Sevenfold Sword: Shadow
Jonathan Moeller
SEVENFOLD SWORD: SHADOW
Jonathan Moeller
Table of Contents
Description
A brief author’s note
Chapter 1: Mimicry
Chapter 2: Family
Chapter 3: Royal Counsel
Chapter 4: Courtship
Chapter 5: Sorcery of the Dark Elves
Chapter 6: Meddling
Chapter 7: Outcasts
Chapter 8: The Lord of Carrion
Chapter 9: The Woman Of Seven Lives
Chapter 10: The Guardian's Ward
Chapter 11: Memories & Dreams
Chapter 12: Wishes
Chapter 13: Sleepwalkers
Chapter 14: The Apprentice
Chapter 15: The Tower of Nightmares
Chapter 16: Ruins of the Gray Elves
Chapter 17: Survivor
Chapter 18: Heart of the Nightmare
Chapter 19: Face The Past
Chapter 20: Prison of Dreams
Chapter 21: Clarity
Chapter 22: Hard Lessons
Chapter 23: Blood Debts
Chapter 24: I Remember You
Epilogue
Other books by the author
About the Author
Glossary of Characters
Glossary of Locations
Chart of Kings, Cities, the Maledicti & the Seven Swords
Description
The quest of the Seven Swords has freed the shadows to prey upon mankind.
Ridmark has learned that the sorceress Cathala holds the secret of the Seven Swords, and quests to free her from the grasp of an imprisoning spell.
But the Maledicti priests know of Ridmark's quest, and plot to stop him with a deadly new weapon.
For how can a knight fight the shadows in his mind?
Sevenfold Sword: Shadow
Copyright 2018 by Jonathan Moeller.
Published by Azure Flame Media, LLC.
Cover design by Clarissa Yeo.
Ebook edition published March 2018.
All Rights Reserved.
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the author or publisher, except where permitted by law.
A brief author’s note
At the end of this book, you will find a Glossary of Characters and a Glossary of Locations listing all the major characters and locations in this book, along with a chart listing the nine cities & Kings of the realm of Owyllain, the bearers of the Seven Swords, and the seven high priests of the Maledicti.
A map of the realm of Owyllain is available on the author's website at this link.
A map of the realm of Andomhaim is available on the author’s website at this link.
Chapter 1: Mimicry
Fifty-seven days after the quest of the Seven Swords began, fifty-seven days after the day in the Year of Our Lord 1488 when the cloaked stranger came to the High King of Andomhaim’s court, Ridmark Arban charged into battle, both of his hands wrapped around Oathshield’s hilt.
The jotunmir howled a battle cry in its language and thundered towards him, raising its massive bronze-bound club high.
The creature stood nine feet tall, its arms and legs thick as tree trunks, its skin greenish-gray. Its eyes were a harsh, sulfurous yellow, and it wore a strange hodgepodge of armor – bronze plates over a leather cuirass, and a layer of bones atop the metal plates. The jotunmir’s features were rough-hewn, its long black hair and beard shot through with gray, and its thick lips pulled back from its yellowed teeth in a snarl.
A rope of four human skulls hung from its belt, and more skulls decorated the giant’s shoulders. In its right hand, the jotunmir carried a massive wooden club that looked as if it had once been a small tree, its end bound with bronze. Ridmark’s dark elven armor could stop blades of bronze, but if that club hit him, it would either shatter every one of his ribs or make his skull explode like a dropped egg.
Best not to let it hit him, then.
The jotunmir roared, and its club came hammering down. Ridmark waited until the last possible instant and then dodged to the left, drawing on Oathshield for speed. He timed it just right, and the club whistled past him to slam into the ground with a thud. The wind of its passage felt like a gale, and the ground shuddered like an earthquake. Ridmark kept his balance and slashed with Oathshield. The blade bit deep into the jotunmir’s right forearm, and Ridmark felt the sword rasp against bones. The jotunmir bellowed in rage and pain, and Ridmark jumped back as the creature raised its club again.
The jotunmir had made an error. With the difference in their heights, it had been forced to stoop to bring the club down in an overhand blow. The jotunmir should have swept its club from side to side, using its superior reach to keep Ridmark from closing. In the giant’s eagerness to squash Ridmark like an insect, it had made a critical mistake.
Ridmark was already inside its guard.
He circled to the right as the jotunmir’s club rose, swinging Oathshield with both hands. The soulblade bit deep into the back of the jotunmir’s right knee. The giant loosed a furious bellow, and it twisted, sweeping its club around to strike Ridmark. He ducked, and as the jotunmir turned, its damaged knee buckled.
The creature stumbled and landed on its right knee with a roar of pain, putting its neck at Ridmark’s eye level. Once more he swung Oathshield, and the soulblade sank into the jotunmir’s neck, greenish blood spurting from the wound. The jotunmir’s bellow dwindled to a gurgle, and Ridmark attacked again.
Oathshield bit deeper this time, and the jotunmir started to collapse. Ridmark ripped his sword free and got out of the way as the giant fell in a heap. He turned, intending to aid Third against the remaining jotunmir.
But, as was so often true, Third didn’t need any help.
The second jotunmir bellowed and swung its club, aiming for a woman standing a few paces away. Third was tall and pale, her dark hair bound back to keep it out of her eyes, which also revealed the points of her elven ears, a legacy of her dark elven father. She wore close-fitting armor of leather and dark metal, and in either hand, she held a sword of blue dark elven steel.
She disappeared in a snarl of blue fire an instant before the club would have connected with her head.
A heartbeat later blue fire swirled behind the jotunmir, and Third reappeared, her swords flashing. Green blood spattered from a wound, and the jotunmir howled and fell to one knee. Third leaped forward, planting one foot on the jotunmir’s back, and scrambled up the creature. It reached for her, but before it could grasp her, Third landed upon the jotunmir’s shoulders and stabbed her swords into its neck.
The creature gurgled and fell forward onto its face, and Third ripped her blades free, jumped from the dying jotunmir, and caught her balance. She turned, droplets of green blood dripping from her swords, and blinked as Ridmark approached, the blue fire fading from her black eyes.
“Ah,” said Third. “You finished yours already.”
Ridmark nodded. “It was overconfident. Tried to smash me flat and overbalanced.”
He looked around, seeking for any new foes, but he found none.
Ridmark and Third stood on the rolling moors of northern Owyllain, the thick, tough grass reaching to Ridmark’s waist. The plains stretched away to the north, dotted with small patches of trees and rocky hills. He and Third had scouted ahead, hoping to find a clear path east to the village of Argin and the Monastery of St. Paul.
; Instead, they had found those two jotunmiri.
“As did this one,” said Third. She cleaned the blood from her short swords and returned the weapons to their scabbards at her belt. “The defeat of King Justin’s army failed to teach them greater caution.”
“I doubt they expected to run into someone like us,” said Ridmark. “Likely they think to raid the village of Argin, loot the Monastery of St. Paul, and then take their prizes to the Cloak Mountains.”
“A consolation prize for the loss of the battle,” said Third.
“It would seem so,” said Ridmark.
Third frowned. “From what I have seen of the pagan jotunmiri, they will not hesitate to destroy Argin and carry its people into slavery.”
“If that is their plan,” said Ridmark, “they’re about to have a nasty surprise. Let’s rejoin the others.”
Third nodded, and they hurried to the west.
###
Urgency burned in Calliande Arban’s mind.
It felt as if competing demands were pulling her heart in a dozen different directions.
She wanted to return to Aenesium. Her sons awaited her there. She had not seen Gareth and Joachim since King Hektor’s army had marched to face Justin Cyros, and every day Calliande drew on the Sight, seeking reassurance that her sons were alive and safe.
They were, but she desperately wanted to see them again.
And she would, soon.
Every step took them closer to Aenesium. Calliande missed horses, but she had never missed them so much as she did now. How much faster could they reach Aenesium if only the men of Owyllain still had horses!
But other demands burned in her heart.
She wanted to return to Aenesium, but Calliande knew she would leave the city again soon after.
For she carried a small vial of blood in a pouch at her belt, and that might hold the key to the mystery of the Seven Swords, the mystery of why Rhodruthain had brought Calliande and her family to Owyllain. The blood had belonged to Tirdua, daughter of Theseus of the King’s Men, and both Tirdua and Theseus had died fighting the Necromancer in the Blue Castra of Trojas.
Tirdua had been Theseus’s daughter…and somehow also Tamlin’s wife Tysia, murdered by the Maledictus Khurazalin in Urd Maelwyn. Tirdua, who had somehow been six other women.
Or one woman, split into seven shards and seven separate lives.
Six of those shards were dead, but by using the Sight with that vial of blood, Calliande knew that one of the seven women yet lived. She also knew where that woman was located, somewhere south of the borders of Owyllain proper.
Calliande had to find her. Somehow this woman of the seven shards, Tysia or Tirdua or whatever her real name was, was central to the mystery of the Seven Swords.
And once they had found the seventh shard, a longer journey awaited them.
For Sir Tamlin Thunderbolt’s mother might know the secret of the Seven Swords…and his mother might yet still live.
All his life, Tamlin had thought that his father had killed his mother. Justin Cyros had thought that, too, and had boasted of Cathala’s death during the parley before the great battle. Yet the Necromancer of Trojas had revealed the truth. Justin hadn’t slain Cathala but had turned her to stone with the power of the Sword of Earth. The Sword’s magic had transformed her into stone, and the touch of the Sword could restore her to living flesh and blood once more.
And Cathala, too, might be the key to the mystery of the Seven Swords. She had once been one of the four favorite apprentices of Talitha, the woman who had been the Master of the Order of the Arcanii during High King Kothlaric Pendragon’s final war against the Sovereign. Most of Owyllain believed that Talitha and Rhodruthain had betrayed and murdered Kothlaric, planning to divide the Seven Swords among them, and Talitha had been killed in the resultant battle. Calliande knew the truth, that Kothlaric had been imprisoned within magical crystal at the heart of Cathair Animus, and that bringing the Seven Swords there would free him.
Or, at least, so King Hektor Pendragon thought.
Both Justin Cyros and Taerdyn had thought that taking the Seven Swords to Cathair Animus would summon the New God, and both had been determined to stop that from happening.
Had they been right? Or was Hektor right?
Calliande didn’t know, and the wrong decision might bring disaster.
Cathala might know. Or perhaps the seventh shard would know if it was buried somewhere in the half-forgotten woman she had once been.
Rhodruthain had thrust Calliande into the heart of this war, this mystery, and now her companions carried three of the Seven Swords. Before she and Ridmark could decide what to do with them, they had to learn more.
But as much as she needed to know that truth, Calliande supposed that Tamlin desired answers even more. Rhodruthain had thrust her into this mystery two months ago.
Tamlin had lived with this mystery his entire life.
Calliande looked back at her companions. Tamlin walked a few paces behind her, his expression distant, his gray eyes looking at nothing. When she had met him, he had always shown a ready smile, a jest often on his lips. Now he looked grim, his thoughts elsewhere, his right hand resting on the hilt of the Sword of Earth.
That was understandable. In Trojas, he had seen his best friend killed, his wife killed again, and the dark magic of the Maledictus of Death had nearly slain him.
Behind him came Kalussa and Calem, talking quietly to each other. Calem remained solemn as ever, his white wraithcloak flung back to show his blue dark elven armor, his eyes roving over the plains and the hills in search of enemies. The Sword of Air waited at his belt. Yet from time to time he smiled, and it was when he looked at Kalussa Pendragon that he smiled.
The battle against the Necromancer had left Tamlin grimmer, and it had hardened Kalussa as well. She now seemed quieter, less ready with a critical comment. Though perhaps some of that was because she had hurt her voice and would find it painful to talk for at least a few more weeks. She, too, smiled when she looked at Calem, and she had been doing more of that lately. Calliande supposed that Kalussa and Calem would make a good match if things continued between them. In Andomhaim, it would have been unthinkable for a King’s daughter to marry a former gladiator turned minor knight. In Owyllain, Kalussa was the daughter of one of King Hektor’s concubines, and Hektor had given his daughter leave to wed as she chose.
And a practical part of Calliande’s mind pointed out that a husband of her own would keep Kalussa away from Ridmark, but Kalussa had made no further attempt to seduce Ridmark after Rypheus’s banquet.
After Calem and Kalussa came Krastikon Cyros, a former Ironcoat of Cytheria, and now the Prince Consort of Trojas and the husband of the newly-crowned Queen Zenobia. He looked a great deal like Tamlin, though a bit shorter and bulkier, and unlike Tamlin, he had a close-cropped beard. Like Tamlin, he seemed lost in thought. Unlike Tamlin, from time to time he smiled. He and Zenobia had been in love, and both Krastikon and Zenobia had fully expected that Zenobia would marry King Justin.
But Justin was dead. The Necromancer who had ruled Trojas for a quarter of a century had perished as well, and Taerdyn’s dark plans had died with him. Taerdyn had killed all the nobles and knights of Trojas, so there was no one left of noble rank in Trojas for Zenobia to wed. No doubt one of the other lords and kings of Owyllain would have desired her hand, but the Queen could choose for herself, and the Queen had chosen Krastikon.
Calliande thought it a good choice. Beneath his bluster, Krastikon had proven to be a sensible young man, and once the quest of the Seven Swords was finished, he would make a good right hand for the new Queen.
Assuming, of course, that they survived the quest of the Seven Swords.
Behind Krastikon walked Kyralion of the gray elves, his gray cloak streaming from his shoulders in the cool wind, his bow ready in his hand. Kyralion always looked at ease in the wilderness, though Calliande knew that was just an illusion. His golden eyes never stopped moving over the lan
dscape, and his pointed ears often picked things up long before Calliande heard them.
Suddenly Kyralion stopped, looked hard to the east, and then nodded and jogged up to join Calliande.
“Trouble?” said Calliande.
“Perhaps,” said Kyralion, his Latin as ever colored by a strange accent. “Lord Ridmark and Lady Third are returning in haste. I believe they have news.”
Calliande looked to the east, and she saw the distant figures of Ridmark and Third.
“We’d better stop,” she called to the others. “I think Ridmark and Third have found something.”
“Foes?” said Calem.
“No more Bronze Dead, surely,” said Kalussa, her voice a rasp. She rubbed her throat.
“No,” said Calliande. “They were all destroyed when Taerdyn died.” The fields outside the walls of Trojas had been littered with crumbling corpses. “If Queen Zenobia needs funds, I suppose she has only to melt down all the bronze armor and weapons discarded outside her city.”
“We discussed that before we left,” said Krastikon. “Taerdyn left the treasury empty, and I suppose the bronze belongs to the crown of Trojas by right of conquest.” He tapped the hilt of the Sword of Death, the black pommel adorned with the same closed-eye sigil that marked all of the Seven Swords. “I just hope they haven’t found more fire drakes. I don’t want to fight those damned things again.”
“Yes,” said Tamlin, voice soft. “Getting burned alive is a terrible way to die.”
Calliande glanced at him, but the young Arcanius Knight’s expression remained remote.
A moment later Ridmark and Third drew near. Third looked as she always did, calm and impassive, though her dark eyes drifted in Kyralion’s direction. Calliande smiled as she saw her husband, as she almost always did. His hard features were rough with stubble, partly concealing the brand of the broken sword on the left side of his face, and his black hair was unkempt from the constant wind of the plains. His gray cloak, like Kyralion’s, stirred around him in the wind.
