Fate Rides Wicked: Volume I of the Lerilon Trilogy (13 page)

Tych and Lendril were too quick, however, and they
dove under the spikes with weapons drawn. The forangen
on the other side fell to Tych’s swift blade as Lendril
scouted to the end of the short hallway entrance.

Tych came up behind her as she looked down two
wider hallways running perpendicular to theirs. “I hear
several forangen coming. The eagles said to go right to get
to the entrance to the courtyard.”

“Then let’s go. We don’t want to be trapped here for a
battle with forangen.”

“Wrong, my love. Here we can protect our backs.
Besides, the decision is made for us. Here they come.”

The two endarils took a shoulder-to-shoulder stance and
braced for the onslaught. In moments, each stood locked in
mortal combat with a bigger, stronger human. Tych turned
aside a slashing blow, slammed his sword handle against
the hand of his opponent and his enemy’s sword fell to the
ground. Continuing the motion, he thrust up and ran the
man through the chest.

Lendril took her axe in both hands and blocked an
overhead strike with the top of the blades and kicked the
man in the groin. She then cleaved the skull of the bent
over man. Just as she started to step over the body a hand
grabbed her and almost threw her into the gates. She
looked up to see a bolt of energy strike out and surround
the forangen with an eerie light that became too bright for
her eyes.

When she opened them, Tych beckoned her to follow.
As they turned down the corridor to the courtyard, Tych
said, “I felt like the forangen were drawing the energy out
of me like magnets to metal shavings. The good thing was
that I could have controlled it if I wanted to, which I did
during my battle and long enough to get you out of the
way.”

“It seems forangen bring out the best in you. We’ve
reached the courtyard.” Lendril kicked the doors and they
swung open with such force that they shook the walls when
they hit them. There, in the middle of the courtyard stood
the biggest forangen ever seen in Li and a tall, powerful
man in shiny, black armor.

Tych strode in and challenged, “Lord Damarin, we shall
now see me bring your days as a Lord to an end.”

The man in black armor rumbled a deep, evil laugh and
said, “You shall see your own blood run before I bow to
you or surrender my rule.”

The forangen charged, and before Tych could blast him,
Lendril hissed, “This one is mine. You take care of
Damarin.” With this she raised her axe above her head,
holding it parallel to the ground and advanced towards the
onrushing pig-man.

Tych began circling around the two other combatants
and watched carefully as the warrior approached his
position, a long, glowing sword held in front. With a yell
Tych charged, his blade thrust out in front of him. His
opponent struck out as soon as Tych’s sword came close
enough and sent the prince’s blade spinning off behind the
charging endaril. This was exactly what Tych wanted,
because now the Lord had opened himself up to the flying
leap Tych used to kick him square in the chest.

Lord Damarin grunted in pain and stumbled back ten
feet before falling on his back. Tych drew a dagger and
launched it as the warrior stood. The missile caught him in
his left shoulder. Tych began a series of back-flips, which
brought him to his sword. The prince came up with sword
in hand facing Lord Damarin. The human stalked him.
Tych watched him pull the dagger from his shoulder as he
positioned himself to be engaged by the enraged human.

Lendril ducked under the club of the forangen as she
brought her axe down and around, striking the beast in the
hip. The forangen swung down, but she leapt four feet into
the air and kicked the hand of her enemy, sending the club
flying. The forangen, however, was ready, and hit Lendril
in the thigh with his fisted left hand. Lendril landed on her
back. The princess rolled left to dodge the stomping foot of
the beast, barely keeping the crossbow on her back out of
danger. As the forangen lifted his foot for another try,
Lendril sat up and flipped her axe into the creature’s groin.
Her opponent bent over, she pulled out a crossbow bolt,
and planted it deep into its eye as she came to her knees.
The beast screamed, stood straight up, then died, falling
over backwards.

At this moment, Damarin and Tych engaged each other.
The sound of steel meeting steel rang through the courtyard
as thrust and parry answered feint and dodge. As he
deflected the Lord’s onslaught, stopping blow after blow,
Tych saw a pattern of high-left overhand and low-right
undercut followed by an across-the-body slice. With great
concentration, the prince blocked the first of these as he
drew a dagger with his left hand. Then, rather than block
the uppercut with his sword he used his dagger and swung
his blade horizontally, removing Lord Damarin’s head from
his shoulders. The prince stepped away as his opponent’s
body fell first to its knees, then forward like it was made of
straw. He took the Lord’s cape in his left hand with his
dagger and wiped the blood off his sword. Then he
sheathed both blades and looked up to see Lendril wiping
her axe clean on the armor of the forangen.

“Are you hurt?” Tych yelled to Lendril.

“No, but for a few bruises,” she responded as she
approached. “Do you have any injuries?”

Tych shook his head vigorously. “Not a one. Lord
Damarin, it seems was an easy test.”

The twang of a bowstring rang through the air. With
uncanny agility, Lendril turned sideways and leaned back
and the arrow passed in front of her chest by inches. As the
warrior reached for her crossbow, she found herself caught
in a barrage of additional missiles. Tych finished running
the twenty feet between them as an arrow struck the
Princess just below her right shoulder blade.

With a shout of pain she fell to her knees. Tych took
the crossbow from her hands, loaded it and tried to
determine the location of their enemy. The courtyard cried
out with silence and the air had suddenly stopped moving
for the Prince. He came to the front of Lendril, always
wary, and knelt before her, placing the crossbow on her left
shoulder so he could shoot past her.

Lovingly, he pulled her forward and rested her head on
his shoulder. “Watch my back,” he whispered in her ear.
“This will probably hurt a great deal.”

Hoarsely, she rasped, “It hit my lung, I can’t breathe
without pain. Please, my love, help me.”

“You’ll be just fine.” Taking a piece of rope from her
pouch, he handed it to her and said, “Bite down on this
while I remove the arrow.”

She took the rope and then, softly, her voice reached
him. “There was poison on the arrow. I am dying. I
can...feel it. The pain...it...won’t stop.”

Barely able to disguise the tremble in his voice, he
spoke back, just as softly. “Bite the rope and concentrate
on staying alive.”

Seconds later a scream reached every corner of the
castle. Tych groaned at the gaping wound in her back and
reached into his pouch for the bandages and healing herbs.
Then a third sound reached them: laughter. Slowly he
lowered Lendril down to the cobblestone floor of the
courtyard and whispered in her ear, “Stay alive.”

With the sword in his right hand and a dagger in his left
he stepped warily towards the middle of the courtyard.
“Show yourself, fiend, and state who you are,” shouted the
endarilan warrior.

A few seconds passed and then, suddenly, as if out of
nowhere, he saw a heavily armored man standing at the
other end of the courtyard. The human held a tall bow in
his left and an arrow with so much poison on its tip that
Tych could see it dripping off from his position one
hundred feet away. With a surly, deep northern slang the
man said, “Lord Damarin be in your presence, unsavory
silver enemy of mine. You killed my top general.”

Anger welled up in Tych’s chest. Never had he faced
despair, death and loss all at the same time. With a battle
yell that would have frightened off most soldiers, Tych
charged. Without flinching, Damarin aimed the bow,
nocked his arrow and pulled back on the string.

Tych charged on. The Lord waited, poised to fire at
point blank. The Prince watched the Lord’s right hand.
The hand opened. Tych leapt high into the air,
somersaulting forward in flight. The arrow raced by
underneath him. He came out of his tuck. An intensely
glowing light shrouded his body as he landed in front of his
foe. With the crescendo of his yell he dropped the dagger,
and like a person hitting a ball with a stick he swung. The
might behind that sword matched that of a god’s, so intense
was his fury, so powerful was the energy which filled his
soul and every sinew of his body.

Lord Damarin could only watch in horror as his bow
shattered and the sword lost nothing. He could only scream
as it cut into his side, lifting his huge frame off the ground.
He could only fall as his body slammed up against the wall
of the courtyard. Tych strutted over to the slumped body to
strike again but stepped back as he saw that very little held
the two halves of his opponent together.

In the clarity of the next few seconds, he realized that
the floodgates were about to open and he would be helpless
to aid Lendril. He also remembered Doleof’s words: “Take
Damarin’s sword. It will harness your power and you will
give the same to it.” Frantically, he drew the long blade
from the scabbard and a calmness coursed through him.
The sword began to hum, barely audible but getting louder.
The gates of energy burst open, but like a lightning rod it
rushed into the sword and leapt upon it. For a long moment
the waves of light danced there, and now the hum could be
heard clearly throughout the entire castle.

Tych regained his senses and looked closely at the
blade. Suddenly the energy jumped from the tip of it and
began to take shape in front of him. In moments the hazy
form of a woman stood but a few feet away, but not like
any woman Tych had ever seen. The Prince started so
much he almost dropped the blade.

He began to say something but the phantom stopped
him. “I am neftiran, one of the little mountain people as
you would call us. The sword you hold is called `Gaylin’
which translates to `xadineft killer’ in our language. This
one time my presence in the sword has prevented the
energy from consuming your energy but when I am
finished, I will be gone. Listen carefully, and remember all
I say, because this will be the only time you hear it.

“Gaylin was created by the dragons long ago with the
aid of my people. Only you may benefit from its powers,
and you will discover why later. There are several things I
cannot tell you, because you are not ready. But these
things I do tell you, keep it with you always. The blade
will not control the enormous amounts of energy you are
capable of releasing; it will use it in ways which you will
come to be able to manipulate. You alone must learn to
control your energy; until then, Gaylin will not seem to
respond to your wishes and will cause you to act
irrationally and wildly. Finally, Gaylin will aid you in your
spell casting, which you will soon learn.

“Fate has brought you and Gaylin together, after
thousands of years. The dragons made more than they had
bargained for and the sword would not release its power to
any they could find to wield it. In you, the basic
intelligence of the blade has found somebody it feels is
worthy of it. And here is the key. Gaylin is no more
intelligent than the xadineft it loves to taste, but it has an
ego befitting a vain god. Only you are good enough, strong
enough and magical enough to control it and satisfy that
ego. Before I go, you may make one request of me.”

As Tych said it, the phantom had already crossed the
courtyard. “Heal Lendril,” he said weakly to the back of
the messenger. The endaril unbuckled his sword belt,
loosened it, and slung the jeweled sword and scabbard from
his father over his shoulder. Then he removed the sword’s
black scabbard from Lord Damarin, who wore black armor.
Instantly, the scabbard became the brown color of Tych’s
armor. Only slightly startled, he hooked his other belt
through the loop behind the sheath and slid Gaylin in.

The magic sword’s handle seemed to vanish for a
moment then became a rich brown, and the single ruby in
the end flashed once, as if winking. New joy in his heart,
he ran to Lendril as she stirred. Confident that she was
healthy, he scooped her off the ground and shouted in joy.
Then he hugged her tightly to him as robust laughter
escaped her lips.

In a long corridor below the castle’s south wall, Tych
and Lendril hesitated. They could hear noise at the bottom
of the stairs in front of them and on their left. Tych
whispered to Lendril, “It sounds like a saw going down
there.”

Lendril nodded. “Around here, it’s probably snoring.”
Lendril watched in amazement as Tych drew Gaylin from
its scabbard. She and Tych had discovered that only Tych
could see the sword when it rested in the scabbard. To her,
the sheath looked empty. She unbuckled her axe and
headed down the stairs slowly, Tych right behind.

At the bottom, she looked left and saw a single
forangen leaning back in his chair so that it rested against
the wall, deep in sleep. Turning to Tych, she pointed at
him, then at the bottom stair, indicating he should stay
there. Before he could question, she had slipped into the
corridor and placed the stairwell between her and the pigman.

The forangen was the only one more surprised than
Tych when she began yelling and hooting and dancing up
and down. With a startled grunt of rage, it stood and
charged the dancing warrior. At the stairs, Tych cleaved its
head open.

Tych took the keys from the beast’s belt and headed
towards the doors. There, in the cell next to the chair, slept
a very old man. The Prince tried several keys before finally
finding the right one, and in the process the man woke up.
They pushed the door open, but before they could enter the
man rushed the door and tackled Tych.