Sevenfold sword necroman.., p.31
Sevenfold Sword_Necromancer, page 31
He didn’t quite make it.
A bronze blade slammed into his chest with terrific force. His dark elven armor deflected the razor-sharp edge, but the impact threw him hard to the ground, and Ridmark thought he heard something grate in his chest. In fact, the grinding kept getting louder. Maybe he had broken a rib.
No, the grinding was coming from someplace else.
He got to his feet just in time to see Taerdyn turn an astonished look towards the Royal Tower, and one of the Nine Columns toppled and crashed into its neighbor, both of them falling in broken ruin towards the ground.
###
Tamlin jumped aside as broken stone rained around him.
In the end, the collapse had taken down three of the Nine Columns, and the rain of debris had wiped out a substantial chunk of the Bronze Dead. Belatedly, Tamlin hoped that the fall of rubble hadn’t landed on any of his friends, but it was too late to turn back.
He was going to find Khurazalin.
Tamlin ran through the dust clouds, looking for Khurazalin, and he caught a flash of the Maledictus’s crimson robe.
There!
Khurazalin floated a few inches off the ground twenty yards away. He whirled, and Tamlin glimpsed Qazaldhar standing ten paces beyond Khurazalin.
Fire blazed to life around Khurazalin’s fingers, and Qazaldhar began summoning power for a spell.
“Tamlin Thunderbolt,” said Khurazalin. “At last, you get to die with your…”
Tamlin sprinted forward, cast a spell, and leaped, drawing on every bit of magical and physical strength he could muster. Khurazalin’s lance of fire missed him by half an inch, fresh pain blooming along his left arm from the sheer heat. But Tamlin landed, ran the last few steps, and attacked before Khurazalin could cast another spell.
The Maledictus jerked back at the last possible instant, and the blow that would have cut him in half instead raked down across the left side of his face and slashed across his chest in a spray of green orcish blood. Khurazalin let out a cry of pain and glided backward, and Tamlin stalked after him for the kill.
Qazaldhar’s spell hit him first.
Green mist billowed past Tamlin, and a horrible chill radiated through him as it poured down his nostrils and into his throat. A spasm of pain went through his body, and Tamlin forced himself onward, raising the Sword of Earth for another strike.
But before he could, Khurazalin turned immaterial, becoming a wraith of mist and gray light.
“No!” roared Tamlin. Khurazalin had done that before to escape at Castra Chaeldon, and he did so now, hurtling away to the west with terrific speed. Qazaldhar did likewise, becoming a wraith and following Khurazalin’s retreat.
Tamlin’s errant sword stroke dug a groove into the courtyard.
He straightened up, or he tried to. His muscles would not stop cramping, and sweat poured down his face and back and chest.
The horrible chill from the mist got worse and worse.
Chapter 22: Blood of the Necromancer
The hovering reaper dove towards him and Ridmark attacked.
The creature moved with inhuman speed, the bronze scythe blurring before it, the robes rippling around its skeletal frame. Ridmark blocked, snapped Oathshield back, and thrust. The blade hit the reaper in the right leg, and Oathshield pulsed with white fire. It was just enough to disrupt the spells on the creature, and it bobbed lower. Ridmark raised Oathshield again, calling upon the soulblade to augment the strength of his aching, exhausted arms, and slashed the sword downward. It smashed through the reaper’s neck in a spray of yellowed bone. The blue fire in its eyes winked out, and the net of ghostly veins upon its bones unraveled.
The reaper collapsed to the ground.
Ridmark started to turn, and then a scythe hit him in the back.
A few inches higher, and it would have struck the back of his neck, and he would have been dead before he had even known what had happened. As it was, the blade bounced off his armor, but the impact drove him to the ground. For an agonizing instant, Ridmark was in too much pain even to draw breath, but he flipped over and got to one knee.
Another reaper dove towards him, drawing back its scythe to strike, and Ridmark could not get his soulblade up in time to block.
Calem leaped to intercept the blow, his teeth bared in a snarl. The Sword of Air struck the scythe and shattered the blade, and Calem flicked his wrist, slashing the Sword up and into the undead thing. The Sword of Air would not dispel dark magic as a soulblade did, but it nonetheless tore apart the reaper in a spray of bones and blue fire.
“Thanks,” croaked Ridmark, staggering back to his feet. “We…get out of the way!”
Taerdyn hurled another lance of shadow and twisted blue flame, and Ridmark got Oathshield up in guard in time. The soulblade shone with white fire, and his shoulders and elbows screamed with the strain. He stumbled back three steps but deflected the spell.
Already Taerdyn began a second attack, and another reaper swooped to strike. More waves of Bronze Dead poured through the castra’s gate, and Third and Kyralion battled them. Ridmark and Calem would have to deal with the reapers themselves, and Ridmark would have to block Taerdyn’s spell before the reaper cut off his head.
Then a crystalline blur shot past Ridmark and punched through Taerdyn’s shoulder in a spray of corrupted black blood, and the Necromancer staggered with a snarl, red light shining from his shoulder as his dark magic healed the wound. In the same instant a lance of white fire cut through the air and drilled into the reaper, and it exploded in a spray of burning bones and torn black cloth, the scythe bouncing away.
Ridmark risked a glance towards the wreckage of the destroyed columns and saw Calliande, Kalussa, Krastikon, and Tamlin hurrying towards them. White fire burned along Calliande’s staff, and she looked as the Keepers of old were described in the legends, stern and terrible in her wrath. Something of the same quality showed in Kalussa’s expression, and Krastikon looked grim as ever.
Tamlin looked terrible.
The madness of grief filled his eyes, a madness Ridmark knew all too well, for he had spent years living it. But Tamlin also looked ill. His face had turned stark and pale, glistening with a coat of sweat, and as he drew closer, Ridmark saw that the veins beneath his skin were turning black.
Qazaldhar had afflicted him with the plague curse.
Taerdyn began summoning magic, a storm of dark fire and shadow twisting around him.
“Ridmark,” said Calliande. “I know how we can beat him.”
###
Exhaustion flooded Calliande, and it took all her will to stay on her feet and hold her power ready.
She needed to stop and heal Tamlin. With every second that passed, Qazaldhar’s plague curse worked its way deeper into his flesh. Calliande was mostly sure that she could heal it. Yet it would take all her strength, and in her exhausted state, she was certain that if she healed Tamlin, she would collapse.
And Tamlin had refused. She had seen Ridmark like this once, years ago, after Imaria Shadowbearer had murdered Morigna, and if Calliande had not talked him out of it, Ridmark would have gotten himself killed trying to hunt down Imaria.
Tamlin was going to do the same thing, and she did not know how to stop him.
Of course, the Necromancer might kill them all first.
But she had just seen Taerdyn’s weakness.
“The desecrated chapel,” said Calliande, forcing her exhausted mind to pull together power for a spell. “When Kalussa shot that sphere through his shoulder, I was close enough to see the source of the power. Something in the desecrated chapel is healing him.”
“Then we find it and destroy it,” said Ridmark. His face was a mask of iron determination. Another memory flickered through her mind. He had looked that way as he had decided to go to Urd Morlemoch to find the secret of the Frostborn, to descend into Khald Azalar with her to recover the staff of the Keeper from Dragonfall. Ridmark Arban never gave up, and he would not give up now.
“I’ll distract Taerdyn,” said Calliande, the light blazing around her staff growing brighter. “If you can get into the chapel and find whatever is healing him, we can still win this.”
“I’ll go with you,” rasped Tamlin. He coughed once, raising his left hand to cover his mouth, and blood spattered across his gauntlet. “I’m going to see this done, one way or another.”
Ridmark looked at Tamlin, and Calliande saw the grim realization come into his eyes.
“Fine,” said Ridmark. “Kalussa, come with me. The rest of you, stay with Calliande and keep the Bronze Dead and those damned reapers away from her. We…”
Taerdyn leveled his hand and cast a spell, and a vortex of howling shadow and ghostly fire shot across the courtyard. Calliande drew on her power and worked a warding spell just in time, a wall of shimmering white light rising before them. The warding spell sputtered and almost faded, but Calliande’s will held by a thread.
“Go!” said Calliande, calling up more power. “I can’t hold him back for much longer, and he’s not tiring. Go!”
“Come on,” snapped Ridmark, and he charged towards the chapel, slashing right and left with Oathshield. Tamlin and Kalussa followed him. The Bronze Dead and the reapers closed around Calliande, but Calem, Third, Kyralion, and Krastikon rushed to meet them. Calem cut another reaper from the air with a sweep of the Sword of Air. Third and Kyralion wheeled through the Bronze Dead, fighting back to back, Third’s swords a blue blur, Kyralion’s soulstone-enhanced sword leaving trails of fire in its wake. Krastikon deflected a spinning scythe, his shield flickering with purple light.
Calliande threw all her power at Taerdyn, unleashing a storm of elemental fire augmented with both the magic of the Well of Tarlion and the strength of the Keeper’s mantle. Fire exploded from the flagstones and engulfed Taerdyn, and it was so hot that some of the nearby Bronze Dead caught fire.
The Necromancer emerged from the flames, the Sword of Death in his right hand. His body was a charred, smoking nightmare, little more than blackened flesh clinging to charred bones. Yet the red light washed over him in rippling waves, and the black flesh turned gray, the black veins spreading through the skin, the cysts bulging, the twisted features rebuilding themselves. Taerdyn made a slashing gesture, and the firestorm winked out behind him, leaving only smoke and heat rippling in the air.
“Do you not understand yet, Keeper of Andomhaim?” shouted the Necromancer as more Bronze Dead poured through the gate. “I am immortal. I am invincible. Once the plague curse is finished, and the Bronze Dead march across the face of the earth, all of mankind shall be as I am now. You, too, will become immortal and invincible. An immortal humanity will reign over this world forever, free from the chains of death, and the New God shall never rise.”
“No!” said Calliande, praying his attention would not turn to Ridmark and Kalussa and Tamlin as they fought through the hordes of undead warriors. “We shall stop you. This abomination you have unleashed upon Owyllain ends now.”
Taerdyn shrugged, the motion making the hole in his chest twist in a strange, disturbing way. “Then you shall not live to see it, Keeper of Andomhaim.”
Again, his magical fury blazed around him, and Calliande fought for her life.
###
Fear gripped Kalussa as she charged after Ridmark and Tamlin.
This kind of melee combat was not her strength. As a Sister of the Arcanii, she had trained in using magic to attack from a distance. When she had needed to use weapons other than elemental flame, she had used a bow.
On the plus side, attacking the enemy at such short range made it easy to aim the spheres from the Staff of Blades.
Not that Ridmark and Tamlin left many of the enemy behind for her.
The Swordbearer and the Arcanius Knight smashed through the Bronze Dead, leaving piles of bones and shattered bronze armor in their wake. Ridmark fought with grim skill and focus. The exhaustion was plain on his face, but he blocked and dodged the attacks of the Bronze Dead, cutting them down step by step.
Tamlin fought like a thunderbolt.
He tore through the Bronze Dead, the Sword of Earth a green blur in his hands. Undead after undead fell before him. His face had absolutely no expression as he fought, and he battled without regard for his safety, ignoring minor wounds that the undead left upon him.
The veins in his face and neck had grown darker. The plague curse was killing him. If it killed him, would he rise again as one of the plague-infested undead they had fought in poor Theseus’s inn?
Two Bronze Dead got past Tamlin and rushed at Kalussa, and she had no time to cast a spell or call on the Staff of Blades. Instead, she swung the Staff as she had before, and the crystal at the end shifted into a glittering blade. She ripped through one of the Bronze Dead, dodged the slash of the second, and then stabbed with the Staff. The crystalline blade stabbed through the bronze cuirass, and she ripped the Staff up, tearing the undead warrior in half. Her arms throbbed with the effort, her heart pounding.
God and the saints, Ridmark had made fighting with a staff look so easy!
The creature clattered in pieces to the ground, and Kalussa turned, seeking for more enemies.
But there were none. At least none nearby.
The way to the desecrated chapel was clear.
Ridmark and Tamlin ran towards it, and Kalussa hurried after them.
###
The closed and warded doors to the chapel loomed over them, and Ridmark came to a stop, breathing hard, the sweat stinging in his eyes, his wounds burning. The chapel’s doors stood closed, and a harsh red light came from the narrow windows. Sigils of crimson fire glowed upon the doors themselves, warding spells potent and deadly.
And Ridmark had the overwhelming feeling that he had seen these doors somewhere before.
He had seen them from the windows of the King’s Chamber and when they had crossed the courtyard, obviously. But nonetheless, he had the feeling that he had seen these doors before he had ever come to the Blue Castra, which didn’t make sense.
It didn’t matter. Calliande had said the source of Taerdyn’s immortality was inside that desecrated chapel.
“Kalussa?” he said, glancing back at her. “Cast the spell to sense the presence of magical forces.”
She nodded and cast the spell. Ridmark would have asked Tamlin, but Tamlin was half-dead on his feet. His skin was taking on a grayish tinge, his eyes glittering with fever or rage or madness. The death of Tirdua had been a blow to his mind, and the plague curse a vicious blow to his body. Could he resist both at once? Tirdua and Theseus and Aegeus had already died today, and unless Calliande helped him soon, Ridmark feared that Tamlin would join them.
And Calliande was already exhausted, and could not turn her attention from the Necromancer.
Ridmark pushed aside the thought. If he didn’t find whatever powered Taerdyn’s inhuman healing, they were all going to die.
Kalussa blinked and shook her head. “There are powerful wards on the door, Lord Ridmark. I don’t think I can dispel them. Even Lady Calliande would have trouble breaking them.”
“Can Oathshield disrupt them?” said Ridmark.
“Probably,” said Kalussa. “I don’t know.”
“Tamlin,” said Ridmark, and Tamlin’s feverish, delirious eyes turned towards him. “I’m going to drive Oathshield between the doors. When I do, cut them apart with the Sword of Earth. Oathshield will disrupt the spells, and if you break the doors, we can get through.”
“Yes,” croaked Tamlin, his voice thick and heavy as he grasped the Sword of Earth with both hands. Ridmark hoped he didn’t cut his own foot off. Though bleeding to death might be a better way to die than what the plague curse would do to him.
But there wasn’t time to worry. Calliande was distracting Taerdyn, but if the Necromancer realized that they were attacking the desecrated chapel, he would stop them.
Ridmark strode forward and plunged Oathshield into the gap between the doors.
The soulblade shuddered in his hands, the white fire snarling, and the bloody sigils upon the doors began to flicker and writhe. Ridmark felt the dark magic warding the doors battling against Oathshield, felt the hilt grow hot beneath his hands as the twin soulstones glowed brighter.
“Tamlin!” said Ridmark.
Tamlin might have been on the verge of death, but his reflexes had not yet slowed. He lunged forward, and slashed the Sword of Earth through the left-hand door with two quick cuts, forming an X. Then he sidestepped past Ridmark and repeated the same attack on the right-hand door.
Oathshield shivered beneath Ridmark’s hands, and then the doors shattered inward, falling into the chapel with a thunderous clatter.
Crimson light spilled into the courtyard.
“Go!” said Ridmark, stepping over the broken doors. Kalussa and Tamlin followed him into the chapel. That red light spilling into the courtyard would be easy to notice. If Taerdyn turned around for even a half second and saw that light, he would realize that someone had broken into the chapel…
Then Ridmark froze, stunned by the strange and terrible sight before him.
The chapel looked like the other churches of Owyllain that he had seen, with eight walls, a dome rising overhead, and a dais standing beneath the apex of the dome. There should have been an altar with a crucifix atop the dais.
Instead, a shallow basin covered the top of the dais, and blood filled the basin.
The blood roiled and seethed, as if it was on the verge of boiling, or as if something unseen stirred beneath its surface. Dark magic radiated from the basin of blood like heat from a furnace, and Ridmark suddenly knew just what had happened to all the victims that Taerdyn had brought to the chapel over the last twenty-five years.
But the pool of blood was not nearly as disturbing as the heart.
A human heart the size of Ridmark’s head floated a few feet over the pool of blood. It looked corrupted and twisted, its sides twisted with black veins and cysts. The heart still beat as it floated over the pool of blood, and every beat sent a pulse of crimson light through the desecrated chapel.
