The Lady's Man (21 page)

He could have given into his pain then and there and cried out. But that way lay death, and so instead he somehow managed to keep swinging with the great sword, putting the pain behind him. Even as he fought on he knew that he was in trouble. He could feel the blood trickling down his chest, flowing down his leg and filling his boot, and blessings of the Lady or not, he knew he could not last long. But far from making him despair, that knowledge filled him with strength. Righteous anger flowed through his veins to replace the blood he was losing.

He was going to die if the battle continued for too long, that much was certain, but he refused to give in to the fear. Instead he became angry and with it strong beyond even his normally enhanced might. He was determined to kill every undead dwarf that moved or burnt before they harmed any more of his comrades.

Without a second thought, he kicked Crysal in the flanks, and charged. It was foolish in the extreme. He was quite probably dying, his horse was wounded, and they were completely outnumbered while heading into the land where the tunnel vipers still lay burning, but he'd had enough of simply defending himself. Pushing himself somehow beyond the pain, beyond both hope and despair, he Yorik let the righteous anger and the need to defend his brothers fill him, and like the berserk wild heart he had once pretended to be, took the battle to the undead.

It must have caught the enemy by surprise, as he simply mowed down a dozen dwarves in his path even as he broke through their front lines and headed directly for the archers, moving like the wind. He was a man possessed, and no mere dwarf could stop him, alive or undead. Perhaps the distant archers understood that, for they made a classic mistake as they turned their attention from the rest of the paladins to him, leaving their ground troops undefended. It was a mistake their troops soon paid for as behind him he heard the thumps as thousands of great swords removed dwarven heads with a single mind, and he tried not to laugh in savage triumph.

Then hundreds if not thousands of arrows were flying directly at him, and he knew he would be hit. Yet he never ducked or tried to avoid them. Apparently he didn't need to and with the small part of his mind that was still working, he watched the arrows all fly directly past him, as all unbelievably missed. Without knowing how or why, or even really caring, he watched as the arrows all came directly at him, and then seemed to veer aside at the last instant, often to bury themselves in their own undead ally's backs. Not that they cared either. Even those he didn't managed to behead on his way through didn't seem to notice the arrows in their backs. Nor were they slowed by them.

But he had no time to reflect on that. In barely a dozen heartbeats he had broken completely through the centre of the entire dwarven army and was heading directly at the archers on the small rise behind them, blood in his eyes. Nothing else he knew was as important as taking out the archers, for without them, their troops were defenceless. The archers seemed to understand his plan as well, and he watched ever more of them aim their long bows at him, each taller than the dwarf holding it, and fire their arrows directly at him. Yet they all somehow missed again, and unlike the elves, they were nowhere near as fast in reloading. The bows were simply too big for them. They had traded the ease of use of their usual crossbows, for the range and power of the longbow, and right then it wasn't looking like a good trade.

That was all the time he needed, and laying his great sword out flat like a fiery scythe, he wheeled and guided Crysal to gallop flat out alongside their lines, and began beheading them as fast as he was able. It was ridiculously easy as the dwarven archers – completely unconcerned by the concept of being killed – continued to focus on reloading and taking aim, while dozens and dozens of their heads fell to the ground and rolled away in flames.

It was a strike as nothing he had ever imagined; as nothing that should ever have happened. Archers were always vulnerable in hand to hand combat, and therefore never stood their ground against an attacker. They should have fled and reformed their lines. But these undead bowmen were completely defenceless and without the least sense of self preservation. They apparently didn't care enough to try and either resist or run, and instead just stood there, in perfect formation, calmly notching their arrows as his sword raced towards their necks. Neither did their flesh give the slightest resistance to his great sword, the Lady's magic shining strongly through it. Nearly a hundred had surrendered their heads to his flaming sword, and the rest were on fire by the end of his first run.

Reaching the end of his first sweep, Yorik wheeled sharply and brought Crysal around to make a second run, while another few hundred arrows sailed right past him. This time they hadn't been cast aside by whatever magic it was that protected him. The sheer speed of his course change had caused them to miss. The undead dwarven archers were nowhere near as quick or as smart as their elven counterparts as they struggled with bows far larger than them. But he was grateful as that miss was all he needed to make a second charge along their back line in perfect safety, and let a further seven or eight dozen undead heads hit the ground flaming.

Wheeling for a third time he looked closely at the undead dwarven archers and saw that nearly half of them were already headless burning hulks, unable to attack, see, or even run. More importantly, they were unable to defend their comrades, and he heard the sound of more of their troops being dismembered behind him, while some of them had fled the attack on the Order just to hunt him. It was the sound of victory, and he held it to him as he made his third run along their lines, this time directly through their middle. There were only two lines left. Striking left and right with incredible speed, he began taking out all of those still standing, while seemingly still invulnerable to their arrows.

It was a much slower attack, given that he had two lines of archers to destroy at once, but still far more successful than his first two, and he watched with awe as a part of him began counting the fallen and measuring them in the hundreds. He had become a hurricane of death to the undead. The might that filled him he knew, wasn't his own. It wasn't even human. Only the Lady herself could grant such awesome speed and strength, and he was grateful. With every step that Crysal took, he wiped out two more heads, one to the left, one to the right. His sword was a blur in his own hand, and the pain of his wounds was completely gone. So was the tiredness that had begun before in his arms, and the breath that had become great gulps of air before, sang sweetly in his lungs.

In time, and he had no idea how much as somewhere during the fight he'd lost all track of time, he reached the end of the line and turned back to survey the damage he had wrought. More than three hundred headless archers were standing still in their formation like trees, burning brightly, while many others were wandering headless and in flames as they tried to fire arrows without having a target to aim at. It was a spectacular sight, and the soldier in him knew that the enemy was broken. Without their covering fire the dwarven foot soldiers were vulnerable, and even as he turned to see, he could see the lines of gold breaking through the last of the undead. Surely twenty or thirty thousand dwarves at least had been slaughtered, never to walk again.

Strangely though, he felt no need to go to them. It wasn't that they didn't need his help, though they didn't, it was that there was something else he had to do. Someone else he had to find. Without a second thought he kicked Crysal in the flanks again, and had her galloping up and over the other side of the small rise to where he somehow knew his true prey lay. The undead necromancer that had raised this army from the ground.

It didn't take long to find him. Far from hiding, he too like his undead army, was out in the open, hidden only by the rise of the hill between him and the army. And he was busy trying to raise his dead soldiers. He was out of luck. The army was on fire and in pieces; they couldn't follow his directions when they couldn't even see their heads to put them on. And besides, Yorik had no intention of letting him try.

This necromancer wasn't alone however but was surrounded by about a dozen others, all equally determined to raise their dead army, which was even then turning to ashes on the other side of the hillock. But with that army in flames they didn't have much chance of that. And with him having spied them, they were completely out of luck.

The instant he sighted them, Yorik charged with all the speed Crysal could give him, and the mere hundred paces between them became none in mere heartbeats. Unlike the other undead, these ones showed at least a trace of awareness in their eyes as they looked up to see him descending on them. Higher order undead perhaps? That was if there was such a thing. Were they afraid? Even a little? He didn't know. But then it didn't matter. What he did know was that they were distracted by his arrival, which was something none of the others had been before. And distraction for any mage, living or undead, was a disaster as their magic failed.

Their awareness of him wasn't enough to save them either, and like the others he beheaded the outer mages with his brightly burning sword before they could do anything to defend themselves. Flaming bolts from his almost forgotten crossbows that had been draped over Crysal's neck took out a few more just as he wheeled Crysal around for a second charge, and whatever they might have hoped to do was forgotten as they burst into flame. Then he drew his great sword once more and the rest of the guarding necromancers were beheaded on his return run.

After that he was left alone with the chief necromancer, surrounded by the still standing bodies of his comrades, all of whom were on fire and many of whom were headless as well.

The leader of the undead mages turned out to be far different from his comrades however. He was completely aware of the danger facing him, and prepared for it. From nowhere he drew a flaming black sword that sent a feeling of dread up and down Yorik's spine, proving that he was going to defend himself. He might be dead, but apparently he didn't want to die again.

“Lady!”

The feeling of dread that had filled him suddenly vanished as the Lady took hold of him completely. Until then she had mostly guided and helped him, lending him of her strength and will, but suddenly Yorik became a passenger in his own body. He didn't mind, in fact he was grateful for her presence as he watched his arms raise the great sword, aim it directly at the heart of the enemy, and send forth a lance of flame directly at him. It was deflected by an invisible wall of protection, much as the one that had protected Yorik from the arrows, but not a strong one. Not strong enough anyway. Almost immediately the undead's wall began crumbling, and he watched the flame grow closer and closer to the creature’s unbeating heart.

Seeing his approaching doom, the necromancer screamed, the first sound Yorik had ever heard made by any of the undead. And then he did something completely unexpected. He tried to flee. That caught Yorik by surprise as not one of the undead had ever done that before. None had shown the least sign of fear, or any other emotion. Still, this one was afraid. So afraid that he forgot everything else in his haste to flee. His great black flaming sword was dropped into the ground where it quickly became a dark, foetid puddle of slime, while he turned and tried to run. His spells were forgotten, and he even turned his back on an enemy in the midst of battle; a mistake that almost no one ever made twice. But he had no chance. The flame from Yorik's sword suddenly changed from golden to white hot and then broke through the necromancer's own invisible shield to skewer him through the heart from behind.

The result was an explosion of heat and light that turned the dark mage to fire and ash in the space of a heartbeat. Even his scream as he died – finally truly died – was cut short by the sheer power of the flames. And then those flames expanded out like a bonfire, to absorb all his undead mage assistants, who also became ash before they could regenerate. The great black puddle that had once been his dark sword, was consumed by the cleansing fire as was the very ground beneath it, and quickly Yorik and Crysal backed off, scorched by the heat of it so close to them. But they only backed off a little way. Twenty paces or so. Far enough away so that the flames still warmed them without burning, but close enough to see what the fire left behind. And for some reason it was important to see.

Such was the heat of the fire that in less than a minute it had consumed itself, and all that was left was a massive pile of embers and ash on the ground. In fact the ground itself had somehow also caught fire. But that was enough for she who had dwelt within him, as she saw with her own eyes that the ash, the fire, and the very ground was clean. Cleansed once more of the evil that had possessed it. Yorik felt her satisfaction as if it was his own, and her thanks as somehow like a mother, she kissed his forehead before she left.

He felt her passing from him as a glorious wind leaving him, with a whisper of thanks and love on it, and then suddenly knew the emptiness as he realised he was once more alone. It was a bitter moment as the man inside him suddenly understood the concept of loneliness almost as if he had been abandoned. Yet he also knew it wasn't a choice. The Lady could not stay with him here forever, and he could not join her in whatever dimension in which she lived. It was something he had experienced once before, and something that all his training had at least tried to prepare him for. But his truest salvation from heartbreak was neither of those things. It was the pain as the knowledge of his wounds returned to him.