Swordmage (40 page)

“Are the ghosts going to follow us down there?” Kirr asked.

“I hope not, Kirr. We’re trying to stay a step ahead of them,” Geran answered. “Down you go!”

The stairs spiraled down forty feet or more, lit by dimly glowing light-globes the Shieldsworn refreshed every few

months with minor magic. The stairwell was cramped, cold, and dark, but Geran could still see enough to lead the way down. Below the staircase stood a large hall with a low, barrel-vaulted ceiling. This chamber was designed to house scores of warriors in full kit, since the postern gate—the castle’s small back entrance, from which a force inside could sally in strength to attack besiegers from an unexpected direction—was close by. Geran halted at the foot of the stairs and guided the others into the room as they appeared. “Over there,” he said.

The harmach limped badly when he reached the bottom step. He grimaced in pain. “Stairs pain me,” he explained. “You shouldn’t wait on me, Geran.”

The sorcerer Sarth brought up the rear, watching carefully behind him with his rod at the ready. “We must keep moving,” the tiefling said. “They are not far behind us.”

Geran did not pause. He hurried back across the hall and ducked into the short passage leading to the postern. Normally the door was securely locked and barred, since the Shieldsworn didn’t keep any guards there, but when he turned the corner he found the postern standing open. It seemed that he wasn’t the only person in Griffonwatch to think of the side gate. He started forward, but Hamil reached out and caught his sleeve.

Something seems awry here, the halfling said silently. Douse the nearest lights, and wait here a moment. I’ll take a look.

“Go ahead,” Geran said softly.

He retreated a few steps and covered the light-globes gleaming in the postern passage. Hamil glided into the shadows and slipped out the heavy iron door; even though Geran knew the halfling was there, he couldn’t see or hear him. He motioned for the rest of the small company to hold still and wait.

Thirty heartbeats later, Hamil returned. “It’s an ambush,” he said quietly. “Several of the castle folk lie dead just outside. There are a dozen Veruna armsmen outside, ready for someone to blunder out the door.”

Geran’s fist tightened on the hilt of his blade. The extent of Sergen’s perfidy was now clear. “So Sergen sent the specters to slay everyone in the castle then made sure to have his armsmen waiting by the gates to cut down anyone who managed to flee?” he snarled. “He’s a traitor and a murderer, just like his father was.” He looked at Natali and Kirr, waiting with their mother. With Hamil and Sarth, he might have a chance to cut his way free of the trap, but he could hardly lead the children or his older relatives into a fight.

“We’ll have to try some other way,” the harmach said wearily. “The main gate, I suppose.”

“If those villains are watching the postern, Lord Harmach, there’s not a chance in the world they’ll not watch the main gatehouse too,” Mirya pointed out. “Is there any other way out of the castle?”

“There are a couple of places where a rope might be lowered from the walls, but I am not sure if the children could manage it,” the harmach said. “Or if I could, in all honesty.”

“We could wait here,” Erna said. “The specters might not come to this part of the castle.”

“Inadvisable,” Sarth said. He stood by the foot of the stairs, head cocked to one side to peer upward as far as he could. “It’s only a matter of time before the ghosts descend to this level.”

“We’ll have to break out, then,” Geran decided. “Sarth, do you have any spells that could protect us outside?”

The tiefling frowned. “A spell of fog. But it would blind us as well.”

“It’ll have to do.” Geran turned to his uncle. “Hamil and I will try to deal with the men waiting outside. Wait inside the postern as long as you can.”

Harmach Grigor nodded. “Good luck, Geran,” he said quietly.

The swordmage moved close to the doorway and muttered the incantation of the dragon scales to guard himself as best he could. A shimmering stream of purple-glowing diadems formed around him, rippling in the shadowy light. Hamil

drew up close beside him, a dagger in each hand.

The halfling looked up at Geran and said, “I have some doubts about this plan.”

“Best not to dwell on it, then.” Geran looked over at Sarth.

The tiefling raised his clawed hands and softly chanted the words of his spell. Billows of blue mist began to rise from the ground, rapidly filling the doorway and spilling into the night outside. The swordmage waited a moment for the fog to thicken more and steeled his nerve. Then he stepped into the fog and felt his way out the postern gate. The gate opened onto a small landing near the foot of Griffonwatch’s hill, about halfway around the castle from the main gate. Worn stone steps covered by a low wall descended twenty feet to an old wrought-iron fence. Beyond that stood a tangle of alders, blueleafs, and blackberry thickets, a small woodland that ringed the eastern side of the castle’s hill. Geran could barely see the steps under his feet, and he kept one hand on the wall to navigate through the mist. It was cold, and the steps were slick with frost. Then, abruptly, he descended out of the tattered blue mist and caught sight of the armsmen standing nearby in Veruna’s green and white.

“There!” one of the mercenaries shouted. “Shoot him down!”

Several men raised crossbows at Geran, but the swordmage quickly ducked under the wall. Bolts snapped and hissed through the air, clattering against the rocky foot of the castle or striking the stone steps. He risked a quick peek over the wall to get a better look. The Veruna men were arranged in a loose half-ring under the eaves of the dark grove beyond the fence. Thrusting his fear and anger aside, the swordmage fixed in his mind the arcane symbols of the spell he needed and spoke its single word: “Seiroch!”

The strange, cold lurch of teleportation jarred him, and he felt as if he were falling—but then he stood in the middle of the Veruna armsmen, who were busily drawing back their crossbows and making ready another shot. Geran snarled

and stabbed the nearest man through the throat and then bounded past the crumpling mercenary to slash off the arm of the next one in the line. A crossbowman behind him fired at his back, but the amethyst scales of his protection spell deflected the quarrel away from him. He ignored the attack and kept going. The third man he reached had the time to drop his crossbow and draw a sword. Geran launched a furious attack, raining slashes left and right against the Veruna armsman. The mercenary parried the first few and attempted a counterattack, but Geran threw up a lightning-quick block of his own and spun inside the man’s guard to slash his belly badly. The Veruna man shrieked and reeled away.

“Watch it, Geran!” Hamil paused by the iron fence, took aim, and hurled a dagger at an armsman hurrying up behind Geran. The blade took the man just under his hauberk, biting deeply above the knee. The charging soldier stumbled and rolled in the underbrush with a savage oath. Hamil scrambled over the fence, only to be knocked spinning to the ground by a crossbow bolt that caught him just before he was going to drop down on the forest side.

“Hamil!” Geran cried. He took a step toward the place where his friend had fallen, but Hamil’s silent voice stopped him.

I’m not badly hurt. Keep at them, Geran!

Geran turned back to the Veruna armsmen around him. He counted at least a dozen more men facing him. Swords in hand, they circled closer, ready for him now. Behind the Mulmasterite mercenaries stood a hooded man in elegant black finery. Sergen Hulmaster stepped out of the shadows, his dark eyes glittering. He carried a crossbow in one hand and a long, slender rapier in the other. “I didn’t like that arrogant little popinjay very much,” he remarked. “I intended for you to die in your cell, Geran. I must tell you that I’m a little disappointed that you’ll meet your end with steel in your hand. On the other hand—” Sergen paused to toss away his empty crossbow and drew a poniard with his left hand—”I’m more than a little tired of hearing tales about your heroics. Tonight

I’ll repay many old slights and insults. I’ve always known that you’re not the paragon of virtue and skill everyone seems to think you are.”

Geran smiled coldly. “You’ll meet me blade to blade, Sergen? Your mercenaries will stand aside?”

The black-garbed lord laughed. “My sense of fair play is not so well developed as that, Geran. They’ll stand aside only as long as I’m winning.” He looked at the Veruna mercenaries standing nearby and said, “If he wounds me, cut him down.” Then he came to meet Geran with his rapier in hand.

T\VENTY-SiX

eran did not temember Sergen as a swordsman of much skill, but he hadn’t seen him with a blade since Sergen was fifteen or sixteen. Still, the fact that Sergen offered to meet him suggested that the traitor had at least some reason to feel confident, and so Geran resolved to be cautious. Should I try for a swift victory, even though the armsmen might overwhelm me? he thought. Or do I play for time and try to draw things out—knowing that every moment I’m delayed, the wraiths may find the others?

Sergen seemed to read his uncertainty and grinned at Geran’s indecision. “You must be wondering just how skillfully you should fight,” he said. “A difficult puzzle, I suspect. I am curious to see how you’ll resolve it.”

“Difficult?” Geran stalked closer, watching Sergen’s eyes. If it were only his own life at stake, that would be one thing. But Sergen was responsible for authoring a massacre, and should he fall, Sergen or his men would see to it that none of the Hulmasters survived the night. “No, not especially. Whatever else happens tonight, you’ll regret crossing blades with me. If it costs me my life to send you from this world, then you’ll have little opportunity to profit from your treachery.”

He smiled coldly at Sergen and attacked, a simple thrust at the belt buckle. Sergen parried and riposted sharply; Geran parried in turn and gave a half-step before replying

twith a quick slash at Sergen’s face, which the council lord likewise parried. They traded thrusts and cuts furiously for several moments before the momentum of their strikes carried them past each other, and they exchanged places. >- He’s quick, Geran realized. Sergen was a good swordsman, though not as experienced as he was. However, his cousin was exceptionally fast—quicker than Geran, at least. Of all the natural gifts a swordsman desired, raw speed was certainly the most vital. Given equal skill, a fast man could beat a strong man if weight of armor was not a consideration.

“You’re more of a swordsman than I remember,” Geran admitted.

“You’re not the swordsman I feared,” Sergen replied.

He began the next exchange, lunging in to thrust with his rapier. Geran deflected the point with a sharp ring of steel; Sergen recovered and attacked again, and Geran parried that one as well; and then rather than recover Sergen suddenly leaped in close and stabbed with his poniard. Geran knocked the dagger’s point away with his forearm and received a shallow, bloody cut from its razor-sharp blade despite the spells protecting him. He put his shoulder down and shoved Sergen back out of range. The blades flew swiftly in the moonlight, ringing shrilly. Geran tested his cousin’s defenses low, then high as they circled through the brush. As best he could, he kept an eye on the Veruna soldiers who ringed them.

He managed to turn Sergen around again, so that he could see the castle’s postern gate over Sergen’s shoulder. It was difficult to tell with the tatters of mist still clinging to the doorway, but he thought he saw a furtive motion there— shadowy figures slipping down the steps. Geran redoubled the pace of his attacks, keeping Sergen and the Veruna armsmen focused on him. He knew a sword spell or two he could have used, but if he worked a spell, the Verunas around him might react. Grimacing in frustration, he fell back on his own skill.

“I think you’re holding back,” Sergen said between blows.

“Perhaps you’re not as fearless as you believe you are, dear cousin.”

“You forget where I studied,” Geran retorted. “I spent years in Myth Drannor, tutored by elf blademasters. You think you’re quick? I learned to fight against elves who’d make you look like a staggering drunk!” He parried several more blows and essayed a riposte of his own that Sergen caught on his poniard. “Speed’s a fleeting advantage, Sergen. When a man tires, he slows down. If you were going to defeat me with your quickness, you would’ve done it already. Now it’s my fight.”

“Your confidence is misplaced,” Sergen snarled. He launched a lightning thrust at Geran’s heart, which Geran parried awkwardly. Instantly Sergen recovered, circled his point under Geran’s blade, and thrust again—-falling into Geran’s trap. The swordmage’s awkward parry instantly became a short, brutal chop at Sergen’s sword arm as Geran twisted away from the thrust. His blade bit into Sergen’s arm just below the elbow and cracked bone. Sergen cried out and dropped his rapier, and then Geran nearly took his head off with the backhand stroke that followed. Sergen managed to duck under the blow, but not without suffering a great gash of his scalp and a jarring blow to the skull that sent him reeling to the ground.

Geran leaped past his stepcousin and immediately engaged the first of the Veruna armsmen he could reach. “Hamil!” he shouted. “Help if you can!”

He rushed past the man and found a brief clear space to speak another spell. “Ilyeith sannoghani” he cried, and his blade suddenly crackled with brilliant yellow sparks. Then several Veruna men beset him at the same time. Geran leaped and parried, thrust and slashed, and for ten heartbeats he was lost in the thick of a fight as dire as any he’d ever been caught in. A thrust at his heart was weakened just enough by his fading dragon scales to keep the point in the muscle of his chest, and then a hamstringing slash at the back of his knee buckled his leg but did not quite bring him down. He struck one man in a steel breastplate with his enchanted blade, and

a sharp flash of lightning seared the darkness; when Geran blinked his eyes clear, the man was lying on the ground with smoke curling from his ears. But more mercenaries pressed in around him.