elite guard. It saddened him to think that the lad had been turned into one of Pael’s undead things, and he found he had to swallow back a lump, and blink away the moisture from his eyes, as he ran.
He caught up with them on an otherwise empty stretch of tree-lined cobble path, and was only surprised by the smell of the youngest, and most fearsome of his Redwolf guards.
The young man looked half dead, but he wasn’t. He held his helmet in his hands, and was only staring blankly at the two guardsmen, who had drawn their swords, and cornered him against the trees. His armor was filthy with gore and caked blood, and there was no sword in his scabbard. He looked haggard, and pale under all the grime. His bloodshot eyes were rimmed crimson, and sunken deep into their sockets. He made no move to attack, nor did he defend himself. When King Jarrek stepped up to him, Brady began to cry, and crumbled to his knees, sobbing. The young man only smelled of rotten flesh. Jarrek had no doubt that Brady was still alive. What he had come through to get there, or how he had gotten through the ranks of undead, and ended up at the castle’s inner gates, Jarrek couldn’t begin to guess, so he didn’t try. He helped the boy to his feet, and commanded the two gatesmen to bear the stench, take a place on each side of Brady, and escort him into the castle, to be cleaned up and cared for.
“It’s all right now, Brady,” Jarrek said the fatherly lie, to comfort his longtime friend’s obviously distraught son. “It’s going to be all right now.”
Jarrek just wished he could find away to believe the words himself.
When Mikahl suddenly turned, and pointed his sword at Pael, and let loose a pulsing magical blast, it took the demon-wizard by surprise. The energy hit Pael full in the face, sending him spinning head over boot heels backwards, off the Choska. The winged demon was forced to dive quickly to avoid a collision with Ironspike, or Mikahl’s Bright Horse. Pael righted his tumble and came to a hover in midair. His hands churned with blinding speed the makings of another spell. Mikahl listened to the symphony of the sword, and made ready. It pleased him, and gave him hope, to see blood dripping from the wizard’s nose and mouth.
The streak of white energy that shot from Pael’s hands struck the magical shield before Mikahl, with violent force. Though it brought him or his flaming steed no direct harm, it drove them backwards through the air with tremendous power. When the spell subsided, Mikahl returned the attack, and once again, Pael was caught in a moment of shock.
The demon-wizard couldn’t believe that Mikahl had survived the amount of raw energy he had just released at him. Pael’s own magical shield came up a heartbeat too late, and he found himself being yanked toward the ground, as if by a spring-loaded cable.
The Choska swept by Mikahl so close, that he felt its claws graze across his skin. He twisted, and stabbed at the beast with Ironspike’s white-hot blade, but only found thin air.
Pael somehow undid what the sword had done to him, just before he slammed into the earth. He hesitated there, just above a litter of charred, mangled bodies, trying to gather his composure. The Choska quickly flew around, and under him. Once he was back on it, and situated in a riding position, he twisted, turned, and scanned the skies. To his maddening surprise, the Squire, and the flaming Pegasus were nowhere to be seen.
For the first time, since he had absorbed Shokin’s Power into himself, Pael found that he was concerned, if not a little afraid. He directed the Choska back towards the city, cautiously searching the sky as he went. He spat thick, dark blood from his mouth with disgust, as his eyes darted frantically to and fro. Over there, then below him, he craned his neck, and twisted to see if he was being pursued now. He didn’t like this anymore. He should disappear too, he told himself. He could do that quite effectively, but not just yet. He wanted to make a lasting impression on the battlefield, so that his presence would remain fresh in the mind of the Witch Queen, and every single one of her Blacksword soldiers.
The Choska circled high, and then came down, streaking across the front of the castle. As he passed them, Pael blasted away the huge stained glass depictions that had shown over Xwarda for centuries. Like an explosion of jewels, millions of glittering, but deadly fragments, exploded out across the forest park, into and over Whitten Loch, and out into the inner city, where battle upon battle still raged wildly. Then Pael came around again. The Choska was flying at neck breaking speed. From its back, Pael sent a wicked jet of wizard’s fire out into the park. A huge swathe of trees, turned from green to brown, then to black, before erupting into bluish-green flames. Smoke began to fill the air, and nearly a quarter of the park was ablaze in demon’s fire.
Pael laughed maniacally at the potency of his display, and reveled in the rush of all his demonic power. Already, he had all but forgotten Mikahl and the Bright Horse. It was a costly mistake.
From out of nowhere, Mikahl shot across the Choska’s path. Pael ducked, and let his magical shields protect him. After they passed, it took the wizard a few, long moments to realize that most of the Choska demon’s head was no longer attached to its body. Ironspike had not only decapitated the creature, it had taken its soul.
The body was streaking towards the earth now, on twitching muscle-locked wings, while the head tumbled away in a spray of thick, black blood. Pael, now fully aware of the situation, transported himself away, just before the crash. The lifeless, bat-like hulk, hit the fountain lake in a splashing tumble of wings and claws. It skipped across the water, like a poorly thrown stone, and then crunched to a stop, against the retaining wall, near the swan shelter.
Queen Willa stood speechless, looking down from her tower top, as a cheer rang through her troops, and the dark blood of the winged demon-beast, slowly turned the clear pristine water of Whitten Loch a deep, inky black.
When she looked out at the many battles being fought across the inner city, she saw the afternoon sun play upon the millions of tiny colored fragments of stained glass. Such beauty amid such horror, she thought. The dead, the dying, and the ones, who refused to fall, attackers and defenders alike, hacking, stabbing, and killing each other, in the middle of a field, full of sparkling jewels.
As if in agreement with the sick irony of the scene before them, Talon cooed from her shoulder, and bobbed his feathered head.
Chapter 57
Throughout the remainder of the day, Pael appeared at various places around the city. He never stayed more than a moment or two at any given place, but where there was Pael, there was destruction. Unconcerned now with preserving any part of the inner city, or its ancient structures, and seething with anger and fear, Pael began to methodically decimate Xwarda.
In the southern section of the city, a few hundred Blacksword soldiers were finally getting a large group of the undead corralled, until Pael came. Where the men were driving back the undead, buildings on each side of the street exploded. Brick, stone, splintered wood, and glass shards cut into their numbers. Pael was gone before the dust settled, leaving nothing, but a bloody, pulpy mess on the cobbles.
A fresh battalion of Highwander soldiers, who had just been sent forth from the castle to help defend the breach Pael’s earlier quake had caused, met the demon-wizard at their destination. Lightning flared from his fingertip. One, then two, then four, then eight of the Blacksword soldiers fell. Again, Pael sent forth a shocking blast, and another, until the way was filled with nothing, but smoking corpses. A moment later, Pael was somewhere else.
A brutal swathe of bright, static energy evaporated an entire block full of men and buildings. A jet of wizard fire sent a group of cavalrymen’s horses stampeding blindly through the cobbled streets with smoldering flanks and sizzling manes. Anything that got in the way was trampled, and most of the riders were thrown, and forgotten.
In the northern section of the city, a hundred or more Highwander men laid in a slumped formation, spelled asleep, in the middle of the avenue. The huge, boar-like creature Pael had summoned was having a feast on their still living flesh. The men were powerless to stop it, and when the Hell Boar’s powerful teeth dug into them, and broke the spell they were under, it was too late.
In the east, a meteor-like sphere of flaming death came crashing down into the mercantile portion of Xwarda. More than four square blocks were leveled, and almost a thousand men were crushed, pummeled, or roasted.
