In his rage, the demon-wizard was seemingly unstoppable.
Mikahl, who was still flying on the back of the Bright Horse, tried as hard as he could to catch Pael in the act. He raced across the city, from disaster to disaster, but was always just a bit too late to spot the wily demon- wizard. He dispatched a wyvern, and crumbled a horde of undead soldiers to the ground with a pulsing blast from Ironspike’s blade. He headed off a flank attack of Pael’s dead men, and saved a few hundred Blacksword soldiers from being surprised. He killed an uncounted number of undead soldiers, sending their tainted souls into oblivion with a touch of his blade, but he couldn’t catch Pael.
Finally, as the sun began to set, he decided that there was only one thing left for him to do. He landed the Bright Horse in the center of the destruction Pael’s earlier quake had caused, and dismounted.
At once, the flaming Pegasus was gone. Mikahl wobbled on unsteady legs, but quickly mastered himself. He called out, taunting Pael, using every insult he could think of. He even sheathed Ironspike, so that he was momentarily unprotected by its magic. Standing there, in his gore saturated robe, he felt for the first time the intense brunt of the pain that Ironspike’s magic had been masking from him. It was excruciating. His body hurt so badly that he could barely think, but he continued to call out the demon-wizard, man to man. Unprotected, and reeling from the unhealed injuries the Choska had inflicted on him back in the forest, he waited. It was all he could think to do.
As they raced across the continent on Claret’s back, the bindings Queen Willa had placed on Shaella, began to unravel. Hyden had to physically wrap an arm around her waist, and keep his other hand over her mouth to keep her from spelling him. Sometime in the middle of the night, he had Claret land them in an aromatic pasture, full of knee-high grazing grass. The hoof-beating rumble of a retreating herd of animals faded from them, leaving only the sounds of the insects, and the dragon’s heavy, slightly winded, breathing. The half moon high overhead, tinted the swaying carpet of grass beneath them with a yellowish light.
Hyden wrestled Shaella from her seat, and shoved her from the dragon’s back. She landed in an awkward heap, still clutching her staff as if it held the world in its crystal headpiece. As soon as she gained her feet, she began to cast a spell, but Claret’s big horned head, and toothy maw curled around, and loomed in the darkness beside her, reminding her of the reality of her situation. The casting of her spell stopped immediately. It was all Shaella could do to keep from retching from the sulfuric stench of the dragon’s hot breath. To her credit, she showed no fear whatsoever, only furious indignation over what she had let happen.
“I’ll ask you only once,” Hyden said down to her. “If you tell the truth, I’ll leave you to your fate. If you lie to me, then Claret here will gladly roast far more than the rest of the hair from your head. Am I being clear?”
Shaella didn’t respond. She turned, and glared at Claret’s huge, unblinking yellow eye. She knew that, through the link of the collar, the dragon could tell Hyden anything it knew. She cursed herself for carelessly sharing her feelings with the beast. Then, with a scrunched up face, she looked back up at her lover’s older brother.
Her face was tight, and dark with emotion, save for the pale scar that ran down the one cheek like a tear drop.
“Is he alive?” Hyden asked. “Did you betray him? Did he go into that dark place? Is he still alive?”
Having Hyden place the blame on her, caused her to stiffen, but his brotherly concern for Gerard softened her resolve more than just a little bit. If she truly loved Gerard, or what was once Gerard, then she couldn’t lie to his flesh and blood about what had happen to him.
“The Gerard you know is dead, but I love what he is now, no less than I loved him before.” Her answer was no lie, and through Claret, Hyden knew it.
“What has he become, then?” Hyden didn’t understand.
“Ask the dragon,” answered Shaella coldly. “Between my father’s insane magic, and the effects of the dragon’s yolk, what’s left of Gerard is barely alive, and trapped in the Nethers.”
She turned then, and strode stiffly off into the darkness, wiping the tears from her face as she went.
Hyden had to stop Claret from blasting her with dragon’s fire. He wasn’t sure if it was the tears she had shed, the look in her eyes, or the knowledge of the depth of her love for Gerard, but he felt in his heart, that she had been truthful, and he didn’t want to kill her.
She truly had, and still did, love his little brother. Part of Hyden wanted to kill her, and if Mikahl ever recovered from his injuries, he would probably never forgive him for not doing so. But what’s a Dragon Queen without a dragon? There would be time to deal with her later. He was about to be forced to seal his brother into a blackened void full of demon kind, evil spirits, and all other manner of dark things. If Mikahl couldn’t understand the show of compassion, then so be it. Gerard had loved Shaella. Through Claret’s memory he had seen the last moments of his brother’s life. His brother had loved her as well. How could he possibly kill her?
As Claret lifted back into flight, Hyden tried to clear the mess from his head. He knew what he had to do when they got to the Seal. If he could figure out how to dissolve the Night Shard into the carved symbols, he would have to do it. There was no sense in tormenting himself over it. With a deep sadness gnawing at his heart, he closed his eyes, and sought out Talon’s vision.
Outside of the city’s innermost wall, the wall that protected the palace itself, the city of Xwarda was a smoldering ruin. The moonlight, the wavering illumination from the scores of burning structures, and the thick smell of rotting corpses, lent the place a hellish air. The shrill, repetitive call of a wyvern, and the horrific pleas of a dying man only added to that sense. It was no place for the living, and every man who still drew breath, was doing his best to retreat to the pseudo safety of the castle grounds.
All along the top of the castle’s defensive wall, men raced to and fro. Archers held off the undead, while groups of exhausted soldiers retreated in from the city to the castle grounds. The Highwander Magi used fire, smoke, and a plethora of illusions to confuse the dark enemy, so that as many men as possible could get inside the gates.
The castle’s wall remained intact, but it didn’t give the feel of safety to those behind it anymore. Their final defensive fortification was the oldest, and least formidable of the three protective walls that ringed Whitten Loch and the palace. The other two walls had not just been breached, but had been pulverized – leveled in some places. Everyone knew that it was only a matter of time before this wall fell as well.
From above, Queen Willa surveyed the destruction. She slowly walked the circumference of the tower roof, trailing a hand idly along the tops of the crenels. To the south, the battle raged on. She could see the tiny glints of firelight reflected from the swords and armor in the streets, and along the alleyways, between the castle’s wall, and what was left of the secondary wall. Any minute, those men would get the order she had just given to retreat to the inner grounds. She hoped they lived long enough to find a way back in.
To the east, the devastation of Pael’s meteoric fireball stood out amid the otherwise unharmed section of mercantile shops and residences. At the eastern gates of the inner wall, an isolated scuffle between a hulking boar-like beast and a knot of men was raging under the gate tower’s bright lanterns.
To the north, and west, large groups of the undead were gathering in the shadows thrown by the burning structures, and reorganizing their numbers. Just inside the secondary wall, to the south, the ruin was empty, save for a lone figure, robed in dirty white. Willa could barely make it out as a person.
He was standing in the center, of what was nothing more than a huge circle of rubble. Upon seeing this, Talon leapt from Willa’s shoulder, and with widespread wings, glided down through the air, away from the tower. The sudden action from the long still bird, startled the troubled Queen.
King Jarrek “harrumphed” his presence from the top of the stair landing. He had been standing a few steps down, inside the boxy shelter, for a few long minutes, so that he could catch his breath before engaging Queen Willa. After fighting in the field all morning, and tending to Brady Culvert in the afternoon, the long journey up the stairs had taken its toll on him. He wasn’t a young man. When she turned, and greeted him, with a tired, and obviously forced smile, his exhaustion was forgotten, and he was taken aback by her plain, natural beauty.
She was the first pleasant sight his eyes had fallen upon, in what seemed like forever. The vision of his mother, and his betrothed mangled in the collapsed ruin of the Ladies’ Tower, back in Castlemont, quickly erased any mirth or admiration he might have started to feel. He moved his eyes from hers quickly, lest she see the sorrow, and lack of hope he was suddenly feeling. His gaze landed on the cloak covered body, lying dead in the middle of the roof. He started to comment, but thought better of it
She understood his silence, and walked back to the southern facing edge of the parapet. She was relieved to see the men there fighting their way back towards the inner wall. Her orders had been received, and relayed. Seeing that the retreat had been called, she turned to Jarrek.
