The Dark Warden (Book 6) (8 page)

Why Calliande herself had fallen for him, if she was honest with herself. 

She turned her mind to the business at hand. Perhaps Jager and Mara going into battle together would make for a bad poem, but it would be an even worse one if the urhaalgars killed them all. Calliande summoned power, the magic of the Well flooding through her, and directed it into a spell. White light burst from her fingers and jumped to the weapons of the others, sheathing them in an aura allowed the blades to wound creatures of dark magic. Holding the spell in place was a wearisome effort. Calliande could do it, but the longer she held the spell the greater the effort become. 

Yet it was not as hard as it had been two months past. The magical battles she had fought had made her magic stronger, just as regular sword practice strengthened a knight’s muscles. She would have enough power left to strike directly at the creatures of dark magic. 

“This way,” said Ridmark.

###

Ridmark walked around the curve of the hill, the battle coming into sight. The Swordbearer had killed a few more urhaalgars, yet Ridmark saw the weariness in the man’s every motion. A soulblade augmented its bearer’s strength and speed to superhuman levels, but no man’s stamina lasted forever. 

When it failed, the Swordbearer would die.

Ridmark’s headache intensified, increasing whenever he looked at the Swordbearer. Another mystery to worry about later.

The urhaalgars were focused upon the knight, the urshanes shrieking commands, so the creatures were completely unprepared for the attack to fall upon them. Ridmark split the skull of one urhaalgar and hewed the legs from another. Kharlacht struck with mighty blows of his two-handed sword. The ground folded in the grip of Morigna’s spell, and a dozen urhaalgars collapsed, and Jager and Mara darted into the chaos, striking with short swords and daggers. 

A ripple of shock went through the urhaalgars, the creatures spinning to face the new threat.

And as they did, Ridmark saw that they faced three urshanes, not two.

The urshanes shrieked, and the urhaalgars charged to attack, snarling and howling.

Ridmark spun his axe and ran to meet them.

###

Calliande concentrated on holding the spell over the weapons in place, while Morigna’s magic threw the urhaalgars into chaos.

The sorceress stood next to Calliande, staff gripped in her right hand, purple fire snarling around her left. She gestured with her staff, and twisted roots erupted from the earth, wrapping around the urhaalgars to hold them in place. The roots did not hold the urhaalgars for long, but that was more than enough time for Mara to appear behind them and open their throats. 

“For God and St. Michael!” roared the armored Swordbearer. His soulblade spun, cutting down one of the urhaalgars, and he charged into the fray. It seemed he was not the sort of man to sit idly by while others came to his aid. Calliande wondered if the Swordbearer knew Ridmark. Perhaps the knight was one of his friends, like Sir Joram Agramore or Sir Constantine Licinius.

Or perhaps the man would was like Sir Paul Tallmane or Dux Tarrabus Carhaine. 

“Gavin!” said Caius.

One of the urshanes broke from the press and raced towards Calliande on all fours, the poisoned stinger rising high. Calliande gestured, and a burst of white fire shot from her hand to strike the urshane. The spell flipped the creature over, smoke rising from its charred scales, but did the urshane no real harm. While she maintained the spell over the weapons, she could not spare the strength to destroy the creature. 

She prepared to strike again, but the urshane sprang to the side. 

Then the urshane’s form blurred and changed.

One moment it was a scaled horror of grace and power. The next it was a naked young woman about Gavin’s age, her eyes wide and fearful, her arms wrapped tight about herself for warmth or modesty or both. Calliande had seen her before, months ago, in Gavin’s home village of Aranaeus.

“Rosanna?” said Gavin, stunned.

“Help me,” said Rosanna, her voice quaking. Gavin had been in love with her, but Rosanna had been betrothed to the apprentice of the village’s blacksmith. Likely Rosanna and Philip had been wed by now. “They kidnapped me and brought me here, they did things to me, terrible things, help me, help me…”

Gavin ran towards her, lowering his sword.

“Idiot!” raged Morigna. “Stop, you fool! It is only a trick!” 

She raised a hand to cast a spell. 

“Wait,” said Calliande. 

Rosanna reached for Gavin, her face full of pleading hope. 

That hope turned to snarling fury when Gavin drove his glowing orcish sword between her ribs. Rosanna shuddered and melted back into the form of the urshane, alien eyes filled with rage, and Gavin ripped his sword loose and stabbed again.

The urshane crumpled to the ground, its tail twitching once or twice. 

“I’m sorry,” said Gavin, “but I’ve seen this trick before” He walked back, nodded to Calliande, and raised his shield and sword. 

“Who was she?” said Morigna.

“I don’t think you would understand,” said Gavin. A trio of urhaalgars charged them, and there was no more time for talk.

###

Ridmark and Kharlacht dueled the remaining two urshanes. 

The damned things were deadly quick, and moved with the fluid grace of striking serpents. The urshane facing Kharlacht blurred and shifted, and took the form of an orcish woman, tall and strong. The illusion enraged Kharlacht further. He rarely spoke of his past, but from time to time mentioned a woman that he had lost.

Perhaps that was her.

The urshane facing Ridmark kept changing form.

One moment she was Aelia Licinius Arban, her voice and face full of loathing as she excoriated him for his failures. The next she was Morigna, her expression filled with pain as she begged him to save her. The instant after that the urshane became Calliande as Ridmark had seen her on the day of the great omen, naked and helpless. 

It was a ghastly spectacle. Men had gone mad fighting urshanes, their throats ripped out as they refused to lift their blades against a creature wearing the guise of their loved ones. Or they had killed a creature disguised as a wife or daughter or son, and broken down sobbing at the death. Ridmark had already seen Aelia die because of his folly. 

Killing a facsimile held no power over him, and he would not fail Morigna the way he had failed Aelia. 

He drove at the urshane, wielding his axe with both hands. Around him the urhaalgars tried to charge, only to fall prey to Morigna’s earth magic. Mara and Jager killed stunned urhaalgar after stunned urhaalgar, leaving carcasses in their wake. The Swordbearer mowed his way through them, his armor dented and scratched, his soulblade rising and falling with the regular rhythm of a blacksmith working steel. 

Ridmark’s headache grew worse as the Swordbearer came closer. 

He ignored the pain and dodged the urshane’s stinger as it shot over Aelia’s shoulder. The urshane blurred into Morigna’s form and came after him, claws sprouting from the ends of her fingers. Ridmark swept the axe before him, and the urshane’s jerked her hands back to protect her fingers. She spun, her barbed tail lashing at him like a whip, and Ridmark jumped back. The creature pursued him, morphing into Calliande’s shape, her face alight with a malicious glee that the real Calliande had never shown. Once more the barbed tail shot for his face. 

Ridmark had anticipated the movement, and as he dodged he lifted his left hand from the haft of his axe. He seized the tail just behind the barbed stinger, the chitin cold and hard beneath his fingers, and yanked with all his strength. The urshane shrieked in surprise, struggling to keep its balance. The urshane’s torso was out of reach, but its tail was not, and Ridmark lopped it off with a single sharp blow. 

The creature’s enraged scream threatened to shatter his ears, and the urshane’s form went into a mad convulsion, shifting from Morigna to Aelia to Calliande to its own form and back again. The urshane threw itself at him, and Ridmark swung the severed tail like a whip. The barb stuck in the urshane’s cheek, and the creature stumbled to a halt, trying to pull its own tail out of its face. Most likely the urshane was immune to its own poison, but the distraction gave Ridmark all the time he needed to get both hands around the axe’s haft and launch a killing blow. 

The urshane’s head rolled away across the ground, the tail still stuck to its face, and the thin body collapsed. Ridmark turned, intending to aid Kharlacht, but he saw that the orcish warrior had already defeated his opponent. Kharlacht ripped his greatsword free with a snarl, his eyes glazed red, and turned to attack the remaining urhaalgars. 

There were not all that many left. The Swordbearer had fought well, and Mara and Jager had taken full advantage of Morigna’s spells. The remaining urhaalgars fled in all directions. The last of the sunlight had faded during the fighting, but since seven of the thirteen moons were out, it hardly seemed to matter. Their combined light made an eerie purplish glow, almost the color of a malignant bruise. 

“Is anyone wounded?” said Ridmark.

“A few minor cuts,” said Calliande, white glimmering around her fingers as she strode towards Kharlacht. “Nothing major. The Lord was with us.”

“Aye,” said Caius. 

“And you, sir knight?” said Ridmark, turning to the Swordbearer. “Are you wounded? Our Magistria can heal you. An urhaalgar’s poison is not a trifling matter.” 

The Swordbearer’s masked helm rotated back and forth, evaluating them as threats. Ridmark felt a stab of irritation compounded by the constant pulsing pain behind his eyes. They had just saved the man’s life. Yet Morigna was a wild sorceress, and Mara was a dark elven half-breed. They would have been regarded as dangerous in Andomhaim.

“Ridmark Arban,” said the Swordbearer at last, his voice made hollow by his helm. “I never expected to see you alive again.”

“Do we know each other, sir knight?” said Ridmark.

“Aye,” said the Swordbearer, drawing off his helm with his left hand. The knight’s face was lean and weathered, the skin lined by wind and sun. His thick mane of black hair was streaked with gray, his brown eyes hard and fierce. 

“Sir Arandar?” said Ridmark, surprised. 

“You know this man?” said Morigna, gazing at the Swordbearer with suspicion. 

“Ridmark Arban have met many times, my lady,” said Arandar with bow, “though you and I have not, I fear.” 

“Arandar is a knight of the High King’s household,” said Ridmark. “Though you were. I did not know you had been made a Swordbearer.”

“Aye,” said Arandar. “Five years ago.”

“Five years ago?” said Calliande. “Does that mean…”

Arandar turned his sword towards them as the blade’s white glow faded, and a shock of recognition went through Ridmark. 

Suddenly he knew what had caused his headache. Severing a Swordbearer from his soulblade caused all sorts of unpleasant physical side effects, including excruciating pain if the former Swordbearer ever drew near his former soulblade again. 

The soulblade Arandar carried was Heartwarden, Ridmark’s soulblade.

Or, at least, the soulblade he had carried on the day he had failed to save Aelia.

Chapter 6 - The Knight’s Quest

“That it, isn’t it?” said Calliande, stunned. “Heartwarden.”

Ridmark nodded, his expression distant. 

“If you do not mind,” said Ridmark, “you can sheathe your sword now, sir knight.” He blinked several times. “The foe has been defeated, and I confess the headache is…considerable.”

“Yes, of course,” said the knight Ridmark had called Arandar. “I should have thought of it.” 

He sheathed his sword, Heartwarden’s glow winking out. Ridmark took a deep breath and swayed upon his feet for a moment, but recovered himself. 

“What is wrong with him?” hissed Morigna. “Has he exerted himself too far?”

Calliande started to say that if Morigna was so concerned about Ridmark’s stamina, then she should not have lured him off into the hills for a tryst.

“The soulblade,” she whispered back instead. “Ridmark used to be bonded to it. The bond was severed when he was cast out of the Order. Touching the soulblade again would cause him agony. Even being near it is painful. Have you not wondered why he never fights with a sword? It is not just regret. Simply the reminder of wielding a soulblade would cause him pain.”

“Thank you,” said Ridmark.

“No, thank you,” said Arandar, looking them over. His dark eyes, his gray-streaked hair, and his hooked nose made him look like a proud hunting hawk. “You, Ridmark, and your…eclectic band of companions.”

“That’s us,” said Jager. “As eclectic as it gets.”

“Indeed,” said Arandar, blinking. “I suspect there is quite a tale here.” He looked at Caius. “I…know you, Brother.”

“I confess that you look familiar,” said Caius. “Did we meet in Tarlion?”

“That is it,” said Arandar. “It was the day you preached before the gates of the Cathedral of Tarlion, commanding the lords and Magistri of Andomhaim to repent of their pride and licentiousness, petition the Dominus Christus for forgiveness, and lead sober and upright lives henceforth.” 

Morigna let out a nasty laugh. “One imagines that was not well-received.”

“For once we are in agreement,” said Jager. “I cannot see the nobles of Tarlion repenting of anything.” 

Calliande watched Arandar, curious he would react to the mockery. The nobles of Andomhaim were a proud lot. And given how many of them seemed to have joined the Enlightened of Incariel, their pride might have been a mask for something worse. 

But Arandar only looked pained. “I am a Knight of the Order of the Soulblade, sworn to defend the realm of Andomhaim from creatures of dark magic.” He hesitated. “What I happen to think of the lords and knights of the realm is of no importance.”

Caius snorted. “Wisely spoken.”

“Before we speak any further,” said Arandar, “I would simply like to thank you for my life. All of you.” His eyes swept over them. “I know not who you are or your purpose. But if you had not come along when you did, I would have been slain, and my quest would have been in vain.”