Upon This World of Stone (The Paladin Trilogy Book 2) (33 page)

“Such a pretty group,” came a voice from off to the side, and Argus turned to see a near skeletal figure surrounded by two massive mountain ogres standing in the door way that led down to the main body of the building…down where they had stupidly left their various bodyguards. Regnar! his mind screamed and fear flooded into him. In an instant, his mind grasped it all, the unexpected appearance of all the lords, the common choice of a prominent place to watch a struggle they had condemned, even leaving their bodyguards to watch the lower floors and giving no thought to the roof.

Yet even the terror of that revelation could not tear his eyes away from the gleaming green scepter the Tyrant carried in his hands.

The lords began to scatter before this apparition, some falling back, some trying to slip around towards the staircase, everyone shouting for their guards, for help, for rescue. All save Argus, who felt his feet had been welded to the stone. He watched as one ogre swung his ax at Clarissa who showed remarkable skills ducking beneath it and making for the stairs, while on the other side, the other ogre brought his ax down on the ancient head of Feldon of Palmany, cleaving the old man in two. Georg-Mahl was falling back, putting Argus between himself and the assailants, while Mandrik twisted a ring on his right hand, spoke some obscure words, and vanished even as the ogre came to cleave him as well.

Only Thrandar kept his head and his courage. He feinted to the left as if to follow Clarissa to the stairs, and the ogre lunged to cut him off, but that gave him the opening he wanted. With a cry, he lunged with his sword at the Tyrant, but rather than burying it deep within his chest, the tempered steel of the blade dissolved against the green glow surrounding the Tyrant. As Thrandar gaped, Regnar struck a feeble blow with the scepter against his assailant and caught the Duke with a glancing blow on the shoulder. The man screamed in horror and pain as the arm literally exploded off his body, blood and fragments of flesh flying wildly, and as he fell backwards, the ogre put a quick and merciful end to his screams.

“And now for Argus,” Regnar said, coming forward with the Ohric raised.

The sound of his name seemed to release Argus from the power that had frozen him in place. His great ax was against the back wall, and he lunged for it, knowing he was far, far too late. His hands touched the haft just as the shadow of Regnar came over him, and he lifted it just as the head of the Ohric came down and struck his back.

Nothing happened.

Surprised, Argus straightened, but the look on his face was nothing compared to the utter consternation on the face of the Tyrant. He looked from the scepter back to Argus, and he thrust outwards again, trying to strike the Duke. But Argus’ heart was suddenly hammering as if to make up for the beats it had missed earlier, and he leaped back and brought the ax flying over his head with all his considerable strength.

Regnar made no attempt to dodge or block the blow, confident it had no more chance of striking than had Thrandar’s sword. So he never understood what happened when the green glow vanished at the last second and allowed Argus’ ax to smash the weakened collection of bones that had once been a great warrior into a rotting mass of flesh.

The mountain ogres hesitated, not sure what the totally unexpected death of the Tyrant meant. And Argus gave them no chance to reconsider.

He reached down and picked up the Ohric.

Suddenly, he was encased in the gleaming green glow.

Both ogres bowed down to him.

He turned to the terrified Georg-Mahl who had been gibbering in the corner as the terrible spectacle unfolded. Frantically, the Duke spun around and bowed down low with the ogres.

All hail to the new King of the Southlands
, said the Ohric.

*

Adella had to get to the opposite side of the circle, and she had to do it now. The lightning strike to her chest was making it hard to breathe, and she would need all her speed if she was to reach the other side alive. But speed was not the only tool that Adella possessed.

When the giant fell, she felt Eltherand’s eyes pulled towards it, an instinctive reaction to behold the extent of the devastation and check on the status of the other champion, but he held his head straight, resisting the tug. She smiled inwardly, recognizing the opportunity.

She, too, gave a little jerk of her head to look at the fallen giant, pulled it back, and then with perfect timing, seemed to surrender to the overwhelming impulse and turned to look. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Eltherand following suit, and that was when she acted.

She flung herself sideways away from the direction the man was looking, and that bought her the additional half-second she needed. A direct approach would have gotten an instinctive reaction, but a move to the side made him want to look before acting. Even as she was moving, Adella’s left hand was gathering a small pouch from a hidden pocket, and as she closed, she flung it before her at Eltherand’s face. The pouch exploded into a cloud of fine, choking powder, and while the Northing was smart enough to jump aside, a little of the dust found his eyes. He was blinking, trying to clear his sight, and Adella exploited the moment to swing Bloodseeker as she passed. The man grunted with pain, and there was a sudden thrill of power in the hilts of the sword, but he slashed out with his scimitar and forced her back.

She grinned openly now, for not only had she reached the side she sought, but she knew her opponent was thinking her sole purpose was to force him to present his back to Darius. He was in for a surprise, but she had to keep him from spotting his peril.

“Not so good when it comes to real fighting, are you, boy?” she taunted him. “Wounded by a woman in front of all your peoples. You wield a scimitar the way a child swings a toy!”

She could see the barb go home, wounding his pride, for the Northings did not permit their women to be warriors. He would come for her, but he was no fool, would not completely surrender to his anger. He threw his hand backwards in the direction of Darius and unleashed power towards him. Then with a battle cry, he charged the baiting woman before him.

Darius was rushing towards the fight when the Northing flung back his hand, and he abruptly found himself slowed as if pushing against an invisible hand. The magic had not been directed at him, could not have been from the casual way it had been cast, and that was the root of the problem. Sarinian would have dispelled any direct magic with ease, the gesture wasted, but by cunning or by luck, Eltherand had elected to affect the air before him, thickening it in some manner to resist any passage.

Furious, Darius slashed out with the Avenger, and he felt the heavy air parting with the sword’s passing, the spell giving way. But it was still entangling him, keeping him from intervening.

There was only a little power in the hilts of Bloodseeker, for the blow had been hardly more than a good flesh wound. But even as Eltherand charged, Adella directed that power towards her wounded chest, and she felt a small burst of relief, a little less pressure, a little easier to breathe.

She knew she would need every breath.

She gave ground before the Northing’s onslaught, parrying the flashing scimitar and putting an expression of surprise and alarm on her face that simply fed the man’s rage. Closer, closer, the timing now a matter of life and death, a deadly attack to her front while her real focus was off to the side, both of them now very close to the boundary of the circle.

The first warning was in the almost comic surprise in Eltherand’s face, and Adella wasted no time in checking the area behind her. She threw herself upwards in a backwards somersault just as a black coil from the Juggernaut shot across the distance between them, knowing nothing of champions and challenges, simply responding to the nearness of living flesh. Eltherand threw out his hand again, and that was what saved him. Not that it could even slow the striking tentacle, but he formed the power as a solid rod that propelled him backwards as it hit the coil.

Fire and damnation! cursed Adella to herself as she landed safely away from the strike. She had hoped the one attack would be enough, and now she knew she was in for an interesting game of slap-and-tickle with the Northing among the slashing coils of the Juggernaut.

A moment later and half a dozen arms sprang forth, far more than she had ever seen the thing deploy before, and she barely eluded the press, though one of them knocked her off balance. The next instant, she saw Darius with sword raised charging right into the middle of the fray.

“No, you fool!” she screamed, but it was too late.

Sarinian slashed down and severed one of the tentacles outright, but Darius used the short respite to strike at Eltherand who was likewise trying to deal with the tentacles. The blow landed, and as the Northing flinched, he laid himself open to the black coils. But so did Darius.

The severed tentacle brought three more in its place, one wrapping around Darius’ legs, another around his chest that also muffled his mouth, and the third around his sword arm, the blow knocking Sarinian loose. The sword fell to the ground and could not heed the muffled cries from the Paladin.

*

Shannon and Jhan emerged from the blocked sewer grating at the end of the street Adella had called Sherman’s Lane, only to find the exit from the street blocked by a throng of Northings, all of them with their backs turned to them, clearly intent on some spectacle immediately in front. People were massed on the Third Wall directly above them, and there were periodic cries and cheers from both groups as the tide of some hidden contest swayed first this way and then that.

Shannon took a deep breath, knowing there was no alternative. Something had led her here, something had promised she would find her Father, and now she felt the same certainty that he was the focus of all this attention. With Jhan trying to catch her, she pushed boldly into the crowd of Northings, and the surprised barbarians gave way, too distracted by events to their front to challenge their passage.

When she reached the front of the mob, Shannon understood why.

There was Adella dancing among the black arms extending out from the Juggernaut, and a Northing warrior seemed to have one of the tentacles wrapped around him. But there was a third figure, a large man totally engulfed in the black coils, and the only thing Shannon could see clearly was a single arm still free, an arm wearing a silvered, antiquated plate mail.

“No!” she shouted as her stomach wrenched in recognition. She charged blindly forward, driven by the overwhelming need to save her Father, and she barely noticed the surge of energy as she passed over the boundary of the stone circle.

“The Third Champion of the woman Brillis and the city of Jalan’s Drift has come forth,” proclaimed a deep thundering voice from the stone from beside the circle.

She had no time for words or boundaries, the black mass of the Juggernaut suddenly surge upwards, the blob abruptly taking a roughly humanoid shape like an oversized ogre stumbling to its feet, the tentacles now part of its many arms. The thing was still within the cocoon like a man beneath a blanket, but it surged forward blindly, as if stumbling after the living figures it sensed. The tentacles seemed to spasm as the monstrosity moved, and the jerk was just enough for the Northing to break free of the grip and slide away from his peril. But nothing could now save Darius.

“Sarinian en eval!” Shannon found herself crying, words she had never before heard coming suddenly, freely to her lips. From across the circle, the great sword answered, swinging through the air to her waiting hand, and the light burst about her with a brilliance the sword had not shown since the days of Darius’ youth.

She charged forward, the sword raised before her, seeing nothing but the blackness swallowing Darius. Eltherand released a bolt of black lightning that she barely noticed as Sarinian split the bolt harmlessly in two. The Northing gathered himself to cast again, the right spell already selected, a magic to change the surroundings and not challenge the sword directly, but that was his fatal mistake. He had dismissed the other woman as blocked off by the surging Juggernaut, impossible for her to do more than defend herself, so he paid no heed to the soft sound of a racing foot behind him. He lifted his arm to cast just as Bloodseeker pierced his heart from behind.

*

Malcolm threw off the simple cloak he had been wearing and stood up on the wall to free himself from the press of people.

The new form was emerging, a humanoid with massive wings, but it was still fully sheltered within the remains of the black cocoon, denying him his chance. He was actually trembling, the excitement taking him like a magician’s apprentice, for his Wizard’s Sight could now see the final evolution of the magics and suddenly all the issues were made terribly clear. He knew exactly what he must do, knew the precise spell that was required, and he knew the consequences of failure.

He watched as the girl Shannon summoned the Avenger into his hands and the thief Adella killed the last of the Northing champions, and he cursed silently to himself. Their presence could only complicate and possibly confound the spell he must release, and he dallied for a moment with spending his first cast to isolate them. But before he could do anything, there came an echoing voice from behind him.

“Your services are no longer required, Malcolm.”

He turned and was thunderstruck to behold the figure of Argus standing at the top of the Guild building holding the gleaming green form of the Ohric.

“We cannot permit your plans for this Juggernaut,” Argus explained.

An instant later a beam of pure energy shot from the scepter down at him, and Malcolm barely had time to throw out a defensive barrier that momentarily blocked the beam. But it was nothing more than a delay. The power of the Ohric was crushing down on the fragile barrier, destroying it, and it required nearly all of Malcolm’s power and focus to maintain even that much resistance.

Then, from the corner of his eye, he saw figures merging together for a final confrontationin the ring below.