It wasn’t an easy choice to make for him. The very act of getting into position went against everything he had ever learned about self-preservation – a subject of great importance to a wizard of his abilities and skill. He couldn’t fail to warn Queen Willa of the thing Pael had somehow become, for whoever or whatever it was now, it would sooner or later set its sights on the Wardstone foundation of Xwarda.
He couldn’t abandon King Jarrek either. He had no choice but to leave his body open and vulnerable to the physical. As risky as it was, it was his only choice. He was in a race to harness enough of the depleting magical force to cast a spell, before the demon-wizard took it all. Just like the attempt to break the siege, from here it was all or nothing.
The explosive blast of energy that accompanied Pael’s sudden appearance amidst the smoldering remains of Glendar’s pavilion shook the very earth like a quake. The world fell into a deeper sort of chaos as terrified horses bolted this way and that, and men fell to their knees, grabbing at the sides of their heads. Blood pulsed from the ear holes of any man or beast that had been close to Pael when he had come. Equilibriums were thrown off kilter, and a few men simply died from the concussion. One of the northernmost towers, up on the mountainside, tilted slowly, starting its slow, arcing fall down into the clustered buildings below. The battle had all but stopped. All eyes were drawn to Pael.
King Glendar and his men were behind Pael, and far enough back, that it only took a moment to get them and their horses back under control. The earth-shaking boom had scared them all senseless, save for Glendar. He had sensed Pael’s signature on the grand entrance, like a child senses his mother’s mood. The young King of Westland raised his fist, and let out a primal yell that trumpeted out what little bits of fear and doubt remained inside him. He had nothing to fear now. Pael was here!
The site of the wizard standing there, his arm stretched wide in his flowing black robes, the golden embroidered patterns on the belled sleeves and collar sparkling in the new sunlight that had just peaked over the mountaintops, was awe inspiring.
Pael’s right hand shot out towards Keedle, up on the wall, and a huge swathe of blazing white light flashed forth towards the stunned old wizard. The power of the blast shot straight through its target, taking a huge bite- shaped chunk out of the wall as it went. The blast exploded into the southern part of the castle, in a brilliant shower of rock and flaming debris. It cleaved two of the castle’s massive towers in the middle. One of them fell straight down on top of the stub that had just been its base. The other canted slowly over, until its upper half failed, and the whole thing went tumbling down into the castle proper.
King Glendar, emboldened by the blatant display of power, spurred his horse into a trot towards the gates.
“To me!” he cried out raising his sword up high. “To me!”
It was all Roark and the other guardsmen could do to pull themselves out of the stunned trance that Pael’s blast had put them in so that they could follow their King.
“Westlanders to me!” Glendar kept screaming at the top of his lungs. He stopped his horse while still out away from the gates. He wanted to draw his men away from the Redwolf soldiers. He knew Pael wouldn’t hesitate to level them if they were in his way. It was a brilliant move, and it probably saved the lives of half of his remaining men, for Pael’s wrath knew no colors.
The Wildermont soldiers were stunned, as much by the fact that the Westlanders were pulling back, as by the wild magic the white-skinned, egg-headed wizard was hurling about.
Pael’s second massive charge of white-hot magic went arcing across the sky like a monstrous flaming arrow. It was brighter than the sunlight, which it eclipsed at the apex of its flight. When it came down towards the castle, into what remained of the mountain’s shadow, it blazed like a falling star. When it impacted, the explosion and the amount of devastation that resulted was heart-rending.
The whole front of the castle proper fell into a crumbling heap, leaving partial rooms and hallways exposed in the swirling dust. Distant colorful specs that were people, tumbled out and fell to their deaths, as floors collapsed, and the smaller towers came crashing down into the main structure. A large piece of the castle, as big as a merchant’s mansion, came free from the southern corner. It rolled once on its way down the mountain, like it was a boulder, then slammed into a landslide of rock and timbers as it rolled over dozens of lesser buildings and homes.
Pael glanced back over his shoulder at where all the Westland soldiers were gravitating. King Glendar was there. A few hundred men were struggling to form up into some sort of order behind him. A huge plate-armored warrior with a wicked looking horned helmet caught Pael’s eye as he barked out orders, and threatened the soldiers into their ranks. Pael sensed a dark and brutal quality about the man, and marked it in his mind for later recollection. Satisfied with what he had seen behind him, he turned back to the matter in hand.
With only the slightest flicker of motion from his hand, he sent a crackling yellow streak of jagged lightning into the chest of a nearby Wildermont soldier. It held the man in place for a heartbeat, shaking him, and smoldering his flesh. From his back, two more bolts shot forth, and found other bodies to decimate. One was a limping Westlander, who was trying to reach his King; the other, a Wildermont soldier who was on his knees and still holding his ears from the concussion of Pael’s initial coming. From each of them, the lightning branched again, and soon more than twenty men were curled on the ground, writhing, and smoldering, or dead.
Pael laughed hysterically. His expression was that of a gleeful child. Oh, how he loved the power he had gained. The gods had been kind. Shaella’s lover had somehow ruined his intended binding spell and the result left Pael in full control of the demon essence that was trapped inside him. The demon’s power was at his fingertips. It didn’t matter to Pael that he could still hear Shokin’s protests echoing in his mind. He walled the lunatic ravings out. The threats were empty. Pael was in complete control. Shokin was part of him now.
He laughed again, and sent the lightning streaking into another soldier near the gates, starting another deadly chain reaction. Then he focused his energy into creating another concussive blast. He almost quit the spell when the sudden presence of another magic tainted the air. He quickly detected that the other wizard was no threat to him, dismissed it, and continued building the huge magical sphere of destruction he had started. After he hurled it at the castle, and enjoyed watching it destroy hundreds, if not thousands of lives, he would deal with the remaining wizard.
Targon was in a daze from his spell. The massive booms, and crumbling explosions around him, seemed like a distant disturbance in some faraway place. Before him, a swirling tunnel formed itself into being. Outside its roughly ten foot diameter, the battle raged on. Inside, it was like looking down a huge empty pipe that lead straight through the battling soldiers, right past the demon-wizard, over the litter of dead bodies and dying men around him, and ended directly in front of King Jarrek and his men.
“Come! Now! Before it’s too late!” Targon screamed out to the King of Wildermont. He repeated the words as loud as he could manage.
This time, King Jarrek heard him, but barely. The concussion of Pael’s arrival had left him and his men nearly deaf.
King Jarrek looked down the strange telescopic tube at the Highwander wizard. He mouthed a question. Targon nodded in understanding. After calling out an order, King Jarrek spurred his horse down the shaft towards the Witch Queen’s Mage. Three, then another of the red armored honor guard followed.
A bright, eye-searing flash from somewhere beyond the King and his men nearly caused Targon to falter and lose the spell, but he managed to hang onto it. Then, a fifth soldier came galloping down the magical tube. He was wearing the red enameled armor of Jarrek’s honor guard as well.
Trembling with the effort, Targon held the spell as long as he could. It was already failing when Jarrek, and the first four men, shot out of the magical portal past him. Though it pained Targon greatly to do so, he had no choice but to let go of the spell, or get lost in its collapse. The fifth guard’s scream filled his head as the magical tube came crashing in on him. The sound of the man and his horse yelling in terror as they were crushed into oblivion echoed for long hours in Targon’s head as he, King Jarrek, and the four red-armored guardsmen fled northward as swiftly as their tired mounts could carry them.
No one would ever know it, but the man who lost his life in Targon’s magical through-way didn’t die in vain. His sudden screaming appearance a few dozen yards directly in front of Pael saved the group from being marked for pursuit. Pael was so surprised by the man that he instantly blasted him and the horse into a cloud of bloody mist. The realization of what had actually happened there came to Pael later after the entire city of Castlemont and its castle was nothing but a dusty ruin and a litter of mangled bloody flesh.
Later, while the carrion feasted, Pael used Shokin’s Power to summon some of the dark things that had
