I fix my gaze on the Shadow King. He’s backed away from the corpse of his slain foe, momentarily unaware of my presence. Sometime during the battle, he lost his helmet and stands there with his face turned away from me, close enough that I can see his features in profile. He’s not what I expected. Not the hard, brutish, stone-skinned monster of legend. Though his skin is blue-gray, it is not the texture of rock, but smooth and clear. His silvery white hair is pulled back from his face in long, thick war braids. He is strangely beautiful, but without glamour like the fae. Beautiful and terrible and deadly. A creature without conscience.
Elydark snorts flame. The sound is enough to draw the Shadow King’s attention. He whirls and faces us, his pale eyes bright with the spirit of battle burning in his breast. Beyond him, I can see the citadel gate, cracked under the giant’s assault, sagging from its hinges. A weakness at last. One my people can exploit if I can just get them through the barrier. But first I need to rid them of this obstacle.
“Hail, Trolde King,” I call out, my sword upraised. “Why do you defend these walls?”
He casts about briefly for his sword, which still protrudes from the cyclops’ ruined eye. Realizing it’s too far to reach before I ride him down, he instead pulls a great, rough-hewn club from where it’s been strapped to his back all this while. “I am bound to defendthe walls of my allies,” he declares in a voice as dark as bedrock.
“Allies?” I spit the word and point my sword at his heart. “You are on the wrong side of this war.”
He shrugs, an expressive gesture in all that spiked armor. “I’m not the one attacking a peaceful center of learning.”
Elydark’s fire flares brighter. He takes an aggressive step forward, his head lowered, his horn bright and sharp. My own fury swells with his. “Do you not realize?” I demand. “Do you not see the truth? Once they’ve taken everything from us, they will not be sated. The hunger of these humans will only grow. They’ll be coming for you and your world next.”
The Shadow King does not argue. Something in his face tells me he knows I am right. He has not bargained with Larongar and failed to take the measure of the man with whom he’s joined forces. And yet he braces himself, throws one arm wide, exposing his chest like a target. “Enough talk, Licornyn,” he bellows. “Let’s finish this!”
A ululating battle cry rips from my throat as I bow over the neck of my mount. Elydark charges toward that towering figure, his horn aimed for a death blow. That great club moves in a crushing arch, and if it strikes, it will shatter Elydark’s skull. But my licorneir is nimble; he pivots at the last possible second, and my sword arm lashes out. Myvaritarblade gleams, wreathed with Licornyn soulfire, hot as the sun. It cleaves the troll club in two.
The Shadow King ducks, rolls. Elydark thunders past him, hooves missing his head by inches. We roll back swiftly, but bythen my enemy has found his feet. He stands there weaponless, and yet I know he is as deadly a foe as I have ever faced.
I urge Elydark forward. He lunges, a hurtling ball of flame. The Shadow King heaves the broken piece of club still gripped in his hand, and I duck to avoid the missile. He sprints then for the giant’s head, moving with surprising alacrity despite all that bulky armor. He springs onto the broad, flat brow, propels himself out into empty air.
There’s a strange flicker of reality. Then his morleth mount bursts back into being, a black cloud of sulfur. The Shadow King catches hold of its saddle, pulls himself onto its back, and flies up above our heads, beyond our reach. Elydark roars, tearing the air with his forelegs, flame lashing from his wrathful eyes.
A burst of agonized mage-light. I turn in the saddle, see the barrier-wall shudder. Kildorath! His licorneir has opened another rent in the spellwork. He holds back a rift large enough that Noxaurians can squeeze through the gap, screaming, slavering, tearing at one another. For a moment I fear they will block off the opening with their own corpses, but somehow they manage to rip it wider, and a wave of ravening fae spill into the hitherto protected territory, black demon’s blood dripping from their eyes, spilling through their teeth.
The Shadow King cries out to his warriors. Morleth riders descend upon the fae, killing them with great swipes of their crystal swords and blunt clubs. Even maddened on virulium, the Noxaurians are no match for these monsters.
Gnashing my teeth, I urge Elydark forward, up onto the hillmade from the giant’s fallen body, above the swarming Noxaurians. Raising my fire-wreathed sword overhead, I shout,“Trolde!”
The Shadow King looks down on me from above, his gaze sharpening.
“Come back and face me!” I roar. “Or do you fear to fight on level ground?”
His beautiful face twists into a mask of violence. Spurring his morleth, he streaks down from the sky, still unarmed. Leaning far to one side, he stretches out one hand, grasps the hilt of his sword, and yanks it free of the cyclops’ eye. Just in time he raises it in defense, and our blades meet—living black diamond strikes against flaming steel. A shudder ripples up my arm. Our faces are close, our eyes locked. For an instant, fear makes its way through my fury, and I doubt my own strength.
With a vicious heave, the Shadow King hurls me back from him. It’s all I can do to keep my seat and not tumble from the saddle. The morleth lashes out with fangs, going for Elydark’s throat, but my licorneir dances nimbly out of reach. Then the Shadow King is upon me, raining down blow upon blow. I defend, but am unprepared for the full force of a trolde warrior. Our weapons crash; I’m nearly unseated. Teeth bared, I angle Elydark away, put some distance between us. I need to catch my breath, prepare for another charge. The only advantage I possess is Elydark’s quickness; I cannot best a trolde in a contest of strength.
The field before the citadel gates is alive with bloodshed andviolence. More breaches appear in the barrier-spell as licorneir press through. The Miphates do what they can to reinforce it, but most of their efforts are now focused on the walls and the broken gate. Noxaurians fall in droves to trolde clubs, and the ground is slick with poison-blackened blood. We may have superior numbers, but I feel that advantage is swiftly dwindling.
No. No, no, we will not give in. We are not beaten yet. We’ve come too far, and our goal is so near.
With a savage cry I urge Elydark forward, and we hurtle once more at the Shadow King. Elydark’s horn is down, aimed straight for the morleth’s breast. It leaps into the sky, nimble for a creature of its size, and flies over our heads. But Elydark rears up, fire bursting out from cracks in his volcanic skin. His horn tears into shadowy flesh, and my ears are split with the sound of a hideous, rasping squeal.
They crash to earth, Shadow King and mount. Tumbling, rolling. Were he anything other than a trolde, I’d expect his bones to be smashed to powder. When they stop at last, the morleth’s dead body crushes him beneath it, pinning him down helplessly.
Now is my chance.
Springing from Elydark’s back, I race to the fallen monster, plant a foot upon its carcass and raise up my sword. The Shadow King lies beneath me, trapped beneath his mount’s dead weight, and I stare down into his eyes, see his death reflected there.
But I hesitate. Though I know I should drive my blade through his skull then and there, end his cursed life and turnthe tide of battle . . . I cannot help it. He is vulnerable, unarmed, and trapped. Utterly at my mercy. And yet I simply cannot do what I know I must.
That instant of hesitation is my undoing. Before I can recover myself, the trolde gets his arms under the morleth’s carcass and heaves, knocking me off balance. I jump back, and my enemy gets to his feet, towering over me, his face and armor blackened with morleth blood. The lack of sword in his fist makes no difference—he will tear me apart with his bare hands.
I retreat from his lunge, narrowly escaping. I need to remount Elydark, now. I am far too disadvantaged on foot beside this great beast of a man.Elydark!I sing out through our connection, into his mind.To me!
My licorneir takes three long strides in my direction before the shadows sweep over us. I have just enough awareness to duck and avoid a braining from a low-swinging trolde club. Elydark is not so lucky—another club strikes him across the side of the head, so profound a blow, it knocks him clear off his feet and sends him flying. He lands hard, hooves tearing at the air as he struggles to get himself upright. The flames of his soulfire flicker.
“Elydark!” I cry, and break into a run. Before I can get anywhere near him, however, a net of silver-wrapped black fibers falls from the sky. The chaeora. It envelops his head and flanks like mist, dousing his flame. He lies trapped beneath it, his red fire gone, his body reduced to a smoldering pile of blackened ash.
