“Honest,” said Arandar, “if not reassuring.”
Mara smiled at him. “I’m not a knight or a commander of men, Sir Arandar. I’m an assassin. I can’t give inspiring speeches. I just tell the truth.”
“Well,” said Jager with a sigh, “if we are going to die, we may as well go out in a blaze of glory.” He glanced at Antenora. “Hopefully not too literal of a blaze, if you aim that thing incorrectly.”
Antenora offered no response to Jager’s barb. A ball of white fire the size of Ridmark’s head rotated over the end of the staff, growing hotter and brighter with every revolution. He ignored the banter and the sphere of flame, focusing instead upon the melee raging around Mournacht and the Traveler. A band of Mhorites and a formation of Anathgrimm battled between Ridmark and the dueling dark elven lord and orcish shaman, and that battle was winding down. The Mhorites had been driven back, and slowly but surely the formation of Anathgrimm was gaining ground.
“When the moment comes,” said Ridmark, “Gavin and Arandar, follow me. We’ll make for Mournacht and keep him busy. Kharlacht, Caius, stay with Morigna, Mara, and Jager. If this works, the Anathgrimm will be angry, and someone will have to fight them off. Antenora, join the battle as you think best. You probably have more experience in battle than any of us.”
“To my sorrow, Gray Knight,” said Antenora, her voice hard as she concentrated upon her floating ball of fire. “To my sorrow. But I have not crossed fifteen centuries and the black gulf between the worlds to perish at the moment of the Keeper’s return. We shall either prevail, or those Mhorites who survive shall return to their homeland with such a tale of terror that Khald Azalar will be a name of ill omen among them for a thousand generations.”
Silence answered that.
“Well,” said Jager. “There’s your inspiring speech, Sir Arandar.”
Ridmark said nothing. At last the Mhorite band started to waver, and the Anathgrimm formation charged in pursuit, intending to sweep away the Mhorites and join the larger battle closer to the throne room.
And, for a moment, the Anathgrimm formation and the Mhorites were directly between Ridmark and the duel between the Traveler and Mournacht.
“Antenora!” he said. “Now!”
Antenora nodded, took a step back, and then forward, thrusting her staff. The ball of fire sprang from her staff, blazing like a comet, and slammed into the middle of the battle between the Mhorites and the Anathgrimm. It exploded in a bloom of fire forty feet across, flinging coins and orcish warriors into the air with equal violence. Dozens more Anathgrimm and Mhorites fell, screaming as Antenora’s fire chewed into them. Ridmark felt a burst of regret. Fire was a horrid weapon of war, and he remembered the terrible visions the Warden had showed him of the engines of destruction wielded by the men of Old Earth.
But right now, he would use every advantage he could seize.
“Go!” said Ridmark.
“God be with us!” said Caius, and they surged forward. Mara, Morigna, Jager, Caius, and Kharlacht broke left, heading for the Traveler. Ridmark and the Swordbearers went towards the right, heading towards Mournacht. Dozens of stunned, dying, and dead Anathgrimm lay in Ridmark’s path, and he went on the attack. His staff blurred out, catching an Anathgrimm warrior on the side of the head. The orc fell with a grunt. A burning Anathgrimm staggered into Ridmark’s path, and he hit the warrior once, twice, three times, sending the orc to the floor. Around him the Swordbearers attacked, hewing their way through the stunned Anathgrimm and Mhorites. Ridmark expected the orcish warriors to recover, but instead they broke. Both the Mhorites and the Anathgrimm were surrounded by their enemies, and Antenora’s terrible fire had demoralized them further.
Ridmark and the Swordbearers tore through the stunned and dying orcs, and suddenly Mournacht was only a dozen yards away.
The orcish shaman flung a spell at the Traveler, and then turned in surprise, his red-glazed eyes falling upon Ridmark.
Mournacht’s scarred face twisted into a smile behind his tusks.
###
Morigna kept running as Ridmark and the Swordbearers carved into the Anathgrimm, Mara at her side.
Stunned and dying Mhorites lay between her and the Traveler, and she cast a spell, reaching out with the earth magic. The floor rippled, knocking over the Mhorites as they struggled to regain their feet. Kharlacht, Caius, and Jager raced forward, striking with their weapons. Caius smashed a Mhorite warrior’s skull with his mace, while Kharlacht took off a head with a single blow. Jager, economical as ever, slashed throats and kept running.
Suddenly the Traveler’s void-filled gaze fell over them, and a dozen emotions went over his gaunt, pale face, rage and fury and confusion and annoyance.
He settled on glee.
“Ah, my wayward daughter,” said the Traveler. “You’ve brought me a gift. How splendid.”
He raised his free hand, shadow and blue flame swirling around his armored fingers.
“Morigna!” said Mara. “Now!”
Morigna reached into herself and called the shadows, and again a mantle of shadow enveloped her.
This time, Mara was standing close enough that the shadows enveloped her as well.
###
The Traveler’s song thundered inside Mara’s skull, demanding her allegiance, demanding that she fall down and worship him as a god.
Her own song filled her, resisting the Traveler’s power. Her father surrounded himself with mighty wards, spells to turn aside blade and magical attack, and those spells kept Mara from using her power to travel from place to place.
But the shadows that Morigna summoned had blunted the basilisk’s gaze, keeping the creature from turning her to stone. The basilisk’s gaze had been powerful, so powerful that even Calliande with all her strength had barely been able to turn it aside. If Morigna’s shadows deflect that, Mara wondered, what else could they block?
Her father’s power, perhaps?
Mara had just gambled their lives on that.
She would only have once chance.
The Traveler continued his spell, summoning dark magic strong enough to wither them to ashes in an instant. Mara reached for her song, drawing upon her power to travel from place to place.
She had been right. Morigna’s shadows blocked the Traveler’s power, and Mara could make one journey.
Blue fire rose up to swallow her, and when it cleared, Mara found herself standing behind the Traveler. Her father loomed over her like a tower of blue armor, his right hand holding his sword at his side, his left pointing at Morigna and Caius and Kharlacht and Jager.
He never saw Mara coming.
She jumped up, her legs coiling around his waist, and in one motion drove her short sword into his armpit and raked Calliande’s dwarven dagger across his throat. The Traveler loosed a horrid gurgling scream, his fury and pain stabbing into Mara’s head, and the blood of a dark elf, black as the void between the stars and as cold as ice, splashed across Mara’s fingers. The Traveler jerked, the motion sending Mara tumbling from his back. She landed hard and rolled to one knee, still clutching Calliande’s dagger, the Traveler’s black blood flickering with blue fire upon the blade.
The song in her head grew discordant, angrier, fraying.
The Traveler spun to face her, his eyes wide with shock, his blood sheeting down the side and front of his armor. He staggered towards her, his mouth repeating the same phrase in silent fury over and over again.
“No, Father,” said Mara in a soft voice. “There is only one God. You were never a god.”
He fell to his knees, his face a mask of uncomprehending fury, and then collapsed dead before Mara.
The song shattered in her head, and she screamed in pain, a cry echoed by every Anathgrimm, urvaalg, and ursaar in the Vault. The pain roared through Mara in waves, and she closed her eyes and gritted her teeth, fighting against the agony. She felt Jager’s hands close around her shoulders, and she struggled through the pain, wave after wave of it rolling through her as the Traveler’s death throes thundered through her mind.
At last it ended, and Mara managed to open her eyes.
Silence had fallen in the Vault, and every single Anathgrimm stared at her in shock.
“You killed him.”
Mara scrambled to her feet, Jager standing at her side with his short sword. An Anathgrimm wizard stood a few yards away, a troop of warriors behind him, and Mara recognized Zhorlacht, a priest of the Traveler.
A former priest, anyway.
“You killed him,” said Zhorlacht. “You killed our god.”
“He was not a god,” said Mara. She tried to sound angry, but her words only came out flat, tired. “He was a tyrant, a monster, and a coward. He twisted you and tortured you so he would believe that he was a god, so that you would fight and die to protect him from his enemies.”
“But…he was our god,” said Zhorlacht. The huge orc sounded as if he might weep. “He was our god. He…what shall we do now?”
Mara opened her mouth, and before she could answer, Zhorlacht turned and fled, as if the sight of the Traveler’s corpse was too much to bear. The other Anathgrimm followed suit, and soon the Traveler’s host fled the Vault, the stunned Mhorites watching them go. Belatedly Mara realized the Traveler’s death meant that the Mhorites could turn their full attention against the Keeper’s companions.
Even as that realization came to her, Mournacht’s bellow of fury filled the Vault of the Kings.
###
For a moment shock ruled the Vault as the Traveler fell, as the Mhorites watched their demoralized foes flee.
In that moment, Ridmark struck.
He raced forward and swung his staff, and Mournacht started to turn, but Ridmark’s blow hit the orcish shaman across the ribs. There as a loud crack, and Mournacht howled in fury, the sigils of fire upon his limbs and chest blazing brighter. Ridmark heard the crackle as Mournacht’s wound started to heal, and he knew the shaman’s dark magic would have been enough to heal anything Ridmark might have been able to inflict upon him.
It was not, however, up to the task of dealing with a soulblade.
Arandar attacked as Mournacht bore down on Ridmark. Mournacht twisted to the side as the last minute, but not before Heartwarden ripped across his side, the sword’s white fire leaving a smoking gash in Mournacht’s green hide. Mournacht roared and attacked, swinging his axe, and Arandar danced aside, moving with the speed that Heartwarden granted its bearer. In that moment, Gavin circled to the side and struck, Truthseeker biting into Mournacht’s thigh. Again the big orc roared, his attention split between three foes, and Ridmark brought his staff hammering onto Mournacht’s wrist, hoping to knock the axe from his grasp. Mournacht twisted at the last moment, and Ridmark’s staff bounced off his forearm, leaving a black bruise upon the green skin.
A bruise that did not heal nearly as fast as it had before. The soulblades were attacking his dark magic, disrupting his ability to heal quickly. Mournacht snarled and backed away, eyes narrowed as he assessed the new threat. More blood-colored fire blazed around his axe, and he shouted for the Mhorite warriors to aid him.
Even as he did, blue fire flickered, and Mara appeared behind him. The soulblades must have damaged Mournacht’s wards enough for Mara to use her traveling power near the shaman. She drove her short sword into the back of Mournacht’s leg, and the shaman let out a shocked bellow of pain. He whirled to face her, black axe hammering down, but Mara wrenched her sword free and traveled away. Before Mournacht recovered his balance, Arandar stabbed, Heartwarden piercing through the wards to open another deep, smoking cut upon the shaman’s chest. Mournacht staggered right into Gavin’s path, and Truthseeker opened a gash on Mournacht’s arm.
Hundreds of Mhorites sprinted to aid their beleaguered warlord, but Antenora had not been idle. From the far end of the Vault, she thrust her staff, sending another fireball soaring across the open space. It struck the ground and exploded, spreading across the Vault in a wall of flame. It was not nearly as intense as the fire she had used to seal off the archway to Dragonfall, but it was enough to bring the Mhorite charge to a halt…and to trap Mournacht with Ridmark and the others. The wall of flames would not last long, and once the Mhorite shamans recovered they would dispel it with ease.
But it would last long enough.
Mournacht retreated, trying to get away from Ridmark and the Swordbearers, and Ridmark felt a grim surge of triumph.
He had dueled Mournacht inconclusively outside the walls of Vulmhosk, and Mournacht had withdrawn from Tarrabus Carhaine’s domus in Coldinium. This time, though, Mournacht could not escape, and for all the power of his dark magic, it was no match for the fury of a soulblade. Ridmark had been in a lot of fights, and he felt in his bones that this one was almost over.
Mournacht felt it, too. The huge shaman did not show any sign of fear, but his rage grew more ferocious, his blows more frenzied and savage. Mara reappeared behind him, and this time Mournacht jumped away, forcing Mara to travel to avoid his fist. That gave Ridmark another opening to strike, and he hit Mournacht in the face with his staff. Mournacht’s head snapped back with a crunch of bone, and Gavin chopped at the shaman. Mournacht staggered back, and Truthseeker sank to the bone in Mournacht’s left thigh. The shaman wrenched himself away, reeling, and managed to lean upon his axe like a staff for balance.
Ridmark, Gavin, and Arandar advanced on him, and Kharlacht and Caius and Jager sprinted closer. Blue fire flickered again, and Mara appeared next to Ridmark, and Morigna hurried forward, her staff glowing as she began a spell.
Ridmark stepped forward, intending to draw Mournacht’s attention so Arandar and Gavin could land killing blows with their soulblades. Mournacht roared and swung his axe, and Ridmark ducked beneath it. He came up and landed one, two, three hits with his staff, forcing Mournacht back onto his wounded leg. Mournacht retreated, and his wounded leg bucked, dropping him to one knee, his axe clanging off the floor.
Ridmark, Arandar, and Gavin raised their weapons to land a killing blow.