Geran leaped past his stepcousin and immediately engaged the first of the Veruna armsmen he could reach. “Hamil!” he shouted. “Help if you can!”
He rushed past the man and found a brief clear space to speak another spell. “Ilyeith sannoghan!” he cried, and his blade suddenly crackled with brilliant yellow sparks. Then several Veruna men beset him at the same time. Geran leaped and parried, thrust and slashed, and for ten heartbeats he was lost in the thick of a fight as dire as any he’d ever been caught in. A thrust at his heart was weakened just enough by his fading dragon scales to keep the point in the muscle of his chest, and then a hamstringing slash at the back of his knee buckled his leg but did not quite bring him down. He struck one man in a steel breastplate with his enchanted blade, and a sharp flash of lightning seared the darkness; when Geran blinked his eyes clear, the man was lying on the ground with smoke curling from his ears. But more mercenaries pressed in around him.
Suddenly the forest rocked with powerful words of magic. “Satharni khi!” roared Sarth. The tiefling appeared by the postern gate, amid the dissipating remains of his simple fog spell. From his hands streaked out a great glowing blast of purple fire that burst beneath the trees. Sorcerous fire seared an awful swath through the mercenaries near Geran. Several men screamed terribly as their surcoats caught fire, and they staggered blindly through the night like living torches. Others fell and burned where they stood. The tiefling leaped into the air and soared over the fight, smiting more mercenaries with blasts of his fire or crackling bolts of lightning.
A crossbow snapped in the darkness, and another Veruna blade attacking Geran threw his hands up in the air and collapsed with a quarrel in his back. My arm’s broken, Geran, Hamil said. I can’t work the cranequin for another shot.
“Improvise!” Geran called back to him. He dispatched one of the men still pressing him, with a deep cut to the great artery in the thigh; the man hopped back a half-step and toppled, trying vainly to clamp his hand over the terrible wound. Then Geran felt a roar of fire at his back and turned to find one of the mercenaries staggering at him, raising his sword to strike. The swordmage parried the clumsy blow, cut the legs out from under his foe then buried his point in the man’s heart as a stroke of mercy. He reeled from the awful smoke and stink of the burning corpse and saw one of the other soldiers ten yards away taking aim at Sarth with a crossbow. Without a moment’s thought Geran summoned another spell as he threw his backsword. The blade flew straight and true, whirling through the firelight and shadows, and buried its point in the crossbowman. The mercenary crumpled and folded. Geran held out his hand and finished the spell by stretching out his hand and snarling, “Cuilledyrr!” The sword wrenched itself free and flashed back to him hilt first; he caught it and wheeled around in search of another foe.
To his surprise, he saw that the remaining Veruna men were retreating, fleeing through the thickets and shadows. He swayed where he stood, suddenly aware of the cuts and bruises he’d fought through, and slowly limped back toward the postern steps. Tymora smiled on me tonight, he thought wearily. “Hamil?” he called. “Uncle Grigor?”
“Here,” his uncle replied. He slowly straightened up from the wall by the steps, standing in front of Erna, Natali, and Kirr. “We’re unhurt.”
“Thank the gods. Hamil? Where are you?”
“I’m by the fence, Geran,” Hamil called. Geran made his way over and found Mirya tending to the halfling already. A bloody quarrel lay on the ground next to Hamil, and she held a folded-up cloak against a dark stain high on his right leg. Hamil’s left arm hung limp at his side; his face was pale, but he found a small smile for Geran anyway. “Can you believe it? The quarrel in my leg’s bad enough, but I fell from the top of the fence and broke my arm. Fortunately Mirya’s gentle touch shall soon restore me to health.”
“In a month, perhaps,” Mirya said with a frown. “There’s to be no more fighting for you tonight, Master Hamil.”
Geran knelt and rested a hand on his friend’s good shoulder. “You should’ve used the gate,” he told him. Then he climbed back to his feet and returned to where Sergen had fallen.
Sergen was gone. Geran swore and thrashed around in the bracken and briars, searching for some sign of his traitorous cousin. He found the place where Sergen had fallen and set his hand on the ground where his cousin had been lying, only to find splashes of blood and a pair of small, empty vials.
“Potions,” he muttered. Healing? Invisibility? Whatever they were, Sergen had made his escape. He could very well return with more mercenaries to finish things. In fact, he had to, since he was done in Hulburg as long as the Hulmasters remained alive. I’m an idiot, Geran told himself. I should’ve made sure of him. Then again, there were a dozen enemies nearby waiting to strike the instant he defeated his cousin, and he couldn’t very well have paused to search Sergen at the moment he fell. “But I could have spared him a swordpoint in the eye,” he muttered darkly.
“Geran, the castle’s foot is no safe place to linger,” Mirya called softly. “I hear the ghosts calling one to the other, and I think they’re coming near the postern.”
“You’re right, Mirya,” Geran answered. “Sergen’s gone. He may return with more mercenaries. We need to get the harmach and the young ones to a place of safety.”
“Where?” Harmach Grigor asked. He nodded up at the castle battlements far overhead. Geran could hear the distant wails and cries of the wraiths that swarmed through its passageways and chambers. “Griffonwatch is a morgue. Most of my Shieldsworn are away fighting the Bloody Skulls, and I suspect that all who remained to guard the castle are dead now. I have few soldiers remaining in Hulburg, Geran.”
Geran thought for a moment. They could simply search for a place to hide and wait for morning, but Sergen’s allies might already be moving to seize control of the town. They needed soldiers, a body of armed men to protect the harmach, but Kara and the Shieldsworn were defending the borders against the Bloody Skulls. “That’s not quite true, Uncle Grigor,” he said slowly. “We’ll find at least some of the Spearmeet captains at the Troll and Tankard. We can have a couple of hundred loyal Hulburgans around you in an hour. I have to believe that might stop the Verunas from trying to kill you.”
The harmach sighed, nodded, and said, “You’re right, Geran. I can’t see that Sergen and his allies have any other choice but to try to finish this.”
Mirya helped Hamil to his feet, and Sarth and Geran shouldered the Shieldsworn guard who’d fallen in the chapel. By the dim moonlight Geran saw that it was the young guard Orndal, the one he’d met with Kolton when he first returned to Griffonwatch. The soldier’s skin was pale and frigidly cold, but his eyelids flickered when they hoisted him upright and put their shoulders under his arms. Geran nodded toward his right, and the small party set out along the footpath that circled the southern face of Griffonwatch’s rocky prominence.
In a hundred yards they broke out of the wooded area and emerged in the city streets. Geran detoured a block or two to give the square by the Harmach’s Foot a wide berth, since he could see soldiers in green and white gathered in a large company by the causeway that climbed to the main gate. Just as well we didn’t try to leave by that door, he decided. Even from a distance of several blocks, he could make out the cold and distant cries of the wraiths in the castle and glimpse ghostly figures swarming over the battlements. The few passersby they encountered stood in the street and stared up at Griffonwatch, horrified.