Lord Adalon grimaced. “Silence.” Mattias Comorian vanished in a flash of light. “A fine song, but such an execrable ending.” He grinned, a black, rough tongue licking at his jagged teeth. “But let’s write a different ending to this song, shall we?”
He snapped his fingers, and the world swam around them.
Mazael found himself standing before the altar of Castle Cravenlock’s chapel, the domed ceiling draped in shadow. Dust caked the altar, and debris littered the floor. A peculiar stench, a mixture of excrement and snake scales, hung in the air.
“Look,” said Lord Adalon.
Rachel, Mitor, and Arissa Cravenlock stood motionless on the dais, their green eyes empty and uncomprehending. His mother looked more peaceful than Mazael remembered.
“Here!” said Lord Adalon, spreading his arms wide. “Here is where it all began, right where you are standing. There the Lady Arissa Dreadjon became the Lady Arissa Cravenlock.” He smiled and climbed the dais steps to stand besides her. “How she hated the man she had married! She wanted power. To her, Lord Adalon was a weak, sniveling wretch. It was so easy for her to dominate him. Yet she too was weak. She brought down the house of Cravenlock with her machinations.”
“Why should I care?” said Mazael. “That was fifteen years past.”
“Ah,” said Lord Adalon. He reached out and squeezed Arissa's shoulder. “Your mother was a beautiful, lusty woman, even wanton. I still think of her fondly, from time to time. But don’t you see? No, of course not, they never do, not at first. The events of the past cast a long shadow.”
He ruffled Mitor’s lank hair. “Look at her children. They’re just like her. They both want power they cannot wield. Mitor wants the liege lordship of the Grim Marches. But he has no idea how to attain it. And Rachel.” Lord Adalon stroked a lock of her hair. “She has grown into a beautiful woman. I might even take her into my bed. If she survives what is to come.” He laughed. “But she’s no different than her mother. Softer, perhaps, but no different.”
“That’s not true,” said Mazael.
“Is it?” said Lord Adalon. “No doubt you’ll have the chance to discover it firsthand.” He descended the stairs and faced Mazael. “But you, my son, you are different.”
“What do you mean?” said Mazael.
“Arissa’s children are smaller simpering versions of herself,” said Lord Adalon. “They lust for power. But they are flawed. They are unable to attain what they desire. You’re different. You’re my son, after all. They are weak, but you are strong.”
“I don’t care,” said Mazael. “This is madness. I want nothing to do with it.”
“Do you?” said Lord Adalon. “Do you know what happens to the strong when they refuse to use their strength? Mitor fears you. For all her beauty, the Lady Arissa was a petty little soul. How she hated you! You were a reminder of her failure and the price she had to pay for it. And Rachel. Do not doubt that she will kill you if you stand in her way.” Lord Adalon laughed. “Such a fine family, eh?”
“Be quiet and go away,” said Mazael.
“You still don’t believe me,” said Lord Adalon. “Ah, pity. The young are ever slow to take instruction from their elders.” He rapped the butt of his staff against the dirty stone floor. “It is time for a lesson.”
Mitor and Lady Arissa shrieked. Black daggers flashed in their hands, the blades glistening with green poison, and they leapt at Mazael.
Mazael had Lion in his hand in less than a heartbeat. He stepped to the side as Mitor stabbed at him, drops of poison falling from the dagger. Mazael parried his mother’s stab, shoved her back, and spun on Mitor, Lion's blade ripping across his chest. Mitor attacked still, screaming as he raised his dagger high. Mazael's next slash opened Mitor's throat and half his chest. Mitor staggered and fell, landing in his own blood.
Lord Adalon laughed.
Mazael’s mother screamed as she attacked him, a poisoned dagger in either hand. Mazael’s sword angled left and right to beat off her attacks, fine droplets of poison splattering on the floor. For all her fury, Lady Arissa moved so slowly. Blocking her attacks was like batting aside feathers.
Arissa stabbed her daggers at Mazael’s face, and he spun past her. She lost her balance, her legs tangled in her skirts, and Mazael plunged Lion into her back. Arissa screamed, howling like a dying dog. Mazael put his boot to her back, wrenched his sword free, and she fell lifeless to the ground.
“So easy,” said Lord Adalon. “They tried with all their fury and strength to slay you...and it amounted to naught. They are nothing before you. They deserved to die, did they not? Was it not satisfying to make them suffer?”
Mazael looked at the bloody corpses. “Yes.”
“Splendid!” said Lord Adalon. “But there’s one more Cravenlock, isn’t there?”
Mazael turned and saw Rachel, the shadows gone from her face.
“Rachel,” he said, smiling.
“Dear brother,” she said.
Mazael never saw the dagger coming until Rachel had plunged it into his chest. Hot blood bubbled through his lips as he screamed, Rachel's laughter ringing in his ears.
“You see?” said Lord Adalon. “You’re more powerful than her. But if you don’t destroy her, she will take what you refused.”
Blackness welled up in Mazael’s vision, blood choking his throat...
He jerked awake with a gasp in his rolled-up cloak. The stars shone bright above him, the smell of smoke in the air. He remembered the camp, and the Elderborn, and how he had taken the opportunity to get some sleep...
He could still feel the pain. He pawed at his chest, feeling for the dagger’s hilt, for the blood. Instead he felt the sweat-soaked fabric of his tunic.
Someone lay down besides him.
An arm encircled his chest. A hand reached over, cupped his chin, and tilted his head to the side. Mazael stared into Romaria’s ice-blue eyes.
“Another dream?” she said.
Mazael tried to speak, but his tongue and throat were too dry. He managed a nod.
“I saw you thrashing like you’d taken a fever,” said Romaria. “And you’re sweating like a man on his deathbed.”
“It,” said Mazael. “It was not pleasant.”
“Tell me,” said Romaria.
“No,” said Mazael. Her hair tickled at his face. “No.”
Romaria touched his lips with a finger. “The Seer told me that a man can’t carry his burdens alone. They will weigh him down and destroy him. Or his soul will twist under their weight.”
“It was the same as the others,” said Mazael. “I saw my father, my brother, and my sister. But my mother was there. My father talked, taunting me and telling me to kill the others. Mitor and my mother tried to kill me. I slew them. And then Rachel came to me, I reached for her...and she...she...” He swallowed and closed his eyes. “She stabbed me in the chest.”
“Here.” Romaria handed him a waterskin. He spilled some, sloshing his beard and tunic, but the rest was blessedly wet in his dry throat.
“What’s happening to me?” Mazael said. “Gods. These dreams. Am I going mad? I’ve had them, every night, for nearly the last fortnight. I am going mad. I’ve heard tell of men who saw visions that drove them mad. Is that what’s happening to me?” A fire lit in his mind. He wanted to draw his sword and start killing things.
His hand curled around his sword hilt, and leaned she forward and kissed him.
Shock pushed everything else from his mind. Her hands clasped the side of his head and pushed his face into hers. When Romaria released him, her blue eyes were ablaze. The fire went out in Mazael’s mind. For a moment he felt old and tired, but with Romaria pressed against him, the feeling did not last long.
“No,” said Romaria. “Not a monster.” She grinned. “You’re half-mad and arrogant...but you’re a good man, all the same. Not a monster. Would I kiss a monster?”
“No,” said Mazael. He twined his fingers through her hair and tugged her face back down. “I don’t think you would.”
r />
He kissed her again. She looped her other leg over his body and straddled him...
“Mazael!”
Gerald’s voice jerked Mazael back to reality. Romaria’s head snapped around, her eyes widened, and jumped to her feet. Mazael felt a momentary impulse to strangle Gerald. Instead he lurched to his feet, pulling Lion up with him. Gerald ran towards them, Wesson and Adalar trailing after. A cold wind whistled through the camp, tugging at their cloaks.
“What is it?” said Mazael.
“You’d best come quickly,” said Gerald. “Timothy says something is happening, and the wood elves are in a frenzy. And...and the light, gods, Mazael, the light...”
All thoughts of dreams, murder, and Romaria fled from his mind. “Then let’s go. Adalar, my armor!” Adalar handed him the quilted tunic and chainmail, and Mazael pulled it over his head as they ran.
He had ordered a trench dug in a half-circle at the base of the hill. Torches ringed the trench, their light flaring and sputtering. Armsmen stood ready, crossbows clutched in their hands. Mazael spotted Sir Nathan and Timothy and hurried to join them.
“What’s happening?” Mazael said
Timothy pointed. “Nothing good.”
Flickers of pale green light danced in the darkness surrounding the camp.
Timothy made a chopping gesture with his right hand. “My lords...that light is necromancy.” Romaria sheathed her bastard sword and strung her longbow.
“Crossbowmen to the front!” roared Mazael, pulling on his leather gauntlets. “Footmen, lancers, hold the torches, keep them burning!”
The wind pulled the torches' flames into long dancing ribbons. Armsmen ran forward, carrying quivers of crossbow bolts wrapped with oil-soaked rags, while Timothy pulled a short copper tube from his black coat. The green lights focused into hundreds of tiny pinpricks, and Mazael glimpsed shambling forms in the darkness.
Then something stepped into the circle of torchlight.
“Gods have mercy,” said Gerald.
The thing that shambled towards them had once been a living man. Its skin was gray and limp, with long tears revealing rotten muscles and pockmarked bones. Its hands were twisted, the fingertips ending in black claws. The creature’s face was a skull sheathed in rotting flesh. A ghastly green radiance shone from the empty sockets, mantling its head and shoulders in an emerald corona.
“Zuvembie,” said Romaria.
“Fire!” said Mazael.
But the crossbowmen stood frozen with fear.
Romaria shoved an arrow into a torch, the head tacking flame. She fitted the arrow, pulled, and released. It shot through the air with a trail of smoke and thudded into the zuvembie’s chest. Flames licked at its ragged clothes, and a low moan escaped the creature’s yawning mouth.
Romaria’s shot broke the armsmen’ paralysis. A dozen of crossbow bolts slammed into the zuvembie. The green light vanished as flames burst from its eyes, and for a moment longer it shambled towards them, wreathed in flame. Then it collapsed, its body disintegrating in a spray of embers and smoldering bones.
A frantic cheer went up from the terrified men.
“Well,” said Gerald, pale-faced. “That wasn’t so difficult.”
Another zuvembie lurched out of the shadows, followed by five more, and then dozens and dozens of the creatures streamed out of the darkness. Green light danced in their skulls, and their combined glow outshone the torches.
“Fire!” roared Mazael. “Shoot them down, fire, fire!”
A storm of blazing crossbow bolts lanced out. They smacked into dead flesh and set the zuvembies ablaze..
“Keep firing!” said Mazael. He drew Lion and seized a torch in his other hand. “Any get too close, use the torches to push them back!”
A flight of Elderborn arrows flew from the top of the hill with a hiss, trailing ribbons of fire, falling into the zuvembies like burning rain. Flesh ignited and corpses turned transformed into walking candles.
But the creatures still shambled forward.
“My lord knight,” said Timothy. “You, ah, may wish to step back.” He raised the copper tube and began to chant. Both ends had been plugged with cork.
Romaria’s eyes widened. “Do it! Get back from him!”
Mazael had seen the havoc a wizard’s war spells could unleash and did not need a second warning. Reddish-orange light flared about the tube as Timothy gestured over it. He plucked the cork free, raised the tube, and covered his eyes.
A huge gout of orange-yellow flame blasted from the tube. The flames roared over the trench, incinerated the torches and the stakes in its path, and rolled into the advancing zuvembies. Four were blown apart, and a dozen others took fire. Within seconds, half the zuvembies burned, vanishing in the spreading flames as the grasses burned. Several men made signs to ward off evil, staring at the young wizard.
“My,” said Timothy, panting. “That worked rather well.” His legs went limp and he stumbled. Mazael ordered the armsmen to take him to safety.
The crossbowmen fired with renewed vigor. Burning bolts ripped through zuvembie flesh, while storms of Elderborn arrows raked at them. Romaria fired and fired, and every burning arrow seemed to take a zuvembie through the skull.
Zuvembies went up like walking candles, flames shooting from their empty skulls. They stumbled, lurched, and then fell, the hungry fires eating their flesh. The few that reached the trench were clubbed back with torches.
Gerald grinned. “It’s working!”
Then the earth beneath Gerald’s feet exploded. A skeletal hand gloved in moldering gray skin shot from the dirt ,wrapped about his ankle, and yanked him to the ground. An instant later a shoulder and the top of a skull emerged from the earth, the eyes glowing green. The ground beneath Mazael’s feet quivered as animated corpses clawed free from long-forgotten graves. Chaos erupted as men screamed and pulled away from hands and arms rising beneath their feet.
Gerald lashed at the hand with his sword, but his blade bounced away from the bone as if he had struck a bar of iron. The undead things might burn, but steel could not harm them. Zuvembies shook free from the earth, men screaming in terror as weapons bounced from undead flesh.
Gerald shouted in pain as the hand tightened around his leg.
Mazael acted without thought and brought Lion down in a whistling arc, the weapon hot and alive in his hand, as if something long-dead had awakened within the blade. Lion sheared through rotting skin and crumbling bone, and the hand fell twitching. Mazael slashed his sword around in a backhand, the steel flashing blue in the night, and split the zuvembie's skull like a rotten melon. Blue fire flashed in the creature’s eye sockets and extinguished the green glow, dusty bones and leathery flesh falling to pieces.
“Gods,” whispered Gerald.
Lines of blue light glimmered in Lion’s razor edges, tiny sapphire flames flashing in the metal. The glow spread, blue flames blooming along the sword’s length. Mazael felt something old and powerful thrumming through his sword. Something that raged with fury, something that wanted to destroy the zuvembies.
Mazael agreed.
Three zuvembies shuffled towards him, fresh blood staining their black claws. Gerald gave a cry of alarm and raised his damaged sword in guard, but Mazael cut through the zuvembies like flame through chaff. He took an arm off at the shoulder, reversed his cut to shatter the zuvembie's chest, and spun to decapitate another. With every hit, the power within his sword grew, the blade's glow blossoming into shimmering azure flames. When he split the third zuvembie from crown to crotch, Lion exploded with blazing blue flames.
“Amater have mercy,” said Gerald. “What is...”
“I don’t know,” said Mazael. Some instinct tickled his brain. “Hold up your sword.”
Gerald complied, and Mazael tapped Lion’s tip to the younger knight’s blade. Blue flame leapt to dance in a shimmering corona around Gerald’s sword. The glow was not so intense as Lion’s, but it was there.
Gerald held up his weapon. “It is a
miracle.”
“I don't care what it is so long as it stops zuvembies,” said Mazael, touching Lion to Wesson's mace and Adalar's shortsword.
Gerald nodded, and they plunged into the fray, their squires following.
Mazael’s ordered camp had fallen into chaos. Men screamed and cursed as they grappled with zuvembies. The battle-fury came on Mazael, and the world blurred and slowed so that the already slow zuvembies seemed like granite statues. An armsman fell to his knees before a zuvembie, blood streaming down his face.
Lion plunged through the zuvembie and disintegrated the creature's emaciated chest, bone and leathery skin dancing with blue flames. The wounded armsman gaped at Mazael. Mazael slapped Lion against the flat of the man’s broadsword. The armsman flinched, grinned, and then sank his glowing weapon into the skull of another zuvembie.
Then he saw Romaria nearby. A quartet of zuvembies pushed her towards the trench, their black claws darting and stabbing for her. She fought, her sword blurring around her, but the creatures advanced nonetheless.
Mazael took Lion in two hands and split the nearest zuvembie in half. A zuvembie seized Romaria, its claws brushing at her face. Mazael’s sword took off its hand, its arm, and then its head in rapid slashes, and then he and tapped Romaria’s sword with his own, set her blade to dancing with sapphire flames. She went on the attack, her sword twisting and weaving as she carved chunks from a zuvembie. The creature took another step before it fell, azure fire threading into its shriveled flesh. Mazael slashed Lion through the neck of the last zuvembie. The thing’s head rolled across the trampled grass and torn earth.
Romaria laughed. “The gods of the earth, Mazael! That sword is out of legend. It was made to destroy things like this!”
“Then let us use it,” said Mazael.
Together they cut a swath through the zuvembies, fighting back-to-back. Zuvembies crumpled before Mazael, the fires of his blade burning through their flesh and extinguishing their necromancy. He slapped Lion against the weapons of every armsman he saw, and soon dozens of blue lights flickered in the battle. Romaria’s every strike ripped through a zuvembie, and Sir Nathan smashed his greatsword down, hammering a zuvembie to pieces. Mazael saw Timothy chanting and gesturing, loosing invisible force to throw the zuvembies to the ground, where armsmen with flashing broadswords fell upon them. Burning arrows slashed down from the Elderborn, and smoke and ash filled the air.
“White Rock! White Rock!”
Mazael heard the thunder of hooves and the distinct twang of short horse-bows. A score of men on horseback riding around the base of the hill, Silar the Cirstarcian monk among them, fitting an arrow to a short bow.
The Cravenlock armsmen rallied and formed a fist of steel around Mazael. They drove towards the trench and pushed the remaining zuvembies between the Elderborn longbows and the horse archers from White Rock.
The creatures did not last long.
Mazael cut the last zuvembie down with a vicious slash. The fires on his sword flickered and went out, while the glow on the armsmen's weapons faded away.
The battle was over.
The sudden silence seemed deafening.
Mazael touched Gerald’s shoulder. “Find out how many we lost.” Gerald nodded and rammed his sword back into its sheath. “Timothy, that was explosive.”
Timothy grinned and wiped soot from his brow. “It does come in handy, my lord knight. I think I’ll sleep for a week now, but it does come in handy.” He coughed. “You seem to have magic of your own.”
Mazael looked at Lion. “So it seems. I wish I’d known of it earlier.” Where had the Dominiars found such a weapon? “I’ll have Master Othar examine it when we return to Castle Cravenlock.” He kicked a charred leg bone. “We now have ample proof now that the Elderborn had nothing to do with these disturbances.”
“Aye,” said Timothy.
“Gather up some bones and ashes at once, so Master Othar will have something to examine,” said Mazael. “I’d hate to have done all this for naught.”
“Aye, my lord knight,” said Timothy.
Sir Nathan approached, wiping ashes and bone chips from the length of his greatsword. “Well fought.”
Mazael grimaced. “I’ll not know until Sir Gerald tells me how many men we lost.”
“Your plan held well,” said Sir Nathan. “You couldn’t have known that the creatures would rise from the earth like that.”
Mazael smacked a fist into his palm. “My plan can go to hell. It did, in fact.”
“You responded well,” said Nathan.
“The sword responded well, you mean,” said Mazael. “I’ve not the slightest idea what happened.”
Sir Nathan shrugged. “Nor do I.”
Ardmorgan Sil Tarithyn and his Elderborn descended from the hill. “A great triumph,” he said. “The Mother is pleased with our actions.” He glanced at Lion. “I did not know that any still possessed weapons with the magic of old.”
“Neither did I, for that matter,” said Mazael. Gerald returned with Romaria. “How many?”
“Twenty-six,” said Gerald, “with perhaps another thirty wounded. Most should make it. Timothy is tending them.”
“Burn the shells of those who moved onward,” said Sil Tarithyn.
“What?” said Mazael. “Why?”
“The ardmorgan speaks true,” said Romaria. “They’ve been in contact with the necromancy. If we do not, they’ll rise again come nightfall as zuvembies.”
“Then burn them,” said Mazael. The White Rock men dismounted and made their way towards him with Brother Silar in their lead. “But we’ll see to it later. Right now, we have wounded to tend. I’d also like to know how the men of White Rock arrived so fortuitously.”
“Alas, I fear it was the gods’ grace and dumb luck more than any meager skill on our parts,” said Silar. “Sir Mazael, Sir Gerald, Sir Nathan, my lady Romaria, and...” He bowed to Sil Tarithyn, and said something in the Elderborn tongue, and Sil Tarithyn answered in kind.
“How did you come to be here?” said Mazael. “We’re grateful for your help, certainly, and it came at a good time. But why did you come?”
“Sir Albert sent us after you,” said Silar. The monk grinned. “He’s heard rumor of you before, Sir Mazael, and figured you would meet with the creatures, whether you sought them or not. He knew now was the time to deal a strong blow to these devils.”
Mazael looked over the smoldering battlefield. “It seems that he was right.”
“Besides, I knew you would come under attack,” said Silar.
“What?” said Mazael. “How?”
“You said Simonian of Briault serves Lord Mitor as court wizard,” said Silar. “I saw the man near White Rock an hour after you departed.”
“How could you have known him?” said Mazael. “Have you ever seen him?”
“No,” said Silar. “But my order has a death mark on him, as you no doubt recall. His description states that he has tangled gray hair, an unkempt beard, and eyes that seem like pits of boiling mud.”
“That’s him,” said Mazael.
“He’s the man I saw,” said Silar. “He traveled alone on horseback past the village. The stink of necromancy hung about him, and he wore some sort of enchantment. I don’t think he meant to be seen. I approached him. He rode off before I could reach him.”
“This is his doing,” said Romaria. “He convinced Mitor to send you out after the Elderborn, then he went to use his dark arts to raise zuvembies.”
Mazael cursed. “It seems to fit. Gods, I knew I should have killed the old wretch when I had the chance. And I may yet have the opportunity.” He gestured at the charred ruin lying all about them. “Master Othar has a spell that can trace an enchantment back to its caster.”
“Let me accompany you back to Castle Cravenlock,” said Silar.
“Why?” said Mazael.
“There is a San-keth cult near Castle Cravenlock, Sir Mazael, if you believe it or not,” said Silar. “And a man like Simonia
n of Briault makes them very dangerous, indeed. Perhaps you’re correct, and this is all the necromancer’s doing. But if you’re not, then the superiors in my order must know the extent of the threat.”
“Very well,” said Mazael. “I mean to leave for Castle Cravenlock by midday tomorrow. You can ride with us.” He touched Lion’s hilt. “But if it is Simonian who has raised these things, I’ll kill him when I lay eyes on him and deal with the consequences later.”
3
The Ride Home