The War Of The Black Tower (Book 3) (20 page)

He gestured to the shadows within
the Main Hall and a
batwinged
form materialized from
the darkness.

Cautiously, Ungier, former Lord of
Gulrothrog, Father of Vampires, late Shepherd of the Flame, stepped onto the
terrace. He looked hunched and nervous. His all—black eyes darted here and
there in suspicion. They found Baleron and he sneered nastily. Then they
shifted to Rolenya, and a strangely sweet smile crossed his face, though he
acted no less nervously. He seemed to sense something amiss.

Hope fluttered in Baleron’s chest
at the vampire’s unease, but he tried not to let it rise too high. Rolenya
clasped his hand, her grip tighter than she probably intended. She was getting
anxious.

Giving her an encouraging look, he
slowly disengaged his hand so that it would be free.

Gilgaroth held out his own hand and
the Vampire King made his way past prince, princess, Borchstogs and mother to
his Master’s side. He stood there uncomfortably, gazing down on the endless
rows of troops.

“
This is Ungier,”
said Gilgaroth to his army.
“One of my favorite and most powerful sons.”

The Borchstogs started to cheer the
Lord of Ungoroth, and Ungier smiled hesitantly. The meager hope in Baleron’s
chest began to die.

But then Gilgaroth swept his arm
flatly and the Borchstogs fell silent. Ungier’s smile withered.

“
I gave him an order—to take Havensrike in my name,”
Gilgaroth said.
“
And so he captured Glorifel, the shining
jewel of Man.
But in his arrogance he sought REWARD for his labors. More than this, he asked
the one gift that I could not give. And when I would not give it, he in secret tried
to take it by force.”
His voice grew gravelly with rage.
“
For that he shall suffer, and YOU shall bear
witness to the working of my justice.”

Ungier’s face turned gray. Judging
from the expression, he had half suspected something like this was going to
happen.

Mogra looked surprised, even
fearful. Her mouth opened, as if about to say something, but then she closed
it.

“It was a mistake!” Ungier cried.
He pointed an accusing, trembling finger at Rolenya. “She ensnared me! She’s a
witch! She’s ensnared you, too, Sire. Don’t you understand? Shut your ears to
her. Do not listen to her songs. Cast her aside!”

Gilgaroth regarded him stonily.
“
And . . . give her to YOU?”

Ungier swallowed. “Not necessarily,
no.
But maybe.
Perhaps if—”

“
Silence
!”

The vampire looked to Mogra for
aid.
“Mother, help!”

She looked regretful. “I would aid
you, if I could, Ungier, but for one thing: you challenged your Father in
combat. You would have slain him if you could, and for what—
her
? I’m sorry, my son, but I cannot
save you this time.”

Finally
!
thought
Baleron. Though rejoicing at Ungier’s
downfall, however, he almost pitied the vampire. To have risen so high and to
have fallen so low, and for a love that Baleron could understand—

With sudden movement, Gilgaroth
wrapped an armored hand about Ungier’s waist and hefted him high off the rain-soaked
balcony. Ungier’s claw-tipped feet scratched at the empty air, and his batwings
flapped uselessly.

“
You erred, Ungier
,”
Gilgaroth said.
“Once at Gulrothrog, when
you jeopardized my most important spider—”
(his helmeted head indicated
Baleron)
“—
and again by asking me
to give you my most treasured possession as a reward for a task whose only
reward was my love. My love was not enough, so now you will be cast out of it
forevermore.”

Ungier struggled in his father’s
grip, but his powers had been removed and he was helpless. “Forgive me!” he
pleaded. “She’s a witch! She mesmerized me! She’s mesmerized you!
Mogra, save me!”

But Mogra kept silent. She may have
hated Rolenya, and she may have suspected the princess had some hold over her
sons, but she was loyal to Gilgaroth and would not speak against him in this,
no matter her private misgivings.

Shaking, Ungier cried, “Father,
forgive me! Please!”

“
Forgive
?”

“Mercy!”
Ungier’s
battish
face screwed up in misery. His all-black
eyes looked very large. “Mercy, Father!”

“
What IS this . . . ‘mercy’?”

The Dark One pinched one of the
vampire’s wings with his free hand. He paused, savoring his son’s fear,
then
he tore the leathery wing loose with a spray of blood.
Ungier cried out in agony.

Rolenya gasped and turned her face
away.

“No!” shouted Ungier, writhing,
leaking black blood.

“
Yes
,”
said
Gilgaroth, flicking the batwing away; it drifted on the wind and was soon
snatched up by a passing dragon. The Lord of the Tower nodded to the throng
below.
“You have drunk the blood of many
over the centuries, my son. Now it is time to give back.”

“Don’t do this!” screamed the
vampire.

It was too late. Gilgaroth drew
back his arm and, with a mighty heave, flung the
godling
from the terrace. The Vampire King spun end over end, howling as he fell. It
seemed to Baleron that for a moment time seemed to slow, and Ungier’s all-black
eyes glared briefly at him for the last time, then passed on to Rolenya. His
eyes lingered on her lovingly before his face twisted in terror at the fall to
come, and he disappeared over the side.

Baleron,
and everyone else on the terrace save Gilgaroth, leaned over the edge to see
what would become of him.

With his one wing, Ungier tried to
master the air. He spiraled down, down and around, flapping that one appendage
pitifully.

He would not go easily. As he fell,
the vampire passed various prominences that jutted out from the tower
overlooking the Great Inferno, and on some dragons lounged. Others were mere
decorative spikes. Desperately, almost comically, Ungier flapped his wing,
angling himself toward one of these prominences.

He nearly missed it. As it was, his
long arms reached out and just barely grabbed hold of a nightmarish gargoyle
with his nimble claws, jerking him to a halt. Visibly trembling, he huddled
there, safe for the moment.

The Borchstogs roared in thwarted
bloodlust.

“The fool!” hissed Mogra. “Can he
not even die with dignity?”

Ungier hugged the prominence,
trembling, trying to fold himself up and merge with the brooding architecture.
He looked down into the bright flames of the Inferno, then up at the terrace
high above, then around him.

He issued a high-pitched whistle.

A nearby terrace held the nests of
a brood of glarums, and one rose and took wing, flying toward the Vampire King.
Ungier might actually escape!

Baleron glanced toward the towering
shadow that was Gilgaroth, but Gilgaroth did not move.
He’s letting Ungier go.
Baleron, unable to believe this, ground his
teeth.

The glarum approached Ungier’s
prominence. In another few seconds, the vampire would be away
.
“I think not,” said Baleron.

He wrenched a crossbow loose from
one of his guards and aimed at the dark, small, lanky figure of Ungier. The
vampire was a long way down, through rain and night, but Baleron did not
hesitate. He sighted along the lethal bolt and fired.

The shaft flew. Just as the glarum
neared the prominence to which Ungier hung, the bolt struck the pitiful figure
in the side, and the speck that was Ungier lost its hold and fell toward the
hungry flames. The glarum veered away and returned to its roost.

The Borchstog reclaimed its
crossbow with a snarl, raising its hand as if to strike Baleron but seeming to
think better of it.

Ungier, clutching the bolt that
protruded from his ribs, still flapping that one wing, head thrown back in a
scream, plummeted toward his doom, and Rolenya clung so tightly to Baleron’s
arm that her fingers dug painfully into his flesh. Baleron watched Ungier’s
plummet with grim satisfaction, feeling a swell of pride—not pride for himself
or his marksmanship, but pride for Rolenya. He had tried and failed many times
to kill Ungier;
Elvish
sorcerers and a queen had been
unable to tame Rondthril; the Archmage of Havensrike had likewise failed. It
had taken Rolenya to destroy the vampire, and that without even trying.

“
There
!”
shouted
Gilgaroth to his army as Ungier sailed down, as if
Ungier
being
shot had been of his doing.
“THERE
is my gift to you! His blood—and his example! Do not fail me as he did, or
suffer his fate you will.”

At long last, Ungier passed into
the fires of Illistriv and burst into flames. He
screamed,
audible for miles around. Shrouded in fire, screaming hideously, he disappeared
into the depths of the Second Hell, never to be seen again.

Baleron’s heart sang with joy.

He instantly felt a change in
Rondthril; the Fanged Blade seemed to sigh, as if with release.

The
time has come.

Below, Borchstogs cheered the
execution.

Mogra smiled lovingly. “Eager,
aren’t they?”

Baleron was just about to pull
Rondthril from its scabbard when suddenly Gilgaroth turned and did something
unaccountably odd: he reached out a hand and . . . beckoned . . . to Baleron.

Shocked, the prince just looked at
Gilgaroth. What was this?

“
Come
,”
said the
Dark One.

Was Baleron to meet the same fate as Ungier? Is this how
his own
labors would be rewarded? Rolenya shot him a worried
look, and he tried to put on a brave face for her.

“It will be fine,” he told her.

She didn’t seem able to bring
herself to speak.

Again Gilgaroth beckoned for him to
come to his right side, and Baleron did so, immediately feeling the heat that
radiated off
ul
Kunraggog
.
Gilgaroth’s smell was overpowering, even more so than Mogra’s—the musk of the
Great Wolf mixed with brimstone and burning coal. Gilgaroth’s living shadow
billowed and ebbed, Baleron could
feel
it, cold and hot at once, oily,
penetrating
. . .
 
He felt befouled by it, and
powerless under its influence.

He stood at the right side of
Gilgaroth, Breaker of the World, Prince of Darkness, Lord of Hell, and stared
down at the Inferno of the world-bound Illistriv and at the bonfires of the
Borchstog hordes that would help the Inferno spread. Wind whipped him, and he
shivered. His image appeared in the fires below. He looked very small next to
Gilgaroth.
What am I doing here?

To the horde, Gilgaroth said,
“
THIS, children, is my Deliverer.
My Savior.
My Champion.
My Spider—he whom I laid a Doom upon years ago.
I planted a
seed then, and now it has arisen into a mighty oak and gives me shelter. With
his Doom Baleron has helped destroy his country’s own army and that of the
Larenth. He helped me fell the White
Tower of Celievsti. Thus
was I able to both raise Krogbur and breach the Wall of Spires.
He has helped me kill Felias and Elethris and the Archmage of Glorifel—even
King Grothgar, his own father. And his Doom is not yet complete, not while I
live. For his web shall CONTINUE to grow, and it shall be more glorious yet.”

He paused, and Baleron felt his
insides wrench.
No
,
he thought desperately.
Let it be over!

“Ungier
was not fit to lead you,
”
Gilgaroth said to his horde.
“He was not
worthy.
” He paused dramatically. “
It
shall be BALERON who leads you!
Ul
Ravast
”

Baleron gasped. Rolenya did
likewise.

Below, the Borchstogs cheered. Some
took up the chant, “RA-VAST!
RA-VAST!”

“
Ten thousand years ago I foresaw that one from among the Fallen Race
would deliver me my freedom, would serve as the general to lead my armies in
the Final War. That time has come. It shall be HE whom I make General tonight.
HE will lead you north to crush Clevaris and Larenthi, and then he will drive
you onwards, and under his rule you shall raze the Crescent entire. And then go
north, darkening all in your path, to the very Tower of the Sun.”

Baleron’s blood ran cold. Throgmar
was right: Gilgaroth truly lived only to cause pain and suffering. Oh, he was
evil! He would take the one who hated him most and force that one to spread his
evil for him.

Suddenly Baleron decided that he would
take no more.

Speaking past the knot in his
throat, he said, “I will
not
.”

Gilgaroth looked down at him,
curious.

Baleron fingered Rondthril. Could
he be quick enough?
Unlikely.
Not when those eyes of
fire were upon him. Not while that shadow was touching him.

“You
WILL
,”
the Dark One said.
“
And you will do it well. For your Doom still
binds
you,
and it is entwined about your very soul. It
will give you no choice. It will prompt you to carry out my will, even when you
are unwilling or unaware.”
He paused. “
You
thought to shake it when you went to the White Tower,
but that only furthered my designs. You thought to rid yourself of it when you
hacked off your hand and went to rescue your father, but that only freed
Rauglir and brought him within striking distance of the King. You thought to
fight me at every turn, but I was ready. I have planned this for Ages, Baleron.
Every step and counter-step.
There is nothing you can
do to thwart me. You are mine. And I look forward to seeing you spread my
shadow.”
He breathed
contentedly.
“
Yes, I will send you
out to do my will, and I will keep Rolenya here to await your return.
Rolenya, my little songbird.
She will amuse me in your
absence.”