could have easily let go long ago, and died somewhat intact, and without so much excruciating pain. Mikahl swore then and there that he would never give up. Neither Loudin’s, nor Lord Gregory’s, sacrifice would be in vain.
The angry roar of the hellcat, as it circled around and dove back towards him, made Mikahl’s blood boil with rage and vengeful anger. As he pulled the sword free of the earth, he welcomed the beast’s approach. Loudin’s death couldn’t be avenged this day, Mikahl told himself. This beast was just a weapon, or a tool sent by another, but he could send a message to whomever it was that wanted Ironspike so badly, a message that was plain and clear.
Ironspike’s blade lit the clearing, like a star, and a symphony of magic filled Mikahl’s ears. The hellcat lowered its hind claws, and at a blinding speed, came swooping down on Mikahl. The surge of static heat that filled Mikahl then was tremendous. A dozen different voices sang into his brain, each one a separate melody that added to the angelic chorus in his mind. Each voice represented a different means of magical attack, and all of this, somehow, became crystal clear to him in that moment. He knew he could access them with a thought, but he knew he didn’t need them for this. He felt the time around him slow, as if the whole world, save for him, was moving through molasses. That effect, and the heat of his rage was more than enough to mark this dark thing.
The hellcat was on him now, and even though the world had slowed, the beast was coming in hard and fast. As Mikahl leapt, and spun in the air, the blue glow of his blade went through all the shades of lavender and purple, until its glow was a deep, bloody red. His head came up under the creature, and he twisted in his spin, so that its dagger-like fore claws missed his shoulders, and its hind legs swept past him. Only then, did he complete the now white-hot blade’s blinding arc.
Vaegon watched in fearful awe as Mikahl pulled the sword free of the ground, and strode forward to meet the streaking approach of the beast. The sword was bright, radiant, and quickly became the cherry color of forge heated steal. Mikahl leapt into the air, his acrobatic movement so swift, that all Vaegon could make out, was a furious blur. It was all happening so quickly, that it made the elf’s head spin.
One second, it looked as if the hellcat would grab onto the boy and carry him off, like it had done Lord Gregory. A fraction of a heartbeat later, Mikahl was behind the beast, his sword sweeping like a white-hot sheer through the creature’s rear thighs as if they were nothing more than butter. As the beast’s hind legs tumbled to the ground, free of its body, the would-be bloody stumps sizzled and smoked. The intense heat of the white-hot blade had cauterized them cleanly. A third piece of the hellcat spun smoking through the air, like a half-embered piece of firewood. Later, Vaegon would find out that it was the spiked tip of the beast’s tail, the very thing that had gouged his eye out of his face and ruined his elven sight.
The creature was ten feet past Mikahl, raising its bulk up on its wings, so that it might clear the trees, and come around again, when it realized what had happened to its hind-legs and tail. The primal shriek of terror and pain that it let out was earsplitting. It was all the legless hellcat could do to stay aloft, as it fled howling over the trees and out of the valley.
Mikahl felt no pride or joy in the rush of emotion that came to him after the beast had gone. Instead, he fell into a crumbling heap of sorrow, and cried out for the loss of his friend.
The tattoo covered Seawardsman, who would be forever immortalized in the histories of both elves and men as, “Loudin of the Reyhall,” was dead.
Chapter 38
Vaegon watched over Mikahl until Hyden finally returned from the ravine. Both the humans were exhausted, so the elf took on the task of cutting Loudin’s body down out of the trees.
It took most of the day, and as horrible as the work was, he knew he was the best one for it. Not only did he know the trees, and have a way with them, as all elves did, but the fact that he wasn’t human, made the death of the hunter a thing he could accept more peaceably than his two companions might.
Once the body was on the ground and intact, Vaegon rolled it up in a woolen blanket, and set an old elven warding around it that would protect it for the night. Mikahl would need to take part in the burial, but only after he had rested. Where elves might let their dead decompose back into the ecosystem, Vaegon understood that the nature of the short-lived humans, and their delicate mentality, made the funerary process a necessity. Not so much for the deceased, but for the friends and relatives that survived him.
While he was working, Vaegon heard the trees whisper of the great evil they were feeling among their roots. The wyvern’s blood was in the soil now, and they feared what it would do to them. They could sense that the unnatural beast’s presence in the world was just the beginning of something far worse.
Vaegon listened, and a tiny speck of fear took root in his heart as well. It was no mountain-born wyvern that he had killed this day. That thing was evil and born in a place unnatural; a place from which things shouldn’t be allowed to escape. He understood then that some great dark force had let it and the hellcat loose, and just as the trees feared, far worse was more than likely on its way.
The next day, when the three companions came to the clearing to bury Loudin, they found the strangest of things. In the middle of the clearing, a perfect circle of fragrant blue flowers had grown overnight. The center of the circle was exactly where Ironspike had pierced the earth after Loudin had thrown it, and the whole thing was easily twenty paces across. Mikahl chose that spot to bury his friend. The sign of the good cross that the sword had made, as it wavered there, was fresh in his mind. He felt it would be an ill omen to bury the hunter anywhere else.
The coincidence that he had met Loudin in a clearing, not unlike this one, wasn’t lost on Mikahl either. Where that glade had had a pond, full of sparkling water, this one had an island of magical flowers. It was thoughts like this that kept Mikahl from breaking down as they piled up a great mound of stones over the grave.
The chore was done, slowly and carefully, so as to avoid damaging the flowers around the burial mound. When it was done, even the trees blessed the old hunter’s passing. The magic from the sword, that had leeched into the soil and caused the sapphire blooms to suddenly erupt, had also spread through the earth, and eaten away the corrosive power of the wyvern’s black blood. Vaegon heard the trees whisper a promise to watch over the sacred place, and told his companions as much as they returned to the camp just after dark.
That night, they started using a watch system. Vaegon would be first, then Hyden, then Mikahl. Mikahl insisted on being last. He didn’t explain why and no one asked.
The next morning, as dawn lit the valley shadows, they learned the reason. The young Westlander was going through a furious series of workouts with his softly glowing blade. Hyden and Vaegon both woke, and watched, with respectful awe, as Mikahl went through grueling combinations of slashes, thrusts, and turns, each more strenuous, and graceful than the last. When he was done, he bowed deeply to the four corners of the compass, and even managed a thin smile at the others, as he toweled himself off with one of Loudin’s old shirts.
Through the darkened part of his watch, Mikahl had tried to adapt the sheath from Duke Fairchild’s sword to fit Ironspike’s blade. He managed to work its narrower width so that he could slide his blade down to the bottom, but it was still a hand’s width too short. When the belt was around his waist, a small part of Ironspike’s blade rose glowing up out of it, and the pommel rubbed at his ribs uncomfortably, but it would have to do for now. Ironspike’s scabbard was gone.
After breaking their fast on some dried meat and stream water, Vaegon grew tired of watching Mikahl fiddle with the ill-fitting scabbard, and excused himself from the camp. With a troubled look on his face, he trekked out into the forest, and disappeared.
Hyden was lying down. He appeared to be asleep, but he wasn’t. Talon was out exploring the valley, and through the hawkling’s senses, Hyden was soaring with him.
The old wolf mother had made it out of the ravine with her two pups in tow. She had managed to kill a slow hopper for them to eat. Hyden observed them from the branches of a nearby tree, as they picked the bones clean, and then crunched them between the teeth.
Satisfied that they would be all right, he and Talon circled high, and soared over the whole valley. Movement, not too far from the camp, caught the bird’s keen eyes, and sent mild alarms jangling up Hyden’s
