Bastion of Darkness

Chapter 22
Enemies Met

“CAN YOU USE it?” Bryan asked, stringing his short bow.

Rhiannon shrugged and eyed the weapon fearfully. “I’ve not been trained in fighting arts,” she explained, and it was obvious from her hesitant, even disgusted, tone that she didn’t want to be so trained at that time.

Bryan didn’t press the point-in their weeks together as the war had raged down by the Four Bridges, he had come to know Rhiannon’s value, and he didn’t doubt that she would find some way to be of great help now. Up to this point, the half-elf had preferred his sword to his bow, but now he sheathed the powerful sword and took up the bow, for he didn’t want any talons to get anywhere near the young witch.

“Take this, then,” he offered, drawing a dagger from his belt.

Rhiannon shook her head vigorously, and again, Bryan could not find the heart to argue with her.

They went up the stairs quietly, Bryan holding his bow ready. He only had half a dozen arrows with him, not wanting to trek to Talas-dun overburdened, and he meant to make every shot count. He glanced back over his shoulder at Rhiannon often, hoping that she had some magic left in her.

On what Bryan figured to be the ground floor of the castle, the pair exited the stairs. “A large place,” Bryan whispered. “Where do you believe we will find Thalasi?”

Rhiannon hardly heard him, for she was silently searching for an answer to that very question. She closed her eyes and let her mind go out, trying to sense the tangible evil aura that surrounded the Black Warlock. “Up,” she said at length, recalling the image of the fortress. “Talas-dun’s got three tall towers, and he’ll be in one o’ them.”

Bryan didn’t doubt her, but that did little to offer any guidance in the maze of corridors and spacious rooms. They moved along with all the speed Bryan dared, figuring that sooner or later, they would find some clue. Around one corner, Bryan came upon a heavy curtain, set, it seemed, in the jamb of a portal. The half-elf edged the tip of his set arrow to the side of the curtain and pushed it back just a bit.

He saw the back of a talon, no more than three paces away. He drew his bow, but too late, for the brute happened to glance back, and came on with a howl. Behind it, in another large chamber, several other talons grabbed up their weapons.

The ugly beast slapped the curtain aside, coming straight in. It doubled over almost immediately, as Bryan’s knee came up hard into its groin. “I need you!” the half-elf cried to Rhiannon, and instead of going after the closest talon, he skittered out to the side, dropped his bow in line, and let fly for the group coming in behind.

The arrow had barely left his bow when it split apart, becoming two arrows, and then those split again into four, four into eight, and eight into sixteen before the missile arrow had crossed a quarter of the room. The group of talons, coming in a bunch, halted abruptly, throwing up their arms in pitiful defense as the enchanted swarm overwhelmed them, dropping them to the stone.

Bryan didn’t see any of it. As soon as he had fired, he fell back to one knee, hooked the tip of his bow under the shoulder of the stunned talon, then came up in a halftwist, flipping the talon over. The talon, skilled and agile, dipped its shoulder and executed a perfect roll, coming back to its feet and turning about, its heavy axe trailing, going up, up over its head in a wide arc.

Bryan started for his sword, but stopped as the brute charged right in. The half-elf brought his bow out horizontally above his head, hooking it under the blade of the axe as the talon chopped for his head. A twist and thrust of his hands sent the axe flying out to the side, and he punched out-left, right, left-slapping alternate ends of his bow against the talon’s face, forcing the creature back, but doing no substantial damage.

The talon shook its head and started right back in, axe whipping across, the brute apparently determined that the half-elf would not get any opportunity to draw out that crafted sword. The ugly creature skidded to a halt, though, as a wall of flames appeared suddenly in front of it.

Rhiannon, still recovering from her trick with the arrow, couldn’t hold the magic for more than a split second, but that was long enough, for when the wall came down, and the talon stubbornly came on, it found the half-elf ready, sword in hand.

Across whipped the axe, and Bryan easily hopped back out of its reach, then stepped ahead and poked his sword, nicking the talon. Outraged, the brute roared and came in hard, a second sidelong swipe, this time over-extending its reach to catch up with the retreating half-elf.

Expecting that, Bryan didn’t retreat, but came straight ahead instead, sword leading. He accepted the hit of the axe handle against his hip; the enchanted chain mail handled the blow easily enough. The talon’s armor was not so fine, though, and did little to stop the progress of Bryan’s sword as it burrowed through.

Bryan hooked the arms of the dying beast and held them tight so that the talon, in its last spasms, couldn’t begin another attack. They held the pose for a long second, and then the talon slid backward off the blade, dead. Bryan spun about, pulling the curtain aside once more, so that he could see into the chamber; and he nodded with satisfaction, for all seven of the talons lay still in a deepening puddle of blood. The half-elf wasn’t as pleased when he retrieved his bow, though, to find that the fine wood had cracked, either in blocking the axe or against the talon’s hard head.

Rhiannon took it from him and bade him to lead on with all speed.

“They’re knowing about us now,” she commented. “Or soon to be, and we’ve no’ the time to fight with Thalasi’s minions.”

They hadn’t gone fifty feet when they heard the howls of discovery behind them, cries of warning that soon echoed throughout Talas-dun, that soon enough fell to the ears of the Black Warlock.

Bellerian pointed to a large rock set about halfway down the rocky arm of Kored-dul. Even from this high vantage point, the rangers could see the forms moving about the area, the armies coming together, the battle about to begin.

“There’s the wraith, so said DelGiudice,” Bellerian explained. “Guiding his wicked minions. We can get down there.”

“No,” Belexus replied. “I alone can get down there, and swiftly, on Calamus.”

Bellerian wanted to argue, but he knew that Belexus would not be deterred. “Fare well, me son,” he mumbled, even as the eager ranger climbed back onto Calamus’ back and lifted into the air.

Turning his attention back to the larger conflict, Bellerian and his rangers noted some talon archers moving into position to shower arrows upon King Benador’s closing force.

“Our first place to be,” Bellerian decided, and they were off, silent as death.

Belexus saw the archers, too, and he wondered if he wasn’t overstepping his role in this battle. Wouldn’t all the forces be better off if he guided them from the back of Calamus, if he used his high vantage point to all their benefit?

“No,” the ranger said aloud. His place was against Mitchell, fulfilling the vow of vengeance he had sworn on the day of Andovar’s murder. He had traveled half the world to find a weapon with which to deal with the wraith, and he would not be turned from his course now; his father and kin, and perhaps Ardaz and DelGiudice-wherever the ghost might have gone off to-would see to signaling the forces, and both the elves and the Calvans were commanded by determined and wise leaders. If Belexus could deal with Mitchell quickly and definitively, then the morale of all the men and all the elves would be bolstered.

That thought in mind, the ranger cut a fast, and somewhat risky, course toward the appointed rock. Down lower, he saw the zombies and skeletons trying vainly to shadow his movements, like a dark field of tall, swaying wheat. He saw the talon archers and spearmen rise up from their holes to launch missiles his way.

Calamus was too fast for the initial attacks, but the excitement was beginning to precede the ranger’s flight, and he feared that he would be struck down before he ever got near to the wraith.

But then he saw the hated Mitchell, climbing up onto the rock as if he, too, had awaited this moment all along. The wraith called out to those around him to stand down, to let the ranger in. “Belexus is mine to kill,” Mitchell proclaimed, loudly enough so that the ranger heard every word.

And savored every word. Belexus held no illusions-the talons would attack him from every angle if he defeated the wraith, and likely would kill him before he ever got the chance to fly away on Calamus-but he hardly cared. He would willingly give his life in return for destroying the wretched undead monster.

Calamus, as true in heart as the ranger, glided down to land lightly on the wide rock, skipping to a halt some score of feet from the black specter of the horrid wraith.

“Ye’re knowing why I’ve come,” Belexus said firmly, sliding from the pegasus’ side.

“To die,” the wraith replied casually. Mitchell lifted his mace, the strange and awful-looking weapon fashioned of a leg bone and skull of a horse, and started forward, a wild grin stamped upon his gray and bloated face.

Belexus didn’t flinch in the least, took any fear within him and slammed it against the memory of Andovar’s death, buried it in a cascade of sheer hatred. “Come on then, Mitchell,” he growled, drawing Pouilla Camby.

An arrow skipped off the stone behind him, skimming the ground right between Calamus’ legs.

“Take flight!” the ranger cried, and the pegasus was already moving, three running strides off the side of the rock, then up into the air amidst a hail of arrows.

“Is all yer life to be treachery?” the ranger asked.

“I never demanded that the pegasus was mine to kill,” Mitchell answered. “Just you, ranger. Just you.”

A glance back satisfied Belexus that Calamus had risen above the range of the talons without taking any serious hits, so he turned his attention fully back to Mitchell. He was trapped now, with no way out, but that thought, too, ran up against a wall of sheer hatred and was buried.

“All the world will be mine,” Mitchell taunted. “All your kin and all the elves, and the witch, too.”

“I know not what outcome this dark day will see,” the ranger answered calmly, refusing to be caught in the trap of despair. “But whatever’s coming, then know that ye’ll not be seeing it!” And on Belexus came, Pouilla Camby flashing mightily, trailing white light from her diamond insets.

The two men crept cautiously along the darkened corridor of the partially rebuilt White Tower, sensing that something was very wrong. Istaahl had gone into the dungeons of his crumbled home leaving instructions that he was not to be disturbed, but he had also commanded that these two men, his most trusted aides, could come and “collect” him in a week.

What that cryptic instruction might mean, the two did not dare openly speculate, but they were not overly surprised when, hearing no answer to their knock on the door to the wizard’s private chamber, they entered the room to find Istaahl slumped over his desk.

“He dead?” the more timid of the pair asked as his companion went over and bent low, putting his face near the wizard’s lips.

“Don’t think so,” the other answered. He gave Istaahl several shoves, but the mage stirred not at all. “I know not,” the man corrected. “Some affliction has come over him.”

The two men gathered up the comatose wizard, and he did not stir in the least. They dragged him up the stairs and out of the tower, then through the streets of Pallendara to the house of an old woman known for the art of healing. But she, too, could get no response, could only note that some affliction had come over the wizard.

It was true enough: an affliction that Istaahl had put over himself. The wizard was no longer in his body, had dismissed that limiting form altogether and literally thrown himself out from his mortal coil.

Indeed, the life force, the spiritual entity that was Istaahl the White, was far out at sea, diving to the depths, arousing the power.