The Dark Warden (Book 6) (32 page)

More white light flashed as Arandar charged, Heartwarden in his fist. Valakoth whirled with a furious snarl at the sight of a second Swordbearer. He threw a spell into Arandar, and Heartwarden burned bright as it fought off the killing magic. Yet the pressure around Gavin eased, and he was able to move forward again. Still another blast of blue flame shot over the melee at the base of the hill as Morigna resumed her attack, and this time her spell knocked Valakoth back. 

“Fools!” screamed the First of the Devout. “You will not stop the master! Perish! Perish!” 

He raised his staff over his head and howled to the sky, and the sky answered him back. 

A stream of blue flame broke off from the ring encircling Urd Morlemoch and stabbed into him. His staff transformed into a shaft of blazing fire, and Valakoth screamed with agony or ecstasy, or perhaps both. His free hand came up, fingers hooked into claws, and volleys of blue flame and twisted shadow erupted from him. One stream tore into Gavin, Truthseeker chiming as it struggled to hold back the attack. Still another struck Arandar, and a third shot down to the hill to strike Morigna. 

Gavin braced himself, preparing to charge when the attack faded.

Instead it intensified. 

“Die!” shrieked Valakoth. “Die in the name of the master!” The ancient wizard’s screams cycled into mad laughter. 

Gavin gritted his teeth, trying to move forward, trying to think of a plan.

The inferno of dark magic engulfed him. 

###

It was not enough.

Morigna dropped to one knee, both hands clenched around her staff. She felt her wards collapsing beneath the assault.

All the power she had taken from the soulstone, all the power of her earth magic, and it was still not enough. She was still helpless before a stronger wizard. 

If only she had possessed more power. Perhaps she could have saved them. 

Perhaps she could have saved Ridmark. 

She tried to see if he was still alive, but she could not see past the storm of shadow and blue flame.

###

The pain from his headache dragged Ridmark back to consciousness. 

He sat up. His limbs felt as if they had been dipped in ice, and his chest as if it had been beaten with wooden rods. He jerked to his feet, leaning upon the haft of his axe for support. A storm of shadow and flame roiled back and forth over the hillside. Gavin and Arandar stood frozen, their soulblades flaring as they fought to defend from the assault, while another volley of blue flame flew at Morigna. Kharlacht and Caius and Jager fought below against the remaining Devout orcs, while Mara…

He stumbled a bit, and Mara caught his arm. 

“I can’t get any closer,” said Mara. “He’ll blast me to ashes if I try, and I can’t travel. The others are overwhelmed. What are we going to do?”

Valakoth shrieked with incoherent laughter, shaking his staff of bones over his head as the dark magic poured from him.

“This,” said Ridmark, and he drew back his arm, stepped forward, and flung his axe with all his strength. 

The weapon had not been balanced for throwing, but Ridmark’s aim was true. Valakoth, his attention focused upon the Swordbearers and the sorceress, never saw it coming. The heavy blade sank into his chest with a loud crack, and the wizard flinched. Valakoth looked at the axe in his chest, then at Ridmark, his eyes wide and surprised.

The dark magic around him fizzled and went out, and Valakoth fell dead upon his face. 

“Oh,” said Mara. “I suppose that works, too.” 

Ridmark grunted, ran to Valakoth’s corpse, and ripped his axe free. The others hurried to join him. They all looked exhausted, and sweat glistened on Morigna’s face. Jager and Kharlacht and Caius had all taken wounds despite their dark elven armor. 

“Is anyone hurt?” said Mara. 

“There’s no time,” said Ridmark. “That gate is almost open.” 

“She was using dark magic,” said Arandar. 

Ridmark blinked and looked at Morigna, who looked caught between anger and embarrassment. 

“If we live through this, we can worry about it later,” said Ridmark. “Follow me. Either we stop the Warden now, or the Warden takes Old Earth and the Frostborn destroy our world.”

He turned and started up the hill, bloody axe in hand, and the others followed him in silence.

Chapter 22 - The Long Game

The grand circle blazed with blue and green light. 

The circle was a huge, ugly thing, as large as the one where Coriolus had tried to possess Morigna. Three rings of carved black menhirs stood in concentric circles around a central mound, their carvings glowing with dark magic. A black altar of rough stone stood atop the mound. Atop the altar the soulstone shone with crimson light, and the Matriarch’s soulcatcher had been driven into the rock. Behind the altar rose a tall stone arch, nearly twenty feet high, its interior shimmering with gray mist. Sometimes within the mist Ridmark glimpsed the city of glass and steel the Warden had shown them from Urd Morlemoch. 

In a matter of moments that arch would become a gate to Old Earth. 

Calliande floated before the altar, her eyes closed, her arms outstretched, blond hair and green cloak billowing around her. Arcs of blue lightning leapt from her fingers to dance around the menhirs, and her lips moved in a constant stream of soundless words as the Warden cast his spells.

It was a terrifying sight. Ridmark had never seen dark magic worked on this scale before. Perhaps no man of Andomhaim had ever seen dark magic worked on such a scale. 

Yet it gave him a glimmer of hope.

The entirety of the Warden’s attention was upon the gate, and he hadn’t yet noticed the fighting at the foot of the hill. If Ridmark could sneak up behind him and touch the soulstone to Calliande …

He looked at the others and they nodded, fanning out in silence around the perimeter of the outer circle. Ridmark planned to sneak up behind the Warden and touch Calliande with the rough soulstone. If that didn’t work, if the Warden saw him and killed him, the others would charge the Warden at once, hopefully distracting him long enough for someone to grab the stone and use it. 

It was a thin plan, Ridmark knew. But it was all they had left. He rebuked himself for his folly. He should have never returned to Urd Morlemoch, or he should have returned alone, without companions. Perhaps if he had returned alone, the Warden would have simply told him what he needed to know and let him depart without trouble. 

Ridmark moved from menhir to menhir, keeping to the shadows. More arcs of silent blue lightning sprang from Calliande’s hands, curling around the menhirs, and the ground vibrated beneath Ridmark’s boots. 

Perhaps Ridmark had been an even greater fool than he had thought. The Warden had planned for this, had laid the groundwork for Ridmark’s return nine years ago. Perhaps Ridmark had been a puppet of the Warden, every step taking him back to his inevitable return to Urd Morlemoch. 

Yet he had realized the error, if only at the last minute. Ridmark was going to free Calliande and get the rest of his companions out of here, or he was going to die trying. He owed them that. 

He reached the second circle and crouched behind a menhir. To his left he saw Jager moving in silence. Still the Warden did not stir. Ridmark hurried to the final circle, gazing up at the mound, the soulstone shining like a molten star upon the altar’s dark surface. Calliande floated just twenty yards away, chains of lightning leaping from her fingers to the standing stones. 

Ridmark hesitated, the rough soulstone in his right hand. For a moment he considered throwing the stone at Calliande. Yet he suspected the stone had to come into contact with her flesh. He had to get closer.

Ridmark started up the mound, moving as fast and as silently as he could manage.

Then Calliande threw back her head, the Warden’s voice thundering from her lips, and the ground heaved. The jolt knocked Ridmark from his feet and sent him rolling back down the mound. The gray mist in the archway brightened, and brilliant white light poured from the archway.

The gate was open. 

Calliande came to rest atop the mound, the Warden’s black eyes fixed upon the archway.

“At last,” murmured the Warden, and Calliande started walking towards the gate.

Ridmark sprinted up the mound, the soulstone in his hand.

He made it halfway up the slope before Calliande spun in surprise, the Warden’s bottomless black eyes staring at him.

###

For a moment the Warden could not believe what Calliande’s eyes were reporting. Perhaps the human woman’s brain had malfunctioned, reporting false images to her eyes. The vast magic he had worked had put her flesh under a great deal of stress, and perhaps her brain was hallucinating, conjuring images of Ridmark Arban. 

Yet Ridmark sprinted at him nonetheless, and the Warden’s astonishment shifted into mild alarm.

The former Swordbearer could not be here. There was absolutely no way he could have escaped from the spells atop Urd Morlemoch. The wild sorceress did not have the strength to break the spells, and neither did Heartwarden. They should have remained imprisoned against the menhirs until they died of thirst.

All that was true, and yet somehow Ridmark was here. 

The alarm shifted to unease, perhaps even a hint of dread.

Had the Warden overlooked something? Some small, important detail? It had happened before. He had not intended to imprison himself in Urd Morlemoch, yet he had spent the last fifteen thousand years there. Had he missed something this time?

Ridmark Arban was free, so clearly he had. 

Fortunately, the problem was simple to solve. In Calliande’s body, his powers were reduced until he stepped through the gate to Old Earth, and most of his strength was tied into keeping the gate open. Still, that left ample power to blast Ridmark Arban and his followers to ashes.

He pointed Calliande’s hand at Ridmark and summoned the killing fire. 

###

“Wait!” said Ridmark. 

Calliande did not move, fire playing around her hands. 

“Don’t you want to know how I got loose?” said Ridmark. If one of the others created a distraction, he could cover the final few steps to Calliande. 

“No,” said the Warden. Blue fire ripped from Calliande’s fingers, and Ridmark tried to dodge. 

Another column of blue fire appeared next to him, and Mara slammed into Ridmark, throwing him out of the path of the spell. The Warden’s attack missed and struck the ground with enough force to dig a smoking crater the size of a horse. 

“What?” said the Warden. “How did you do that?”

Mara disappeared in a swirl of blue flame, and Ridmark got back to his feet. 

“You’re making,” said Ridmark, “a very big mistake.”

“Clearly,” said the Warden. “I should have killed you all.” Calliande tilted her head to the side, the bottomless black eyes narrowing. “Why do you struggle? Why do you not embrace the end? Do you not see what the purpose of your life was?”

“And what purpose was that?” said Ridmark, taking a cautious step forward. The Warden did not attack. Perhaps the ancient sorcerer simply did not see him as a threat.

“To bring my freedom to me,” said the Warden. “I looked into the shadows of your future, Ridmark Arban. I saw the path your life would take. I saw your wife die from your folly, and I saw your expulsion from the Order.” Ridmark’s fingers tightened against the soulstone. “All that was of no importance…for I saw that the shadow of your future crossed great events to come, the return of the Frostborn and the awakening of the Keeper.” 

“Then you tricked me,” said Ridmark.

“I merely told you the truth,” said the Warden. “Just enough of the truth to give you a purpose when your wife perished. A quest for the fallen knight to redeem himself. Enough to make you come back here with the Keeper, both of you seeking the truth. I did not coerce you. You came to Urd Morlemoch of your own free will, and you returned of your own free will.”

“Then my entire life has been your strategy?” said Ridmark.

“Yes,” hissed the Warden. “Do you not see, Ridmark of the Arbanii? I told you that our game had never ended, that you had been playing from the moment you first set foot within Urd Morlemoch. Now the game ends.”

Again Calliande raised her hand, the killing fire burning around her fingers. Ridmark started forward, hoping to reach her before the Warden cast his spell, and knowing once again it was too late.

A burst of blue flame screamed over the mound and struck Calliande, driving her back several steps towards the altar. Ridmark glimpsed Morigna running outside the inner circle, her staff in hand. 

“Ah!” said the Warden. “You stole power you lack the strength to master! So that explains how you escaped.” Shadows writhed around Calliande’s hands. “You should have remained in your dreams. That would have been a kinder death than the one you shall receive now.” 

White light blazed at the foot of the mound, and Arandar and Gavin charged up the hill, Truthseeker and Heartwarden burning in their hands. Caius and Jager and Kharlacht followed, each coming from a different angle, forcing the Warden to turn his attention from threat to threat. Calliande’s face twisted in a snarl, and she leaped atop the altar, dark magic shimmering around her. Ridmark took a cautious step forward. He wasn’t as much of a threat as Morigna and the two Swordbearers. If the Warden focused upon them long enough for Ridmark to draw closer…

Calliande’s face stilled into a mask of icy calm, and the darkness of the Warden’s eyes grew deeper. 

“Die, then,” said the Warden, his voice still calm. 

His dark magic sprang from him like a storm. Bolts of power struck Arandar and Gavin, sending them rolling away down the hill. Morigna disappeared in a volley of blue lightning bolts that ripped from Calliande’s right hand. Invisible force caught Kharlacht and Jager and Caius, sending them sprawling to the ground. The same force caught Ridmark, and he knelt and rolled, catching his balance as the Warden’s power washed over him. The assault was so strong they could not resist.