Pael laughed hysterically. His expression was that of a gleeful child. Oh, how he loved the power he had gained. The gods had been kind. Shaella’s lover had somehow ruined his intended binding spell and the result left Pael in full control of the demon essence that was trapped inside him. The demon’s power was at his fingertips. It didn’t matter to Pael that he could still hear Shokin’s protests echoing in his mind. He walled the lunatic ravings out. The threats were empty. Pael was in complete control. Shokin was part of him now.
He laughed again, and sent the lightning streaking into another soldier near the gates, starting another deadly chain reaction. Then he focused his energy into creating another concussive blast. He almost quit the spell when the sudden presence of another magic tainted the air. He quickly detected that the other wizard was no threat to him, dismissed it, and continued building the huge magical sphere of destruction he had started. After he hurled it at the castle, and enjoyed watching it destroy hundreds, if not thousands of lives, he would deal with the remaining wizard.
Targon was in a daze from his spell. The massive booms, and crumbling explosions around him, seemed like a distant disturbance in some faraway place. Before him, a swirling tunnel formed itself into being. Outside its roughly ten foot diameter, the battle raged on. Inside, it was like looking down a huge empty pipe that lead straight through the battling soldiers, right past the demon-wizard, over the litter of dead bodies and dying men around him, and ended directly in front of King Jarrek and his men.
“Come! Now! Before it’s too late!” Targon screamed out to the King of Wildermont. He repeated the words as loud as he could manage.
This time, King Jarrek heard him, but barely. The concussion of Pael’s arrival had left him and his men nearly deaf.
King Jarrek looked down the strange telescopic tube at the Highwander wizard. He mouthed a question. Targon nodded in understanding. After calling out an order, King Jarrek spurred his horse down the shaft towards the Witch Queen’s Mage. Three, then another of the red armored honor guard followed.
A bright, eye-searing flash from somewhere beyond the King and his men nearly caused Targon to falter and lose the spell, but he managed to hang onto it. Then, a fifth soldier came galloping down the magical tube. He was wearing the red enameled armor of Jarrek’s honor guard as well.
Trembling with the effort, Targon held the spell as long as he could. It was already failing when Jarrek, and the first four men, shot out of the magical portal past him. Though it pained Targon greatly to do so, he had no choice but to let go of the spell, or get lost in its collapse. The fifth guard’s scream filled his head as the magical tube came crashing in on him. The sound of the man and his horse yelling in terror as they were crushed into oblivion echoed for long hours in Targon’s head as he, King Jarrek, and the four red-armored guardsmen fled northward as swiftly as their tired mounts could carry them.
No one would ever know it, but the man who lost his life in Targon’s magical through-way didn’t die in vain. His sudden screaming appearance a few dozen yards directly in front of Pael saved the group from being marked for pursuit. Pael was so surprised by the man that he instantly blasted him and the horse into a cloud of bloody mist. The realization of what had actually happened there came to Pael later after the entire city of Castlemont and its castle was nothing but a dusty ruin and a litter of mangled bloody flesh.
Later, while the carrion feasted, Pael used Shokin’s Power to summon some of the dark things that had escaped from the Seal before Shokin had been torn in two. A pair of nether born wyverns, all acid-mouthed and angry, answered the call. He ordered one of them to track down and kill the wizard who had defied him. The other he commanded to find and aid the hellcat that had once been his familiar, Inkling.
The search for Pavreal’s sword took on a new sense of priority in Pael’s mind. The part of him that was Shokin feared it, and for good reason. Though Pael thought it very unlikely that a mere squire might find a way to thwart his plans, the boy was apparently King Balton’s son and therefore he was a threat. Actually he was the only threat. Ironspike’s magic was the only thing in the realm that could possibly stop him now. Once he had it, and the power of the Wardstone in Xwarda, the whole world would be forced to kneel before him.
Pael couldn’t help but laugh out maniacally at the thought. Things had changed. He was in a far better position at this point than he had ever expected to be. New plans would have to be made. Pael couldn’t see any reason to wait until spring to attack Xwarda. With his newfound power he could conquer what was left of the mainland Kingdoms before the weather set in, and spend the winter months learning how to manipulate the Wardstone so that when spring did come he could tear through the elven forests on his way to take Afdeon from the giants.
Of all the men who could hear the demon-wizard’s hysterical giggling glee, King Glendar was the only one who wasn’t unnerved by it. To him, the psychotic sound was akin to the cooing love words a young mother might speak as she kissed her child on the brow at bedtime.
Chapter 36