“Silence!” roared the Mhorite. “Kill them! Kill them as a blood offering to Mhor! Kill them and lay their heads before the great Voice of Mhor!”
The Mhorites charged forward, the bulk of the warriors sprinting up the main aisle, while others spread out along the sides. Ridmark ran forward to meet them. He crashed into the charging Mhorites, his staff a dark blur in his hands. The wide space of the aisles gave him ample room to use the full capabilities of the long weapon, and two Mhorites fell dead in the opening moments of the fight, their skulls crushed from heavy blows of the staff. Another Mhorite sprang at Ridmark, stabbing with a sword, and Ridmark swept his staff to the side, his parry breaking both of the Mhorite’s wrists. The orcish warrior dropped his weapon with a howl, and Ridmark reversed his staff and crushed the Mhorite’s throat. Another Mhorite attacked with a battle axe, and Ridmark twisted, hooked his staff behind the axe’s blade, and yanked. The orcish warrior stumbled forward, and stepped right into a blow from Caius’s mace. The Mhorite’s head snapped to the side in a crimson spray, and then the warrior joined his dead fellows upon the floor.
The battle raged around Ridmark as his friends fought. Caius and Kharlacht battled alongside each other, as had become their custom. The dwarven friar disabled or stunned foes with his mace, and then Kharlacht’s massive greatsword finished them off. Both Arandar and Gavin were like an army unto themselves. With no need to protect themselves from magical attacks, the Swordbearers used the full power of their weapons to make themselves faster and stronger, and it showed. Gavin cut down Mhorite after Mhorite, Truthseeker a blur in his hands. As deadly as Gavin was, Arandar was even more potent, with decades of skill and experience backing up Heartwarden’s power. He left a trail of dead Mhorites in his wake, and soon a ring of slain orcs surrounded Ridmark and the others.
Another knot of Mhorites charged at Ridmark, and he seized the axe of a fallen Mhorite warrior and flung the weapon. The axe had not been balanced for throwing, but his aim was mostly true, and the Mhorites scattered to avoid the missile. Ridmark charged into their moment of hesitation, driving his staff towards the head of the nearest Mhorite. The warrior started to dodge, but too late, and Ridmark’s staff bounced off the top of the orc’s head. The Mhorite fell, stunned or slain, and a second warrior attacked. Ridmark deflected the sword, and a third Mhorite slashed at him. He stepped into the attack, trusting in his dark elven armor to block the strike. The third orc’s blade rebounded from his armor, the blow sending a surge of pain through Ridmark’s chest. The strike left the Mhorite warrior open, and Ridmark attacked, driving one end of his staff into the Mhorite’s throat with crunching sound, and then twisted and swung the weapon like a club. It smacked into the second Mhorite’s temple, sending the warrior to join the gathering collection of dead orcs upon the floor of the Vault. The first Mhorite tried to stab again, and Ridmark ducked, his staff lashing into the orc’s knee. The Mhorite bellowed and tried to recover, and Ridmark beat aside the warrior’s frantic parry and landed a heavy blow to the skull.
The Mhorite fell, and Ridmark spun, seeking more foes.
But the Mhorites had fallen back. Over a score of dead Mhorites lay in a ring around Ridmark and his friends, and not even the most fanatic servant of Mhor wished to throw himself into the jaws of certain death. Yet Ridmark knew the Mhorites had simply gone to summon reinforcements, or maybe even Mournacht himself. Already he saw more warriors pouring through the gate into the Vault, heard the sound of many more rising from the Citadel’s throne room. A troop of Mhorites with short bows hastened into the Vault, no doubt intending to shoot down their enemies from a distance.
“Gray Knight,” said Arandar.
“I know,” said Ridmark. “It’s time to go.”
They ran for the archway leading to the empty hall and the doors of Dragonfall. The Mhorites drew back their bows and released a hail of arrows. Ridmark threw himself to the ground, ducking behind a stone table piled with golden coins. One of the arrows hit the table and tumbled past it, sending a spray of coins against Ridmark. He rolled back to his feet and kept running, more arrows hissing past him as Arandar and Gavin and Kharlacht and Caius scrambled for the archway. An arrow slammed into Ridmark’s side, shattering against his armor, which was just as well, since the resultant stumble knocked him out of the way of an arrow that would have opened his throat. Instead it clipped his shoulder, another burst of pain going through him. He did not let it slow him, but kept sprinting, and soon followed the others into the empty hall. Morigna and Jager and Mara waited there, weapons in hand.
“Good,” said Ridmark. “The Mhorites are right behind us. We’ll…”
He blinked in surprise.
The ball of fire floated above Antenora herself, and it was nearly as wide across as she was tall, throwing its harsh yellow-white glow across the walls and floor. Belatedly Ridmark realized that he felt the heat of the thing beating against his face. It was so hot that it was becoming painful to stand near her, and he could only guess how much magical force she had bound up in the spell.
“I had the time,” said Antenora in her calm, rasping voice, “to gather a considerable amount of power for the spell.”
“So I see,” said Ridmark. “Be ready. The Mhorites are coming.” He hesitated. “Don’t stand in front of Antenora.”
Jager snorted. “Excellent counsel.”
###
Morigna waited, both hands around her staff, her heart drumming in her ears.
Part of her mind pointed out that this was futile madness, that there was no way they could hold out against the army Mournacht had brought with him to Khald Azalar. They should have fled while they still could have done so, before the Mhorites had fortified themselves in the throne room. For that matter, it was likely that the Devourer had slain Calliande already, and would emerge from Dragonfall with the Keeper’s powers added to its own.
But Ridmark had decided to stay and fight, and Morigna had made her choice to follow him to the end, to whatever fate that might be.
Besides, there was no longer any way out of the Vault of the Kings. To escape, they would have to fight their way to the stairs leading to the Gate of the East or back through the Gate of the Deeps, and they would have to hack their way through the entire Mhorite host in order to do it. They had escaped the battle in the Vale of Stone Death with the aid of the manetaurs, but Morigna doubted that Curzonar would return to offer aid.
So that was it. Morigna would make her stand here with the others.
They would either triumph, or they would die.
“Antenora,” said Ridmark in a low voice. “Don’t release your spell immediately. Wait until a good number of Mhorites have gathered in the main Vault. The more we can take down, the longer we have, and time works to our advantage.”
Antenora nodded, the huge ball of flame over her head wobbling a bit. “Give the word when you wish, Gray Knight, and I shall release the fire. Make sure you are well away from the archway. I may not be able to control the fire once I have summoned it.”
Morigna, who had seen Antenora wield her fury against the creatures of the threshold and against the trolls of the Vale of Stone Death, took a prudent step away from the ancient sorceress. Not that it would matter. If Antenora lost control of that much power, it would likely kill everyone in the hall.
The first Mhorite scouts sprinted through the archway. The dark magic whispered beneath the edge of Morigna’s thoughts, murmuring that with its power she might have victory, that she might save her life and Ridmark’s life…
She pushed aside the thoughts. The dark magic would transform her, and if she was going to die then she would die as herself, as Morigna of the Wilderland, not as some twisted horror like the thing Coriolus had become in his final moments.
Instead of the dark magic, she drew upon earth magic and cast a spell, the stone floor heeding her command. The ripple shot through the stone and sent the Mhorites tumbling. Ridmark and the others charged, taking advantage of the Mhorites’ distraction to attack, and killed half a dozen of the orcish warriors before they could recover. More Mhorite warriors rushed through the archway, and Morigna cast another spell. She threw a wave of sleeping mist through the Mhorites, commanding it to roll past them and into the main Vault proper. Spread out among so many, it did little, but it stunned them for a moment, making them groggy and disoriented, and Ridmark and the others were too experienced not to let such an advantage pass. Ridmark’s staff crushed throats and cracked skulls, while the Swordbearers drove their blades through flesh and bone and armor alike. Kharlacht struck deadly blows with his greatsword, and Caius’s mace turned limbs to bloody pulp. Mara flickered through the melee with flashes of blue fire, circling around the edges of the battle. Jager struck whenever she tripped or crippled a Mhorite warrior, calmly driving his short sword into backs and necks. Morigna would have preferred that he stay out of the battle entirely, given that he carried both the soulstone and the Key, but she supposed the common Mhorite warriors were too stupid to recognize the value of those items.
More and more Mhorite orcs poured through the archway, and horns rang out from the Vault proper as more arrived.
“Ridmark!” shouted Morigna. “You can’t hold them!”
“Antenora!” said Ridmark, killing another Mhorite and stepping back. “Now!”
Ridmark disengaged from the fight and ran to Antenora’s left, and the others followed him, breaking away from the melee. That did not deter the Mhorites, and they surged through the archway, dozens of them, weapons in hand and scarred faces livid with battle rage.
Their expressions changed when Antenora thrust her staff.
The ball of fire struck the floor a few yards in front of her, and for a terrible moment Morigna was sure that Antenora had made a mistake, that the huge fireball was about to explode. Instead the sphere rolled forward like a massive boulder, and it passed through the charging Mhorites, leaving a trail of charred corpses in its wake. The stench of burned flesh flooded the hall, drowning out the smell of blood and sweat. The Mhorites scrambled backwards, but they were too densely packed together, and the fireball rolled through them, wobbling a bit as it did so. The Mhorite attack collapsed as they fell backwards, trying to get away from the flames, and the sphere rolled into the Vault proper.
Then it exploded.
A blast of hot air struck Morigna and sent her sprawling to the floor, her staff bouncing away from her grasp. The roar of the flames filled her ears, and she saw a pair of Mhorites go tumbling overhead, wreathed in fire. Morigna grabbed her staff and pulled herself to her knees, and saw a firestorm raging through the central Vault. A wall of flames sealed off the archway, and she glimpsed screaming Mhorites running back forth, trying frantically to quench the flames that chewed into their flesh. Ridmark and all the others had been knocked over by the gale. Only Antenora still stood upright, her long black coat flapping behind her in the heat, the symbols upon her staff burning as she directed her will at the magic.
At last she gasped and stumbled, leaning upon the glowing staff for support.
“Too much,” she croaked. “Too much. I cannot…I cannot control it.”
Some of the Mhorites within the hall had survived the explosion, and staggered slowly to their feet, lifting their weapons.
“Ridmark!” said Morigna, drawing on the earth magic. A ball of acidic mist appeared around the nearest Mhorite warrior’s head, and the Mhorite managed to scream before his lungs drew in the deadly vapors. The Mhorite tottered and collapsed, and Morigna summoned power for another spell, but by then it didn’t matter. Ridmark and Gavin regained their feet, killing the Mhorites who had survived the explosion. Together they helped get the others to their feet and away from the fire, and Morigna ran to assist them.
“That was,” said Caius, wiping sweat and blood from the gray dome of his balding forehead, “a most impressive explosion.”
“It was like the High Gate all over again,” said Gavin.
“A bit more than we probably needed, though,” said Jager. “Though given the number of Mhorites who want us dead, anything that kills more of them is a good thing.”
“I summoned more power than I intended,” said Antenora, her yellow eyes fixed upon the fire. “I told you the fire was often uncontrollable once summoned.”
“No,” said Ridmark. “You did well. Very well.” He shook his head. “If I had been aided by a sorceress with your power at the Black Mountain…well, that battle might have gone differently indeed.”
“Thank you,” said Antenora. “For you are the Keeper’s strong right hand, and your praise means much.”
Morigna found herself annoyed by that description of Ridmark, and pushed the thought aside. They had larger problems.
“The fire,” said Ridmark. “How long can you maintain it?”
“Perhaps another quarter hour at the most,” said Antenora. She was not sweating in the fire’s heat, but she never sweated. She did look increasingly tired, her face tight with strain. “It will take a considerable amount of power to hold.”
“What if you cooled it down?” said Ridmark.
“I do not understand,” said Antenora.
“That fire is hot enough to kill anyone who touches it,” said Ridmark, wiping some of the sweat and grime from his forehead. “It doesn’t need to be that hot. Just hot enough to set their clothes afire.”
“That…is prudent,” said Arandar. “That is often the best use of fire on the battlefield, to confuse and misdirect and frighten.”
“The longer the Mhorites remain confused and frightened,” said Ridmark, “the longer Calliande has to return with her memory and powers.”
If she returned. Morigna glanced at the distant golden doors on the other end of the hall, but they remained closed.
“Very well,” said Antenora. “Additionally, I shall be able to maintain a cooler fire for much longer.”
“How much longer?” said Ridmark.
“Indefinitely.”