Dexter of Pozzelby

  Callis brought lightning next. He called down one bolt, then another, then a barrage. Nightshade wove through the air trying to deflect the assault. But then Callis saw her fall. She fell near the mass grave. He raced around the corner to finish her if necessary.

  She was gone.

  From behind him came a woman’s voice.

  “Looking for me?”

  He spun about and she was there, not three feet away. He reached for her throat. Surely he was physically stronger; she was quite small. Nightshade tapped the butt of her staff on the ground. There was a burst of light and Callis found himself tossed back all the way to the open grave site. The result of all of the zombies rising from the mass grave was a hole at least fifteen feet deep. He fell to the bottom, which was full of thick mud and several inches of water. The mud and water prevented him from getting seriously hurt, but he groaned from the shock and indignity.

  Nightshade appeared at the edge of the grave, looking down at the priest.

  “Surrender and I promise you fair treatment,” she said.

  “No, I cannot surrender.”

  “Very well.”

  Nightshade made a pass of her hand. The mud in the bottom of the grave instantly turned to hard stone. Callis, still laying on his back, found half of his body trapped, including his hands and feet.

  “That should hold you while I help take care of your army.”

  ****

  “Give me the sword and I promise mercy for your family and friends,” said Tabor Till.

  “I’ll give you the sword,” I said, angry beyond rationality. “I’ll give it to you through your chest!”

  My strong words did not have the effect for which I had hoped. Tabor Till laughed.

  “Boy, you can barely hold a sword without cutting yourself. Just because you found your grandfather’s blade does not make you my match. You will die now and your friends will suffer.”

  I did not wait for his attack. One thing that I had picked up from both my father and chess was that the attacker has the initiative and an advantage. While Tabor Till was still talking, I thrust Harbinger forward toward the general’s breast plate. He blocked it with contemptuous ease. I barely blocked his reply on my shield.

  I recalled the sword’s earlier warning. General Till was an exceptional swordsman. His natural skill was far beyond my own, even with Harbinger lending me its ability.

  “What should I do?” I thought.

  “Focus on defense. I overheard your thoughts about attacking and they are sound. But now we have to keep you alive. I was designed for defensive strength.”

  Tabor Till’s attack was relentless and masterful. Focusing solely on defending, I was able to parry or avoid every attack he threw at me. But I knew that I could not do this forever; defense alone could not beat him. Always in the last few weeks, when I had needed it there had been a friend close by to assist me. No one was coming to my aid now. When Till paused I glanced around. Apparently, when I had charged forward to meet the General, I had cut myself off from the rest of my people, who appeared to be hard pressed and on the verge of finally being overwhelmed.

  To make matters worse, more Pozzelbian troops came through the door, at least one hundred of them. And Duke Grimwulf was leading them.

  “Stand down! General Till, order your men to stand down!” Grimwulf shouted to my surprise.

  “Fool! What are you doing here? We are on the verge of victory. Return to your quarters,” said Till.

  “Soldiers of Pozzelby, stop fighting! That is an order,” said Grimwulf. “Some of you know Dexter to be the true king. Some of you believe me to be king. Here are both of us now on the same side. Stop fighting this instant.”

  All around the room, the fighting paused as the Pozzelbians were unsure of what was happening and the remaining Twelve Sect warriors were just as surprised by the turn of events. In fact, I was just as surprised as any of them. I was distrustful of Grimwulf and on guard as he approached the place where Tabor Till and I stood.

  “Tabor Till, you are under arrest for treason,” Grimwulf said, placing the general under arrest for the second time in two days, or was it three? I had forgotten. “Take General Till into custody.”

  Till wasn’t going to go easily. I was looking at Grimwulf in amazement when I should have been looking at Tabor Till. The general shifted and thrust for my heart. I was flat footed with my arms foolishly lowered. I had no chance. Or I would not have if not for Grimulf. The duke caught the motion and reacted instinctively. He stepped forward and tried to parry the attack, but it slipped through and slid between two of Grimwulf’s lower ribs. Harbinger came up and thrust past Grimwulf and easily pierced Tabor Till’s breast plate and heart. Till fell back, his hand releasing the hilt of his sword, which stayed lodged between Grimwulf’s ribs then slid out and clattered to the floor as Grimwulf staggered and sank to his knees. He was so tall that we were almost eye to eye.

  “I am sorry, cousin,” he gasped, “that all of this happened. I truly thought I was coming here to help you. I was a pawn, manipulated by my advisor. I was never your enemy.”

  “I believe you,” I said. “And you did help me. You saved my life. Now let me help you.”

  “No. The general’s cut was fatal, I think.”

  Blood was bubbling up out of Grimwulf’s mouth now.

  “Can you help him?” I thought to the sword.

  “I don’t have enough strength back to heal such a wound now. However, if you can take him to the shrine it might provide me with enough so that I can save him.”

  Grimwulf could not stand and he was too heavy for me to lift. While I was trying to help him, the fighting broke out again. Garegon’s followers refused to surrender. A sergeant who had come with Grimwulf ordered the Pozzelbian soldiers to arms against them, and just like that the soldiers who had been trying to kill me minutes before were now defending me.

  I became aware that there were others standing behind me: Ardbeg, Layred Vu, Serria, and Myrick.

  “Carry him into the shrine, through that back door. Quickly!” I said.

  We made it through the fighting. The Twelve Sect soldiers were now badly outnumbered and pushed against a side wall. The door to the shrine was unlocked. I depressed the latch and it swung open easily.

  Lamps were already lit within, as if we were expected.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The attempted second coming of Garegon during the beginning of the reign of King Dexter is sometimes referred to as the second Four Kings period.

  Excerpted from J. R. Grimble’s, Pozzelby: A History

  The room was lit by ten lamps that were burning away as if someone had just left. I thought, as I entered, that I could smell a subtle scent of cedar. The far end of the shrine was dedicated to an altar of the god Eridan, dominated by a ten foot tall, marble statue of the god. To the statue’s right was a second, smaller statue. It was Coenbrand; he had one arm raised before him. The hand was empty. Strangely, the room was free of dust.

  I had my friends place Grimwulf on the altar. He was unconscious, but groaned slightly when they set him down. Harbinger was oddly mute, but pulsed with power as soon as we entered the shrine and felt like lightning in my hand as I stood before the altar.

  “Harbinger?”

  No response.

  There was no time to waste; Grimwulf would be dead in moments. Just as I had with Captain Talon, I placed one hand on the duke over his wound. In the other hand I held Harbinger, which was practically buzzing.

  “Okay, do it,” I thought. “Heal him. Come on. I know you can hear me.”

  Almost instantly I felt a surge of energy shoot through me from the sword to Grimwulf. I was caught, helpless in the magical current. It wasn’t painful, just unsettling.

  I could tell right away that it was working. First Grimwulf’s breathing deepened and then the color returned to face. Beneath my hand, I could feel the wound
knitting from the inside out. That was painful. It was like it was my wound, and if I had not been frozen I would have cried out. But as it healed, the pain lessened.

  The flow of healing magic slowed then stopped. Grimwulf’s wound was not completely healed. He would need weeks of rest. But he was conscious and able to walk. Harbinger had done what it could. It was still full of power and the runes on the clear blade glowed more brightly than ever.

  “Garegon’s soldiers have been defeated,” said Theof from the doorway.

  He came further into the shrine.

  “It’s funny, the shrine looks kept up,” he said. “No dust.”

  “I noticed. The lamps were all lit when we came in too,” I said.

  “This room looks exactly as I last saw it, except for one thing.”

  “What?”

  “The statue of Coenbrand. There wasn’t one. He would have considered placing a statue of himself next to Eridan’s a presumption bordering on sacrilege.” He took a closer look at it. “It’s an excellent likeness. The height is even right. Coenbrand was much shorter than he is usually depicted.”

  I stared at the statue. The outstretched hand looked out of place. My gaze fell to the marble scabbard. It was empty.

  “The sword is missing.”

  “Ha! You’re right,” Theof said.

  Harbinger pulsed in my hand.

  “Do you think?”

  “Try it.”

  I stepped in front of Coenbrand’s statue. Theof was right. He wasn’t tall, but he was very broad and powerful-looking. I looked at the statue’s outstretched hand. The fingers were open as if they were waiting for something. I placed the hilt of Coenbrand’s sword into the hand.

  The fingers closed around it.

  Harbinger began to glow like a small, blue sun. It was so bright that all those present had to shield their eyes. When the light faded, where there had been a statue, now stood a man.

  Coenbrand lowered his sword and placed it in its sheathe, identical to the one I was wearing. He stepped down from the altar. Theof stepped forward, grinning. He clasped Coenbrand’s forearm. Coenbrand pulled the elf in and gave him a bone-crunching hug.

  “Theof! Well met, old friend,” he said. “And who are these others?”

  Theof introduced us, saving me for last. When he was finished, Coenbrand walked over and looked down at me; short as he was, he was still taller than I. Then he reached out and hugged me.

  “My grandson. Dexter, how old are you?”

  “Thirteen, sir.”

  “Thirteen and already king. I am sorry for that; it is too young for a boy to lose his father. How long is it since I left?”

  “About three hundred years, sir. Umm, may I ask, are you a man, a god, a ghost, or something else?”

  “Well, not a ghost. I am solid enough. And not a god, certainly not. But a man? I think I am now something more. I have flesh and if I were to be cut, I would bleed, but I have been dwelling by Eridan’s side for awhile now. I have learned and I have become more than I once was,” Coenbrand said thoughtfully.

  “So you weren’t that statue the whole time?”

  He laughed, a hearty, good-natured laugh. “No. I was never the statue. The statue was just a mechanism that Eridan provided for my return.”

  “But what happened?” asked Theof. “I looked for you for weeks, there was never a sign.”

  “After you fell, I am embarrassed to say, the dragon nearly caught me. I remember dropping Harbinger. Then I leapt onto the dragon’s back near the neck. My mount continued to harass the serpent. As the dragon prepared to breathe fire at my griffon, I locked my arms around its neck. Luckily, my strength was sufficient to prevent it from exhaling. The flames backfired and the monster combusted, blown up by its own weapon. I was gravely injured and falling. My mount caught me, but I was dying. Perhaps Harbinger could have saved me, but it was lost. As I lost consciousness, the sky opened up and then I was in a sunlit forest on a mountain side—Eridan’s domain. The god healed me and allowed me stay and serve him directly. I wasn’t really given a choice in the matter—he said that it was time, pre-ordained, all of that god talk. Eridan is less mysterious than most gods, but he has his moments.

  “That’s why I am here now. Eridan became aware of the plan to return Garegon to this world and created the statue here in the castle.”

  “But it was pure luck that we arrived here,” I said. “Did Eridan know all of this would happen? If he did why could he have not saved the lives of my family?”

  “I doubt that he knew precisely everything that would lead up to this moment. It doesn’t work like that for him. His bailiwick is strength and battle, not divination. He gets glimpses, precognitions, that are more akin to a still painting of an event than a written commentary that contains all of the details. As for your family, I am sorry to say that if he did know that they would die, he probably would not have prevented it. Death is a necessary part of life and most of the gods are loathe to interfere with the natural process. Bad things sometimes happen. Not even the gods can stop that.”

  I nodded, for some reason feeling close to tears, but forcing them back. I refused to cry in front of the greatest warrior in Pozzelby’s long history.

  Coenbrand looked at Theof.

  “How did you come to be here?”

  “Nightshade. I was happily going about the business of making the Lords of Lorsan miserable, when she appeared and told me that I had to get here with my men as quickly as I could. We made double marches and got here in three days.”

  “Is Nightshade here then too?”

  “I’m not certain. She said that she was involved in some issue with the astral realm. Jeremiah is here somewhere though,” Theof said.

  “Ah, she was involved with the astral crisis. The gods have been watching that for some time. You will be happy to know that the crisis has been averted,” Coenbrand said. I had no idea what he was talking about.

  Apparently, neither did Theof. “I might be happy, if I knew anything about it at all. But if it is over, then Nightshade might be here somewhere.”

  “The three of you here and Eridan still thought that I would be needed? The threat must be grave.”

  “Well, your old friend Garris Stone is here somewhere. I bet that Eridan thought that you would like to have a little reunion,” said Theof.

  Coenbrand grinned. “I bet that was it. Well, let’s go find Garris.”

  ****

  Perhaps Porknoy had allowed himself to become overly optimistic about the outcome of the fight. Getting the Pozzelbian soldiers to fight against the Twelve Sect Order had evened things out numerically—until the zombies had appeared. But Nightshade, in dramatic fashion, had neutralized the greater portion of that threat. Many of the Earmunders had been fearful to engage the undead foes initially, especially those animated from the corpses of their fellows. But King Theof’s woodsmen had no qualms about it and had shown the others how to dispatch them with relative ease. The woodsmen on the whole had proven to be extremely valuable. Each man among them, and Porknoy had learned that there were also some women among their ranks, seemed to be a veteran with skills that far surpassed those of the typical Earmund guardsman.

  Then there were Nightshade and Jeremiah. Nightshade had been flying over the battle destroying enemy supply tents with explosive magic and taking out large numbers of the enemy with lightning, fire, and arcane bolts red and white energy. She seemed impervious to arrows and other mundane weapons that had been brought to bear against her. Jeremiah had been just as valuable. He would wade into a group of enemy soldiers, casual and grinning easily. He would become a blur of motion and in seconds the group, six, eight, ten at a time would be unconscious in the mud.

  Then the knights of Garegon had entered the fray.

  They were proving to be a problem. Each one was tough and fierce and had been cutting large swaths through Porknoy’s ranks
. The Red Fang Sect knights seemed oblivious to their fellow, lower sects, as if they were beneath notice. They acted like they could win the battle entirely on their own. But they were not invincible. A few had been brought down—Porknoy himself had managed to slay one, though the fight took him ten minutes and had left him with deep cuts on his arms, legs, across his cheek, a puncture on the side of his abdomen that was beginning to trouble him, and a dead horse. Groups of woodsmen had successfully worked together to unhorse and kill a few of the knights. With time, Porknoy thought that they could eventually defeat the knights, if not for their commander.

  General Garris Stone had entered the battle, and he was a nightmare. No, he rode one; his horse seemed possessed of a hellish inner fire, like something out of the darkest of dreams. Garris Stone was the terror one felt when they awoke and realized that they had not been dreaming at all.

  He was a force. Untiring, unstoppable, as strong as twenty men, Garris Stone had shrugged off their best efforts so far to even slow him down.

  He was Porknoy’s current target.

  The lieutenant had no idea as to what he would do when he confronted Stone, probably die, but he was going to do his best to stop him. It was no trouble finding him. Porknoy, holding one hand over the bleeding wound in his stomach, just followed the trail of bodies and cries of the dying.

  Jeremiah came running up to Porknoy from behind. Even in the mud, the old man could sprint as fast as a quick horse. He stopped beside Porknoy.

  “Stone’s up ahead. Want to help me take care of him?” Jeremiah asked.

  “That is what I intended.”

  Jeremiah looked at the lieutenant more closely and saw his wound.

  “That looks bad. Here drink this,” he said removing a vial from a pocket.

  Porknoy did as he was told. It tasted just like the potion that his uncle had fed him more than a fortnight ago. He grimaced and again wondered if sock lint was a necessary ingredient in brewing a healing draught. However, he felt better almost immediately. He was still wounded, but the bleeding stopped and his vitality returned.