its head with a single powerful chop.

The other creatures edged back. 

The mass of urhaalgars had trapped the Swordbearer in the ravine, but they were too frightened of his soulblade to attack in a single overwhelming rush. No doubt each of the creatures was hoping one of the others would die first. Ridmark was surprised that the urhaalgars had not fled in search of more vulnerable prey. 

The reason became clear when he spotted the dark shape lurking behind the urhaalgars. It looked like a mixture of a human and a serpent, her sleek body covered in gleaming black scales. Hooked claws tipped her fingers and toes, and a segmented, scorpion-like tail rose over her shoulder, tipped with a barbed stinger. Her face was almost feline, the yellow eyes split with a vertical black pupil.

It was an urshane, one of the more powerful creatures of the dark elves. Unlike the urvaalgs and the ursaars, they could command lesser creatures like the urhaalgars. Yet evidently the urshane’s control was not strong enough to force the urhaalgars to attack. Had a dark elven wizard like the Warden or the Artificer been here, the urhaalgars would have rushed enthusiastically to their deaths, their heads filled with the strange song that Mara had described. 

A second urshane appeared, shrieking commands in a hideous, grating voice. Two urhaalgars flung themselves at the Swordbearer. The knight blocked the first attack on his heavy shield and killed the urhaalgar with a quick slash of his soulblade. The second slammed into him, its claws raking at his cuirass. Yet his armor held, and the Swordbearer split the urhaalgar’s skull with a single blow of his sword. 

“Come on, then!” roared the knight in Latin. “Come, then! Which of you devils is next? Who wishes to join his fellows in hell? Come! I have plenty for all!” 

His voice was familiar. Ridmark was sure he had met the knight before, though he could not recall where. Yet if he did not hasten, the urhaalgars and the urshanes were going to kill him.

Ridmark went to join the others.

###

Calliande watched as Ridmark returned, his dwarven axe in hand. 

“We need to hasten,” he said. “Mara, that knight you saw is a Swordbearer. He’s holding off a group of about thirty urhaalgars and two urshanes.”

“Alone?” said Caius. “The man must be a puissant warrior.”

“The urhaalgars are afraid of his soulblade,” said Ridmark, “but they won’t be for much longer. Sooner or later they’ll overwhelm him. Two urshanes are controlling the urhaalgars. I suspect if we kill them, the remainder of the urhaalgars will lose their nerve and flee.”

“You are right,” said Mara. “Urhaalgars are not like urvaalgs or ursaars. Certainly they have the same level of bloodlust, but they also have a healthy regard for their own skins. If we strike with overwhelming force, they will likely panic and run.”

“Calliande,” said Ridmark. “Can you enchant our weapons?”

“Of course,” said Calliande. “I think…I think I am now strong enough to do that and strike at the urshanes at the same time.”

Morigna frowned. “You never used to possess that kind of strength.”

Calliande shrugged. “The fighting at the Iron Tower was an ordeal. I came out of it stronger, just as a man who carries a heavy bundle every day for weeks will grow stronger.” 

“Let us put that newfound strength to work,” said Ridmark. “Gavin, Caius, shield Calliande. If the urshanes figure out that she is a Magistria, they will try to kill her. Kharlacht, follow me and we’ll strike for the urshanes.” The big orc nodded, his face impassive, though his black eyes started to glimmer with the red rage of orcish battle fury. “Jager and Mara, keep the urhaalgars off-balance. Mind their stingers.”

Jager sighed. “We are going into battle as husband and wife. Perhaps some enterprising bard shall make a poem of it.” 

“I would not wish to hear it,” said Morigna.

“Well,” said Jager with a smile, “the Witch of the Hills would be the villain of the…”

“Morigna,” said Ridmark. “Make trouble wherever you can.”

“You do have a gift for it,” said Jager.

“Jager,” said Mara with a sigh.

“The mockery of my inferiors aside,” said Morigna, “it shall be done.”

Ridmark nodded, and the others raised weapons or prepared spells. Again Calliande was amazed by how easily they obeyed him. He guided them to a purposeful whole, a whole that managed to face great odds and prevail. Calliande could indeed see why Morigna had fallen for him.