He hoped he had it right. He said it as he remembered it in his head. About the fifteenth time he recited it, the answer came to him. It was so easy, that it was startling. So simple, and yet so easy to complicate, that it was no wonder that no one had ever returned from this place.
A pyramid of ten: one, two, three, four, it added up to ten. From the bottom up, it was truly a pyramid: four, three, two, and one.
With confidence, he rapped four times on the door. After a moment’s pause, he rapped three times, then two, and finally one. With the final knock, Talon fluttered from the doorframe to his shoulder.
The door creaked open on a room, formed of the same white marble as the palace of Xwarda. The circular tower chamber was dark, but the cracks in the ill fitting window shutters were letting in the wavering orange glow of some distant raging inferno.
Hyden knew he was in Pratchert’s Tower now, for on the floor, was a thick, lush rug, made from the skin of an arctic bear. It was the same arctic bear that Pratchert’s father had killed for his King a few hundred years ago.
Chapter 55
The Choska demon’s mouth came snapping down at Mikahl, but a great white bundle of furred aggression leapt into the space between him and those slavering jaws. The teeth still found his flesh, but their force was blunted by the wolf’s breaking body. Grrr had sacrificed himself, and the sorrow Mikahl felt for the loss of such a beautiful, and proud creature, almost outweighed the physical pain he was in.
Almost.
Mikahl suddenly sat up.
The memory of the Choska demon’s toothy mouth, and Grrr’s bloody body faded from his mind quickly. The rush of Ironspike’s magic had been charging his blood for hours, and now his veins were full of pure liquid lightning.
In his confused, yet alarmingly aware mind, a chorus of angelic voices called out to him in a symphony of vast and consuming sound. Each voice sang out a different melody of possibility. One voice sang of defenses: of a shield, of armor, of a field of force to hold something in place, or deflect an object. He wasn’t sure how he understood the glorifying music, but he did. Another voice sang of binding and constraining; another of finding, of searching and summoning. A melody, that was rather louder than the rest of the symphony, sang of fire blasts and concussive energy, of streaking missiles and lightning strikes. There was healing strength, and a whole percussive section of portal commands, but the sound that flared into a solo melody of its own, over the rest of the harmonious din, was the voice that sang of the “Bright Horse.”
What it was, and why it was coming for him, he had no idea, but somehow Mikahl had called out to it, and now it was here.
Queen Willa angrily watched the darkened battle in the distance, from the crenellated roof of the Royal Tower. She wanted to be there, amongst her soldiers, so badly that it was driving her mad.
Andra, General Spyra, and the Mayor had forbidden her from joining in the battle at the outer wall. She had a duty to stand guard over the Wardstone, and to fight to protect it from those with evil intent. The mother lode of the magical bedrock was more or less under the palace, and she knew that it was what the demon was after.
She doubted that Pael knew it, but one could actually place their hand on the core of the powerful stuff along the bottom of Whitten Loch. Had he known this, he could have just slipped into the castle grounds, gone for a swim, and saved himself a lot of trouble.
There were other ways to access the Wardstone too. The mine had several passages, some big enough for wagons, but all of those tunnels opened inside or near the inner walls. If she were to go fight, and fall at the outer or secondary wall, it would only invite disaster. She was the last line of defense, and it irked her, because all she could do at the moment was watch Xwarda burn while her men were being overrun.
A huge section of the city to the west and south was burning away. She stood there, feeling helpless, as portion after portion of the outer wall crumbled and was breached. The enemy was inside now. Her soldiers were trying desperately to get back to the secondary wall, but many of them couldn’t.
Large groups of her Blacksword army were trapped in the city, fighting for their lives. It was all she could do to keep from rushing out to them on some wild magical spell to join them in their fight. Already, she was using her witchy spells to throw great blooms of light into the sky, so that her people could see the airborne enemies, and have the chance to defend themselves from them.
Suddenly, from the ground directly below the tower, a bright light flared. She prayed to all the gods that Pael hadn’t blasted the castle proper already.
She climbed up into a crenel, leaned out, and looked down to see what it was, but couldn’t gain the vantage point she needed. From behind her, the guardsman who was posted at the roof landing of the stair house indicated that a message was being called up. She climbed down, and ran to the small hut that kept the weather out of the stairwell, and strained to listen. She couldn’t make out the words, but knew that they had something to do with whatever it was that had illuminated the front of the castle so brightly.
Impatiently, she hurried back over to the edge of the parapet. Whatever it was, it was shining so brightly now, that the forested park, and the fountain pond were almost fully illuminated and throwing long shadows out, and away from the castle. She saw groups of her reserve soldiers crouching from the radiance among the trees and pathways in the park. They were meant to be hidden, and now they squirmed to find the shadows the light cast through the trees.
Instinctively, like a protective mother, Willa scanned the sky, and was relieved to see that neither the Choska, nor the dragon was overhead at the moment to see them.
The guard at the top of the landing called out to the Queen, repeating the message he’d just gotten from the man posted below. His voice betrayed his hope and excitement.
“The young western King has ridden through half the castle on the back of a winged horse made of lightning and flames!”
She wouldn’t have believed it, had she not been looking down upon Mikahl and his impossible steed as the words were being spoken.
It wasn’t exactly as she had dreamed, but there he was, racing around Whitten Loch on one of the cobbled paths. Mikahl spurred the horse into a leap, shimmering wings of white-hot fire unfurled, and the flaming Pegasus took flight. Raised high in Mikahl’s right hand, was the radiant sapphire blade of Errion Spightre. She couldn’t help but feel the hope his presence brought with it. As if to give that hope substance, as if the whole world rode with the young King of the Realm, dawn broke behind her, lighting the tips of the world beyond the castle’s long shadows, in hues of coppery gold.
Mikahl cleared the innermost wall, and winged off to join the battle, then all of a sudden, all the hope that Queen Willa had just been feeling, was sucked from her chest, leaving behind an empty void of despair.
The dawn’s light had revealed something else in the sky that glittered. The massive red dragon, bearing a tiny, black haired feminine figure, came swooping down out of the sky towards Mikahl, like a striking snake. Its intention was so obvious, and its bearing so true, that Willa had to look away.
The young King seemed but a fly to a falcon, compared to the massive beast that was about to consume him with its fiery breath.
Vaegon whirled, using the grip Targon had on his shirt, to help keep him balanced. He had almost fallen into the gap left by the missing section of ramp. Once he was steady, the wizard released him, and began casting a spell.
Vaegon put himself between the handful of stinking attackers, and Targon’s prone stance and readied himself to protect them both, with his bare hands, if necessary. A flurry of friendly arrows came streaking up from below, but only served to slow the charge of the undead for a few heart beats.
Vaegon resolved himself to fight to the death – not an easy resolution to make for an elf. He went to punch the unprotected, half melted face of one of the things raring to swing a blade at him, but once again, Targon yanked him out of the way.
The undead soldiers had been struck still in their present postures, but their forward momentum was still
