Iron Image Page 3

  We stood in silence for a moment, and at last Jaercan sneered.

  “Pathetic,” he said. “Absolutely pathetic. You are not worthy of the help of the Knight, Shadow Hunter, and I shall tell him that.”

  With that, he strode away from the tree and headed back to the walls of Redgate.

  I watched him go, furious with myself. I had not handled that well. I had not expected the Knight’s bailiffs to know the details of my life, and the questions had cut right through my defenses. I would have to go to another town and hire a wizard to open a rift way back to Earth. From there, I supposed, I would have to track down the Rebels and Connor the hard way. That could take years.

  Nadia might not have years.

  I sighed, shook my head, and turned to go.

  As I did, a flicker of something gray caught my eye.

  I whirled, reaching for my sword hilt. I spotted several ribbons of mist flowing through the gray grass, converging on the black-robed shape of Jaercan. I had seen ribbons of mist like that before many times. Wraithwolves could transform themselves into those ribbons…and they were all heading towards the old man.

  “Jaercan!” I shouted, drawing my sword with my right hand.

  “Eh?” The old man turned and glared at me. “What, are you going to attack me?”

  “Wraithwolves!” I shouted, running at him as I called magic with my left hand.

  Jaercan looked around, blinking, and then his eyes went wide.

  A half-second later the wraithwolves solidified.

  The creatures looked like the wolves of Earth, albeit much larger. They also had plates of bony black armor on their spines and skulls, and their eyes burned like hot coals. All six wraithwolves surged towards Jaercan, and the old man started casting a spell with a cry of fear.

  I surged forward, drawing on my Shadowmorph for speed and strength, and I attacked. The wraithwolves were focused on Jaercan, and so did not see me until it was too late. I brought my sword hammering down and took off a wraithwolf’s head, black slime spurting into the ground. I cast the spell I had prepared, and a sparking, snarling lightning globe leaped from my fingers. The globe slammed into a second wraithwolf, lightning curling up and down its limbs, and I killed it with a sharp chop of my sword.

  Unfortunately, my sword lodged in the gap between the wraithwolf’s head and its neck, and its death throes ripped the weapon from my hand.

  I stepped back and called to my Shadowmorph, the blade of darkness springing from my hand as all four remaining wraithwolves converged on me. Jaercan snarled and cast a spell, and one of the wraithwolves erupted into flames, the stink of charred flesh and fur filling my nostrils.

  That left three wraithwolves to fight.

  I wheeled, dodged around snapping jaws, and slashed my Shadowmorph blade through the nearest wraithwolf. I cut its head from its shoulders, and the creature’s carcass collapsed to the ground. The other two pursued me, snapping and snarling. They were fast enough that I dared not turn my attention from my defenses.

  Then one of the wraithwolves exploded into flames as Jaercan cast another spell. The sole remaining wraithwolf hesitated, alarmed by the flames, and I killed it with a slash through the head. Its stolen life force surged through me, and my Shadowmorph demanded more, demanded that I cut down Jaercan and feed on his life…

  I forced aside the sensation and dismissed the blade, allowing my Shadowmorph to dissolve back into my flesh.

  “Are you injured?” I said.

  “I am not,” said Jaercan. “Why did you help me?”

  I blinked sweat from my eyes. “What?”

  “I refused to help you,” said Jaercan. “Yet you slew the wraithwolves.”

  “I wasn’t going to let them eat you,” I said. “I’m going to the next town to hire a wizard to send me back to Earth, so you’ll excuse me if I don’t hang around to talk.”

  I turned to go.

  “Riordan MacCormac.”

  I stiffened. Jaercan’s voice had changed. It was still deep, but no longer quite as harsh, and now it had a marked Texas accent.

  And I knew that voice. I knew that voice very well.

  I turned to look at Jaercan.

  He grinned at me, waved his hand, and changed.

  His form flowed and reshaped itself into a vigorous-looking man in his late thirties or early forties. He had dark blond hair tied back into a ponytail and a close-cropped blond beard, his eyes a bright shade of blue. His clothes were out of place in the Shadowlands – a green camouflage jacket, a worn blue work shirt, jeans, and steel-toed work boots. A sheathed sword hung at his belt, and a peculiar gauntlet of gray metal covered his left hand, its plates written with magical symbols.

  Once we had been men-at-arms together in Duke Tarmegon’s service, and then soldiers of the Wizard’s Legion.

  “Jake,” I said. “Been a long time.”

  Jacob Temple, the Knight of Grayhold, grinned at me. “Yes, it has, Mac. You still got that stick up your ass?”

  I let out a long breath. “I liked you better as Jaercan.”

  “Yeah, I thought you might.” He kicked aside the severed head of a wraithwolf as he walked towards me. “I should have you meet the real Jaercan. He actually is the bailiff of Redgate, I’ll have you know. Nice old fellow. Much nicer than I am.”

  “That wouldn’t be hard,” I said. “What was the point of all this?”

  “Had to make sure,” said the Knight.

  “Make sure of what?”

  “That you hadn’t had your brains and your soul eaten out by your Shadowmorph,” said the Knight. “Happens to a lot of Shadow Hunters.”

  “And if you had been willing to help me save my brother,” I said, “then I wouldn’t have become a Shadow Hunter. I thought you were my friend, Jake.”

  “I was.”

  “But you wouldn’t help me save Aidan from Morvilind,” I said.

  “I couldn’t.” He sighed and shook his head. “There are rules. I can’t break them. I can bend them, but I can’t break them. And interfering with someone like Morvilind is one of them. He hates the Dark Ones more than anything, and he won’t use their power. Unless he does, I can’t touch him, and neither can the Graysworn. Not that the Graysworn would do much good against him. He could kill them all without working up much of a sweat.”

  “A fine excuse,” I said.

  His smile was sad. “If I could exercise my power directly…don’t you think I would have my daughter with me?”

  We stared at each other in silence for a while.

  “I am sorry about that,” I said. “She didn’t deserve what happened to her.”

  “Yeah, well, you’re not the only man to have ever lost someone you loved, Mac,” said the Knight. “But, hell, neither am I. That’s why I played this little game with you. I wanted to see what kind of man you had become in the last eighty years.”

  “And?”

  He grinned. “You’re exactly the same kind of man you were when we first met ninety years ago. Still the same stick up your ass.”

  I folded my arms. “Are you going to help me?”

  “One more question.” The Knight tapped his armored fingers against the hilt of his sword for a moment. “Do you love her?”

  “Who?”

  “Nadia Moran, of course,” said the Knight. “I know you tried to save your wife and your girlfriend, and I know you’re afraid that pattern is repeating. That’s why you’re here, obviously.” He grinned. “She’s a pretty little thing and smart as a whip, though the mouth on that woman! She could strip the paint from a wall with her tongue.”

  “Why do you think I’m here, Jake?” I said. “Of course I love her. I failed my wife and I failed Miranda, and I failed Nadia in some way.”

  “No, you didn’t,” said the Knight, his eyes distant. “I’m sure of it. If you had tried to help her when her trial began, you would have been killed. And maybe a lot of other people.”

  “Trial?” I said. “What trial?”

  “Th
at’s for her to tell you, not me,” said the Knight. “You want to save Nadia, and I respect that. But I need to think about the world. And Nicholas Connor’s going to destroy the world if he’s not stopped.”

  “Then he’s as big a threat as the High Queen thinks?” I said.

  “Bigger,” said the Knight. “If he’s not stopped, he will overthrow the High Queen. Me, I don’t care much one way or another who rules Earth. But Connor’s allied himself with the Dark Ones and the Forerunner. If he is victorious, the Forerunner will let the Great Dark Ones through, and what they’ll do to Earth will make what the Archons did to Kalvarion look like a Sunday walk in the park.”

  “Then you’ll help me?” I said.

  “Oh, yes,” said the Knight. “I know how to find Connor, and I know how you can ingratiate yourself with him. Come on, Mac. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

  I followed Jacob Temple to the walls of Redgate, feeling more hope that I had in some time.

  I still had a lot of work to do. I still needed to find Nadia and stop Connor.

  But it was the hope of saving her that drove me onward.

  THE END

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