Chapter 57
Throughout the remainder of the day, Pael appeared at various places around the city. He never stayed more than a moment or two at any given place, but where there was Pael, there was destruction. Unconcerned now with preserving any part of the inner city, or its ancient structures, and seething with anger and fear, Pael began to methodically decimate Xwarda.
In the southern section of the city, a few hundred Blacksword soldiers were finally getting a large group of the undead corralled, until Pael came. Where the men were driving back the undead, buildings on each side of the street exploded. Brick, stone, splintered wood, and glass shards cut into their numbers. Pael was gone before the dust settled, leaving nothing, but a bloody, pulpy mess on the cobbles.
A fresh battalion of Highwander soldiers, who had just been sent forth from the castle to help defend the breach Pael’s earlier quake had caused, met the demon-wizard at their destination. Lightning flared from his fingertip. One, then two, then four, then eight of the Blacksword soldiers fell. Again, Pael sent forth a shocking blast, and another, until the way was filled with nothing, but smoking corpses. A moment later, Pael was somewhere else.
A brutal swathe of bright, static energy evaporated an entire block full of men and buildings. A jet of wizard fire sent a group of cavalrymen’s horses stampeding blindly through the cobbled streets with smoldering flanks and sizzling manes. Anything that got in the way was trampled, and most of the riders were thrown, and forgotten.
In the northern section of the city, a hundred or more Highwander men laid in a slumped formation, spelled asleep, in the middle of the avenue. The huge, boar-like creature Pael had summoned was having a feast on their still living flesh. The men were powerless to stop it, and when the Hell Boar’s powerful teeth dug into them, and broke the spell they were under, it was too late.
In the east, a meteor-like sphere of flaming death came crashing down into the mercantile portion of Xwarda. More than four square blocks were leveled, and almost a thousand men were crushed, pummeled, or roasted.
In his rage, the demon-wizard was seemingly unstoppable.
Mikahl, who was still flying on the back of the Bright Horse, tried as hard as he could to catch Pael in the act. He raced across the city, from disaster to disaster, but was always just a bit too late to spot the wily demon-wizard. He dispatched a wyvern, and crumbled a horde of undead soldiers to the ground with a pulsing blast from Ironspike’s blade. He headed off a flank attack of Pael’s dead men, and saved a few hundred Blacksword soldiers from being surprised. He killed an uncounted number of undead soldiers, sending their tainted souls into oblivion with a touch of his blade, but he couldn’t catch Pael.
Finally, as the sun began to set, he decided that there was only one thing left for him to do. He landed the Bright Horse in the center of the destruction Pael’s earlier quake had caused, and dismounted.
At once, the flaming Pegasus was gone. Mikahl wobbled on unsteady legs, but quickly mastered himself. He called out, taunting Pael, using every insult he could think of. He even sheathed Ironspike, so that he was momentarily unprotected by its magic. Standing there, in his gore saturated robe, he felt for the first time the intense brunt of the pain that Ironspike’s magic had been masking from him. It was excruciating. His body hurt so badly that he could barely think, but he continued to call out the demon-wizard, man to man. Unprotected, and reeling from the unhealed injuries the Choska had inflicted on him back in the forest, he waited. It was all he could think to do.
As they raced across the continent on Claret’s back, the bindings Queen Willa had placed on Shaella, began to unravel. Hyden had to physically wrap an arm around her waist, and keep his other hand over her mouth to keep her from spelling him. Sometime in the middle of the night, he had Claret land them in an aromatic pasture, full of knee-high grazing grass. The hoof-beating rumble of a retreating herd of animals faded from them, leaving only the sounds of the insects, and the dragon’s heavy, slightly winded, breathing. The half moon high overhead, tinted the swaying carpet of grass beneath them with a yellowish light.