Authors: Greg Curtis
“Really, knave?”
Renwick let a smile grace his face. The sort of smile a predator wore before it pounced. It was calculated to make the man uncertain. “Then perhaps while you're waiting to die you could explain why you wish to kill us.”
“Because you tried to kill me first.”
The man showed no trace of worry still. In fact he too started smiling. The same smile Renwick wore.
“Two years ago, give or take. You accepted a contract from the sylph to hunt me down. To kill me at all costs. And you spent months and months doing just that. You made my life very uncomfortable.”
It could be true, Renwick knew. The Order was happy to take contracts for bounties even though hunting wasn't their normal business. They much preferred the cut and thrust of battle to chasing people. And thanks to their arrangement the sylph had first call on their services. But there was an obvious problem with the claim, even putting aside the fact that he didn't know his name.
“If we had taken such a contract you would not be here now. You would be in a hole in the ground somewhere.”
The Order of the Iron Hand did not fail.
“Unless of course I was a wizard and you were incompetent.”
His words were too much and the two novitiates immediately charged him. To cast ill words on the Order of the Iron Hand was simply not acceptable. But they stopped in mid stride, held there by some sort of spell, and Renwick knew the man spoke the truth in one thing. He was a wizard. But he had hunted down and killed wizards before.
Instantly Renwick released his own spell of veiled sight against the man. It was a magic he'd been practising for over a year now, knowing that a blind man was not much of a threat. And it had worked incredibly well against the men at arms of the Count a week before. But the wizard just laughed at him.
“Blindness soldier? Is that the best you can do?”
He laughed some more and Renwick finally drew his blade, realising that this was going to be a battle not a simple killing.
“Here, let me show you how it's done.”
Suddenly it was Renwick's turn to be blind, and his world went completely dark, despite the fact that he had wards against this very magic woven into his armour. He never developed a spell without a counter just in case. A heart beat later he was flying. His feet had left the ground as some massive force had smashed into him. Then he hit something solid and felt his bones break.
His armour had smashed despite the fact that he wore the heaviest plate, spelled for extra strength and with immense weapon resistance. Mountains should have crumbled before it. But it was broken and so was his back. Shoulder bones, ribs, his hip; all were badly broken and the pain was incredible. Even breathing hurt. But he had spent many years in pain and he breathed anyway. He simply put the pain behind him as he'd been trained to, and started work. He didn't even scream. He just breathed and methodically set about restoring his sight.
Meanwhile others had realised the man was a wizard of some sort and were attacking him as he had attacked them. Renwick could hear the snarls of wild animals and other creatures launching themselves into the fray. He could hear the sound of steel being drawn, and the battle cries of his brothers.
And then he heard screaming. Men – most likely the students since even the novitiates were trained better than to give into their pain and fear – screaming like frightened children.
The sound motivated him to work harder at his counter magic. He had to see what was happening in order to fight it.
Abruptly he realised that his feet weren't on the ground but instead were hanging as some force pressed him into the wall. The fact added to his desperation. He could be high off the ground, destined to fall to his death the instant he was released.
Moments later there was heat and light – even in his blindness he could see that light, and more screaming. But this time the screaming was far more distant. Closer to him there was only silence. Not the sound of steel being used on flesh, not the sound of creatures snarling in anger, not the sound of battle cries being yelled at an enemy.
And then the wizard started laughing again, and he knew his brothers were dead.
How could that be? This was the Order of the Iron Hand. It was the most powerful of all the orders. These men were the strongest and most capable warriors the world knew. And one wizard had defeated them all? It could not be!
But it was. As his counter spell finally worked and sight returned to his eyes he knew it was.
His brothers were dead. How many he couldn't be sure, but there were piles of burning flesh and molten steel spread out across the entire courtyard. Two hundred and fifty paladins at least and as many students and novitiates; all gone. The servants had perished with them, though that was of no account. Meanwhile he was pressed against the side of the keep, at least thirty feet above the ground, and he knew that when he was released he would not survive the fall. Not when he was as badly broken as he was. His will might let him put the pain aside, but it could not hide from him the fact that he was badly injured. Not when he could smell blood everywhere and knew it to be his.
For his part the wizard was walking around the courtyard, laughing, and every so often sending his magic streaking into the buildings. Fire, force or light; whatever the blinding fury was that streamed from his hands, it had an immediate effect on anyone or anything it touched. They ignited, and from every window of the keep he could see explosions and dark smoke pouring out a heartbeat after the wizard hit it. The entire chapter house was being emptied of people and burnt to the ground.
It was shocking. Not that he gave a damn about his companions in the Order. He cared only that they were powerful warriors like him. Brothers in steel and blood. For them to fall so quickly to a single wizard showed that the Order was weak. It showed that he was weak. And that could not be. If he was weak he was nothing! He was as pitiful as those worthless serfs who wandered around the rest of the city thinking they had lives worth caring about.
Renwick could not abide that thought, and fortunately he still had one weapon left to use. Several years before he had come to appreciate the value of a surprise attack and had a spring loaded knife fitted into his offhand gauntlet. It wasn't much of a weapon, a light dagger that wouldn't penetrate armour. But if properly used it could kill a man. And he knew how to use it.
Concentrating all his strength and magic into his left arm, he somehow forced it free of whatever magic it was that was holding him against the wall. He managed it, mostly he suspected because the wizard wasn't really concentrating on him. He was too busy killing the rest of the paladins and burning the keep. And then he waited.
It was a long wait. The wizard seemed determined to walk back and forth around the courtyard as he carried out his grim business, and each time he came close to Renwick he turned aside at the last moment as something caught his eye. To add to his woes, Renwick was starting to go blind again, but not from the spell. Blood loss was making it difficult to remain awake and his vision was slowly darkening.
But eventually it happened. The wizard walked into range, stood perfectly still for half a heartbeat as he surveyed his work, and Renwick released the knife.
It was a perfect shot. The dagger flew through the air covering the fifty feet between them in the blink of an eye, and then punched straight through the wizard's chest. And then it sailed the rest of the way through and into the ground behind the wizard and Renwick knew he'd failed. The wizard wasn't even solid. He was as insubstantial as the air itself.
He had however, noticed the knife.
The wizard turned around and looked up at him, smiling as if he'd just been given a present. Then he lifted himself into the air and floated towards him.
“Really? A knife? Is that the best you can do? You, the leader of the most feared order of warriors in the entire human realm? Just a knife? The dwarves at least managed a cannon before I brought the roof down on them and buried their city. The elves managed to run away after destroying my armies. But all you can do is throw a knife at me?”
“I don't know why but I expected better.”
“Bastard!”
Renwick could barely whisper the insult and the pain as he forced the air out through his damaged lungs was terrible. But still it had to be said and he said it. The wizard paid him no mind.
“Still if that's the best you can do, then there's no point in playing this game. You're too pathetic to be worth playing with. So I guess I'll just destroy your entire order.”
The wizard turned away from him then, and then reached out with both hands, fingers extended. A moment later that same furious magic leapt from them to smash into the buildings on the far side of the keep. But this time it was a thousand times worse and the buildings simply detonated as if they'd been filled with black powder from the runty dwarves. Even the twenty foot tall stone walls exploded.
Fireballs of burning rock and stone went shooting up into the air, flying hundreds of paces in all directions, and wherever they landed more explosions followed. And as the wizard slowly spun on his heels, sending his magic into more and more buildings, the damage grew. He truly meant to destroy the Order.
Soon the wizard had completed a quarter turn and a quarter of the chapter was gone. Only rubble and flame remained where once there had been buildings and walls. Beyond it there was fire for as far as the eye could see. Not just in the courtyard but out across the rest of the city beyond. He could see people everywhere and most of them were running in fear. Their screaming could be heard even by him. Tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands were running and screaming, and all the while more fireballs were landing on them, destroying the city.
But he didn't care about that. He only cared that every one of those fireballs had once been a piece of the Order. Soon there would be nothing left.
But the wizard wasn't finished. He continued to send his magical fury into more and more of the chapter as he destroyed it. He kept laughing too, as if doing this was a simple pleasure, like watching a good street entertainer.
And all the while as Renwick hung there helplessly and watched and waited for the wizard's magic to finally swing all the way around and touch him, he had only two thoughts running through his head. The first was to wonder at how weak he and the other paladins must have been all these years. At how miserably they'd failed to live up to their ideals. How all the battles they'd walked away from had been meaningless. And at how here he was dying as a nobody, every bit as insignificant as all those screaming serfs running through the streets of Doverion. All the people he'd killed had meant nothing. He would not be remembered. There would be no one to remember him.
And the other thought was a strange one. But as the last of the light was slowly leaving his eyes and the magical destruction was coming closer he did still wonder. Who was this damned wizard? Mayfall? He'd never heard of him. And surely if the Order had set a bounty for his head and hadn't caught him, he would have heard his name.
Could this all be some horrible mistake?
Then the wizard's immense power touched the wall beside him and his questions ended. Instead he found himself flying through the air, soaring like a bird along with most of the rest of the keep. He was burning too. The bastard had set his skin on fire.
Renwick screamed in agony, unable to contain himself even with all his training. But then he'd never been burnt alive before.
At least he knew as he watched the city disappearing beneath him, it would all be over soon. When he finally hit the ground. It was something to look forward to.
Of course if he did survive there was one other thing to look forward to. Hunting down everyone who had played a part in releasing this monster on his Order. There would be a reckoning for this.
Chapter Thirty One.
When they finally entered the clearing that was the heart of the city, Genivere's heart collapsed. Until then, even seeing the carrion crows and buzzards filling the sky and smelling the stench of death she'd had hope. Hope that it wouldn't be as terrible as she had feared. But once they'd entered the clearing she knew that it was. And she knew that they were far too late. This had happened weeks ago. Probably while they'd been on the road to Iron Deep.
Fires that had burned had burnt out long ago. Even the stench of smoke was gone. Only the stench of death remained. The dead, and there were so many of them, were completely black and swollen and well on their way to rotting. Flies filled the air, carrion crows soared in the skies above and wild dogs covered the ground. And all of them had been feasting for weeks. In fact the buzzards had eaten so much that they could scarcely get off the ground.
And then there was the plague. The same blight that had been creeping through the forests of the dryads was here in Hammeral. Not so advanced yet, but spreading. Crawling little by little over the trees and bushes, over the grasses and even the roots, killing whatever life remained in the once beautiful city. Soon she knew, the rust would cover the fields and orchards, killing everything that had brought life to the city.
Unbidden the party came to a halt at the edge of the clearing and then stayed there, not wanting to enter the remains of the city. Not wanting to see too closely what had happened to their home, to their friends, and worst of all to their families.
For the longest time they sat there on their horses, staring, without saying a word. But what was there to say? Nothing. There was nothing to be said and nothing that could be said. Words had no place here.
Their home was gone. Not just their houses but their entire city. Destroyed. For Genivere, Hammeral had been the only city she had ever known. She had spent her entire life wandering its streets, enjoying the company of its people, shopping in its stores and growing up in it. Seeing the city like this – almost unrecognisable after what had been done to it – was unbearable. Almost beyond her ability to comprehend. And though she sat there staring, she could scarcely even believe what she was seeing.
There was fear too. A terrible fear that almost consumed her. A fear that threatened to burst free from her as she looked among the dead and realised that she had no idea where her family was. Her parents, her brother, her aunts and uncles, her friends. All of them might have been here when this had happened. Hammeral was their home too. And she had no idea of whether they would be among the dead.
Her companions knew the same fear. All of them. Because none of them could know whether their family's still lived or had perished. Whether their bodies might be among the blackened husks that the animals were still gnawing at.
Genivere knew she had to find her family but she didn't know how. She didn't even know where to begin looking. None of them did. They didn't even know where their homes were. The entire city had been torn apart and the trees that were its back bone had been tossed aside in all directions. What remained of their homes and their loved ones could be anywhere. They were probably everywhere.
What were they supposed to do? That was the question that eventually began running through Genivere's thoughts. Their mission had been a complete failure. If they had learned anything from the dragon it had died with Myral. Their quest to speak with the stone had ended before it had truly begun. And they were too late to warn the elders of the thane. They probably had been even before they'd first started riding for home. So they had nothing to report and no one to report to.
What was she supposed to do? In time that was what the question became. She had to do something. She knew it. But she didn't know what.
All she could do was hope that they'd got away. Because if they hadn't, if they were lying out there in front of here, their bodies slowly blackening, being torn apart by scavengers, she wasn't sure she could stand it. Just the fear that they might be was tearing her apart as she sat there.
“Andalia.”
Genivere looked up when the Captain spoke, trying to make sense of what she was saying. She couldn't. But she was grateful that she had said something. That someone had broken the silence.
Someone asked what she meant. They had to ask. Not because they wanted to know, but because anything was better than thinking about what lay before them.
“The elders if they escaped would have gone there. It's the nearest large town. The best place that survivors could be cared for. And we can be sure that there were survivors.”
“Captain?”
“There are thousands, maybe tens of thousands of dead. But there aren't a hundred thousand. And many of these dead were undead first.”
Was she right? Genivere didn't know. She hadn't even begun to try and count the bodies. She hadn't thought about it. And with trees down everywhere, hiding large areas of the ruined city, wild animals filling the land and the bodies in pieces, she didn't even know if it was possible. But she knew she didn't want to. Neither did the others. It was better to hope that the captain was right. To pray that she was.
Wordlessly she turned her horse around and the others did the same. They turned their backs on the city, on their home. And then they silently followed the captain as she led them south, away from Hammeral.
It was the only thing they could do.