He studied the fiend for a moment, satisfying himself that he truly had killed it, then looked around for his next foe. Some distance away, rearing over the heads of smaller combatants, the undead creature called Lod hurled a jagged blast of darkness from his hand. Wheeling around the bone naga, Jet dodged, and, astride the black griffon’s back, Aoth hurled shafts of blue light from his spear point.
The red sword urged Vandar in that direction. Because Lod was the leader of the Eminence of Araunt, the ultimate author of Rashemen’s troubles, and the most formidable horror on the battlefield. And if Vandar didn’t play a central role in his destruction, it was Aoth and not he who would be remembered as the hero of the conflict.
Then, however, Vandar realized the gloom was lifting. Using the spines like a ladder, he scrambled up on the demon’s carcass in hopes of seeing why.
Cera, Yhelbruna-now in possession of the Stag King’s antler-axe-and a couple other hathrans stood in attitudes of invocation amid a luminous yellow haze. Plainly, their magic was burning away the dark.
Unfortunately, Vandar wasn’t the only one who’d figured that out. Undead and dark fey were turning in increasing numbers to push toward the sunlady and witches while mortals, bright fey, and golems struggled to hold them back.
Vandar suspected that keeping the exorcism going and so restoring the daylight was even more important than slaying Lod. Still, the sword insisted that any warrior who battled to protect Yhelbruna, Cera, and the other women would simply be one of many. It was champions who bested terrible foes in single combat-or at worst, with the aid of a comrade or two-who won glory.
But Vandar didn’t deserveglory. Not after all his selfishness and disastrous miscalculations. He ordered the sword to be silent and started fighting his way toward the golden glow.
At first, it proved fairly easy to cut down foes who were pushing in the same direction. Then, however, he glimpsed a hulking form from the corner of his eye.
When he turned and took his first close look at Uramar, he felt like a fool for ever mistaking the zombie counterfeit he’d slain under the Fortress of the Half-Demon for the true blaspheme. The genuine patchwork man was even more thick-built, scarred, and misshapen, with eyes of two different colors set at different heights.
Something had ripped away Uramar’s breastplate and shredded the flesh beneath, exposing and breaking ribs in several spots. Yet despite his ill-made body and gaping wounds, his two-handed blade struck constantly and to murderous effect. Essentially, he and Vandar were doing the same thing: cutting down foes who were likewise struggling closer to the sunlady and hathrans. But everyone the greatsword even nicked withered and rotted even as he fell.
Someone needed to stop Uramar before he got anywhere close to Yhelbruna, Cera, and their helpers. Vandar rushed the huge undead.
As he approached, chill bit into him. But his anger and the red sword buttressed him against it.
Meanwhile, Uramar didn’t appear to notice the danger racing in on his left. But when Vandar had nearly closed to striking distance, the blaspheme pivoted and swung the greatsword at his middle.
Vandar parried, and the two blades clanged together. The impact jolted Vandar, but his defense kept Uramar’s sword from cutting him.
Still running, Vandar slashed at the massive open wound that was Uramar’s chest. The undead parried, and the blades rang again.
Vandar plunged on past and now had his back to his opponent. Sliding in the snow, he wrenched himself around barely in time to see Uramar’s next cut leaping at his neck. He ducked underneath the stroke, then hurled himself forward to cut at the spot where a living man carried his heart.
With astonishing quickness for such a limping brute, and one already hideously wounded at that, Uramar retreated on the diagonal, and the footwork gave him time to parry. He took another retreat, and that put him back at the proper distance to take advantage of his longer arms and blade.
Vandar advanced with lowered guard, inviting an attack, then swayed back when it came. The greatsword whizzed past his chest with no more than half a finger’s length to spare. He lunged with the red blade poised for a chest cut.
Uramar shifted the greatsword to parry and once again protect that shredded, unarmored, vulnerable spot. Vandar instantly pivoted and cut at the blaspheme’s left wrist.
The red sword sheared flesh and splintered bone, and, though it didn’t quite sever Uramar’s hand, rendered it useless. The undead stumbled backward with his enormous weapon wobbling in what was now an inadequate grip.
Vandar started after him. Then, with a silent cry, the red sword alerted him to danger at his back.
He spun, and the war club that might otherwise have smashed his skull struck it a glancing blow instead. Still, that was enough to blank out the whole world.
The next he knew, his head was ringing, he lay on his back in the snow, and the zombie that had struck him had the war club raised for another blow. Vandar floundered backward, but the weapon still caught him in the knee. Bone snapped, and he gasped at the flash of pain.
Anger welled up inside him to mask what would otherwise be agony. As the dead man lifted the war club for a third strike, Vandar heaved himself up onto his off hand, cut its leg out from under it, and split its head when it fell down. The creature stopped moving.
Vandar wrenched himself around to face Uramar. The blaspheme had discarded the greatsword for a curved short sword glimmering with its own no-doubt lethal enchantments. Scowling, his half-severed hand dangling and spittering dark blood in the snow, the patchwork man limped forward.
Then the ambient gloom brightened a little more. A shaft of sunlight fell through the leafless canopy overhead, transfixing a pair of phantoms that shredded away to nothing.
Uramar turned and resumed pushing his way toward the women working to banish the darkness.
Vandar struggled to his feet to pursue. Or rather, to his foot, for another stab of pain made it immediately apparent that his injured leg wouldn’t bear his weight.
He hopped through the snow and bent down to retrieve the zombie’s fallen war club to use as a crutch. Before he could straighten up, a dark fey like a hound with a half-human face sprang at him. He killed it with a thrust between the eyes but lost his balance and fell in the process. By the time he managed to stand up, he could no longer even see Uramar past all the other combatants in the way.
It was absurd to think he could catch up, but he had to try. He started hobbling, and jagged fangs bared, a ghoul advanced to intercept him. He poised his sword for a head cut.
Then the golden griffon plunged down atop the ghoul. The impact likely smashed the life-or what passed for it-out of the creature, but the telthor made sure of its destruction by ripping the body to pieces with his claws.
The gold turned his head to regard Vandar with fierce blue eyes. The beast seemed to be waiting for something, and the berserker hoped he understood what.
He hobbled forward, tucked the red sword under his crutch arm, and reached out to scratch in the feathers behind the griffon’s beak. He’d seen Aoth and Cera pet Jet that way, and the gold permitted it as well. But he also gave an impatient-sounding rasp as though to remind the idiot human they were in the midst of battle.
The gold then pivoted, presenting his side, and lowered himself onto his belly. Vandar dropped his makeshift crutch and clambered onto the griffon’s back.
At once, the griffon ran a couple steps, sprang, and, wings beating, soared into the air. Vandar didn’t know how to ride a griffon, didn’t have a saddle, and his throbbing, broken-kneed leg couldn’t clamp against his steed’s side with any strength. Still, bending down and wrapping his arms around the telthor’s neck, he managed to stay on the creature’s back, or maybe the gold contrived to keep him from tumbling off.