Chapter 22
As Elias fell, the Sunflame Spear came to life and acted of its own volition, preventing his fall. He grabbed onto it and harnessed its magic to lift himself back to the top of the tower, where Freya and Theo, his once best friends, stood.
“You’re making a mistake, Mortandagh. I don’t want to kill my friends. I don’t,” he said, pointing the spear at both of them.
Mortandagh spoke through them.
“Oh, there is no mistake being made here. This was just a distraction. For I am here at long last, inevitable and final.”
Freya and Theo attacked Elias at the same time. He waved his spear at them, slashing them both open. They fell, and as the Sunflame Spear touched them, they were freed from their thrall. They lay there dying atop the tower, looking at Elias with betrayal, hurt, remorse, and terror in their eyes.
“I am sorry,” Elias said, standing over them. “But there was no other choice.”
They did not speak. They lay splayed in blood and viscera, and the last thing that Elias did for them was to end their suffering by dealing them killing blows. He wept afterward, collapsing upon his knees, holding their hands.
He had been really alone at Umbrveyl in the beginning, and these two had taken him in and given him the confidence that he had needed to become the charismatic leader that he would end up becoming.
“I will avenge your deaths. I will kill Mortandagh if that is the last thing I do,” Elias said, and turned around.
To his surprise, there was a dark cloud on the horizon, but it was not a natural cloud.
The war had started. That cloud was hundreds of Deathless flying toward Umbrveyl at the dawn of this day.
Somebody sounded the horn from below, and the troops of the Vanguard and the Covenant came out of the castle.
The front ground where the campsites had been placed was cleared, and battlements were placed.
Formations, ranks, all of them being arranged by the teachers of Umbrveyl and the captains of the Vanguard.
Elias flew down, resplendent, wielding his sun-spear. Two of his Vanguard followers robed him and cloaked him so that he would truly look like the leader who was going to lead this charge against the Deathless in the final battle.
“Men, women, brothers and sisters all, make your stand and make it true. As long as Sol is with us,” he said, raising the Sunflame Spear, “we will not be defeated.”
There was no way for Elias to know that the Sunflame Spear did not belong to the Sol that he worshiped and venerated.
That it was a relic older than Aladria itself.
That this relic once belonged to the true followers of the sun god, the real Sol, and that this relic was perhaps the only thing left untainted by Chaos.
There was no way for Elias to know any of that because his grandfather had burned all of the books and had destroyed precious history and replaced it with his own twisted version.
Regardless of the origins of the Sunflame Spear, the spear served a purpose. It purged, it protected, and it contained tremendous magical power that could undo darkness. And what was Chaos if not unbound darkness?
He stood there at the head of the army, waiting for the cloud to descend.
Mortandagh and his Deathless descended upon Crook Haven and covered the distance relatively quickly.
As they approached, so did storm clouds, and the dawn of this otherwise clear day was blotted out by darkness.
Rain began to fall as Mortandagh approached Elias at the center of the field.
“So here you are,” Mortandagh said, “wielding the very thing that can kill me.”
“Before this day is over,” Elias said, “I will kill you. I will kill you for what you did to my grandfather. I will kill you for what you did to this land.”
“Tall words for such a small boy,” Mortandagh said. “Let us see what you are capable of.”
And then Mortandagh turned his attention to the troops who were assembled behind Elias.
“This is your final warning, all of you. Let it be known that I am a reasonable man. I am not going to harm any of you who surrender right now, and any of you who wish to leave this battlefield may leave. I do not wish to spill unnecessary blood of my fellow mages, no matter which side they stand on.”
To his surprise, nobody moved.
“Fine then,” Mortandagh said. “A war you want? A war you will have.”
With that, he receded back toward his own troops.
Elias took out his binoculars and observed the troops.
Only half of them were living Deathless.
The rest were corpses controlled by the necromancer himself.
Several of those corpses were familiar, including Clive Bane and Barrowhane.
Elias’s heart sank. Could it be that his grandfather was in there as well?
But no matter how hard he looked, he couldn’t find his grandfather’s corpse.
* * *
The first volley came from Umbrveyl. They sent forth barrages of spells and projectiles from catapults atop the castle toward the Deathless.
The Deathless retaliated immediately by hurtling those same projectiles and spells back at Umbrveyl.
Umbrveyl’s windows shattered, its walls tore off, and several of its towers collapsed.
Then both forces advanced at each other, the ground shuddering beneath the quake of their feet.
Spells flying through the air. Spells lethal.
Spells meant to stun, spells meant to kill, and bodies dropped as both armies met in the field in front of Umbrveyl.
Storm clouds gathered and unleashed their storm upon the battlefield, rain causing the spilled blood to flow across the grassy land, and thunder illuminating the horrors of war.
Mortandagh was immensely powerful. With a careless swipe of his hand, he killed dozens upon dozens of Vanguard members.
But he was surprised to see just how many of them there were.
They advanced on him, flanked him, and wherever they had hidden, they attacked from there.
Truly, the entire nation, divided into two factions, had gathered at this historic site.
Mortandagh saw Elias retreating toward the castle with the sun-spear.
Mortandagh needed that Sunflame Spear so that he could destroy it once and for all, and then effectively shatter the backbone of the movement against him.
He was driven. He knew that this day would change Aladrian history forever.
Mortandagh flew after Elias, both of them slinging spells at each other, flying from tower to tower.
Elias flew with the power of the Sunflame Spear, and his spells, as a result, were stronger.
He gave Mortandagh quite a fight until they went inside into the Great Hall, which was now empty of all tables and chairs, only Deathless and Vanguard fighting each other.
At the center of this hall, they assembled to witness this great duel that was going to happen between Elias and Mortandagh.
Mortandagh cast spells that Elias easily deflected.
This was not his own power that was prompting him to stand so boldly against the necromancer.
This was the power of the Sunflame Spear.
Sol, the sun god, awoke at long last, wondering what was happening in the wake of his sleep.
Mortandagh threw a series of curses at Elias, binding him in place, and advanced upon him, eager to grab the Sunflame Spear from his hands.
But Elias broke free from the curses and threw Mortandagh across the hall with a propulsive spell.
Lightning and fire, flame and darkness, flew across the hall, shattering its once glamorous windows, its magnificent tapestries.
The entire castle was on fire, and yet the rain doused it.
The castle was coming apart, and yet the old magic held it in place.
Across many hallways and many hallways, the war waged.
Edda and Professor Elara Moore fought each other on the fifth floor, both of them accompanied by a dozen of their own followers.
Elara Moore hit the killing curse at Edda, and yet Edda stood to the side, letting the curse hit a follower behind her.
Then it was Edda’s turn to throw another spell at Elara, and she also flung the killing curse.
But Elara also dodged it. It hit Aishwarya, sending her hurtling across the room dead.
Elara bound Edda in place and made the ceiling collapse upon her, killing her, then ran along the fifth floor to see if there were more casualties.
The war continued for hours, and the sun never came out. Only the storm worsened, and it was somewhere in the middle of all this that Lesya, Derleth, Moira, Elise, and Victoria appeared to the sight of destruction and bloodshed and screams and horror.
“I am going to find him,” Lesya said. “I’m going to find Elias and make a swift end of him.”
She had put her harness back on. Her hair was in a ponytail.
She had drunk a series of potions to revive her strength, and she was ready.
This was what she had been waiting for. This was presented to her now.
Lesya did not duck or dodge any attacks that came her way; she parried them all effortlessly.
Even though she was no longer the Shepherd of Aeterna, she was realizing all of the lessons that Cassian had taught her in this very castle, and so maybe she was never meant to worship some arcane goddess of death, but to cherish the man who had taught her everything that she knew of magic.
In his memory, she cast spells and slayed the Vanguard members who came to attack her, thinking that she was from the Deathless, and she cleared a path for herself toward the Great Hall.
It was in this Great Hall that she would find Elias, for she could see the radiance of the Sunflame Spear emanating from within.
When she stepped inside the Great Hall, the battle paused for a second. Mortandagh looked at her.
“Lesya,” he said. “You’re here. I am so glad that you have come to join me at long last.”