“By Azlagûr, I curse you,” said Grieve, and spat on the floor.
Murtagh snorted. “I’ve been cursed by better than you and lived to see them become food for worms.” He pointed his spear at Grieve. “Come now, dog. Meet your fate.”
Grieve drew himself up, squaring his hunched shoulders, and his eyes rolled back to show white. “Azlagûr, hear the plea of your follower, Grieve the First. Let me defeat these unbelievers, and I shall—”
Uvek did not let him complete the contract. The Urgal shouted, “No!” and rushed forward and struck at Grieve with the haft of his spear, using it as if it were a staff.
The wooden pole snapped in two against Grieve’s robe, seemingly broken by the immovable fabric. But Murtagh knew the truth: a ward. Unsurprising, but unfortunate.
A grim certainty settled over him: Grieve would be no easy opponent.
He tried then to seize the man’s mind, even as Bachel and Grieve had attempted to seize his. But Grieve’s mental defenses were formidable, and in any case, the man gave Murtagh little time to concentrate, for he answered Uvek’s attack with a shower of blows from his club.
Uvek caught one blow against his forearm. The force of the strike would have shattered a man’s arm, but the Urgal merely grunted and fell back while swinging the remnants of his spear to gain himself room to recover.
Murtagh took the lead then, but he met with no more success. He jabbed, and Grieve parried. He feinted…and Grieve nearly caught him upside the head with the club. Every attack Murtagh made, Grieve seemed to perfectly anticipate.
The same proved true as Uvek attempted to flank Grieve. Even working two against one, neither of them could slip past Grieve’s guard, and he kept landing blows with his club. The blows did not hurt Murtagh; he had his ward to protect him, but he was tiring and did not know how long he could maintain it. And they did hurt Uvek; the Urgal was limping now, and a plate-sized bruise marred his forearm.
It occurred to Murtagh that he was treating Grieve as if the man were also a magician. But so far, he’d seen no evidence to that effect. If Grieve couldn’t cast spells, then there was no reason not to attack him with magic. But if he could…doing so might prompt a desperate and incredibly dangerous response.
Crack! Grieve smote the middle of Murtagh’s spear. The wood snapped like dry straw, and he fell back.
Shade’s blood! Enough with caution; magic was worth the risk! “Kverst,” said Murtagh, aiming his will at Grieve.
He felt a quick drop in strength—as if he’d sprinted up a hill—but the spell had no effect on the man.
Grieve laughed. It was a thoroughly distasteful sound. “You cannot break my mistress’s power, desecrator!”
With Thorn, Murtagh felt sure he could, but Thorn was otherwise occupied, and Murtagh didn’t dare open his mind to reach out to the dragon. Regardless, he felt sure that Grieve had given him the answer: they had to defeat the man’s wards. And that required energy, magical or physical. In the end, there was no difference. When cleverness failed, effort was the key to overcoming spells.
Murtagh threw his broken spear at Grieve and shouted, “Hold him off!” as he dashed toward the back of the chamber.
Behind him, Uvek roared, and the Urgal’s footsteps thudded as he closed with Grieve.
Bachel’s throne was missing from the dais—removed so that she might sit in state during the festival of black smoke. Where it had stood, the floor was dull and hollowed from uncounted years of bearing the heavy stone chair.
At the back of the dais were a pair of shallow steps that descended to a recessed area where various ceremonial items were stored: robes, tapers, brass censers, the headpiece the witch had worn when he first met her…. Also, there was a chest of dark walnut, and Murtagh hoped it was where he would find—
He threw back the lid of the chest.
Yes!
Zar’roc lay before him, a gleaming length of metallic beauty, red as blood, strong as hate, sharp as his will. The hilt found his hand, like an old friend, and he tore blade from sheath with a steely, slithering sound.
Finally, Murtagh felt ready to confront their enemies.
Nor was the sword just a sword. It was also a repository: a storehouse of energy that he had carefully gleaned in dribs and drabs, hoarding morsels in the great ruby of its pommel.
He drew upon that repository now, and he said, “Brisingr!” At his command, the blade burst into a profusion of crimson flames.
With the burning blade held at his side, he strode to Grieve, each step weighted with approaching doom. He swung, and the searing, incandescent edge came down upon Grieve’s brow—and stopped a hair’s breadth away, blocked by the man’s wards.
Murtagh held Zar’roc against the slippery surface and pushed harder while pouring even more energy into the fire rising from the colored steel. The heat was blistering, and he narrowed his eyes as the stench of burning hair filled the chamber.
“Now, Uvek!” he shouted.
The Urgal lowered his horns and bulled forward, taking a heavy blow from Grieve’s club against his armored forehead. The impact would have killed any human, but Uvek did not even react. He grabbed the club with one enormous hand and held it motionless in the air while he beat Grieve about the ribs and shoulder with the broken haft of his spear.
Grieve bellowed with anger, his face a mass of shifting shadows beneath the fiery blade. He wrenched at his club, fruitlessly trying to free it from Uvek’s iron grip. Then Grieve abandoned the club and made as if to duck out of the cage of their arms.
“Brisingr!” Murtagh shouted again, and redoubled the strength of the spell. The flaming blade shone with blinding light, and drops of liquid fire fell onto Grieve’s wards, where they danced like beads of water on a hot skillet.
Uvek struck once more at Grieve’s ribs: a mighty blow that shook the man and that Murtagh felt transferred into his hand through Zar’roc’s hilt. At that, Grieve’s skin went grey, and his ward collapsed.
Murtagh sensed an instant of overwhelming terror from the man’s mind, and then Zar’roc sliced down through Grieve’s head, the enchanted blade burning its way through flesh and bone as if they were no harder than fresh-formed cheese.
The sudden removal of the ward made it difficult for Murtagh to control the sword’s path. He struggled to arrest the swift descent of the blade even as Uvek released Grieve and twisted away, but Zar’roc’s blazing, razor-sharp edge severed the tip of Uvek’s right horn and touched him on the shoulder, near the collarbone.
Uvek’s breath hissed between his teeth, and he growled as if meaning to attack. But he stepped back and clapped a hand over the cauterized wound.
What remained of Grieve collapsed to the floor.
Darkness compressed around them as Murtagh ended his spell, extinguishing Zar’roc.
“Gzja!” said Uvek, and spat on Grieve’s body. “You no more throw rocks at birds. Now Kiskû rest easy.”
Murtagh gestured toward Uvek’s shoulder. “Let me see. I can help.”
Uvek grunted and shook his head. “Is not bad, Murtagh-man. An Urgralgra wears his hurts with pride. I will live.”
“Are you sure?”
The Urgal seemed offended that Murtagh would question his word. “Sure, sure. This small hurt. I had much worse from bear. I will live.”
“Good.”
With the toes of his bare foot, Uvek nudged the fallen tip of his horn. “Not good to lose horn, but horn grow back.”
Murtagh started back for the chest behind the dais. “I suppose you’ll just have to live in a cave until you’re presentable again.”