clear space. He rolled to his knees and floundered up out of the ditch. “I won’t make that mistake again,” he snarled at Geran. He motioned for his guards, who rushed to his aid.
Geran scrambled to his feet and retreated a few steps from the grim mercenaries closing in around him. Then he raised his hand and showed Sergen the amulet of Aesperus, which he’d wrenched away from his cousin during their brief struggle. The old copper amulet glinted in the dim light. “I think you’ve caused enough trouble with this for now, Sergen,” he said.
Sergen’s hand flew to his chest, and he looked down in horror. When he looked up again, his dark eyes blazed in fury. “Kill him!” he shouted to his guards. “Kill him now!”
Geran glanced around and summoned up what little magic he had left unspent. “Seiroch!” he shouted. Sergen’s guards thrust their blades through empty air where he’d been standing an instant before, and the teleport spell whisked him a hundred yards away in the blink of an eye.
He found himself standing close to the harmach’s banner, surrounded by Shieldsworn who fought desperately against the tide of skeletal warriors. Geran thrust his hand into the air, holding the amulet aloft, and shouted, “Warriors of Aesperus, halt! I command you!”
All around him, skeletons abruptly stopped moving. More than a few Hulburgans smashed their axes and swords into skeletal warriors who now stood still. Some of those fell while others suffered the injuries without response, standing motionless. The humans and dwarves out on the field raised a ragged cheer of astonishment and exultation, amazed to find their attackers immobilized.
“I’ll be damned,” Geran said softly. “It worked!” He felt the empty eyes of the dead warriors settling on him, and the cold whispers in the air seemed to grow stronger, more sinister. He shuddered. If he was going to command these fell creatures, better to do it now before he lost his nerve. “Warriors of Aesperus, listen to me! You are to attack and destroy the Bloody Skull orcs and their allies-ignore all who are defending Hulburg! Do you understand me?”
The ranks of skeletal warriors seemed to shiver, and the dead ones backed away from their former adversaries and turned to face north. “Aye, we understand thee,” they answered in their cold, rasping voices. “We go to do thy bidding.” Then they began to march away from the battered bands of humans and dwarves they’d been fighting just a moment ago, old bones clicking like insects, rusted mail squealing and clinking.
The defenders of Hulburg raised a ragged volley of shouts, cries of relief, and calls for help, hundreds of voices babbling once. Several of the men standing near Geran grinned at him and stepped close to slap his back and seize his hand. Then a signal horn blew twice above the din. Geran turned and saw Kara lowering the horn. “Back to the dike-top!” she shouted. “Reform ranks across the road! We aren’t done yet!”
Geran looked back at the stand of trees where he’d met Sergen, just visible through the mists. His cousin climbed up into the saddle of his black destrier and glared in Geran’s direction, though the swordmage doubted that Sergen could actually pick him out in the middle of the warriors around the harmach’s banner. Then Sergen spurred his horse and galloped away to the south, fleeing back toward Hulburg with his guards following. A moment later, the House Veruna soldiers on the left side of the line stepped back from the dike, turned toward the south, and began to march away as well, leaving the battle behind. Geran was sorely tempted to call back some of Aesperus’s skeletons in order to send them after Sergen and the Verunas, but he had no idea how strong a hold he really had over the undead warriors or how much they could hurt the Bloody Skulls.
“Let them go for now, Geran.” Harmach Grigor limped up and set a hand on Geran’s shoulder, following Geran’s gaze with his own. The old lord looked pale and haggard, but a spark of defiance animated his features. “At the moment I’d just as soon let a potential adversary leave the field if he has a mind to. We must concentrate on repelling the Bloody Skulls before we pick another fight.” Grigor watched the Verunas leave and sighed. “Whatever else happens today, Sergen and House Veruna are finished in Hulburg.”
“I know it, Uncle,” Geran answered. “But I’m afraid of the mischief Sergen might do before he knows it too.”
Grigor nodded. “I am as well, but as Kara said-we aren’t done yet here. How did you gain control over the lich king’s warriors?”
Geran showed him the amulet. “I took this from Sergen. It’s the amulet Aesperus gave to the Verunas in payment for the book he sought.” The mist around him was noticeably lightening now, though he could still hear echoing through the fog the roars of orc warriors, the shrill ring of steel on steel, and the fearful bellows of dimwitted ogres. “I don’t know how many warriors it summons or how long they’ll remain.”
“I suppose we’ll find out.” The old lord smiled. “Well done, Geran.”
The swordmage gripped his uncle’s shoulder then stepped clear. He held out his empty hand and half-closed his eyes, groping through his mind for the arcane symbols he needed for the spell of returning. “Cuilledyrr,” he whispered, and a moment later his Myth Drannan blade came hurtling through the unnatural mist to meet his hand. He’d dropped it when he threw Sergen off his horse, and it was far too valuable a weapon to leave on the battlefield. With his sword in one hand and the amulet in the other, Geran hurried to the old dike and scrambled to the top to see what was going on in the orc ranks.
The cacophony of battle was tremendous, an awful mix of hundreds of savage voices, fell magic, roaring monsters, and more. The eerie fog was too dense for him to see well, but he caught glimpses of fighting a bowshot north of the overgrown dike. The orcs were fierce and brave fighters, but even their most bloodthirsty berserkers had little stomach for a battle against an enemy who shrugged off all but the most powerful of blows and simply climbed back to his feet when he was struck to the ground. All around him the surviving Shieldsworn and Ironhammers peered into the mists, trying to judge for themselves how the fighting went, with a curious mix of relief that they were out of it for the moment and dread of the allies that had turned to their side.
Geran watched for what seemed a long time in the bitter cold. Then he noticed that the amulet in his hand was growing warm. He looked down in surprise and saw that a bright orange gleam had appeared on the ancient copper. “What in the world?” he murmured. The gray mists cloaking the battlefield took on an orange hue and began to thin. The clash of arms from the orc lines faded sharply-and suddenly the morning was full of the Orcish shouts of triumph. As the sun finally climbed above the ragged hills fencing the Winterspear Vale, the ancient amulet quietly crumbled into dust, and the skeletal warriors sank back into the ground.
“Geran! The skeletons!” Kara called.
He looked over at her helplessly. “It’s sunrise,” he told her. “Aesperus must’ve promised them for only one night.”
She nodded once, and her azure eyes flashed in the morning light. “Stand to your arms!” she ordered the Shieldsworn. Then she lowered her helm’s visor, slid down from Dancer’s back, and sent the horse toward the rear with a slap to its rump, taking up her position at the head of the footmen guarding the open spot where the Vale Road pierced the dike. “Stand to!”
The unnatural mists cleared just as quickly as they had come, dissipating like dark dreams forgotten in the morning light. The day brightened swiftly, as if the supernatural fog had never been. Now Geran finally got a good look at the orc horde that faced Hulburg. He could see hundreds of orcs lying dead in the disordered battle lines left behind by the skeletons’ attack; the ancient warriors had dealt a heavy blow to the Bloody Skulls, but hadn’t defeated them. The orcs looked around as well and saw that their supernatural foes were gone, but that the dike was still held against them-and they began to surge forward in wrath, perhaps mistakenly believing that it was some ploy of the harmach’s that had sent the skeletons of the fallen at them.
“Stand your ground!” Kara shouted, and dozens of captains and sergeants took up the cry and relayed it down the lines. Grim-faced and determined, the defenders of Hulburg set spears in the ground and held blades and bows at the ready. Then, with a wild chorus of roars, battle cries, curses, and shrill war screams, the warriors of Thar hurled themselves upon Hulburg’s defenders once again.
“Mages and archers-fire at will!” Kara shouted. In answer, shrieking missiles of wizard’s fire, dark flights of arrows, and brilliant bolts of lightning burned awful swaths of devastation through the onrushing warriors. Geran saw that Kara had gathered most of the merchant company wands-for-hire at her command around the gap of the Vale Road, and the mercenary mages took a heavy toll of the attacking orcs and ogres. But other spells flew as well: dripping spheres of acid that arced from the back ranks of the orc lines to splatter against the old earthen dike, and black clouds full of whirling red cinders that seared and scoured anything they touched.
Geran shielded himself from a fierce cinder-storm with a word of warding, throwing his arm over his eyes and slashing his sword back and forth to drive away the burning sparks. Searing pinpricks announced places where the burning embers had found their way through his defenses. He hissed and brushed one from his shoulder, nostrils
