Reckoning (The Empyrean Chronicle) (29 page)

“Danica?”

“Quickly,” Danica said as she rose, “get your sword. Elias
is in trouble. The palace is under attack, as we speak.” Lar eyed her as she
tore off her shift and pulled on riding pants. She turned to him. “For the love
of God, Lar, if you’ve ever trusted me, trust me now!”

Scant a minute later, Lar met her in the hall, having donned
boots and ring mail and wielding a greatsword, which, after many hours of
training with the Redshields, he had adopted as his preferred weapon. Danica
turned her back to him, and he quickly cinched the studded leather armor her
brother had acquired for her. Without a further word spoken between them they
took off down the hallway at a flat run, fear and determination chasing close
behind.

†

Eithne Denar looked on as Bryn paced. She still wore
her long-practiced neutral expression, but her thoughts raced along with her
cousin, for when Ogden burst into her chambers after midnight, she didn’t need
him to tell her that the Sentinels wards had tripped to know that the dark hour
they had feared most had arrived: The Scarlet Hand had struck directly for the
heart of Galacia.

She prayed the Redshields and Galacian Regulars proved their
equal, but hope danced with fear in her bosom, for Galacia’s standing army was
but a mere shadow of what it once was, and even with all her efforts to recruit
more men, the ranks remained low, numbering some 25,000 swords, a quarter of
which had been recalled to Peidra. In any case, if the guard could not
safeguard her, her musings would prove moot for she would die before the Regulars
could be raised from the barracks they shared with the Blackshields on the east
side of the city.

“I should go and see if Ogden and Phinneas need help,” Bryn
said abruptly. She had stopped pacing, but bounced on her toes, consumed by an
energy she could not contain.

She started toward the door, but Captain Blackwell, who
stood sentry, offered no indication he intended to vacate his post. “My Lady,”
he said, “with your father’s last correspondence from Phyra two months ago and
now presumed missing, you and the queen are the last direct descendents of the
Denar line accounted for, and her grace has named no heir. By law…” he paused
and drew in a deep breath, “by law, if both of you perish the monarchy will
fall to House Oberon. The realm will fall into chaos—perhaps civil war. I am
sure that Ogden and Phinneas will return with their report as soon as they are
able.”

Bryn opened her mouth, a caustic retort on her lips and then
fell silent. She cocked her head to one side and took a step back on numb legs.
Her mind reeled. “You’re right we are the last blood descendents. The question
is how?”

“What do you mean?” asked Eithne.

Bryn turned to her cousin, and her queen. “Think about it. Your
father takes fever and dies leaving you the youngest Monarch in centuries. My
mother dies nursing your father, having caught the same sickness, the likes of
which the finest healers in Galacia couldn’t cure. She passes the illness onto
my father, who barely survives. Then, two years later, our fathers’ cousin
Jarvis and his children die in a mysterious fire at their hunting lodge.”

“Bloody Hell,” Eithne choked. “Five potential heirs, dead
within two years time. Could it be?”

Bryn’s face drained of color. “Those deaths were no accident
of fate,” she said with certainty. “This thing goes deeper then we had dared
fear. The Scarlet Hand has been systematically undermining the monarchy and eliminating
the Denar line for years.”

“And we would likely have remained clueless if it wasn’t for
a whiskey distiller and son of a retired marshal,” said the queen.

Bryn turned from Eithne and her thoughts went to Elias. She
wondered where the fledging Marshal was and how he fared. “Heaven’s own luck be
with you, Elias,” she whispered.

†

In the end it proved simple locating Elias. First
Danica and Lar followed the scrambling Redshields, then the trail of corpses,
and finally the din of pitched battle. They skittered to a halt at the hallway
that connected the courtier’s living quarters to the main thoroughfare that led
by north to the throne room, and by south to the great hall. Here where
security was the tightest bodies littered the floor in an orgy of gore. Tangles
of royal guardsmen lay strewn at impossible angles, bodies jagged with wounds,
faces blistered and blackened in grotesque parodies of human countenances, or
in some cases not a single wound but with the grey pallor of the long dead. Amidst
the Galacians some few men attired in loose, black pants and black tunics
numbered among the slain.

As the two stood aghast at the obscene carnage before them a
pair of northmen skidded to a stop, weapons poised to strike the stupefied
Danica and Lar.

Abruptly one of the northmen raised a hand to stay his
companions. “No,” he said and nodded at Danica, “this one bears the mark of House
Senestrati. Leave them.”

Without a further word the Ittamar vanished down the hall
toward the throne room.

The encounter snapping her from her stupor, Danica turned to
Lar and said, “The attack is pushing toward the throne room, and then on to
royal wing beyond and the queen’s Chambers.” Instead of following their
would-be attackers, Danica started in the other direction.

“We have to stop them,” Lar said as he chased after her, the
revulsion in his gut melting and giving way to red rage.

“The route they take passes through the inner courtyard and
onto to the main entrance to the throne room where the Whiteshields are
posted,” Danica managed around deep breaths as she ran as hard as she could. She
found herself revising her opinion on Elias’s mandate that they all adopt a
fitness and combat training regimen. “If we take the servants’ corridor…we can
approach the throne room…by the north entrance in almost half the distance…and
head them off.”

It’s what Elias would do, she added to herself.

Unmasked

Elias gained the throne room via the servant’s entrance
to discover a handful of Ittamar barraging the reinforced, Sentinel-warded
doors that led to the queen’s wing with ragged blasts of puce magic. Some dozen
of the palace guard littered the floor, armor scorched or else rent by
enchanted steel. Blood collected on the marble flagstones in black pools.

Despite the lump of fear that coalesced into a hard, jagged
piece of rock in his chest the Marshal drew himself up to his full height and
took a step into the room. “You’re a far way from home,” he said casually, “I’m
sure you’re tired. Why don’t lay your arms down, Handsmen.”

The Northerners turned to him as one. One of the pale
figures laughed aloud and made a gesture with his hand as he uttered a guttural
word. The illusion warbled and then dissolved, revealing a group of men wearing
black tunics and black studded leather armor. Another of the uncovered Handsmen
slid out from his throng and said, “You are outnumbered. Surrender now and our
Lord may yet deign to take mercy on you.”

As the Senestrati spoke his eyes flicked to the northern
entrance. Elias followed his gaze and saw another half-dozen men with the
aspect of the Ittamar materialize from the court entrance to the throne room,
via the Crown’s Council Chamber. The Marshal turned back to his antagonist who said,
“You have lost Marshal. Kneel before your new masters or die where you stand.”

The solid mass of fear in Elias’s bosom melted into molten ore
in the sudden fire of his rage as he looked on the insolent face of the enemy that
had eluded him so long and cost him and his so very much. If he was to die this
day then he would sell his life dearly. “Not ever,” the Marshal said and
charged into battle.

As he tore toward his enemies Elias reached desperately
within, struggling to summon whatever power he might have at his disposal. His
grasp of the arcane was yet sparing at best, but he would need every last
resource at his disposal if he hoped to have a chance against so many.

Faced with certain death, a peculiar calm stole over Elias
and he slipped into a trancelike state. He reacted out of instinct, sliding
across the floor in long, sinuous strides, whirling and dipping to avoid a hail
of energy bolts, and cutting with each step. He didn’t so much as pause as he
swept through the Scarlet Hand’s ranks.

He heard his father’s voice echo in his mind, summoned
mystically from the deep recesses of his consciousness.

When you are outnumbered you must always take the
offense, because it will not be expected, and you must move in forms that are
unconventional. You cannot stop stepping from form to form for then your
enemies will close in on you and corner you. Maintain your momentum. Control
the flow of the battle.

Elias spun on a heel, crouching low, to parry a blow as a
masked figure snuck up on his flank. He resumed his forward course with a
couple of syncopated side steps, cutting out the legs of another combatant.

You needn’t strike a fatal blow to take a man out of the
fight. Such is the way in a large battle. When you don’t have the luxury of
engaging a single enemy, cut a wrist here, a knee there, or buy time with a
well placed kick. But remember this above all: Always step, and never, ever,
stop cutting.

Elias’s sword clashed with another in a shower of sparks as the
blue alloy of his blade met a Senestrati’s dark-tempered steel with concussive
force. He stepped in and to one side, redirecting his foe’s blade, throwing him
off balance, and then with a snapping kick crushed his adversary’s kneecap.

Elias tumbled around the reeling Senestrati and cut,
severing his sword arm at the elbow. He somersaulted to avoid a bolt of energy
and picked up a dark-steel short-sword with his free hand.

It is a sound strategy when facing overwhelming odds to
fight with two weapons: a long-sword in one hand and a short-sword in the
other. A weapon in the off-hand is better than a shield because it can also be
used to feint and strike and will not throw off your balance, causing your arm
to tire as quickly, or limit your mobility.

If you can master the
Danse Mortum
, the battle
trance, you will be able to engage two separate enemies simultaneously, one
with each weapon.

Elias glided around the throne room like a ghost, descending
deeper into the battle trance, his mind freed from conscious thought. He acted
out of instinct and intuition, out of muscle memory and reverse osmosis, as the
countless hours of training with his father and the lessons therein interred
blurred and merged together in a crimson haze.

In his mind’s-eye flashed a vision, long secreted away in
his subconscious mind: He saw himself as a child sitting on his bed
cross-legged. His child self stared blankly ahead, eyes fixed glassily on some
distant point. His father sat in a chair by his bedside and spoke slowly, as if
a professor lecturing to his class.

The vision had taken but a moment and departed as quickly as
it had come. Still within the throes of the trance the remembrance quickly
passed from his mind with the barest of curiosities, as if the thought had been
conjured by some entity other than himself.

The
Danse Mortum
played on without Elias missing a
beat.

Danica skidded into the throne room, Lar close on her heels.
She quickly absorbed the carnage before her, reminiscent of an etching she had
once seen in a book of scripture depicting the seventh layer of Hell. An orgy
of severed limbs and bodiless heads lay strewn amongst corpses glistening with
exposed sinew and muscle. The smell of burnt flesh lingered in the air,
evidenced by blackened, shriveled, and smoking remains.

Revulsion quickened her pulse, yet something dark in her
thrilled, buried in the primordial recesses of her psyche, and a near sexual
excitement rushed through her body. With her thoughts thus occupied, Slade’s
influence over her grew and his shade slithered from the shadows between worlds
and into her consciousness.

Danica choked on her breath, for amongst the dead her
brother whirled, his sword cutting in graceful, sweeping arcs. Blood spattered
his face and throat, coated his arms, and sprayed from the rhythmic swinging of
his blade. Danica sensed that something critical had changed in her brother.

Bolts of blue fire issued from beyond the ruined doors that
led to the royal wing, spurring Danica into action. The gorge in her throat
receded and she ran across the chamber, closing the gap between herself and
Elias.

She cried out his name, dimly aware of Lar’s great-sword
flashing in the periphery of her vision.

Elias, hearing her voice, startled. As his conscious mind reasserted
control over his body the trance broke. Elias faltered as an intense fatigue washed
over him. He lifted his sword to parry a scimitar, clenching his teeth with
effort as the muscles in his arm burned in protest.

A blow caught him between the shoulder blades and he crumpled
to the floor.

Danica howled a curse as dread stole through her. Elias
rolled across the floor and tried desperately to gain his feet as Senestrati
swarmed him. Terror gave way to a cold fury as waves of anger and hate tore
through Danica in a frigid river of black emotion.

She grasped the first combatant she encountered on the crown
of the head with her bare hand. A river of black emotion roiled in her and
poured out in torrents of fell energy. An inhuman croak issued from the
Senestrati as he shrank in on himself, withering like an over-ripened plum. He
crumpled to the ground, leaving a fistful of hair in Danica’s hand, revealing a
shiny, cancerous pate littered with age spots.

An electric rush stole up Danica’s spine and through her
center, eliciting an ecstatic moan. With a languid flick of her wrist she cast
out black spikes of fell energy, conjured with the ease of thought, which bore the
strength of steel and the substance of shadow. A handful of Senestrati fell,
impaled by the dread magic. Those that yet lived were unsanctimoniously hacked
down by Lar.

Elias gained his feet, troubled by the delighted smirk Danica
wore and doubly so by the black magic she had summoned with such apparent ease.
However, given the circumstances, Elias put the thought aside and said, “Quickly,
the royal wing has been breached, we have to get to the queen.”

The trio stole for the entrance to the royal wing, toward reinforced
doors which now lay in ruin, scrambling over the tangled heaps of fallen
guardsmen and Senestrati. Their reprieve, however, proved short lived for as
Elias checked their retreat he saw yet another wave of the invaders sweep into
the room, led, impossibly, by the pristine Sarad Minrengi, Prelate of the
Church of the one God.

The Prelate’s hair, teeth, and eyes gleamed, the latter with
an unholy light. Sarad had traded in his white robes for a black tunic and
loose black trousers that flared at the hem, several inches short of his
ankles.

Then several things happened at once: Sarad extended his
hand, casting out a cone of indigo energy; a dozen Senestrati fanned out into
the throne room; “Get down, Elias!” someone cried.

A near diaphanous shield of energy formed in front of the
Marshal as he threw himself to a knee and intercepted the false Prelate’s blast
of magic. Elias looked behind him to discover that Ogden, Phinneas, and Captain
Blackwell had joined the fray from the royal wing even as his party had sought escape
into it.

“Elias...get...behind...me,” Ogden rasped between clenched
teeth.

Elias turned back to the shield Ogden had erected and saw
the wizard quickly losing ground to the Prelate. Elias was currently situated
between the shield and Ogden and if he didn’t move he would soon fall victim to
Sarad’s cone of indigo magic as Ogden’s shield was repelled ever backward.

Elias knew at once that that Odgen was no match for the
rapacious necromancer that had so eluded them, and in single combat the wizard
would fall, leaving the royal wing and the queen vulnerable. That was something
that Elias could not allow.

A ball of lead settled in his stomach and with a cold
certainty he knew what must be done.

Elias cast a last glance behind him and locked eyes with
Danica, who struggled to reach him even as Lar held her fast. No words came to
him, so he offered her a wan smile and a wink.

Elias Duana tore his eyes away from his sister and raised
his sword. He slipped into the void and relinquished his unconscious hold on
the dam in his mind that restrained his power. He surrendered to it and let the
magic flow through him.

He drove his sword into the granite flagstones. As the
enchanted steel met the stone he willed the stored magic from the energy barrier
he had absorbed to release. As he did so Elias cycled his own innate power into
the flow, augmenting it and increasing its strength by magnitudes.

Thus, Elias created a barrier, a wall of nearly impenetrable
force, more powerful yet than the one he had encountered outside his chambers. However,
he did not erect the barrier in front of him, for the confluence of Sarad and
Odgen’s magic would have disrupted his spell, so he instead cast the barrier
behind him, inside the doorway, thereby barring his own retreat and cutting
himself off from his allies.

Elias had succeeded in sealing the royal wing, but with
himself on the wrong side of the barrier.

Ogden’s spell winked out, and Sarad drew back his power and
cast an appraising look at the Marshal and his forcefield.

Elias slowly looked up and drew himself to his full height.
He knew that he had met the hour of his death. All that remained for him now
was to sell his life as dearly as possible so that he could purchase his allies
precious time with which to escape the palace.

Sarad raised a hand, bringing his advancing minions to a
halt, as Elias fixed his stony gaze upon him. The Marshal’s face betrayed no
emotion, but his eyes seemed to flicker and glower with preternatural energies.

“So,” Elias said, “it was you.”

“Yes,” Sarad answered without malice, “I am the Scarlet Hand.”

“Evil wears many masks, none as insidious as that of
virtue,” Elias said as he leaned on his sword, feigning exhaustion. Rage tore
through him, banishing his fatigue and hardening him for this, his final
battle.

Sarad sighed and folded his hands benignly. He had dreamed
of this moment ever since he had become aware of the prodigious upstart from
the south. Yet now that he had won and had the Marshal at his mercy, his
bloodlust cooled for he realized he could use a man like Duana. “We needn’t be
enemies, Duana. Evil is a simpletons concept—one designed to maintain order and
keep the masses docile. It is but a word that designates a difference of
opinion, opposed view points and values, a way to justify one’s actions. Good,
Evil, they do not exist except in our minds. My masters want the same thing you
want—they want what was taken from them back. Put up your sword, Elias.” Sarad
spread his hands and smiled thinly, a smile that spoke volumes:
this has all
been a misunderstanding; we’re the same really, you and I
.

A tingling sensation crept up Elias’s neck and spread across
the crown of his head, but he didn’t need the tell-tale pins-and-needles to
know that Sarad covertly worked his magic to subvert his will. He sensed a
feather light alien presence push at his thoughts and discerned an alteration
in the quality of Sarad’s voice.

Elias envisioned a stone wall in his mind, impenetrable and
unyielding, and poured his will into the image, creating a steadfast ward for
his psyche.

Sarad’s probe expunged from Elias’s consciousness abruptly
causing a slight backlash, which gave rise to a sharp pain in his temples and a
brief disorienting of his senses. Sarad did not allow Elias to witness his
discomfort, and only raised an eyebrow in response. The boy has some talent, he
mused.