Bastion of Darkness

Chapter 7
The Witch and the Wraith

HIS SLEEPY EYES opened wide when the young half-elf awoke and realized that he was alone in the encampment; he should have known better, he believed, should have realized the depth of his companion’s despair. And in these dangerous times, Bryan knew, such black despair often translated to foolishness.

Rhiannon had gone off alone, much as he had the previous night. To face danger, no doubt, probably to prove something that didn’t need proving.

Bryan cursed himself repeatedly as he straightened his clothes and gathered up his other belongings. It was his fault, he believed, for he had stung Rhiannon profoundly with his words about the diminishing power of magic.

Now, if anything happened to her, he knew that he would never be able to forgive himself.

The young warrior found the witch’s trail easily enough in the fresh covering of light snow. She was moving north-not surprisingly-out of the Baerendils, to the wider fields where talons were still thick for the fighting.

Bryan made fine progress that morning, running as often as walking, for there were few options along the rocky and broken terrain. Rhiannon was obviously traveling north, to the foothills, at least, and there were no more than a handful of trails she might follow that way, and the light snow, so revealing of even the young witch’s light step, kept Bryan running fast and true. Still, he knew that he was not appreciably gaining on her, and that fact worried him greatly. For as they came to the lower foothills, and to the fields beyond that, Rhiannon’s direction options would widen, and as they moved from the rock walls sheltering the lower mountain trails, the wind would erase the footprints. By the end of that day, Bryan was out of the mountains, following the one main road crossing this region to the west, the direction indicated by the last signs he had seen of Rhiannon. He trotted along, glancing side to side often and hoping that if the witch did leave the road, she would not be so far away that he could not see her, or that she could not see him.

The sun was setting in his face, and silhouetted against the pink background, the half-elf spotted a wagon, rolling along slowly. Bryan ducked low in a crouch but continued on, settling his shield comfortably on his arm and drawing forth his sword. These dark days, any wagons in the western fields meant talons, and only talons. Bryan wondered if Rhiannon had passed this band, or if, perhaps, she was off to the side of the road even then, scrutinizing the passing monsters, devising plans to destroy them.

Or, perhaps, on a darker note, if she had already encountered them, if she had met a foe beyond her diminished capabilities…

Spurred by that last thought, the half-elf put his head down and charged off in a dead run. Fortunately for the desperate Bryan, the two talons outside the wagon were experiencing more than a little difficulty with their burdened beasts, for a pair of great and huge lizards, and not horses or oxen, pulled the wagon, a task for which the reptiles were obviously not overly fond.

The wagon was covered, its back open, so Bryan, not too concerned that either of the obviously busy drivers would turn about to regard him, veered out to the side instead of approaching from directly behind. Quiet as death, the stealthy Bryan slipped up to the back corner, took a deep and steadying breath, then leaped to the footboard on the wagon’s tail and, in the same fluid motion, hauled himself in.

He tumbled into the midst of three very surprised talons.

Bryan’s sword flashed out to the right, slashing one talon across the chest. He punched out with his shield to the left, staggering the brute on that side, then, with a quick turn of his wrist, brought his sword thrusting ahead, impaling the middle of the group. A second swipe to the right, a bit higher this time, throat level to the sitting, lurching talon, finished the creature, and then a second slam with the shield dropped the last of the three to the floor, dazed.

“What is you fighting ’bout now?” one of the drivers growled, and the talon finished with an even louder roar, one of sheer agony, as Bryan’s sword came through the material of the wagon cover, slipped through a crease in the back of the seat, and then deep into the talon’s spine.

The wagon lurched as that driver slumped and its companion, whooping in fright, let go the reins and leaped from the seat, stumbling and scrambling in the wet mud and snow.

Bryan was already exiting the back of the wagon by then, moving methodically, casually, leaping to the ground and landing in a trot, stringing his bow as he went. When he came around the corner, he spotted the talon, twenty feet away and running, and foolishly moving in a straight line. An easy shot, one that Bryan gladly took, and the talon lay facedown, the snow turning red about its squirming form.

Bryan didn’t bother to go over and finish the task quickly. He went back into the wagon, to the shield-slammed beast, and propped the still-groggy creature up against the sideboard. He slapped it lightly across the face, even splashed it with water, prompting it back to lucidity.

“I seek a friend,” the half-elf growled into the talon’s face. “Have you seen her?”

The creature looked at him incredulously; impatient, Bryan promptly smacked it across the face. “Have you seen her?” he asked again, more forcefully. A movement to the side caught his attention, and he couldn’t have asked for a better chance to accentuate his point, to show the level of his hatred to this ugly, wretched thing. A quick maneuver put him over the squirming talon, the one he had swiped twice in the initial fight, and he promptly shifted his sword tip to the thing’s temple, pinning its head.

“Have you seen my friend?” the half-elf asked calmly, slowly, emphasizing each word.

“Duh?”

With a snarl, Bryan drove his sword through the squirming talon’s skull.

The last of the bunch breathed hard, in terrified gasps, when the half-elf moved again right in front of it. “I’ll not belabor the point,” Bryan said evenly. “I seek a friend, a very powerful friend, and if you do not help me, I shall surely make your death slow and painful.”

“It go to Corning,” the talon blurted suddenly. “The great beast moves to Corning, so travelers say.”

“It?”

“Great beast,” stammered the talon. “Much fear.”

Bryan nodded; it made sense that the dim-witted creatures would view mighty Rhiannon in such a way, and that description was likely to be the best this talon would offer. With a sudden jolt, the half-elf’s shield arm came forward again, smashing the talon’s face, and when it didn’t lose consciousness, Bryan, who showed no mercy to talons, finished the beast with a single sword thrust. He retracted the blade and wiped it on the dying creature’s clothing, then moved back outside the wagon. He entertained the thought of using the cart for a moment, but just for a moment, figuring that he would be far too obvious and vulnerable rolling along the open road, and also far from secure with the temperament of the giant and fierce lizard team. He didn’t dare go near to the dangerous things, even though they appeared securely harnessed. Rather, he stepped back and drew out his bow and shot each of them through the head until they lay dead upon the ground. Then he retrieved his arrows, finished off the one remaining talon, the one he had shot as it fled, and started his run again, this time with a specific destination in mind, a place that Bryan of Corning knew all too well.

She had been here only once, and on that occasion, Corning had been in desperate preparation for an imminent and overwhelming invasion. Yet even that frenzied scene of screaming folk and frightened children seemed far more pleasant to the young witch than the blasted image of Corning now, for even the grip of winter could not begin to erase the visual memory the place revealed: the wake of Morgan Thalasi’s devastating passage. Nearly every building was no more than a burned-out shell, with only its stone walls standing, peaked on two ends, skeletons like the picked bones of the thousands of dead who littered the fields outside of Corning, who littered the streets and the parapets of those few sections of the city wall that had not been flattened. The visual stain of the blood was gone, covered by the snow, but the smell remained, sickly sweet, conjuring images of a massacre.

The predominance of elongated skulls, the sloped foreheads of talons, showed the witch that more talons by far had fallen in the desperate battle for Corning than human-or elven, the witch reminded herself, thinking of Meriwindle-defenders, but if that number had been a hundred to one, a thousand to one, the loss of beautiful Corning would not have been worth it. Corning had once been the second city of Calva, behind only glorious Pallendara itself. It was a place birthed in war and built for the defense of the western fields, but in the centuries of peace the region had known before the return of Thalasi, Corning had grown beyond its pragmatic roots, expanding into something far more wonderful, an expression of artisans and craftsmen, a place of wonderful sprawling gardens and decorated houses.

Now it was only a burned-out skeleton, a collection of walls and bones for the ages. What might someone uncovering those relics in a future age think of Corning, Rhiannon wondered? What riddles would these bones-house, defender, and talon-present? Would the world even remember the scourge of Morgan Thalasi then, and his attempt to invade Calva? Would the world remember Belexus and Andovar, King Benador and Bryan of Corning, and all the others who gave so much to beat back the evil tide of the Black Warlock? Given the recent revelations about the waning of magic, Rhiannon feared that it would not, that all of this would pass into history, to be distorted perhaps, if not altogether forgotten, by those seeking to twist the tales to fit their own personal agendas.

The myriad of thoughts that assailed her as she looked upon the ruins, in themselves, seemed more than a little curious to Rhiannon. She was barely more than twenty years of age, with little experience in the ways of mankind, in the history of mankind. How, then, and more important, why, were such concerns suddenly so paramount to her?

With a deep breath, she shook all the curious thoughts and the questions of them away, and concentrated instead on the task at hand, the grim business that had brought her to Corning. The source of the darkness was close now, she knew, somewhere within the walls of Corning, perhaps, or at least in sight of the wall. Perhaps in sight of her.

She waded through the piles of bones, to the burned and battered eastern gate. That sight also was telling, for the main attack had come not from the east, but from the west. The Black Warlock had apparently sent a sizable number of his monstrous troops around the city to cut off any escape by the defenders. Yet even here, even with the main fighting on the other side of the city, the defenders had obviously held well and killed many of the talons.

With a deep breath, the witch moved through the gate, into the city. There she found the bones of humans mingled with those of talons. Piles and piles of bones: broken skulls, skeletons hanging over the parapets, held together by no more than their frozen, ragged clothing. Rhiannon, so sensitive and perceptive, heard the calls of those dead, the shrieks of agony, the mournful laments. She closed her eyes and remembered her own near-death experience, after her magical battle with Thalasi when she had entered the gateway to the nether realm, when she had watched the solemn procession, the endless line, of those slaughtered in the war.

Hardly conscious that she was gasping for breath, the young witch opened her eyes, and there, all around her, she saw them. The ghosts of the Corning battle, so many wandering spirits, were moving about her, apparently oblivious to her. The ghosts of talons and of men, remnants of those who had died here, their energy emptied into the air by the cut of a sword. The pair of talons she had spied upon on the road the night before had spoken of such specters, advising to a group of their wicked kin who had brought their wagon in to the inviting campfire to avoid Corning at all costs.

Indeed, the place was haunted. And even though Rhiannon’s experience with the supernatural was far beyond the norm, it took some time before she could comfortably understand that these spirits were no threat to her, were nothing tangible, were nothing that someone who was not sensitive to, or terrified of, such things would even notice.

A movement to the side, a dark shadow slipping behind the stone of a small cottage, tuned her back to the living world. A talon, she supposed, braving the ghost stories in search of easy loot.

Rhiannon started for the spot, but then hesitated; she had noticed the shadow when her eyes were looking into the realm of the dead, when her eyes were watching the ghost dance. If the moving creature was not of that realm, partially at least, would she have even noticed it?

With that warning in mind, Rhiannon turned about and made her way instead to another nearby cottage. She tried to use her insight, her magical nature, to better sense the presence, and she was not surprised, though surely stunned, when she felt that cold darkness again, the one that had touched her in the Baerendils so many miles away. It was here, so close, feeling her presence as keenly as she perceived its own.

Suddenly the young witch wished that she had not left Bryan, wished that she was still far, far away in the mountains, away from the darkness, this darkness that she feared too profound for the light of Rhiannon. She looked back to the eastern gate, measuring the distance and the time it would take her to cross out of Corning. She considered her magical energy, to transform her into something more agile, more quick, or to attempt to teleport, perhaps, though that was surely a difficult spell to enact, even before the waning of magic.

She thought and thought, seeking an escape, her mind a whirl of possibilities.

She heard the evil laughter, and all those thoughts melted away, false hope indeed.

“Morgan Thalasi, I suppose,” the young witch said in a loud voice, as calmly as she could manage. “So ye crawled from the field after me and me friends beat ye down…”

That last word stuck in her throat as she turned about to see not Morgan Thalasi, but a creature she did not know. It resembled a large man, and certainly a dead one, though the edges of its features constantly blurred, seeming somehow indistinct, as if the thing was not fully of this realm.

Rhiannon did not know its name, and could not know that this perversion, this stain upon the living world, was indeed the creation of Thalasi. She could not know that this creature was all that remained of one of the ancient ones, that this horrid being had once been a companion of her father, torn from the grasp of Death by the Black Warlock.

What she did know, though she did not understand how she could possibly hold such certainty with the thought, was that this creature, this evil unnatural perversion, was the murderer of Andovar.

“Well, what pleasure has fate sent my way?” the wraith of Hollis Mitchell asked, the timbre of its voice matching its unearthly appearance, a supernatural and evilly charged tone that stung the young witch’s sensibilities and set her back on her heels.

Rhiannon trembled with rage, not fear. Her mind focused on Andovar, on the record of his death, which was painted indelibly within the features of this horrid creature. She reached into the earth, felt the life there, dormant beneath the wintry blanket, felt the energy there, the strength, and brought it forth. Strands of grass erupted all about the feet of the wraith, pushing through the snow, climbing higher and thicker.

Mitchell hissed as he felt them brush his half-substantial form, as he felt the sting of earth energy, the burning power of life itself. The wraith growled and lifted one foot, but the grass, moving to Rhiannon’s will, was quick to wrap about the other foot and leg, twining about them, tighter and tighter.

Now the pain became intense, as searing as anything Hollis Mitchell had ever known. He worked frantically, first by waving his scepter out at Rhiannon, the black flakes filling the air before her and above her, drifting to attack. Then Mitchell went at the grass, raining the black flakes all about it. The earth energy burned at the wraith, how it burned! But wherever one of the mace’s black regurgitations hit, that patch of grass shriveled and died, and gradually, the grip lessened.

Rhiannon worked furiously as well, to dodge the perverted snowstorm that Mitchell had put over her. She waved her hands about in the air, summoned the wind to her grasp, and blew many of the flakes away. A couple did get through, though, and the young witch yelped in sizzling pain, the first real physical battle wound she had ever felt.

When at last the deadly storm was passed, Rhiannon looked up to see Mitchell free of the grassy grasp, his constantly wavering form standing amidst a wide patch of death, an enduring black scar upon the earth itself. Again Rhiannon reacted with anger, at the wraith for what it had done, and at herself for involving the sacred earth in her fight. She grabbed at the wind once more and hurled it sharply at Mitchell, the force knocking him back a step.

But the wraith was laughing now, recognizing that the blow could not truly hurt him and coming to understand that this magic-using creature, whoever she might be, was not so strong, was minor indeed compared to Mitchell’s former master, or to that cursed witch of Avalon, or even to the Silver Mage of Lochsilinilume, both of whom had so humiliated and wounded him. He pushed back against the windy assault, but gained no ground. Far from worried, the wraith understood that this small woman would tire first, and then he would fall over her, and then she would cry out for mercy. And so they held, pushing against each other, as many seconds passed.

Mitchell used the momentary standoff to consider his adversary. When the grass had sprouted through the snow, he at first had thought that this was Brielle before him in some disguise. But in looking at Rhiannon now, Mitchell knew that that could not be the case. This woman’s features were similar to Brielle’s: the same shining eyes, though this woman’s were blue where Brielle’s were green, and the same flowing hair, though this woman’s was dark as night, where Brielle’s was golden as sunshine. Most telling of all, though, shone the gemstone, a glittering diamond set in the middle of her forehead, for this was her wizard’s mark, and it, the wraith knew, she could not alter-neither in size, nor in shape, nor in color.

Brielle’s wizard’s mark was green, an emerald.

“Who are you?” the wraith asked aloud, pushing mightily against the witch’s wind, and though he gained no ground, he was certainly not losing any.

Rhiannon fumbled through her thoughts for some smart retort, but only growled and intensified her wind. It transformed into a series of gusts then, rather than a steady blow, showing that the witch was growing magically weary.

“Who are you?” Mitchell asked again. “So much like Brielle, you appear, but with only a fraction of her power.”

Rhiannon growled again, more loudly, more stubbornly, and the next mighty gust backed the wraith several steps. The young witch thought to turn and run then, for she feared that she had no tools with which to truly hurt this creature, feared that she had overstepped her bounds in coming to meet this blackness.

On came Mitchell in the lull that followed the wave of wind, his ire rising, his patience gone. He didn’t know who this witch might be, but he had his suspicions. Above all others in the world, with the sole exception of Belexus, Mitchell hated Brielle. Brielle, who had stolen his kill of Belexus. Brielle, who had reduced his ghost horse to ashes beneath him, dropping the humiliated wraith on his rump. Brielle, the essence of Nature, the epitome of everything that the undead wraith was not. This creature before him, this young witch, was somehow connected to Brielle, Mitchell understood, had been trained in the same school of magic, at least, and he took great comfort in the confidence that his victory here would surely sting the witch of Avalon.

On he came, roaring, accepting the pounding as Rhiannon’s frantic wind caused his form to waver, caused the edges of it to stretch thin.

It would not be enough to stop him now, they both knew, and so as Mitchell neared, Rhiannon abruptly released the wind and raced to the side, the sudden cessation causing Mitchell to overbalance.

But not nearly as far as Rhiannon had hoped, and she was just reaching her arms up to the sky, reaching for the power of thunder, that most violent of natural forces, when Mitchell fell upon her, the flakes of his awful mace drifting over her.

She shrieked and tried to run, but her strength seeped away and she stumbled, falling to the ground, looking up at the towering blackness. Looking up at her doom.

A flying form crossed between the pair, rushing, slashing, and the wraith fell away in surprise.

“Foul beast!” Bryan of Corning cried. “Back to Death’s land with you!” And on the young warrior came, unafraid, too concerned with Rhiannon to care for his own safety. His sword flashing brilliantly, wildly, snapping past Mitchell’s awkward defenses, scoring hit after hit.

“Bryan,” Rhiannon breathed, and she was not relieved, for she knew that the reprieve would be short-lived, knew that the wraith would get her, and get Bryan, too. For even combined, even if Belexus and King Benador stood beside them, they were no match for this one.

Thrust and slash went Bryan’s sword, followed by a sudden shield rush that halted abruptly, with the elven sword deftly slipping in from under it, taking the wraith in the belly. But there was no sting to that blade, both Mitchell and Bryan soon enough realized. Like all the others, this sword could do the unearthly creature no harm.

And so Mitchell accepted Bryan’s hits, soon didn’t even lift his arms to block, and soon after that, wasn’t even flinching at the half-elf’s cunning thrusts, but rather, was laughing and determinedly stalking in.

Rhiannon reached to the heavens, called out with all the strength she could muster, with all that she had remaining. She felt the energy gathering there, in the clouds, the tingling sensation, coursing down to her waiting grasp, focusing through her lithe form, and then crackling out from her fingertip, a bolt of white lightning, slamming the wraith, blasting through it and smashing the stone of a skeleton cottage. Mitchell went flying into that pile of rubble, tumbling among the broken stones.

Rhiannon stood panting, trying to hold her balance. She nearly swooned when she saw the wraith pick itself up from the ground, laughing all the while, when she saw Bryan rushing in fearlessly, foolishly, his shining sword leading, and when she saw, worst of all, a flick of that dreaded weapon, only a glancing blow on Bryan, but one that nonetheless hurled the young half-elf through the air, to land hard against the stone. He lay on the ground, jerking spasmodically, groaning between violent gasps.

That would have been the end of Bryan of Corning, except that Rhiannon, rightly judging herself to be the wraith’s main target, turned and ran, drawing Mitchell behind her. Through the open graveyard that was Corning she ran, stumbling often, forcing herself to her feet by sheer willpower, by the resolution that she would save Bryan, at least.

Mitchell closed with every stride, his taunting laughter assailing Rhiannon, coming closer and closer.

Then she was a bird-somehow she found the energy-flying away, but not so fast that Mitchell could not keep up. On and on they went, through the gates and across the fields. Seconds became minutes, and those turned to hours, and still Rhiannon flew on, and still Mitchell kept up the pursuit. Before long the river was in sight, and there Rhiannon meant to make her escape, praying that Bryan had recovered enough to flee and hide. She started to fly more swiftly, started her ascent, out of Mitchell’s reach, but the wraith had anticipated such a move, and rushed ahead more furiously right before it began, waving his scepter, hitting the witch-turned-bird with a shower of painful flakes.

Her magic failed her; she came down hard to the ground, skidding in the snow. She was up at once, stumbling, crying, in agony and fear, but then he had her, his gray, dead hand clamped about her shoulder, a grasp so deathly cold! And that awful mace waved near to her head, promising a horrible death.

Rhiannon knew no more.