Darkwalker on Moonshae - Douglas Niles [155]
The Sword of Cymrych Hugh, feathery in Tristan’s hand, pulled him forward. But the prince needed no encouragement to fight the creature before him. He understood that this creature was the source of all of the evil that had befallen Gwynneth during the long and fatal summer.
The raiders and the Ffolk paused, instinctively, one hundred yards apart. Thelgaar Ironhand strode forward, and Tristan Kendrick, Prince of Corwell, met him with steel.
Tristan eyed the towering figure before him, watching the long blade intensely.
Suddenly, the Iron King’s long sword slashed toward Tristan’s knees, and he parried the attack at the cost of a numbing blow to his hands. His own sword cut toward the northman’s shoulder, but the king’s parry was as fast as his own had been. Again and again, the two weapons clashed and clanged in the otherwise eerily silent courtyard.
The weight of the Beast’s weapon, backed by the power of the Darkwell surging through its body, crashed against the Sword of Cymrych Hugh with many times the might of a normal blow, and Tristan had to back away from the Iron King’s steady attack.
The numbness in his hands turned to pain, and Tristan found himself dreading the next blow. As each one fell, it seemed impossible that his blade was not knocked from his hands.
They fought near the edge of the slope, and Tristan spun away from that deadly sword seconds before the Beast cornered him against the drop. He nearly stumbled among the wreckage of the palisade, dodging a downward blow that slashed completely through a heavy timber.
“Look!”
The cry came from an unknown warrior among the Ffolk, but it called the attention of the gathered multitudes to the moor below them.
A thousand or more northmen streamed away from the castle knoll, and behind them rushed the thousands of wolves. Panic had spread through the entire army, except for those upon the knoll with the Iron King. Now these looked nervously past the hulking form of their leader to the massive retreat being enacted below them.
And they saw the visage of their leader and king begin to change into something not imagined even in their deepest nightmares.
*****
The Beast watched its army flee, and it felt the momentum of disaster building. The Firbolgs and Bloodriders were dead, and its army now ran away. Rage welled within the demonic breast, and the Beast exploded into its true form before the terrorstricken eyes of the northmen and the Ffolk. Its tail grew longer than the timbers of the palisade and with an angry lash a dozen northmen were toppled from the knoll. It grew in height until it towered above the humans, its head higher than the walls of the courtyard. It stood upon two mightily muscled, heavily scaled rear legs.
Wicked barbs tipped the clutching forelegs, and these thrust forward to try and pull the heart from the breast of the Prince of Corwell. But the Sword of Cymrych Hugh met those claws with the eternal power of the goddess.
The flesh of the Beast could not withstand the weapon’s enchantment. Screaming in pain, Kazgoroth reared away from the Prince of Corwell and his potent sword.
Momentary astonishment rooted the prince to the flagstones, as the transformation of the Beast sent shivers of horror through the fighters of the Ffolk and the enemy alike. And the attackers stood immobile, for the briefest of moments.
All of them, that is, except one.
*****
Engrossed by the clash of prince and king, the people in the courtyard did not notice the shadow of Laric as he stealthily maneuvered away from the press of bodies, trying to choose his moment precisely. Dimly, Laric noticed Kazgoroth’s transformation as the Beast assumed its true form, but the Bloodrider’s attention focused far more diligently upon the unconscious maiden.
As the others in the courtyard stood transfixed, Laric spurred his snorting