Dragonlance 08 - Dragons of the Highlord Skies (51 page)

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Kitiara’s Fight. Lord Soth’s Vow.

itiara crouched on her knees in the blood and stared into the open gates. Before her was a grand entry hall, dark, empty, and bright with candlelight flaring from a wrought-iron chandelier that hung from the ceiling and lay, broken and twisted, on the floor. If Kit did not stand up and walk into that hall, she would be just one more corpse lying in the courtyard. Skie would fly over Dargaard Keep tomorrow morning and see on the cobblestones her bones and her rotting flesh encased in the blue armor and horned helm of a Dragon Highlord. Skie would mourn her—he would be the only one to mourn her, yet he would find another rider. Ariakas would laugh when he heard and term her a fool who deserved her fate. Takhisis would despise her. Lord Soth would pick up her horned helm and add it to his trophies and that would be the end. Kitiara uth Matar would be forever a nobody. She would fade into obscurity and be forgotten.

“A little fear is healthy,” Gregor uth Matar had once told his daughter. “Too much fear makes you worthless in a fight. When you start to feel the terror beat in your throat, you’re hanging on to life too tight, daughter. Let go of what may come and live for what is—because that may be all you have …”

A soldier walked forth from the entry hall. He was clad in armor adorned with the rose, one of Soth’s men-at-arms. Flames consumed him as he walked, blackening his armor, blistering his skin. The flesh melted from his face, leaving a bloody skull. He held a sword in his smoldering hand. His eyes saw nothing but death … and her. He meant to slay her, if she did not kill him first, except that he himself was already dead.

Let go of what may come and live for what is …

Kitiara let go of her ambition, her hopes and dreams and plans. She let go of love and hate, and, when she had nothing left inside her, she realized that fear had let go of her.

Rising to her feet, Kit drew her sword and walked forth boldly to meet the undead warrior. Her dragon armor protected her against the heat of the flames. She yelled in defiance and struck the corpse’s blade a testing blow, judging his strength, his skill. The corpse’s strength was daunting; his counter strike almost shattered her arm. She broke off, fell back, and waited for him to attack her.

But death seemed to have robbed the dead man of his brains as well as his skill. He raised his sword over his head and brought it down on her as though he were chopping wood. Kitiara dodged, then leaped and spun, slamming her foot into his chest, knocking him over backward.

He lay floundering on his back. Kit put her foot on his chest and drove her blade into his throat between his armor and his helm. The flames disappeared. The warrior lay still. He wasn’t finished, though. She couldn’t kill what was already dead.

Hearing clanging and rattling behind her, she turned around, but not fast enough. A sword struck her on the left shoulder. Her armor saved her from a broken collarbone, but the blow was powerful enough to dent the armor the Dark Queen herself had blessed. While the undead warrior recovered from his swing, Kitiara swept her blade into his neck, severing his head. That second corpse was still falling when another came lunging at her, and she heard, behind her, the first attacker clambering to his feet.

Kitiara glanced behind her and saw the first attacker aim a thrust at her back. The one in front was surging forward. She dropped to the ground. The warrior behind her stabbed the warrior in front and both fell. Kitiara crawled out from beneath the bodies to find another warrior waiting for her, jabbing at her with a spear.

Kit rolled frantically from to one side to the other. He hit a glancing blow, and Kit gasped in pain as the spearhead sliced open a gash in her thigh. Seeing an opening, she smashed both feet into his legs, kicked them out from under him. She hacked the point off the spear, but she didn’t waste her energy “killing” him. It wouldn’t make any difference. He couldn’t die.

More undead troops came at her, so many she couldn’t begin to count them. They were jumping off the battlements, running down the stairs, trailing fire that glowed in the blades of their swords and blazed in their eyes that were empty of life but not of hatred.

Kit was wounded and exhausted. Her fear had been costly, draining her of strength, and she had to keep fighting. She risked another glance behind. The gates to Dargaard Keep stood wide open. The great hall, lit by candlelight, was empty. No warriors were inside the keep, not since the one had come forth to do battle. The undead soldiers were massing in front of her. If she could win her way inside the keep, make it through the gates alive …

Drawing her boot knife, she stabbed one warrior in the midriff, below his breastplate, and took a step backward. She drove her sword through the eyeslits of another’s helm and kept moving backward.

She had to keep the warriors from flanking her, crowding around behind her, coming between her and the open gate. She thrust her sword between the legs of a warrior and brought it upward, tearing into his crotch. He toppled forward, and Kitiara moved another step closer to the gate.

A blow knocked off one of her bracers. Blood oozed from a deep wound in her left forearm and more blood trailed down her thigh. Another blow struck her on the head and the flames wavered and swam in her vision. But she fought against the bursting pain and blinked her eyes until they focused and kept fighting. And she kept moving backward.

Her breath came in gasps. Her arms ached. Her sword was unbelievably heavy. The hand holding the dagger grew slippery with her own blood. When she lashed out with the dagger at a foe, the knife flew from her hand. She made a desperate grab for it, but booted feet trampled it and she had to let it go.

A sword thrust into her side. Her armor saved her from death, but the blow damaged her ribs and made every movement, every breath, splintered pain. She kept moving backward, kept swinging her sword, kept ducking and dodging. In front of her, the warriors jammed together, fighting without reason or skill, hitting each other as often as they hit her. What did it matter? They died, fell, and rose to fight again.

Candlelight streamed out from behind her. She had reached the gate. Wooden doors banded with iron stood open. Above her gleamed the wicked teeth of a portcullis.

Kit drew in a breath and gave a strangled shout of fury and defiance and launched a last, frenzied attack. Slashing and hacking at them with her sword, she drove back the warriors, sent them tumbling and falling over one another, then she turned tail and ran with her last remaining strength through the gate.

A thick rope attached to a mechanism held the portcullis in place. Hoping time and fire had weakened the stout rope, Kit swung her sword, tried to sever it. The rope parted, but did not break. She gritted her teeth. The sweat rolled down her face, half blinding her. She drew in a breath. Pain lacerated her. The warriors were coming after her. She could feel the heat of the flesh-consuming flames wash over her. She took another swing. The rope snapped. The portcullis came thundering down, smashing some of the warriors beneath its sharp points.

The warriors vanished. Disappeared. The fight was over for them. They returned to their bitter darkness to keep endless watch, mount eternal guard.

The clamor of battle ceased and all was, for the moment, silent; blessedly silent.

Kitiara groaned. The pain was like a red-hot knife inside her. She doubled over, pressing her hand against her side. Tears wrung from agony stung her eyes. She whimpered, then clamped her teeth on her cries. Biting her lips until the blood ran, she waited for the pain to wash over her and ease.

Someone started to sing. The voice was a whisper at first, but it raised the hair on her head and sent a shudder through her. Kitiara opened her eyes and looked wildly about.

Three elf women came floating toward her, moving as if on hot air currents rising from unseen flames. Their mouths were open, their hands outstretched, and Kitiara realized in despair that she had escaped one enemy only to be trapped by another. She had already experienced the debilitating effects of a single note of their lethal song.

That song would strengthen, grow more powerful. The hideous notes would swell around her in shattering anguish, lamentation, and grief so poignant and piercing it could literally stop the heart.

The elf women came nearer, their long hair floating around them in tendrils, their white robes burned and blackened, their bodies trembling with the wailing song.

Blonde hair, blue eyes, pale complexion, slanted eyes, pointed ears … elves … elf maidens …

Laurana …

“Elf bitch!” Kitiara cried savagely. “If it’s the last thing I do, I’ll kill you!”

Heedless of the pain, screaming curses, she swung her sword at the elf maid in great, huge, furious, slashing arcs, back and forth, slicing and stabbing.

Laurana disappeared. Kit sliced at nothing but air.

She lowered her sword and stood panting and sweating, hurting and bleeding in the entry hall. Raising her blood-dimmed gaze, she saw at her feet an enormous, wrought-iron chandelier. Though it had fallen down centuries ago, the candles in it still burned. A pool of blood, still fresh—always horribly fresh, fresh as memory—lay beneath the twisted metal.

Beyond the chandelier was a throne. The death knight, Lord Soth, sat there watching her. He had been watching her the entire time. The eyes in the slits of the helm burned steadily, reflecting the flames that had died three hundred years ago. He did not move. He waited to see what she would do next.

Kitiara’s left arm was drenched in blood that still oozed from the wound. The fingers of that hand had gone numb. Her breath came in wrenching, painful gasps. The slightest movement sent pain lancing through her. She had wrenched her knee; she only noticed that now. Her head ached and throbbed. Her vision was blurred. She felt sick to her stomach.

Kitiara drew herself up as best she could, considering that she limped on her left leg and could not put her full weight on her right. She blinked back her tears and shook back her black curls.

Her arms shaking with fatigue, she managed through sheer effort of will to raise her sword and move awkwardly into a fighting stance. She tried to talk, but no voice came out. She coughed, tasting blood, and tried again.

“Lord Soth,” said Kitiara, “I challenge you to battle.”

The fire in the eyes flared in astonishment, then flickered. Soth shifted upon his throne, the black cape, its hem drenched in the blood of his wife and child, stirring about him.

“I could kill you without ever leaving my seat,” he said.

“You could,” Kitiara agreed, her words coming in whispering gasps, “but you won’t. For that would be cowardly. Not worthy of a Solamnic knight.”

The eyes of fire regarded her intently; then Lord Soth rose from his throne.

“You are right,” he said. “Therefore, I accept your challenge.”

Sweeping aside his cape, he drew from a blackened scabbard an immense, two-handed great sword, and circling around the fallen chandelier, he strode forward to meet her. Limping painfully, Kitiara pivoted to keep him in clear sight, holding her sword at the ready.

He was taller than she was, stronger than she was, to say nothing of the fact that he was deader than she was—though not by much. He felt no physical pain, though the gods alone knew the spiritual torment he suffered. He would never grow tried. He could fight for a hundred years, and she had maybe a couple of moments left in her. His reach was longer. She would never even get close to him, but this was what Kitiara had vowed to do, and by the Dark Queen, she was going to do it, though it would be the last thing she ever did.

Soth feinted left. Kit did not fall for it, for she saw the real attack coming. She blocked the blow, her sword clashing against his.

The chill of death and worse than death, the bitter cold of unending life, struck through her flesh to the bone. She shuddered in agony and gagged and sobbed for breath and held her ground, unmoving, blocking his blade with hers, holding him at bay with the last vestiges of her courage, for her strength had long since drained away.

Her sword shattered. The blade burst into slivers of steel. Splinters and shards of metal flared in the firelight. Kitiara staggered, almost falling.

Menacingly, Soth advanced on her. Kit reached into the dragon armor, snatched out the hidden dagger, and, shivering, trembling, she flung herself at him.

Soth caught hold of the hand holding the dagger and gave it a wrench. Kitiara’s flesh froze at his touch. She gave a soft, involuntary moan, then her teeth clamped down on her lips. She would not give him the satisfaction of hearing her scream. She waited, in silence, to die.

Lord Soth released her hand.

Kitiara clasped the wrist and gazed at him dully, so far gone she didn’t much care what happened, only that it should happen quickly.

He raised his sword, and Kitiara braced herself.

Lord Soth shifted the blade in his gloved hands. He held it out to her, hilt-first, and knelt down on one knee before her.

“My lady,” he said. “Accept my service.”