James Somers - The Sword of Gideon

However, try as he might, Gideon couldn't budge a single stone. All remained locked against him with only the slightest measure of light coming through. He panted as his muscles relaxed. A search of the tunnel itself yielded nothing that could be used to pry the stones. He was trapped indefinitely.

Gideon slumped back against the wall and sat on the stone floor. His breathing slowed as he watched the light, a beacon in the night taunting him with his hopelessness. He sat watching it for a long time, resigning himself more each moment to his fate. It was over.

Your child is lost to Mordred and his demons. At the very least, he will die. But if not, what manner of man might he become? Another brutal warlord, only kept alive to amuse the dark lord for his victory over Shaddai's priest? His knowledge of his own father, if any, would be that of a traitor to his Order, a weak minded fool not worthy of being remembered.

Voices echoed in Gideon's mind-but not his own. As he watched the light dim to orange, becoming pale blues and grays, Gideon realized he was not as alone as he might have thought. The voices continued, taunting him, writhing in the darkness around him unseen, disembodied.

"Who are you!" he shouted.

Laughter.

Gideon stood now, his anger burning through his despair. "Show yourself, demon!"

More laughter, but then the voice took form. An image appeared, almost human in appearance, but decidedly not. The demon hung upon the wall completely oblivious to any constraints of gravity. Gideon stood firm, unafraid. The demon's appearance was at least a little better than dying alone-he hoped. If it was here, then almost certainly there was a purpose. And maybe that meant he must be freed from his tomb.

"Enough of your games," he challenged. "State your business, so I can get on with my dying in peace."

The demon smiled at this. "A welcome event I can assure you, priest." The smile faded. "But Mordred isn't finished with you yet."

"There's nothing I can do about that," Gideon said. "I'm trapped here and there's no way out. He can't command a corpse."

The demon didn't seem fazed by his indifference in the least. "You will journey to Wayland, priest. There you will assassinate King Stephen in a public place. If, in the process, you should find the Deliverer of prophecy, you will also kill him."

"To the Pit with you!" Gideon shouted. "I can't go anywhere now!"

The demon leered at him and then swiped his arm across the rock where the light shone into the tunnel. The mass of stone erupted outward in all directions, leaving a gaping wound in the tunnel for Gideon to climb out.

The demon faded away in the darkness, its last statement barely above a whisper. "Fail and your Sarah's child will perish slowly in flame."

Gideon knew well what the demon had meant by Sarah's child perishing in flame. If his son grew in the care of Mordred, he would be taught to hate Shaddai and would ultimately reject salvation for the wickedness he would be brought up to love. It wasn't death by Mordred's hand that threatened his child, but the life he would live and the soul he would lose, if Gideon failed.

Upon coming out of his rocky tomb, Gideon had found his former home, the Temple of Shaddai, more ruined than he could have imagined. This place where generations of Shaddai's priests had served their lord for centuries, now stood a gaping crater in the side of the mountain-a smoldering pile of rubble. He could not discern any part of the structure left intact. No one human, or animal, stirred. Of all the priests who had remained to fight Grimwald's army of hybrids, none remained alive.

For Grimwald's part, the same was true. There was no sign of the venomous general or his demonic soldiers anywhere in the great smoking quarry that remained. He had been buried beneath tons of rock with every abomination he'd bred and brought into Shaddai's Temple. Perhaps this was Shaddai's will. It pleased Gideon to think that Shaddai's servants had served him faithfully to their ends. The army Mordred had sent had perished with the prize they had come to take. A fitting end.

And still, for some reason, Gideon could not discern, he remained alive. Why had Shaddai allowed him to go on when all the others had died in this cataclysm? Perhaps to let him live with the agony of his own betrayal-to see what his traitorous actions had caused. He couldn't be sure, but one thing remained. His son lived and Gideon would see this mission through in order to save him. It was all he had left.

Two days more, traveling through the old passages used by his former Order, had brought Gideon to the very edge of the Thornhill Mountains. Before him lay King Stephen's Wall, the guarded boundary between Wayland and Nod. King Stephen had commissioned its building once Mordred's power grew in Nod and it became clear that he would eventually seek to conquer Wayland, as well as the other nations around him.

So far, the mountains and the wall beyond had kept the threat neutralized. In fact, Mordred had not even tried, yet, to enter Stephen's country. But that wouldn't last. Gideon had seen the preparations being made back in Emmanuel for just such an invasion. Mordred would come. The only question being when?

Gideon watched the fortress which stood over the road proceeding into Wayland. The wall itself was virtually impossible to climb over. Not only for the height of it, but that jagged, razor sharp protrusions were the only things to grab hold of. Only a little pressure was necessary to slice right into hands or feet coming into contact with them.

The only way through the wall was the fortress itself. It was fortified, but only by men. And Gideon had no problem facing men. Fortunately, nightfall approached. Soon he could make his way to the gate and then inside. From there, he would secure any weapons he might need in silence and if possible leave the same way: unnoticed. He didn't want to be forced to kill any of Stephen's soldiers, but he would do what he must. After all, what difference would it really make when he intended to assassinate the King himself?

It was the first thing Ethan noticed, once there carriage had cleared the inner wall of Evelah City, the capital of Wayland. The King's palace jutted up above every other building like some great citadel among huts in a village. And with all the other buildings no taller than two or three stories, nothing else came close to it in height.

This layout might have made for a thieves paradise, leaping from rooftop to rooftop, had it not been for the peculiar manner of construction prevalent in the city. Most of the buildings employed a domed roof with either points or ornaments topping them off. Indeed many of these were adorned with intricate design, but none of them gave so much as a good foothold for a man to stand upon. Stephen's soldiers definitely wouldn't be shooting invaders from the safety of their rooftops.

Levi grumbled next to him in the carriage-actually a steel cage lacking any real covering that might protect them from the weather. In three days travel, they had been rained on for two, and they were still soaked nearly to the bone. "A fine welcome the king sends for those who've served him faithfully," Levi said, leering at the castle rising before them.

Its splendor didn't quite rival the palace in Emmanuel, but it was posh nonetheless. Touches of gold played against the dark stone used in the structure to an elegant effect. And the people they passed dwelling in the shadow of Stephen's edifice appeared to be content. Ethan wondered if they had any inkling of what Mordred was going to send upon them at his earliest convenience. The giants alone would have an easy time smashing their meager dwellings to kindling.

Only the wall appeared ready for imminent invasion. Ethan had noticed its great width-enough to put many soldiers on. A great river ran at Evelah's back, beyond several miles of thickly planted forest land. The wall remained the only approach for any army making the attempt.