Blood Of Kings: The Shadow Mage (39 page)

“I think…”

Normand swung around towards Djangra Roe when the mage stopped speaking. “Go on.”

“I think this may have been a mistake.”

“How so?” Normand scanned the valley for any sign of mountain folk. In truth he had a rising sense of anxiety. It annoyed him to even have those thoughts.
These mountains are mine. These people are mine.

“Can you not feel it? There is real power here. I can sense it emanating from the stones and in the air all around us.”

“Do not act the fool now, Mage,” Normand snarled. “We’ll pull these down and put an end to it.”

“No!” Djangra Roe leapt in front of the duke. “I beg you, do not do that.”

“Have you lost your senses?”

“I can feel it here.” The mage thumped his chest. Normand couldn’t help but notice the ashen colour of his complexion. “Vibrating through me, I feel as if I’m swimming in a lake of tar.”

Normand shook his head in disgust and turned away from the mage. Just then the drums started again, only louder. They echoed across the valley bouncing from one wall to the next. He watched as his sergeants barked orders, bullying and cajoling the men into organised ranks, facing out from the circle. “Now, at last.” He punched his palm with the opposite hand.

Green and grey clad mountain folk appeared, as if magically conjured from the mountain, armed with bows, spears, clubs, even a few axes and swords. There were easily three times the number of the duke’s men. “This will be a slaughter.” Normand grinned.

“Look!” He wasn’t sure who said it, but all eyes turned towards the end of the gorge where the stream disappeared of the edge to the forest below; the mist had lifted. Dark shapes began materialising. “There must be a hidden path up from that end also.” The men climbing into view, wore black robes, their faces and heads covered by scarves of the same hue. Even from a distance he could see that they were proper fighting men. They organised themselves quickly into rows, moving with catlike grace. Most of them carried small round shields and the curved blades of the south.

“Wheel right!” a sergeant bellowed at his squad to face the new threat.

Djangra Roe’s face was sweating, his jaw clenched in a grimace. Normand had no time to deal with the fool of a mage now. The black-garbed warriors parted allowing a force of two score, or so, Nortmen through.

“Nortmen? And Tribesmen from beyond the empire? These mountain folk have strange allies.”

“The witch…” Djangra Roe gasped, clearly in pain.

“What is the matter with you?” Normand asked impatiently.

“Choking…” The mage held two hands to his throat as he tried to gulp in air.

“Somebody help him!” Normand barked. He was quickly distracted from the mage’s fate by a further disturbance in the opposing ranks.

A huge Nortman walked out of the crowd. Normand wondered if he was about to issue a challenge, but he was followed by a short, fat man, a tall warrior dressed in ornate armour and two women.

“Witch!” Normand gasped. “She’s here!”

The two women joined hands and raised their arms. Words that made his skin tingle and heart race began drifting towards the duke and his men. Mist formed in the circle of stones, making his warriors restless as they glanced towards it.

“I need you, Mage,” Normand said through gritted teeth as he tried to keep the panic from his voice. “I cannot fight magic.” But Djangra Roe was on his knees, mumbling incoherently as he fought his own battle with some unseen force.

A more familiar sound filled the air then, the thrum of drawn bows released and the whistle of arrows taking flight.

“Shields!” The cry went up as the instincts of trained fighting men took over.

Tomas: Temple of Eor

T
omas felt an icy grip of dread in his stomach when he watched the Nortmen lined up in the courtyard of the temple. All of them bore the same blank expression and the same hooded eyes. From a distance they looked just like any group of fighting raiders from the north—he’d seen enough of them while in the Royal Guard to be wary of them—a frightening and intimidating enough sight as it was, but up close they were terror personified. The big one, who was permanently at the Shadow Mage’s side, Rolfgot, alone would fill the dreams of any man with horror.

“What’s wrong with them?” he asked Elandrial.

The priestess shrugged. “Harren Suilomon has bound their souls to him with invisible bonds of dark magic. No one else has ever commanded such power.” Tomas was struck by the awe in her voice.

“Who is he? He looks like any fat noble.”

“It is not his true appearance. His body was destroyed many years ago and now he changes bodies as you would a cloak, discarding them when they become worn or outlive their usefulness. The weaker the spirit of the host the quicker he crushes it from within, so he is forced to change it for a new one as the body begins to decay. The fighters last longer.”

Tomas shivered at the thought and not for the first time wondered how he had become caught up with the priestess he was supposed to be hunting. He turned to Aliss who was by his side, her own appearance utterly changed from the yellow-haired village girl he had married. Dark clouds swirled in her unsettling, storm-filled eyes, her complexion drained of the healthy glow she once possessed.

Beside the Nortmen were Elandrial’s black-robed warriors. Tomas could see how they too were uneasy and wary of the soulless northern warriors; even the horses stomped nervously around them.

“We will ride swiftly and prepare a warm welcome for the duke,” her mouth dropped in distaste, “he who has usurped my lands and the mountains most sacred to Eor.”

“How can you be sure he will be there?”

“I’ve told you before, Tomas. They do not call me the dream-witch for no reason. I can influence a man’s thoughts while he sleeps, even a foolish mage or arrogant lord. They will come, because their greed and lust for gold and power will drive them to it. They will come because it is what I wish them to do.” Her lips curled into a smile and she trailed her hand across Tomas’s cheek and down his chest before turning back to the men assembled in the courtyard, waiting and ready to do battle for her.

Tomas flinched and shied away from her touch. Even after a week of waiting on the Shadow Mage’s arrival he was uncomfortable around her. Aliss stood beside him, her expression blank and unreadable as she stared down at the courtyard. Tomas was unsure if she was actually looking at the warriors assembled below or just staring into space.

The Nortmen had arrived the previous day with Suilomon and barracked themselves away immediately. Tomas was glad they had kept themselves to themselves and he had had few up close encounters with them. Even from a distance he could sense there was something not right about them. And he was not the one with the intuition for such things.

“What do you make of them?” He turned to Aliss when Elandrial left them standing alone on the balcony.

“They have no souls, no life-force.” She dropped her head then. “They are a corruption… like me.”

“Don’t talk nonsense. You are the woman I love, will always love.”

“You should have let me die. An innocent child would not have had the life stolen from her. I do not want it.” Tomas reached out a hand, but she shrugged him off and stepped away. “It is time to leave,” she said.

He was not looking forward to the many days he would spend on the road in the company of the Nortmen and the dream-witch. “We don’t have to go. We could just leave. Let The Hag take them all.”

“And will you bring innocent babes from the arms of their mothers for me, Tomas? When my need is so great that the dark magic consumes me?”

“We can find another way,” he said through gritted teeth, knowing in his heart that there was no other way. Elandrial had promised she could lift whatever dark desire Aliss craved to feed the black magic within her, and to keep her alive. “When this is over I’m going to kill that old witch in the wood.”

“More death, Tomas. What has become of us?” Aliss brushed past him as she walked from the balcony and followed Elandrial down the stairs and out into the courtyard.

Mounted on the horses they arrived on, they left the temple without a backward glance.

The journey back to the Duchies was a long one, although quicker than the trip in the opposite direction, when they were hunting the dream-witch, always searching for clues and following rumours. Tomas marvelled at how the terrain and weather changed as they rode north, becoming colder, the vegetation much thicker on the ground even in the bitter grip of an oncoming winter. The lands and people they passed on the way were unknown to him, a simple blacksmith—albeit one with a diverse past—had little use for knowing the ways of the world. He was surprised they encountered no resistance with what was effectively an army at their backs. When he asked Elandrial why no lord attempted to stop so many armed warriors passing through their land she simply shrugged and said, “We are no threat to them.” Not much of an answer but it was all he was going to get. They steered well clear of Suilomon’s company of Nortmen, and the black-robed warriors also kept to themselves, huddling together around campfires and talking quietly whenever they stopped for the night. Even Aliss had little to say to him. So passed long days and nights he lost count of, until they came within sight of the large mountain range Elandrial called home and Duke Normand had usurped from her. Tomas almost felt sorry for the duke when he learned of the fate awaiting him, but he was just another noble of the Duchies and Tomas got over it quickly enough.
Let him suffer at the hands of the Shadow Mage. Let him feel what it is like to be enslaved by one vastly more powerful.

They began a steady climb up the mountain even as flakes of snow drifted all around them. Tomas wondered how the hooded warriors of the south were dealing with the cold. It was hard to tell when all they ever revealed of themselves were their dark eyes. They left their horses behind at the foot of the mountains before they began their ascent, following guides who had come to their camp hours after they arrived.

“This is nearly over,” he said to Aliss as they passed beneath a waterfall to a hidden passage through the mountain. He could see that Elandrial was becoming more excited and urging them to greater speed, even though all were exhausted from the seemingly endless journey.

Drums reverberated all around them as they climbed steadily, hidden from view by the narrow waterfall gushing over the cliff above them. “The people of the mountain,” Elandrial answered the unasked question with a smile. “My people.”

“Where are they?” Tomas asked. “I have seen no one other than those who came to guide us.”

“They are all around us. These people have inhabited the mountains when the Duchies was just a vast wild land. Their traditions are joined with the mountain as one. They flow through the trails and pathways as blood flows through a body, bringing life to the heart.”

“You?” Tomas raised a sceptical eyebrow.

“Not me, but the majesty of Eor.”

Tomas waited for Elandrial to move ahead of him before he offered a helping hand to Aliss. “I do not trust her, or that so called Shadow Mage,” he said as Aliss gripped his bigger hand with her own.

She shrugged. “We have made our choice. We cannot turn from the path now.”

As they filed over the cliff edge to stand at one end of a large valley, a thick mist descended on them, obscuring their view of the rest of the gorge. The drums were louder now, echoing off the valley walls. Black-robed warriors formed ranks as each man hauled himself up from the steep climb, followed by the Nortmen. The sea-raiders ignored all as they stood, expressionless behind the Shadow Mage, led by the giant Rolfgot.

“Tomas,” Elandrial said excitedly, her eyes gleaming as she spoke to him. “Lead my warriors and strike down my enemies.” She turned to Aliss then. “Can you feel the power? Open your heart to the source. Let if flow through you. Take my hand.”

Tomas watched in silence as the two women joined hands. Even he could feel the raw energy pulsing through the valley. He was dressed now in an ornately engraved breast plate and plumed helmet given to him by Elandrial. From his shoulders hung a gold cloak. He looked every bit the warrior general he claimed not to be. The mist began to clear and he saw the ranks of Normand’s men gathered in a defensive ring around a circle of large standing stones.

“The duke,” Tomas said needlessly. Above the men a banner of a red dragon on a green background billowed in the breeze. It was then that he recognised the mage Djangra Roe, on his knees clutching his head in his hands. “What’s wrong with the mage?” he asked.

“He has opened his mind to the power of the stones,” Harren Suilomon answered, his voice dripping with scorn. “It is a far greater power than he could ever hope to understand. His feeble mind will explode like an overheated melon.”

“No!” Tomas snarled. “He must atone for the death of Joshan.” Even as he spoke the words he knew he was being foolish, but it was one of the reasons that swayed him to change sides. What did he care of the power struggles of nobles and their pet wizards. Life was what was important to him, the loss of Joshan’s, the saving of Aliss’.

“Do not lose sight of what is important, Tomas,” Elandrial rebuked him softly.

A cry went up around him and black-robed archers pushed their way to the front. They released a volley of arrows into the air, leaving their re-curved bows of horn and wood like a swarm of buzzing insects. Before the first flight hit its mark, a second was already in the air. The cries of men dying floated down the valley. The men packed tightly around the cairn were subjected to further attacks from their flanks as the mountain folk also fired an array of missile weapons in their direction.

“Gather the power. Hold it within you until the pressure makes you feel as if you will burst open. Then release it!” Elandrial’s words were filled with excitement and joy as she addressed Aliss. Tomas watched mesmerised as he felt the air being sucked from around him, his skin tingling and making it impossible to breathe. Although the mist had cleared from the valley, it gathered in a swirling mass at the centre of the stone circle. Suddenly a bolt of energy crackled to life around the two witches. With a cry of unbridled joy from Elandrial the women redirected the energy towards the ranks of Normand’s men. Lightning fizzled randomly across the men standing there, thumping three men from their feet. Tomas could not see what happened to them once they went down. What he did see was the look of pure ecstasy on the face of Aliss as she wielded such terrifying power.