Richard Baker - Swordmage

He wheeled his mount around, looking for Sergen-and then he found him. His stepcousin and a quartet of Council Watch guards sat on riding horses under a stand of hemlocks perhaps a hundred yards away, partially hidden by the ragged tatters of mist that streamed by. It was difficult for Geran to tell what the traitor was doing given the distance and the poor visibility, but he could see several Veruna officers in their tabards of green and white speaking with him. As the swordmage watched, the Veruna men turned their mounts and cantered away, heading back toward their troops.

“What did you tell them, Sergen?” Geran muttered aloud. “Abandon the field? Turn against the Shieldsworn? Or wait and do nothing until the battle is lost?”

With no firm intentions in mind other than to make sure that Sergen didn’t get away with whatever he hoped to get away with, Geran tapped his heels to his horse’s flanks and broke into a canter, heading for Sergen and his guards. The wet ground and blowing mist muffled the hoofbeats of his mount, and the air grew steadily colder and more still as he drew closer. Sergen wasn’t looking at Geran; he was leaning forward in his saddle, looking out over the battle as scattered bands of desperate soldiers struggled to drive off the deathless warriors of the King in Copper. The fighting was fiercest around the banner of the harmach, where better than a hundred soldiers stood together against a ragged wave of skeletons who rose up out of the ground and attacked just as quickly as they were killed or disabled by the soldiers fighting to protect the ruler of Hulburg. Geran couldn’t see his uncle, not through the chaos and the murk, but he caught a glimpse of Kara on her fine white charger in the thick of the melee.

Sergen was still unaware of Geran’s approach, and now the swordmage was only thirty yards away. Distantly the swordmage noted that the Veruna officers riding back to their troops had caught sight of him. They wheeled and galloped to intercept him, but a desperate plan finally coalesced in Geran’s mind, and he spurred his mount into a headlong charge. He had little magic left after the furious skirmish at the Vale Road’s cut, but he still had a few words he could call upon. It would have to be enough. He stood up in his stirrups, sword bared in his hand.

“Lord Sergen!” the Veruna officers shouted. “Behind you!”

The council guard closest to Geran turned at the warning. The guard snapped down his visor and drew his sword, shouting something to the men around him. Even as Sergen looked around and the other guards began to turn their mounts to meet Geran’s attack, the swordmage raced up alongside the first guard’s mount and lashed out with his backsword. Bright steel glittered in the cold mist, shrilly clanging twice as Geran beat his way through the man’s guard. He disabled the fellow with a backhand flick of the point that creased its way through the guard’s visor. The man cried out and crumpled forward in the saddle, holding his hand to his face; Geran’s horse shouldered the guard’s mount out of the way, and he drove at his treacherous cousin.

“Sergen!” he snarled.

“To me! To me!” Sergen shouted at his mercenaries. Geran ignored them. Sergen reached awkwardly for the sword at his hip with his unwounded arm, but Geran didn’t give him a chance to draw it. With a wordless roar of anger, he hurled himself out of the saddle and tackled Sergen, carrying his stepcousin to the muddy ground underfoot. The impact knocked Geran’s breath away, but Sergen cried out sharply as his damaged arm hit the ground. Their momentum rolled them over and over, Geran holding his stepcousin with a grip of iron.

“You fool!” Sergen hissed between his teeth. “You’ve interfered with my business for the last time, Geran! I swear that I’ll see you dead before this is done!”

“Then you should’ve killed me when you had me helpless in a cell,” Geran answered.

Sergen reached for a dagger with his good hand, but Geran got on top of him and delivered two sharp punches to the jaw before he had to duck under a sword-swing from one of the council guards. He rolled again to put Sergen on top, using the lord as a shield against his own bodyguards, and then their struggle tumbled them both into the shallow ditch beside the Vale Road.

Sergen managed to wrench his jacket free and threw himself away from Geran, gaining an armslength of clear space. He rolled to his knees and floundered up out of the ditch. “I won’t make that mistake again,” he snarled at Geran. He motioned for his guards, who rushed to his aid.

Geran scrambled to his feet and retreated a few steps from the grim mercenaries closing in around him. Then he raised his hand and showed Sergen the amulet of Aesperus, which he’d wrenched away from his cousin during their brief struggle. The old copper amulet glinted in the dim light. “I think you’ve caused enough trouble with this for now, Sergen,” he said.

Sergen’s hand flew to his chest, and he looked down in horror. When he looked up again, his dark eyes blazed in fury. “Kill him!” he shouted to his guards. “Kill him now!”

Geran glanced around and summoned up what little magic he had left unspent. “Seiroch!” he shouted. Sergen’s guards thrust their blades through empty air where he’d been standing an instant before, and the teleport spell whisked him a hundred yards away in the blink of an eye.

He found himself standing close to the harmach’s banner, surrounded by Shieldsworn who fought desperately against the tide of skeletal warriors. Geran thrust his hand into the air, holding the amulet aloft, and shouted, “Warriors of Aesperus, halt! I command you!”

All around him, skeletons abruptly stopped moving. More than a few Hulburgans smashed their axes and swords into skeletal warriors who now stood still. Some of those fell while others suffered the injuries without response, standing motionless. The humans and dwarves out on the field raised a ragged cheer of astonishment and exultation, amazed to find their attackers immobilized.

“I’ll be damned,” Geran said softly. “It worked!” He felt the empty eyes of the dead warriors settling on him, and the cold whispers in the air seemed to grow stronger, more sinister. He shuddered. If he was going to command these fell creatures, better to do it now before he lost his nerve. “Warriors of Aesperus, listen to me! You are to attack and destroy the Bloody Skull orcs and their allies-ignore all who are defending Hulburg! Do you understand me?”

The ranks of skeletal warriors seemed to shiver, and the dead ones backed away from their former adversaries and turned to face north. “Aye, we understand thee,” they answered in their cold, rasping voices. “We go to do thy bidding.” Then they began to march away from the battered bands of humans and dwarves they’d been fighting just a moment ago, old bones clicking like insects, rusted mail squealing and clinking.

The defenders of Hulburg raised a ragged volley of shouts, cries of relief, and calls for help, hundreds of voices babbling once. Several of the men standing near Geran grinned at him and stepped close to slap his back and seize his hand. Then a signal horn blew twice above the din. Geran turned and saw Kara lowering the horn. “Back to the dike-top!” she shouted. “Reform ranks across the road! We aren’t done yet!”

Geran looked back at the stand of trees where he’d met Sergen, just visible through the mists. His cousin climbed up into the saddle of his black destrier and glared in Geran’s direction, though the swordmage doubted that Sergen could actually pick him out in the middle of the warriors around the harmach’s banner. Then Sergen spurred his horse and galloped away to the south, fleeing back toward Hulburg with his guards following. A moment later, the House Veruna soldiers on the left side of the line stepped back from the dike, turned toward the south, and began to march away as well, leaving the battle behind. Geran was sorely tempted to call back some of Aesperus’s skeletons in order to send them after Sergen and the Verunas, but he had no idea how strong a hold he really had over the undead warriors or how much they could hurt the Bloody Skulls.