G. Kelly - Sword and Circle

With a sharp sigh, Gawain crushed the memory, and remembering the darkening skies to the east and hearing the distant rumble of thunder, he packed his bedroll away again, and moved all the packs and their belongings across the Keep into the relative shelter of the vaulted sentry’s post cut deep into the east wall at the northeast corner of the Keep. The post once guarded the spiral stairs leading up to the floors above, and Gawain remembered the faces of the guards who once stood quiet duty there, or sat on the uncomfortable misericords set into the wall when no-one was about. Gwyn and the other horses followed him, to stand quietly, looking as downcast as any horses could.

“I’m going outside, Allazar.” Gawain called softly, suddenly in need of space and fresh air to drive the ghosts from his mind’s eye.

“Hmm? Ah, yes, yes I’ll think I’ll join you, clear the head. My eyes could do with a rest too.”

Together, they walked quietly out of the Hall and into the sunlight beyond.

“Evening already?” Allazar muttered, stepping over the wreckage of the gates into the courtyard beyond.

“Yes, though made darker by the gathering storm. I never thought I’d see another here. I certainly never imagined I’d spend a night here.”

“Nor I,” Allazar admitted. “But take heart, Longsword, I certainly believe as you do that our journey was worth the effort. As for the haste of it, I cannot say, but we are here now, and that’s all that matters.”

Gawain nodded, and shielded his eyes, looking first to the far north, then to the west.

“What is it?” Allazar asked.

“I thought I saw something.” Gawain muttered. Then he shrugged. “Trick of the light probably, after being in the shade so long.”

“Ah,” Allazar agreed, stretching with a sigh. “Or perhaps the lightning from the east? Tell me, Longsword, do you remember anything else of the wizards of the past, of their attempts to understand the circle?”

“Alas no,” Gawain looked sheepish. “I’m afraid I didn’t pay very much attention to the affairs of wizards. Like most young men in Raheen, I was more concerned with my training, and as Elayeen put it, spending great tracts of my life charging aimlessly about the place on horseback.”

“Ah.”

“Why? Has the knowledge of this modern age revealed something to you?” Gawain again looked north, frowning, and then west again.

“I’m not certain. But I have an inkling. Only the vaguest idea, of course, and one so simple it can’t possibly be relevant nor I’m sure would it have been overlooked, though it might…”

But Gawain wasn’t listening. He was scanning the ground frantically in a hopeless search for some kind of cover.

“Longsword?”

“The west, Allazar,” Gawain cried, “Something approaches from the west! Back to the Keep!”

Allazar shielded his eyes. Something was approaching from the west, high above the ground, and it was growing bigger. “Elve’s Blood and Dwarfspit!” he gasped, “What is that?”

Gwyn whinnied from entrance to the Keep, her head bobbing frantically, pawing at the flagstones like a bull about to charge.

“Run! Allazar!” Gawain shouted.

But it was too late. A shadow, winged and broad, swept over them, a great wind following, and from above, a streamer of crackling black lightning crashed into the flagstones to the right of the wizard.

Allazar stumbled, then turned and began lurching towards the Keep, tripping on debris and finally ending face down upon the twisted remains of the great iron gates. He looked up to see Gawain stringing an arrow, and hurling it upward at something behind and above. As he stumbled to his knees, he turned his head, and to his horror he saw an image of ancient terror, an image which had graced many a page in the dusty tomes of D’ith Hallencloister’s library, an image which had troubled the dreams of many a sleeping child. Dust swirled, blinding him, as the immense form of the Graken back-winged into the courtyard.

Another arrow fizzed overhead as Allazar dragged himself up and ran, half blind from the swirling dust and half dazed from the sight of a dark-made beast not seen for centuries. Gawain’s arrow must have struck the creature somewhere, for the crack of the string that launched the shaft was drowned by a monstrous howl.

Allazar had cleared the wreckage of the gates and was turning, raising his hands and chanting, when another streamer of immensely powerful lightning blasted into the ground between him and Gawain, knocking them both off their feet. Gwyn whinnied pitifully, furiously, but seemed utterly incapable of leaving the shelter of the vaulted entrance to the Keep.

Silence, and then laughter filled the air, followed by a rhythmic snorting and a dragging noise Allazar couldn’t quite place. He pushed himself up, and glancing over his shoulder understood what the noises were. The Graken, breathing hard from its flight and with a Raheen arrow waving like a signal-man’s flag from the base of its neck, was moving slowly towards them, dragging its tail behind it. In the air it reigned unchallenged by any creature of Nature’s making, but on foot, on the ground, it was clumsy and slow.

The laughter, Allazar saw, came from the rider mounted in what looked for all the world like a high-backed armchair strapped to the creature’s back, holding braided rope reins attached to a complicated bridle and bit about the Graken’s grotesque, lizard-like head.

Another arrow fizzed over Allazar’s left shoulder, but the masked and laughing figure simply raised the long staff he was holding, a great black shimmering disk of smoke appeared, and the arrow flared into ash upon striking it.

“Foolish boy, do you not know who you face on this your end of days?” A malevolent voice, metallic and harsh rasped from behind the winged iron-grey mask the staff-bearer wore. The mask was plain, unadorned, and all the more menacing for it, just two simple holes for the wearer’s eyes, and half a dozen smaller holes drilled into the metal for the mouth.

Gawain hurled another arrow, and again the shield of smoke appeared before the staff, consuming the shaft. More laughter. Then Allazar, chanting at first under his breath and then crying the final words raised his hands and sent streamers of fire arcing towards the enemy.

This time, no black smoke shield appeared. The enemy wizard simply allowed the streamers to strike him, and laughed them off. Allazar felt a sudden sense of dread, of peril beyond his ability to describe.

“What’s this?” The masked rider demanded, pulling on the reins and bringing the Graken to a halt. “They have sent a child of a wizard to aid a boy of a king? Morloch commands I, Salaman Goth of Goria, to do the work of an apprentice!”

“You are of Goria?” Gawain called out, his voice strong, rich and powerful compared to the metallic rasp of his enemy. “And a Goth-lord?”

Sparks crackled at the ends of the staff the dark wizard held in his outstretched right arm. “I am Salaman Goth! Know you not my name, boy? Does your history not speak of me in fear and in trembling? Was it not I who created the Goth-lords in my image?”

Allazar’s shoulders slumped, and though a dread feeling of total helplessness threatened to overwhelm him, he still instinctively moved back a little at a time, and further to his right, allowing Gawain a clearer shot at the creatures before them.

More sparks showered from the ends of Goth’s staff, then a dazzling streamer of fire lanced into the darkening evening skies, great black thunderheads bubbling over them all the way from the eastern plains. Then Salaman Goth flexed his arm, raising the staff a little.

“Know you this stave, witless worm of the D’ith?”