Soul of Swords (Book 7) (14 page)

“I thought it prudent to send some men to the western edge of the Grim Marches,” said Sir Tanam Crowley, rubbing his jaw, “in case the enemy decide to steal a march upon us.”

“It seems that was the course of wisdom,” said Mazael.

His vassals and the Tervingi headmen gathered in the great hall of Castle Cravenlock. The castle rang with activity as pages and squires ran back and forth, and the captains of the armsmen bellowed orders as arms and armor were gathered. 

They had been preparing for war…but war had come to them. 

“Three of my best men killed their horses getting here,” said Taman, “but they survived. They say a great host of runedead marches through the wilderness west of the Grim Marches and north of the Great Southern Forest.”

“How many?” said Mazael.

“At least eighty thousand,” said Tanam. “Perhaps as many as a hundred thousand.”

An alarmed murmur went through the gathered lords and headmen.

“And they have sigils of crimson fire upon their foreheads,” said Tanam, “not green. These aren’t any random runedead, my lords.”

“Lucan’s,” said Gerald. “Those runedead are Lucan’s, and he’s sent them in pursuit of us.” He shook his head. “I have brought this evil upon you, my friends.”

Arnulf shrugged. “He would have come for us sooner or later.”

“Aye,” said Earnachar. “If Lucan has transformed himself into a tomb-wight, then his devilry will know no end. Such pestilence must be stamped out.” 

“It gets worse,” said Tanam. “There are at least fifteen thousand men marching with the runedead, heavy footmen and knights.”

“Lord Malden?” said Mazael. If Lucan controlled Malden, he might have sent the Lord of Knightcastle to invade the Grim Marches.

Tanam shook his head. “Their banners are blue with a silver star.”

“The Justiciars,” said Gerald. “Lucan has sent the Justiciars to deal with us.”

Sir Commander Aidan stepped to Gerald’s side. “Caldarus never forgave Lord Richard for seizing the Order’s estates in the Grim Marches. With the runedead under his control, Caldarus has his chance to reclaim the lost lands.”

“That is what he is telling himself, I am sure,” said Gerald, “but Lucan is the one controlling him.”

“He is acting as he did in Knightreach, Lord Gerald,” said Tanam. “There are a few villages in the wilderness, and the Justiciars and the runedead have gone through all of them. The Justiciar officers slaughtered hundreds with those black daggers, claiming they were worshippers of the San-keth or secret supporters of Caraster.”

Why was Lucan unleashing the black daggers upon innocent people? Skalatan had claimed that Mazael and Molly were the last of the Demonsouled. Did Lucan need to murder innocent people in order to reach Cythraul Urdvul? Some spell that required spilled blood?

“He will do the same,” said Gerald, “when he reaches the Grim Marches.” 

Mazael saw the fear in the room. Every man here had faced the runedead before…but never so many at once. The lords of the Grim Marches and the Tervingi headmen between them had mustered thirty-five thousand men, and those thirty-five thousand would have to face the runedead horde and the might of the Justiciar Order. 

“We will march at dawn,” said Mazael, “and teach Caldarus that no one commits such atrocities and the Grim Marches and lives.”

Or Caldarus would simply crush them.

###

The next morning, Rachel Roland hurried through the courtyard of Castle Cravenlock.

Gods, but how she hated this place. 

She had grown up here, miserable and alone. Mitor had slowly corrupted her to the worship of the San-keth here, and Skhath had so twisted her thinking that she had been ready to wed him and give birth to San-keth changelings. 

She thought of Aldane and Belifane with the black-slit yellow eyes of calibah and shuddered. 

Gerald had rescued her from all that, but time and time again she had returned to Castle Cravenlock. When Malavost had stolen Aldane, they had followed him here. When Gerald had ridden with Mazael in pursuit of Corvad and Molly, Rachel had remained here with Aldane.

And now she would remain here with Belifane and Aldane as Gerald rode to war again. 

Gods, but she was tired of that, too. Would they ever have peace?

She found Gerald by the stables, clad in his armor and surcoat, his helmet tucked under one arm. 

“Husband,” said Rachel.

“Rachel,” said Gerald, catching her hands. “It is early yet. I thought you would sleep…”

She smiled. “And miss the chance to say farewell? No.” She gestured at the keep. “Elsie is with the children. Though the poor woman is afraid the Tervingi will go berserk and cut our throats in our sleep.”

Gerald laughed. “Not likely. Those are the nephews of their hrould. The Tervingi would have to go to war against themselves.” His smile faded. “And the gods know we have foes enough without warring against ourselves.”

“Do you think we can win?” said Rachel.

“Perhaps,” said Gerald with a shrug. “Mazael has won great battles against tremendous odds before. There were as many Malrags at Deepforest Keep as Caldarus has runedead, and we still won the day.”

“Because Romaria woke the traigs,” said Rachel.

“I know,” said Gerald. He took a deep breath. “Rachel…if the battle goes ill…”

“Don’t say that,” she said.

“If the battle goes ill,” said Gerald, “I have spoken to Rhodemar Greenshield. The Elderborn and the men of Deepforest Keep have not forgotten how you slew Malavost atop Mount Tynagis. If the battle goes ill, the men of Deepforest Keep will give you refuge. The Keep is isolated, and even if Lucan’s runedead overrun the rest of the world, they may never enter that far into the Great Southern Forest.”

“No,” said Rachel. “Lucan is too much like his father. He will not stop this mad quest to kill the Demonsouled until he has butchered everyone he can find. If the battle goes ill…we shall all perish together, I fear.”

“Perhaps,” said Gerald. “But perhaps not. Promise me, Rachel, that…that if the worst happens, you will flee with the children to Deepforest Keep.”

“I promise,” said Rachel, squeezing his hands, though she knew that if the runedead prevailed, there would be no place of safety anywhere. “But only if you promise me that you shall return.”

Gerald hesitated. “That is…”

“Promise me!” said Rachel. “I know you want to reclaim Knightcastle, to make your father and Lucan pay for what they have done. But you are more important than any of that. We have been through so much, Gerald. The San-keth, Malavost, the Malrags, the runedead and Caraster…and you are still my husband and I am your wife. Promise me that you will return to me.”

“I promise,” said Gerald, “if I can.”

He would return, Rachel told herself. Mazael would break the runedead, and the combined host of the Grim Marches, the Tervingi, the exiled lords, and the Elderborn would throw down Lord Malden and put an end to Lucan’s evil. And then they could at last live in peace.

Rachel could almost make herself believe it.

“I love you,” she whispered. 

“I love you, too,” he said, and kissed her.

Then he swung up into his saddle and rode to join the others.

Rachel climbed to the curtain wall and watched the army leave. Thousands of Tervingi spearthains and swordthains, of militia spearmen and archers, of armsmen in chain mail and plate. Wings of horsemen, both knights and armsmen in heavy armor, and Tervingi horsethains with their spears and javelins. The huge, brown-furred shape of the Tervingi war mammoths, their backs topped with platforms for archers and spearmen, their tusks bound with jutting blades of razor steel. Skythains circled overhead on their griffins, and mounted scouts screened the sides of the army.

Rachel had never seen so many fighting men gathered in one place.

Yet Lucan had so many more runedead. 

She watched the great army march away to the west until it vanished from sight, and wondered how many of them would return.

Or if her husband and brother would return.

She closed her eyes and wept in silence. At last she mastered herself and left the wall. A lord wife’s had duties to his people in time of war, and she would not neglect them.

Chapter 13 - Gray Shadows

The village was called Blueholt, and its men decided to fight.

Lucan watched the confrontation from a safe distance. Blueholt sat atop a hill, encircled by a stout stone wall of recent construction. The village had learned from the Great Rising, and no doubt fear of the Aegonar to the north had inspired the peasants to greater vigilance. The militiamen standing atop the wall looked like they knew how to use their spears and short bows.

It would not save them from what was to come.

“Bugger off!” roared one of the militiamen, brandishing his spear at Lord Malden’s herald. “Lord Malden wants us to surrender, does he? We’re sworn to Lord Bryce Spearshore, and he’s sworn to the Prince in Barellion. You take your surrender back to Lord Malden and tell him to shove it up his wrinkled old arse!”

A cheer went up from the village, and a militiaman made a rude gesture at the herald.

“Tell him,” said the peasant, “to shove it up sideways!”

Again the militiamen cheered.

“I suspect,” said Lucan, looking at Lord Malden, “that the villagers would prefer to fight.”

Malden’s nostrils flared, his face reddening. The addiction to stolen life energies had further eroded his temper. For a moment Lucan wondered if Malden would go berserk, would start striking down the terrified lords and knights that surrounded him. 

“They dare,” hissed Malden, “to defy the rightful Lord of Knightcastle? Once a Roland king ruled these lands, before that upstart raised his craven banner in Barellion! And I defended these lands! If not for me, Caraster would have come north and butchered everyone living within those walls. And those vermin have the temerity to defy me?” 

“Perhaps,” said Lucan, “they deserve chastisement.” 

“Indeed,” said Malden, spurring his horse from the trees. He stopped out of bowshot of Blueholt’s walls. “I am Malden Roland!” His enraged voice boomed off the walls. “And you shall pay for your disrespect.”

The militiamen laughed at him, but their laughter stopped when the runedead boiled out of the trees. 

Thousands of runedead, the crimson sigils upon their foreheads blazing, their weapons ready in their hands. 

The laughter turned to shouts of alarm, and volleys of arrows and spears, their heads ablaze with wizard’s oil, fell from the walls. The weapons found their mark, and a dozen runedead fell.

But more drew closer to the village.

Blueholt’s walls had been warded, which meant the runedead could not become immaterial and walk through the stone. Instead they slammed into the gates, tearing at the timbers and the bolts with unnatural strength. Others climbed up the rough rock wall and heaved themselves onto the ramparts. Screams rang out as the runedead swarmed over the ramparts, killing everyone in sight. 

A moment later the gate shattered in ruin and the runedead swarmed into Blueholt. 

The battle did not last very long after that. 

###

An hour later Lucan stood beneath Malden’s banner in the center of Blueholt’s square. A small church occupied one end of the square, and a stout tower keep the other. With the defenses broken, the runedead had withdrawn, and Malden’s living armsmen had moved through the village, rounding up the surviving militiamen and dragging them to the square. Malden paced back and forth before the prisoners, hand on the hilt of his black dagger, a dozen of his household knights accompanying him. 

All of them carried black daggers. 

“You are the bailiff?” said Malden, stopping before a stout, gray-bearded man.

“Aye,” said the man, glaring up at Malden. “Name’s Ardiff.” 

“Who is lord here?” said Malden.

“Sir Oswald the Blue,” said Ardiff. “He’s at Barellion for the Prince’s great muster. He’s riding to fight the heathen Aegonar, not making war on peasants and women like you.”

Malden sneered at him. “I am the rightful lord of these lands, not Sir Oswald the Blue…and certainly not your fool of a Prince.”

“You’re the rightful lord of nothing,” said Ardiff. “You’ve taken up with dark powers, if you have an army of dead men to do your bidding.”

“Do you not see?” said Malden. “I am the rightful Lord of Knightcastle, it is my task to cleanse the realm of evil…and the runedead follow me for that reason. Only the evil have anything to fear from my justice.”

Ardiff laughed, and Malden’s face darkened. 

“Your justice?” said Ardiff. He jerked his bearded chin in Lucan’s direction. “You’ve got a pet necromancer who bound the runedead for you. We’ve heard the stories from the peasants fleeing your bloody-handed justice, my lord Malden. Lucan Mandragon the Dragon’s Shadow murdered your wife and son, and you just laughed. He’s got his strings on your arms and legs…”

“Silence!” thundered Malden.

“And he makes you dance like a puppet!” said Ardiff. “The great Lord Malden, a necromancer’s…”

“Silence!” roared Malden again.

The black dagger flashed in his hand, its sigil blazing with green fire, and the blade plunged into Ardiff’s neck. The bailiff collapsed to the ground, blood pouring from his wound, and Lucan felt the tingle of power as the murdered man’s stolen life force poured into Malden.

And most of it drained away into the Door of Souls. 

Malden plunged his dagger into another man. “Kill them! Kill them all!”

The knights fell upon the bound peasants in a frenzy, their black daggers rising and falling. It reminded Lucan of wild dogs savaging a wounded deer. The dying men screamed and tried to pull away, and Lucan heard more screams from the women and children watching in the surrounding streets. 

And Lucan felt the power flow through the waiting Glamdaigyr and into the Door of Souls. 

“Shall we kill them all, my lord?” shouted one of the knights, eyes wide and wild.

Malden hesitated. Lucan saw the lust in his eyes, the hunger for fresh life force. Yet the remaining villagers were old men and weeping women and screaming children. A spasm went through Malden’s face, and he turned away.

“No,” he said.

“No, my lord?” said Lucan, surprised. “They insulted and defied you, their lawful lord. Surely they deserve death.”

“I said no!” said Malden. “The point has been made. They will not disobey me in the future, and the wicked have been cleansed from their midst.” He waved the dagger at the corpses lying on the ground. “The wicked have been cleansed, and we face greater foes.”

“If you are not stern,” said Lucan, “the wicked and the corrupt will never fear you.”

“I have done enough,” said Malden. “The Aegonar will come south, led by their foul serpent priests, and I would array my host and my runedead to face them, not these feeble villagers. Time enough to deal with them once the Aegonar are broken.” 

It was a damnably inconvenient time for Lord Malden’s conscience to reassert itself. A little more power, just a little more, and Lucan would have enough to open the Door of Souls.

He looked at the terrified, weeping peasants, intending to persuade Malden to kill them all…and hesitated. He needed to harvest their lives to rid the world of the Demonsouled forever. Then a new world could arise. The lives of those peasants would be spent in pursuit of the greater good.

And yet…they were no threat to Lucan or Malden. They were beaten, broken, weeping, staring at their slain husbands and brothers and sons. Malden was right not to kill them. Yet Lucan felt no hesitation about killing every one of them in pursuit of his goal.

And that bothered him.

Why didn’t he feel any doubt? His brother Toraine, Lucan remembered, had been the sort of man to butcher peasants without mercy. Lucan had always hated him. 

Yet he had killed far more people than Toraine.

More people than he could possibly count. 

Why did this not trouble him? Why did he feel no doubt? No guilt? 

He turned away, shaking his head. His mission was necessary for the good of the world. 

Yet was it truly worth such cost?

For a moment a strange image shimmered before his eyes, a ruined black city atop a dark mountain, a dragon circling overhead, the laughter of an ancient evil…

Lucan shook his head.

“Lucan?” said Malden.

Lucan had gone too far to turn back now. If he failed, all those people would have died in vain. Tymaen would have died in vain. In their names Lucan would rid the world of the Demonsouled. A new world would flower, one free of…

“Lucan! Damn it, Lucan, what is happening?”

Lucan shook off his strange mood, turned…and felt the cold wind blowing through Blueholt.

He looked around as the wind tugged at his cloak and coat. The armsmen and knights stepped back in fear, swords and black daggers raised. Lucan raised his right hand and worked a quick spell. At once he felt the power of necromancy covering Blueholt in a ragged shroud. Was Skalatan casting a spell? No, this spell was too wild and unfocused. Were the lesser San-keth clerics launching an attack? If so, Lucan would crush them utterly…

Then the wind strengthened, and gray shadows rose from the corpses of the slain men.

The shadows were man-shaped, fashioned of mist and darkness. A sigil of pale green flame burned within their chests, and with a shock Lucan realized it was the same symbol that burned upon the blades of the black daggers. 

Had he accidentally created these things? 

One of the women screamed, and the shadows attacked. 

They struck both the knights and the villagers, and their merest touch reduced living men and women to withered husks, like ancient, sun-dried corpses. One of the knights slashed at a shadow with a black dagger. The dagger glowed white-hot in the knight’s hand and then shattered, snarling green flames engulfing the knight’s body. The knight fell with a wail of agony, the flames melting his flesh. 

Lord Malden backed away, his sword raised. “Lucan! Damn you, do something!”

Lucan stepped away from the banner, watching as more of the strange shadows rose from the earth. The creatures were most likely a form of shade, an undead created by the echo of a death. They were dangerous enough to the unprepared, but to a wizard of Lucan’s power, they were minor foes. 

But he had no wish to destroy them. The creatures might prove useful in the battle against Skalatan. Enslaving them would be easy enough. The Banurdem rested upon Lucan’s brow, and the high lords of Old Dracaryl had created the diadem to dominate undead creatures. 

Lucan focused his will upon the Banurdem, drawing upon its powers, and projected his thoughts at the shadows. He commanded them to obey, to remain motionless. He could convince Malden that the shadows had chosen to serve the Lord of Knightcastle or some such rubbish. Then he need only discover who had created the shadows and why…

The shadows went motionless, the sigils within their chests shining brighter. 

As one they whirled and flowed towards Lucan, their arms outstretched.

Lucan frowned in annoyance, focusing the power of the Banurdem. “Halt! I command you to halt!” 

The shadows kept coming. Why wasn’t the Banurdem dominating them? Lucan lifted his hands, green fire glowing around his fingers. If he had to destroy the creatures, that was no great difficulty. He was already undead, and their touch would not harm him. Lucan pointed, beginning a spell, and one of the shadows touched him.

A shock of pain went through him, and he stumbled. He had not felt physical pain since his transformation into a revenant. But how could the shadows cause him pain? They attacked by draining life energy, and Lucan had no life energy to steal.

Another shadow touched his arm, pain stabbing through him…and a vision flashed through his mind.

He saw a woman kneeling over a dead man, a dagger wound in his chest. The woman sobbed, her face distorted with grief, and screamed as she sprang to her feet. Lucan saw a black dagger plunge into her neck, the blade shining with green fire, and the woman collapsed to the ground besides her husband.  

He staggered from the shadow’s touch and the vision vanished.

But another shadow’s icy hand brushed his shoulder, and a second vision burned through his thoughts.

Lucan saw a man on his knees, pleading for mercy, claiming that he would never worship the San-keth or the Demonsouled, that the honorable Justiciars were mistaken, that he was just a shopkeeper, a simple shopkeeper…

Then a mailed arm drove a black dagger into the simple shopkeeper, and the man died.

Lucan wrenched away from the shadow, and the realization struck him. The shadows were not creatures of Skalatan.

Lucan himself had created them.

A violent death sometimes created a shade, an undead echo of a living man. Thousands of men had fallen to the black daggers Lucan had created, their lives stolen to fuel the Door of Souls. 

The necromancy in the daggers had created the gray shadows.

And they hated Lucan.

A dozen shadows flowed into him, and a chaos of broken images danced before his eyes. He saw a woman die as her children screamed. He saw a red-faced man bellow curses as he tried to fight back. Men and women perished begging for mercy, pleading that they did not worship the serpent god, that they had not supported the rebel Caraster.

But they died anyway.

Dozens of shadows flowed around Lucan, their touch filling him with visions of their deaths.

The deaths he had caused.

He screamed, summoned power, and flung out his hands.

Green fire sprayed in all directions, ripping through the shadows. The touch of the ghostly flames reduced the shadows to tatters of dissolving mist. Yet more of the creatures rose from the ground, and Lucan growled, redoubling the power of his spell. A ring of emerald fire erupted from him and consumed the entire square, passing through living flesh and wood and stone and leaving them untouched, but burning away the shadows and their glowing sigils.

The flames winked out, the cold wind dying away.

Silence fell over the village, both the armsmen and the villagers staring at him with fear. 

“I suggest, my lord,” said Lucan, “that we leave and continue north. Our foes will not wait on our pleasure.”