The War Of The Black Tower (Book 3) (21 page)

Baleron trembled in rage. “You have
whole kingdoms at your disposal, and this is the only way you can amuse
yourself? You’re mad! Mad!” He breathed heavily. He felt his face flush with
rage.

Gilgaroth said nothing. He seemed
to be enjoying this.

“But fine!” Baleron said. “Give me
control of your largest, most fearsome army. Give
me
your legions of Borchstogs, your Colossi,
your
dragons. Give me all your weapons and power, and then we will have us a show.
If
it’s
amusement you want, Gilgaroth, then I can
amuse. Will you find your death amusing? Will you find Mogra’s? What about the
fall of this tower? Will you be laughing then? I will. Oh, yes. I think it’s a
fine idea.
A fine idea indeed.
Give me this army. Give
it to me now! I demand it!”

Gilgaroth’s flaming eyes were
smiling.
“Such rage in one so small!
There is life in you yet. Good. You will make better sport that way.”

“Sport?
I
can give you sport. If that’s all you wanted, I wish you’d told me years ago.”

“I
enjoy a challenge. Yet it would go easier for you if you realized the
place of Man in this world. You belong at my side, Baleron, not before me in
the ranks of my enemies. No. Men are my creatures. Do you not see? You are
animals, and base. You have no Grace. You have no purpose, save to follow your
whims, to find food and shelter. You are like rats, vermin. You are
Fallen
, and you are beasts. You have no purpose. There is no
reason to your being. You . . . do not matter.”

“If we’re so base, why do you want
us at your side?”

“
Because it does not have to be that way.
You can CHOOSE to have a purpose. You can
fulfill your potential. You can fight for me. You CAN matter.”

“Then it seems to me that we can
matter by standing against you.”

“
And aid the Elves? Why? To prop up their weakness so that they can
survive my wrath and continue standing in the Light while you stand outside them
in the Dark, shivering and cold, hungry and empty? Why? Why, when you can stand
with ME and have the world at your mercy?”

“You have no mercy! I think you’ve
demonstrated that very clearly.”

“I
can give you power and purpose and meaning. You, Baleron, you are in a unique
position, to take up my offer and raise your kind out of the mire. You are now
the King of Havensrike, or you can be if I allow Havensrike to endure. All
kingdoms of Men can be united under your rule. You can be the King of Men, and you
can lead your people under my banner. You will have purpose. Your race will
have meaning. How does that sound, Spider?”

Baleron scowled up at Gilgaroth. He
felt the Beast’s influence on his mind, but Gilgaroth did not seem to be
tampering with his thoughts, only monitoring them. He wanted Baleron to reach
the obvious conclusion on his own.

Gilgaroth’s offer was tempting, but
Baleron would have been surprised if it were not. That was the Dark One’s game,
after all.

Baleron shook his head.

“The thing about having no
purpose,” he said, “no reason for being, is that we must make our own. That is
our gift, and our curse.
I
have made
it my purpose to destroy you and your evil, and I’d rather exist without
purpose than to have it be to serve your ends, you cancer.” He looked all about
him. “See these dragons flying about? They’re the flies that buzz around a hill
of dung, and this tower is that dunghill, and those demons down there chanting
your name, they’re the little maggots that thrive on excrement, and that’s what
you are, you monster—the Lord of Excrement!”

Mogra, a scream on her lips,
stalked towards him, but Gilgaroth laid an arm across her way and said,
“
No. He has made his decision, my Queen, and
in so doing he has damned his race to serve as slaves and food and sport for
our own children. He has ensured that Man will fall even
further,
and eventually cease to exist.”

“He has insulted us!” she said.

“
No. He has insulted himself by speaking such folly. I gave him the
chance to raise men up from the muck of their existence, and he chose to spit
on my hand instead. Let him live. Let him see the results of his choice
firsthand, even as he drives the engine of our victory himself, a slave, just
like the rest of his people will soon become.”

She nodded, still breathing hard,
and relaxed.

To Baleron, Gilgaroth said
,
”
Return to your place, you fool.”

Steaming in fury, Baleron returned
to the ranks of Borchstogs and to his sister’s side. Ustagrot was glaring at
him, and Rolenya was looking at him with wide eyes.

“Are you all right?” she whispered.

“Oh, I’m just fine,” he answered,
but he could hear his voice and it sounded anything but fine.

“Baleron.
I’m . . . I’m so proud of you. You were strong.”

He wasn’t so proud. Had he just
damned mankind? He had, he knew—if Gilgaroth should live.

Gilgaroth was guiding Mogra
forwards. When she was at his side, the Lord of the Tower returned his
attention to his gathered army.
“
I
will not let Baleron lead you alone. Oh, no. He lacks experience, and clearly
respect,
and you deserve better. Therefore I appoint Queen
Mogra to guide the young prince, the young Heir, to tutor him in the arts of
war. I’m sure they will make
an
. . . interesting
team. The Seamstress of Shadows, the Keeper of the Womb of Power—SHE shall
oversee your General, my Champion, and ultimately it is SHE who will lead you
to victory.”

The Borchstog hordes roared
fervently, and Mogra smiled, showing her fangs. The Dark One had an armored arm
about her waist, and two of hers rested on his back.

The two Dark Gods—mother and son,
husband and wife, father and mother of demons—stood there at the brink of the
terrace overlooking their hordes, their children. They were at the apex of
their power, the height of their success. They stood, side by side, the wind
whipping them, rain lashing them, lightning illuminating them, basking in the
worship of their creatures, creatures who at any moment would be given the
order to go north, to sweep all opposition aside, to bring ruin to the world.

What was Baleron waiting for? The
two gods’ backs were turned; he’d get no better chance than this.

But if he acted, there could be no
going back.

If he did nothing, he and Rolenya
could yet wed and live out their lives, immortals both, as the rulers of some
distant land—at least, after he finished playing general; the notion was not
unattractive. Indeed, he longed for it, for spending eternity with his beloved.

He placed his hand on Rondthril’s
hilt.

Coldness exploded in his chest. Icy
tendrils shot out from it and drove deep into his soul, into his mind.

You
fool!
he
heard in his head.
Slaying Gilgaroth is impossible. You’ll only earn his wrath. If you
think the plight of humans will be grim now, just wait!

It was a strong voice, a voice that
brooked no argument, a voice that boomed so loudly within him that there was
not room for any other.

And yet one came. It was not so
loud, for it was not woven over eons with the power of a god, but it was no
less strong, and it said,
No
.

Baleron said
No
.

He thought of the Flower of Itherin
and tried to summon its might, if any still remained within him. He felt it
stir.

The explosion of ice shrieked and
writhed, and that freezing tendril withered. The Flower could not kill the
coldness, but it could distract it while he did what he needed to do.

Baleron stepped forward and drew
Rondthril with a glorious ring. The battle still raged within him, but he
ignored it.

Time seemed to slow.

His guards were so entranced at
being this close to their Lord and Lady at such a momentous occasion that they
did not immediately notice their prisoner’s movements. Only Ustagrot felt
something amiss, and he looked over his shoulder, just in time to see the
Fanged Blade coming around in a bright, steely arc—

Baleron cut off the necromancer’s
head with savage glee, and the head and body fell in separate directions. The
neck stump spouted a geyser of black blood as the body fell.

Hearing the prince’s voice with
godly hearing, the Dark One himself began to turn around. Lightning sizzled
behind him, and rain beat on his black, spiked armor. His veil of shadow
deepened, and from it his eyes burned
redly
. He was
huge, a towering god against a puny mortal.

As soon as Baleron completed the
arc that severed
Ustagrot’s
head, he reversed his
grip on Rondthril, holding it by the blade in his naked hand, slicing into his
tender flesh. He
grit
his teeth and drew the sword
over his head, cocking his arm for the throw that would determine the fate of
the world.

The Dark One had half spun around
when Baleron released the sword. Rondthril spun, end over end, flashing in the
night, spitting tongues of lightning reflected off of its steely surface. Rain
lashed it.

Rolenya’s blue eyes widened.

The Borchstog guards wheeled on
Baleron, but their attention was so fixed on the flying sword that they did not
immediately attack him, giving him the chance to wrench a blade loose of its
owner’s grasp. His hand bled freely.

Mogra still faced the worshipful
horde, basking in their love and awe.

Throgmar had seen movement on the
terrace and had witnessed
Ustagrot’s
decapitation
without stirring. When he saw Rondthril hurled towards his father, he could
have sent a lance of flame to incinerate the sword or knock it off course, but
he did not. Baleron had not thought he would; after all, he was the Betrayer.

Rondthril flew . . .

Rolenya gasped. She’d known this
would happen, but it still seemed to come as a surprise to her.

Baleron, who’d been planning his
next steps while listening to Mogra’s and Gilgaroth’s speeches, slashed out
with his new weapon, spearing a Borchstog through the throat. With a boot, he
kicked another off the terrace. Yet even
his
eyes were fixed on Rondthril!

Gilgaroth was nearly fully turned
around when the Fanged Blade struck him, and he had one arm half-raised. If the
sword had struck that arm, it might have been deflected, and Baleron’s plan
would have failed utterly.

Instead, Rondthril, the Fanged
Blade, pierced the Dark One’s armor at the chest and drove through the Shadow’s
corporeal body with mindless hunger. It impaled Gilgaroth through the black
heart and buried itself all the way to the hilt so that its tip, dripping black
blood, stuck out below the
Omkaroggen’s
left shoulder
blade.

Gilgaroth, the Dark One, the Wolf,
the Shadow, threw back his head and roared. His living shadow began to thin.
The tower shook, and the terrace trembled.

Mogra began to turn around, her
violet eyes widening.

Light, reddish gold light, poured
from Gilgaroth’s wounds, as if the very fires of the Second Hell were being let
out, and perhaps they were. Indeed, seconds later a plume of flame shot out
from around Rondthril’s hilt and another from around its tip. The Dark One’s
inner fires were being loosed. When he opened his mouth to scream, more red-gold
light poured out.

The tower trembled violently.

Baleron could not believe it. It
had worked!
 
His plan had worked! It
crossed his mind that in a way Ungier, even in death, had finally struck at his
father. Baleron silently thanked the souls of Logran and Elethris for preparing
him, for giving him hope.

Gilgaroth just stood there,
roaring, as flame jetted from his wounds. His armored hands gripped Rondthril’s
handle . . . and tried to pull it out.

Baleron blinked.
No
, he thought.
Gods, no . . .

Gilgaroth
still lived
. Ungier was not mighty enough to craft a weapon that could slay
his father.

Baleron had been a fool.

While Gilgaroth tried to remove
Rondthril, Mogra turned about to face the prince, and lightning danced in her
eyes.

Chapter
15

Baleron did not, could not, stop in his fight with the
Borchstogs. He slashed one across the face.
Hurled another
from the terrace.
He dodged one heavy axe, which
thunk
ed
into the chest of
another, spraying blood. He tackled the one who had struck at him and flung him
from the terrace. The Borchstog screamed as he fell.

Baleron turned to fight the next
one.

This was a battle he knew to be
futile and pointless—there was a whole
army
against him, plus two gods!—yet he could not just surrender. He could not just
die.

As he parried the thrust of a
Borchstog’s sword, sweat flying from his hair, his face contorted in a grimace
of concentration, part of his mind reflected that soon he would be with
Salthrick, burning in the fires of Illistriv forevermore.

Rolenya, seeing the desperateness of their plight, picked up
the sword of a fallen Borchstog. She was far from a trained fighter, but she
was motivated.

A gaggle of Borchstogs clamored
around Baleron, who was fending them off breathlessly, weaving his sword in a
fury of bright, bloody arcs and thrusts.

One Borchstog sword embedded itself
accidentally in another Borchstog’s head, and Baleron kicked the body away.
Rolling, he knocked another of the hellspawn off its feet. His sword darted up,
spearing another through the gut. He fought as if a man possessed, though surely
it was quite the opposite.

The soldiers ignored Rolenya. She
determined to teach them that this was unwise.

Gritting her teeth, she plunged her
blade into the side of one of the Borchstogs battling Baleron. The Borchstog
gasped,
spasmed
on the end of her sword, and slumped
to the floor. She yanked at her weapon, trying to pull it free, but it seemed
to be stuck; it had lodged between two ribs.

She grunted, trying to pull it
loose. Cold rain lashed her, pasting her dress to her skin. Blood from the Borchstog
had sprayed her, and she felt sick.

Mogra turned from Baleron to her beloved, Rondthril still
sticking from his breast. He needed her attention. She gripped Rondthril’s
handle and pulled. Reluctantly, as if it had been feasting on his essence and
was not quite sated, it moved, and at last she pulled it free.
A gout
of flame licked from the wound, then subsided.

The goddess stared at the sword’s
black-blooded, smoking length, while her Son, her Husband, leaned against her
for support.

“How could this happen?” she
demanded, then frowned. “This is Ungier’s blade.”

With a moan, Gilgaroth said,
“
Treachery
.”

Infuriated, she flung the Fanged
Blade at Baleron, but he was rolling on the floor locked in combat with a
Borchstog, and the sword missed him, bounced off the terrace, and skipped into
the interior of the Main Hall.

Mogra screamed in rage. Her eyes
fell on Rolenya.

The scream curdled Rolenya’s blood, and she shivered at the
hate in the Spider Queen’s voice.

She turned to see Gilgaroth, one
hand over his punctured heart, sink heavily to his knees. The other hand tore
his helmet loose from his shadow-veiled head.

Rolenya succeeded at last in
jerking her sword free from the Borchstog and turned to face the dying Gilgaroth,
if dying he was, the one who had both killed her and raised her from the dead,
the one who had presided over her many afterlives—the one who’d eaten her,
savaged her, threatened her, and loved her, and listened enraptured as she
sang.

Gilgaroth’s eyes stabbed into her.
He became her entire world. The sounds of battle faded, and she no longer felt
the rain on her skin.

“
Rolenya
,”
he said,
shaping the word as though it were a foreign delicacy. He said it as though he
were a lover betrayed, and indeed she felt a pang of guilt.

She pushed his influence away,
though it took all her effort. Behind her, she could hear the surviving
Borchstogs continue to slice at Baleron, who must still be rolling about on the
floor, but she could tell from the sounds of metal on metal that their weapons
were striking the terrace, not him.

Rolenya wanted to help him, but she
found her eyes irresistibly drawn back to Gilgaroth. His flaming gaze bound her
to the spot.

“
My songbird . .
.
Did
you know?”

“I . . . I . . .” She could not get
the words out. For some reason, part of her actually felt
bad
about betraying Gilgaroth. She had to shake herself. “You’re
evil!” she said. “You’re an abomination! You’re the enemy of everything I could
ever love.
Now
lay
down and die!”

He howled in anguish.

“This cannot be,” said Mogra.

“But it is!” the princess said.
“Your time is
over
.”

A terrible wrath seized Mogra as
she fully comprehended the enormity of the events around her, and she stepped
forward, fuming in her anger, toward Rolenya, who still held her sword, though
limply, in her hands.

Rolenya dropped the weapon in her
fright, and it clattered to the slick stone. Stifling a cry, she fell back
before the advance of the
Omkarog
. There was no way
she could win. She was dead.

Mogra’s shadow fell over her. The
goddess opened her mouth as if to release a roar but instead webbing flew out
from the back of her throat and shot through the air; the sticky strands
knocked Rolenya to the terrace and bound her there. The princess struggled, but
the silk was too strong.

The air flickered and Mogra shifted
forms, changing into the giant arachnid form of the Spider Goddess. The
platform was more than large enough to accommodate her. Now twenty-five or
thirty feet tall, an undefeatable monster whose hulking shape blotted out the
electric-
ribboned
clouds above, she stalked towards
the princess.

Rolenya struggled against the web,
and it tore, but not enough.

One of Mogra’s eight legs lifted
high and poised over her, ready to spear her to the floor.

Rolenya felt the blood drain from
her face. She waited for Gilgaroth to stop his bride before her fury could
spell an end to his songbird, but he just stared at Rolenya with his eyes of
flame, the eyes of a lover betrayed.

Mogra paused with her leg over the
she-elf, waiting for something.

“
Yes
,”
Gilgaroth
hissed to her, granting her permission.

If a spider could smile, she did
so. “At last!” she said. “I’ve wanted this since the first day I saw you,
Rolenya, infecting my spawn with your . . .
Grace
.”
She spat the last word nastily, as though it
were
an
insult, and perhaps to her it was.

Rolenya, who had died many times
already, prepared herself for it yet again. It was always painful, and always
horrible, and this time she did not expect to be remade. This . . . was it.

Mogra’s leg started to descend.

“NO,” said a voice from above, and
the long jointed limb paused.

For suddenly Throgmar was there.

The vast Worm had lifted off his balcony and flown up to the
scene of battle, eyes locked on the mother who’d worked against him, who’d
seduced him and used him to further her master’s ends. He had expected such
behavior from Gilgaroth, but not from her, the one who had brought him into
this world and invested so much power in him, coddled him and raised him to
believe in his own grandeur.

Baleron had been right, it pained
Throgmar to admit. He had brooded on the prince’s words for days and saw the
bitter truth of it. Now, thanks again to Baleron, he had a chance to act, and
he would take it.

Mogra had used him and betrayed
him, and for that she would pay.

Mogra’s great black bulk swiveled to face the approaching
dragon.

“Don’t you
dare
!” she said.

His claws dug into her back and
with a mighty pump of his wings he wrenched her loose from the balcony, lifting
her up into the air. Rolenya watched, awed and grateful, as they receded toward
the clouds, Mogra thrashing in Throgmar’s grip all the way, but Rolenya did not
stop in her efforts to tear loose of the white shroud.

“YOU USED ME!” Throgmar cried, high
above. “
YOU
WERE FELESTRATA!”

“Fool!” the Spider Goddess snapped.
“Of
course
I was!
Now set me down or I will break you!
”

She twisted, wrapping her eight
legs about him, and her wicked fangs sank into his chest, injecting him with
her venom. He bellowed in pain. The two dwindled with distance.

Gilgaroth, clearly enraged,
clenched a fist and a dozen tongues of lightning stabbed into Throgmar, who
shuddered and began to lose altitude, his scales smoking. His wings stopped
beating, and he spiraled down and down. Then suddenly, his wings beat once,
then twice, and Rolenya breathed a sigh of relief.

Gilgaroth made another fist, but
this time only one tongue of lightning struck down, and it missed its target.
Rolenya did not know if Gilgaroth were truly dying, but he was weakened.

Throgmar, smoking, still bearing
his eight-legged burden, began once more to fly away.

“I
WILL FIND YOU!”
Gilgaroth roared at the dragon, or perhaps to Mogra,
Rolenya wasn’t sure.

Panting, he tore off the last piece
of armor on his torso, revealing his wounds, and as Rolenya looked on in wonder
he changed shapes as well, assuming the black, sinuous form of the
Shadowdragon
, perhaps a hundred feet or more long and, in a
strange way, beautiful to look upon. He was exotic and wild, and full of power.
Fires still poured from his twin injuries in great founts, one from his breast
and one from his back.

Angry but weak, he slithered toward
Rolenya. Flame licked his lips and between his sharp teeth. His eyes blazed
with fury.

“No!” she cried, ripping away the
last of the spider-silk.

The tower shook and pieces of it
began to crumble off. She started as a gargoyle broke at her feet. What was
this? The terrace rocked beneath her. She saw then what must be happening: with
the waning of Gilgaroth’s power, Krogbur was beginning to fall apart.

Weakened or not, Gilgaroth still
looked quite lethal to her as he loomed over her. Desperate, she looked over
her shoulder to Baleron. By then, he’d dealt with all the Borchstogs who had
not fled at the appearance of the Leviathan and was breathing heavily on the
floor, regaining what energy he could. He bled from a score of cuts, and the
blood mixed with the rainwater all about. His dark hair was plastered to his
skull, and he looked exhausted both mentally and physically, but his dark blue
eyes still burned with determination.

She heard the rasp of black scales
and, very slowly, turned to face Gilgaroth. She could feel his heat and smell
his musk. In fear of her life, she skittered back on her hands and feet,
slipping on the wet surface.

“Out
of my way!”
he bellowed.

She saw that she was directly
between him and Baleron, and she knew that this was exactly the wrong place to
be if she wanted to survive the next few moments. Gilgaroth wanted to roast Baleron
where he lay, but for some reason he was unwilling to slay Rolenya to
accomplish it. He may have given Mogra permission to kill her, but it seemed he
could not do the deed himself. No matter how much he hated Rolenya, the echoes
of her songs still played in his heart.

Her songs had worked! She’d woven
her own web, this one of Light and Grace, and she had woven it well. Now
Gilgaroth was bound to her, at least a little.

He tried to slip past her. She had
to act fast.

Shakily, she rose to her feet. The
terrace still shook beneath her, but on bare feet she stood firm. Gathering her
courage, she planted herself between her beloved and Gilgaroth.

As commandingly as she could, she
looked into the Dark One’s eyes and told him,
“
No
.”

At the roots of the tower, beyond the Inferno, a great panic
went up among the Borchstogs and the other races that comprised the army, and
the host stirred nervously. They had seen the images of their Lord getting
pierced by Rondthril, and fear ran through them unchecked. Huge chunks of
Krogbur began to rain down on them, killing many. Their formations began to
break up.

The ground shook and split, and the
rivers of lava that ran nearby began to rise. Lightning flashed erratically.
Thunder rolled.

The Inferno itself started leaping
fitfully. It spread outwards, consuming whole battalions of Borchstogs. Worse,
it began
climbing the tower
. The fire
was burning Krogbur, eating into its ebon face, and the flames rapidly ascended
towards the highest terrace.

Baleron, still on his back, had not actually expected to
live this long. Perhaps he’d get another chance at Gilgaroth, after all.

All around him, the tower shook and
trembled, and pieces of it fell away. The weakened Gilgaroth was not strong enough
to focus his energies on keeping it stable, and it was disintegrating. Baleron
could hear the roaring of the Inferno that wreathed the lower half of the tower
roar louder, growing out of control. The dragons of the aerial moat that
protected Krogbur were going mad. Their circles took them closer and closer to
the terrace on which the Dark One lay; yet they hesitated to send out their
flame for fear of harming their already wounded Master.