Mask of Dragons Page 2

  Sir Aulus blew another blast upon his war horn, and the knights, armsmen, and horses shouted. Mazael kicked his mount to a gallop, and the destrier whinnied and surged forward, eager for battle. His heart thundered in his ears like a drum, and he felt the fury come upon him, the Demonsouled rage demanding that he kill and kill until his arm ran red with blood. Long and often bitter experience let him keep the rage at bay, sealed behind the dam of his will.

  And now, at last, he had a release for that rage.

  The horsemen thundered forward to meet the Skuldari, and the horses and spiders crashed together.

  One of the Skuldari riders came at Mazael, the spider rearing up to bite at his horse’s neck. Mazael caught the Skuldari raider’s spear upon his shield, the shock of it going through his arm, and thrust with Talon. The curved blade of dragon claw ripped through the spider’s head with a ghastly puncturing sound, yellow slime spurting from the wound. The momentum of Mazael’s charge ripped the blade free from the spider, and the creature fell upon its side as it died. The Skuldari rider scrambled to his feet, only for Sir Hagen’s lance to punch through his chest and erupt out his back.

  “For Basracus!” roared a hulking Skuldari warrior, wielding a huge axe with both hands as his spider danced and skittered around a knight. “For Basracus the High King and Marazadra!” The axe hammered down with enough force to pierce chain mail, killing one of Mazael’s armsmen. The armsman fell limp from his saddle, his horse panicking and galloping away.

  Mazael spun his horse and charged, and the Skuldari warrior turned to meet him, his blue-painted face twisted with battle rage, his eyes wide, his braided black hair bouncing around his head. The Skuldari raider rose in his short stirrups, lifting the axe over his head for a single massive blow. Mazael’s horse surged forward and he swung Talon, catching the axe just below the head as it started to fall. The weapons crashed together, splinters flying from the haft, and the spider danced around Mazael’s horse as he wrenched Talon free.

  “For Marazadra!” screamed the Skuldari, raising his weapon. Mazael swung Talon again, and this time the curved blade sheared through the huge warrior’s right wrist. The axe fell along with the warrior’s right hand, the heavy blade crunching into the spider’s gleaming black abdomen. The warrior howled, and Mazael finished him with a quick slash across the throat.

  A half-dozen of Mazael’s men had fallen, but the heavier horsemen crashed through the spiders. The Skuldari had been overconfident. They regarded spiders as sacred messengers of their goddess, so perhaps they had put too much trust in them. Or they had spent so much time in their gloomy mountains that they didn’t realize the power of a charge of heavy horsemen.

  Regardless of the reason, the horsemen of the Grim Marches broke through the spider riders. The spiders turned to flee, urged by their riders, but it was too late. The faster horses overtook them, the knights and men-at-arms and horsethains striking with sword and spear and axe. A few moments later the final spider rider had been struck down, the spider’s furred black legs twitching and clawing at the air, and Mazael rose up in his stirrups and waved Talon’s glowing blade over his head.

  “Reform!” he shouted. “Return to the line! Aulus!”

  Aulus Hirtan had stayed close behind Mazael through the charge, and the standardbearer raised his horn and sounded the call to reform. The scattered horsemen slowed, returning to the black Cravenlock standard. The horse archers returned as well, dividing themselves into two groups. In the distance Mazael saw the mass of the Skuldari footmen advancing. The Skuldari footmen were hideously vulnerable without their spider riders. Likely they would form into a shield wall to defend themselves against the heavy horsemen. The answer to that was to send the horse archers to circle around them, loosing shaft after shaft until the Skuldari finally broke or tried to pursue the mounted archers.

  Then Mazael would sweep them away and continue to the Weaver’s Pass to join Sigaldra and Adalar and the rest of the lords of the Grim Marches.

  Though the Skuldari footmen continued their advance, which was odd. Why were they doing that? They would get slaughtered when the horsemen ran them down.

  Then Mazael saw three figures in ragged black cloaks striding at the head of the Skuldari warriors. They were taller and thinner than the Skuldari, and as they hurried forward, the black cloaks billowed back to reveal the creatures beneath them. They looked female, their bodies encased in overlapping plates of form-fitting, blood-colored chitin. Jagged claws rose from their crimson fingers, and four more legs rose from their sides, knobbed and armored, longer than they were tall. Their faces were eerily, inhumanly beautiful, with eight white-glowing eyes.

  The creatures were soliphages, the soul-drinking spider-devils the Tervingi had fought in the Endless Forest. They could take the form of human women to lure their victims to their death, leaving only a desiccated husk behind. They also could cast spells, and already Mazael saw their clawed hands gesturing, greenish-blue light flashing around their fingers.

  “Riothamus!” he shouted, kicking his horse to a gallop.

  The soliphages thrust out their hands, and a thunderclap rang out. Invisible force exploded among the charging horsemen, and a half-dozen riders tumbled through the air, ripped from their saddles by the magic. Mazael snarled a curse and urged his horse faster.

  Golden fire flashed in the corner of his eye, and he saw Riothamus gallop forward, the staff of the Guardian raised. The Guardian of the Tervingi could not harm or injure humans, but the soliphages were alien creatures of dark magic. He gestured, and a pillar of white mist swirled a half-dozen feet over the heads of the soliphages. The soliphages started to dodge, but it was too late. The mist hardened into a jagged shard of ice the size of a coffin, and it plunged down, crushing one of the soliphages beneath it with a horrid crunching noise. The remaining two soliphages cast spells at Riothamus, bolts of purple fire bursting from their claws, but Riothamus swept his staff before him. A shimmering dome of golden light enclosed both the Guardian and his horse, and the bolts shattered against it.

  Mazael crashed into the soliphages, Talon in his fist. The nearest soliphage leapt at him, raking with her claws. Mazael twisted and caught the claws upon his shield, the crimson chitin rasping against the steel-banded wood. The soliphage retracted her claws, cat-quick, but the Demonsouled rage was upon Mazael now, and he attacked before she could recover. Talon’s curved blade bit into the soliphage’s side, black slime bubbling from the wound, and the soliphage reared back with a scream. Mazael ripped Talon free, and the soliphage attacked again, two of her giant spider-legs whipping for Mazael’s face like barbed clubs.

  He swept Talon before him, severing the legs. They struck his chest and bounced off the armor of golden dragon scales he wore, and the soliphage screamed again, stumbling as she lost her balance. Mazael seized the opening and swung Talon again, the blade crunching through her skull and sinking halfway into her head. The glow in her eyes sputtered and went out, and Mazael ripped his blade free and turned to face the final soliphage.

  The creature raced towards him, claws raised to tear out his throat, and then a slender pillar of darkness swirled behind her. The darkness hardened into Molly Cravenlock, her face wild with the same battle madness Mazael felt, her slender sword and dragon’s tooth dagger flashing in her hands. The soliphage staggered as Molly’s blades punched into her back, and Mazael finished off the creature with a final stab of Talon.

  The last soliphage slumped to the ground, and Mazael turned, seeking new foes.

  But there were none to be had.

  With the soliphages slain, the horsemen charged into the Skuldari raiders. On foot, the Skuldari were overpowered and outnumbered, and the men of the Grim Marches rode through them like a storm. The battle turned into a rout and then a slaughter. None of the Skuldari would escape to fight again.

  Mazael felt no regret about that.

  If the Skuldari had wanted to live, then they should not have tried to make war upon his people and his lands.

  He let out a long breath, forcing back the Demonsouled rage, and looked down to see Molly still standing next to the dead soliphage.

  “You lost your horse,” said Mazael.

  “I didn’t lose him,” said Molly, rolling her shoulders again. “I know exactly where he is. He was just getting in the way.” She watched the horsemen ride down the Skuldari. “Looks like we’ve won.”

  “This battle,” said Mazael. “There will be more.”

  An hour later it was over. Riothamus healed the wounded, and Romaria rejoined Mazael. Sir Tanam’s scouts began screening the way forward, seeking for more Skuldari warbands or sign of valgast raiders. The horsemen rode west to Weaver’s Pass, where the armies of the Grim Marches gathered for war.

  From there, they would march into Skuldar itself.

  The Prophetess had started this war by suborning Earnachar of the Tervingi and rousing the Skuldari and the valgasts to march against the Grim Marches.

  Mazael intended to end it.

  Chapter 2: Scavengers

  “How does a young man learn so much of war?” said Talchar One-Eye.

  For a moment Adalar Greatheart did not answer.

  Memories burned through his mind, dark and heavy with spilled blood. He had first learned the arts of the knight, swordplay and horsemanship and the lance, from his father. Then he had become the squire of Mazael Cravenlock, and he had seen war after war. Lord Mitor’s doomed rebellion against Richard Mandragon, ending with Mazael becoming the new Lord of Castle Cravenlock. The war against the Dominiars, and the great battle at Tumblestone that ended with the destruction of the Dominiar Order. Then a war greater than all the others, the war against the runedead of Lucan Mandragon. Countless towns and villages had been destroyed in the Great Risi
ng, their people slain to rise as runedead. Once the hills of Mastaria had been well-populated, but now there were places where a man could ride for days without seeing another living soul.

  They had all been slain in the Great Rising, and now only ruins filled Mastaria’s hills.

  “Lord Adalar?” said Talchar One-Eye.

  Adalar blinked and rebuked himself for inattention. “The same way any man young or old learns of war, swordthain. The hard way.”

  Talchar’s remaining eye blinked, and he barked out a harsh laugh. “Good answer, Lord Adalar. Good answer. Everything I know, I learned the hard way.”

  His scarred countenance lent weight to his jest. He had lost his left eye long ago, and replaced it with a red crystal sphere that he had stolen from a tomb of Old Dracaryl. It gave his stern, craggy face an even more fearsome aspect, and at various times he claimed the crystal eye made him immune to magic, let him see when a man lied, or allowed him to see through an attractive woman’s clothes.

  But not ugly women – apparently the crystal eye had standards.

  Adalar grunted. “Do you think it will work?”

  “Maybe,” said Talchar. He scratched at his jaw. “Maybe. It’s a good plan. Should work. Of course, I’ve seen a lot of good plans go straight to hell.”

  “Comforting,” said Adalar, looking at the craggy shapes of the Skuldari mountains to the west.

  “I’d wager that you have, too,” said Talchar.

  “So I have,” said Adalar, thinking of Mastaria again. “Let’s find out if we’re idiots or not.”

  Talchar barked his harsh laugh once more. “We’re only idiots if it doesn’t work.”

  Adalar nodded and headed towards the camp. The fighting men of the Jutai nation, such few of them that were left, had camped at the uttermost western edge of the Grim Marches, where the plains ended and the foothills of Skuldar began. The Weaver’s Pass rose up from the foothills, climbing into a narrow gap between two craggy mountains. Lord Mazael had given command of the pass to Sigaldra, along with a written warrant commanding any knights and lords who arrived to obey her instructions until he arrived himself. Some of the local lords and knights had grumbled about taking orders from the last holdmistress of the Jutai nation, but they were too frightened of Mazael’s displeasure to disobey him.

  More to the point, they were frightened of the Skuldari warbands and the valgast raiders. The camp had grown as more knights and lords received Mazael’s summons to gather at the Weaver’s Pass, and now a thousand men waited under Sigaldra’s command, defending the Weaver’s Pass against Skuldari incursions.

  The Skuldari hadn’t been a problem so far.

  The valgasts, on the other hand…

  The Skuldari hadn’t yet come down in force from Weaver’s Pass. The pass was the only way large forces could move in and out of the mountains, yet it seemed there were a dozen narrow paths that let small warbands in and out of the mountains. The Skuldari, with their spider mounts, could take those paths easily. Yet those warbands were no more than a nuisance, and with the Grim Marches rousing for war, the lords and knights marching west to the Weaver’s Pass would deal with them. Likely Mazael himself had destroyed a warband or two on his way here, and when he arrived, the host of the Grim Marches would march on Skuldar.

  Then, perhaps, they would find the Prophetess and Rigoric and get Liane back.

  Assuming the valgasts did not kill them all first.

  The valgasts worshipped the spider-goddess Marazadra, the same goddess the Skuldari revered. Unlike the Skuldari, the valgasts lived in the labyrinth of dark caverns beneath the Grim Marches, and boiled out of the ground like ants to attack. According to both the Jutai and the Tervingi, the valgasts had once only attacked upon the days of midsummer and midwinter. Now they claimed that the death of the Old Demon had freed them from their constraints, and they could attack freely.

  So they did.

  Adalar was not sure they could hold Weaver’s Pass against the nightly valgast raids.

  The Jutai had fought against the valgasts before, but the men of the Grim Marches had never faced them before this spring. Consequently, they did not know how to fight them. Both the Jutai and the Marcher folk knew how to fight infantry and horsemen and archers…or Malrags and runedead. They did not know how to fight creatures that tunneled up through the ground beneath their boots. Adalar supposed that in the distant past, when ancient men had first encountered foes wielding swords or bows or chariots, they had not known how to fight them, but they found a way in the end.

  So it was time for a new method of fighting.

  Adalar only hoped his plan worked.

  By the gods, he hoped that at least it wouldn’t get all of them killed.

  The camp came into sight, and Adalar was pleased to see that his instructions had been followed. Twelve large pavilions had been raised in a wide circle around the camp, and holes had been cut in the roofs of each of the pavilions. Within each pavilion burned a half-dozen braziers, their smoke rising into the sky. At Adalar’s command, the various knights, lords, armsmen, and thains had moved their bedrolls into the center of the ring of pavilions, with no cook fires or tents. That inspired a great deal of grumbling, but Vorgaric the smith had threatened to crush the head of anyone who disobeyed Lord Adalar’s commands, and that had inspired a spirit of swift obedience.

  “Sir Wesson!” called Adalar as they approached the ring of pavilions. “How goes the work?”

  A stocky knight about Adalar’s own age turned, wearing chain mail and a blue surcoat adorned with the silver greathelm sigil of Lord Gerald Roland of Knightcastle. In imitation of Lord Gerald, Wesson had started growing a mustache, and it had grown out a bit since Adalar and Wesson had arrived in the Grim Marches. Adalar had come to the Grim Marches intending to bury his father and return to Mastaria without delay, but instead he had been drawn into a war.

  Yet another war…

  For a moment the exhausted apathy that had haunted him since the defeat of Lucan Mandragon threatened to wash through him, but Adalar shoved it aside. Tens of thousands had fallen to the runedead, but they were dead and beyond all aid. The living still needed his help – the Marcher folk, the Jutai, Sigaldra’s sister Liane.

  Sigaldra herself.

  “Well enough, Lord Adalar,” said Wesson before Adalar’s thoughts could dwell further on the Jutai holdmistress. “It took some doing to get the ropes tied properly, but we did it in the end.” He scratched at his chin. “One of your armsmen used to be a Knightport sailor, and he knew some things about trick knots.”

  “Good,” said Adalar, looking at the men within the ring of pavilions. “Everyone cooperated?”

  Wesson grimaced. “Yes. Mostly. Some of the knights…ah, are not pleased about following the orders of a Jutai woman.”

  “They should learn to be pleased about it,” said Adalar. “Lord Mazael gave her the command until he arrives.”

  Talchar made a displeased noise. “Too many of the lords and knights have grown friendly with the Tervingi.”

  “Isn’t that a good thing?” said Adalar. “Less of a chance of a civil war in the Grim Marches, and that would benefit no one.”

  “The Tervingi have learned to live in peace with the Marcher folk,” said Talchar, “but the Jutai are not the Tervingi, and the Tervingi hate us.” The red crystal of his left eye flashed in the light of the setting sun. “Many of the Marcher folk have come to agree with the Tervingi.”

  “They wouldn’t dare attack you,” said Adalar. “I imagine Lord Mazael takes a dim view of his vassals attacking each other.”

  Wesson snorted. “Look what he did to Earnachar.”

  “And Earnachar was controlled by one of those damned heart spiders,” said Adalar.

  “Aye, lads,” said Talchar, “but there are long leagues of country between killing a woman and obeying her.”

  There were, in fact, all sorts of things one could do with a woman rather than killing her or obeying her…

  Adalar grimaced and shook his head.

  “What?” said Wesson.

  “Nothing,” said Adalar. “Let’s speak with Sigaldra. She ought to know that we’re ready for the valgasts.”

  “Or as ready as we’ll ever be,” said Talchar.