The Sword of Gideon (The Realm Shift Trilogy #3) Read online

  So it went for what seemed like an eternity. There seemed to be no end to the enemy’s numbers. Gideon’s arms burned and ached with fatigue. How many had he killed so far? He’d lost count after fifty. Already the horses and their riders had passed beyond his hearing. Could they possibly have reached the palace yet?

  The king would certainly be Mordred’s priority target. Once he had Stephen in custody, the battle would end quickly. The King’s army would be ordered to stand down. If Stephen refused to issue the order, he would be killed and Mordred would declare himself King in Wayland even before Stephen’s men stopped fighting.

  With the King in such danger, Gideon realized he had to get to the palace as quickly as possible. What happened down here wouldn’t make any difference anyway. He killed one last hybrid and rushed off through the streets. As each new assailant presented before him, Gideon tore through them and moved on.

  He only hoped he could reach the palace in time. The irony of Gideon’s actions didn’t escape him. The night before he had very nearly assassinated King Stephen. Here he was now trying to save the very man, he’d agreed to kill.

  Ethan found that he could not stay in the spiritual realm for more than an instant. On his first and second attempts to realm shift, he had become aware of huge numbers of demons operating on the ethereal plane around him. His shifting made him immediately noticeable to them all—the brightest light in the city.

  Instead he managed to jump in and out so that his foes in the physical and spiritual realms remained confused. He disappeared from before a giant Anakim and then immediately, at least as the giant perceived, appeared behind him. Ethan cut him down with a lethal blow to vital organs.

  The Anakims may have been huge men, but they still had the same vulnerabilities as normal people. All that mattered was knowing where to hit them and the priests of Shaddai had all been well trained. In fact, as Ethan surveyed the battle unfolding in Evelah’s streets, he noticed that it was indeed the priests of Shaddai who faired the best in this melee.

  King Stephen had retreated, with the priests from the Nodian Order providing escort, to the palace. He had to be kept safe and Mordred’s army had breached the walls quicker than had been expected. Hopefully the priests could get him there safely.

  The streets had filled with the bodies of the wounded and the fallen. The metallic odor of blood filled the air in Evelah. It was nauseating.

  Ethan heard the thunder of hooves coming down the streets behind him. He turned and shifted out of the physical just in time to escape the sword of one of the riders. He reappeared ten feet off the street before the demons in the area could attack.

  Wraith Riders galloped hard down the main thoroughfare, heading for the palace. Ethan was sure Mordred would be among them, but they all looked the same. There was no stopping them at this pace without shifting and there were too many demons around for that.

  Ethan suddenly realized why the demons were even present. They didn’t seem to be doing much in the way of fighting in this battle and yet they were everywhere among the combatants. Could it be that Mordred, or even Jericho, had figured out a way to keep him from utilizing his power in this fight? Were they all busy looking for him?

  A hybrid soldier tried to dispatch him from behind, but Ethan beat him to it. As the creature fell, Ethan ran to intercept the last of the Wraith Riders.

  The rider swept down with his broadsword as he approached. But instead of ducking the blow, Ethan leaped over the blade in a split second realm shift that knocked the rider from his saddle. Ethan took his place seizing the reins and goading the black horse on even faster.

  Ethan raced through the streets, trying to catch the other riders. A group of Anakims lunged toward him from up ahead, forcing him to change course. The Wraith Riders disappeared around a bend on the main road where a group of buildings were still smoldering from the earlier bombing.

  The horse obeyed his commands smoothly and Ethan avoided the giants easily. But now he wasn’t sure how he might catch the black riders. He took several side streets in succession and noticed the fighting had largely remained on the main road. Most of Mordred’s army was either headed toward the palace or making sure his Wraith Riders got there unhindered.

  A winding lane opened up before him. A group of houses lay crushed beneath one of the fallen airships, spilling its debris into the street. Ethan and his mount leaped over some of the wreckage and dodged around the rest, making their way steadily toward the palace now visible in the distance.

  RETREAT

  Levi and Seth remained among the priests of the Wayland Order as they and King Stephen’s soldiers escorted him back to the palace. No sooner had the King and his entourage managed to escape being pinned on the wall than Mordred’s giants and hybrids flooded through the breach in the main gate. They were on the run, trying to get their sovereign to safety, if there even was such a thing in Evelah now.

  Levi and Seth lagged behind with some of the other priests, like Kline and Devon, taking down giants that had managed to keep up with them as well as the much faster hybrids. Some of these abominable soldiers had taken on wolf-like characteristics, maintaining a fast pace, even traveling at times on all fours with their swords upon their backs.

  Seth dodged one attack, countering with a sword to the hybrid’s belly. His clean, effortless attacks made Levi a little envious of the blind man’s prowess. He reminded him of a calmer Gideon. Despite multiple enemies and various kinds of attacks, Seth never grimaced or cried out. As far as Levi could tell, the man hadn’t even broken a sweat yet.

  For his own part Levi remained blood and guts and glory. He yelled at his enemies and gritted his teeth, using his anger to keep up with the ceaseless drain on his strength. He looked like someone who had just been keelhauled compared to his blind friend.

  The other priests were doing fairly well. Some of them had fallen, but others had stayed behind, trying to keep a cushion between the frontrunners of Mordred’s army and King Stephen. Devon and Kline, both expert archers, provided a good deal of in flight cover backing steadily away from the advance as they let arrows fly from their bows into the breasts of the enemy. When they and the other archers ran out of ammunition, they caught arrows from the air or grabbed them from the street as the enemy fired them astray.

  After a mile or more of steady retreat and fighting, the king’s entourage found a few undamaged wagons. They all piled into them and took off at a much greater pace for the palace. Seth deftly leaped into one of the wagons and called back for Levi as he screamed furiously cutting down another hybrid.

  Levi smiled at his fallen foe and then looked up at the sound of distant, closing hoof-beats. Wraith Riders, five or six dozen at least, charged hard up the main road after them. Levi turned and ran for the wagon as it started away with the King and all of his surviving personal guard. “Wraith Riders!” Levi yelled as he leaped for the speeding wagon.

  Seth caught Levi’s arm with one hand, his belt with the other and hauled him onboard. He shouted back to the driver, warning him of the threat. The wagon lurched away even faster. But the palace remained another mile away. At the rate the Wraith Riders were closing on them, it would be close getting inside with the king before they were overtaken. The Anakims may have been big and the hybrids brutally vicious, but the Wraith Riders were both, with the sort of fighting skill found in the warrior-priests of Shaddai added in.

  Their wagons passed through the palace gates. Levi leaped from the back of his wagon in order to close the gates upon the Wraith Riders and give the King and his men more time to fortify. Devon followed and together they pushed the sculpted iron gates into place. Levi found the lever which locked them together and pulled it down. With a heavy click, the deed was done and only just in time.

  The Wraith Riders, wearing their leather masks with devilish faces painted upon them and midnight black armor, raced through the streets toward the gates. They looked like a wave of beetles coming to claim a carcass. Levi and Devon ran back th
rough the main palace courtyard, following the trail of the wagons.

  As the two men reached them again, the King’s entourage of soldiers and warrior-priests escorted Stephen inside the palace. Levi found Seth and they followed. Heavy wooden doors were shut and great cedar beams laid into place across the frame to seal them.

  “Come, men,” Stephen said. “We must retreat to the armory. It is well fortified and we’ll have all the weapons we need.”

  The men followed him through the palace, rising level by level. Seth stopped and grabbed Levi’s arm. He listened with his more attuned hearing for a moment. “I hear the riders. They’ve stopped at the gate.” A moment’s pause. “They’re cutting through.”

  “Through iron bars?” Levi asked, but he already knew it must be true. After all, they weren’t dealing with natural things, but unnatural. After all that Levi had witnessed in this war, he found his own seeming surprise moot. A moment later, as they started after the king again, Levi heard the renewed sound of many horses galloping upon the cobblestones of the main courtyard.

  He knew already that the doors they had shut after themselves throughout the palace would do nothing to keep these riders at bay. Soon they would find them. Then it would be a fight to the death. He would do his best, but he wasn’t sure how long they would hold out. At the very least, he was fighting side by side with some of the finest warriors he’d ever known and that might make a difference.

  Suddenly Levi wanted very much to have Ethan with him. The boy had become separated from them during the fight at the front gate. He dwelt on it for only a moment as he moved on.

  By the time they had all reached the armory, and were about to shut up its solid iron doors, Seth grabbed Levi’s arm again. “They’re in the palace!”

  Gideon reached the palace in time to see the King and his men shutting themselves up inside. The Wraith Riders had reached the courtyard gate and had sliced through solid iron bars with little difficulty. Two of the riders launched their black steeds at the gate and kicked it down with their front hooves. The lot of them, more than fifty as far as he could tell, stormed across the cobblestone courtyard toward the palace rising above it.

  Gideon ducked around the palace, looking for another way in. He’d managed to find a grappling hook from one of the fallen soldiers along his way and spotted a terrace several stories up that looked like a good place to enter. He threw the four pronged steel head up and over the stone rail; pulled it to make sure he had good purchase and then steadily pulled himself up the wall.

  Ethan rode up upon the sidewall closing in the palace courtyard. His black stallion whinnied loudly when it saw the other horses and their riders assembled before the palace entrance while three of the Wraith Riders bashed the wooden doors in. Many of the riders looked up to find him there and pointed only to be shocked when he disappeared from the saddle.

  Ethan flew out of thin air into the midst of the riders with his sword drawn and ready for action. He felt alive like never before, the spirit of Shaddai filling him to the brim with confidence and strength. Mordred became visible to him, his horned mask standing out now while the riders were still.

  Sword outstretched, Ethan launched himself at the warlord only to have a dozen Wraith Riders intercept him. He battled toward Mordred screaming the man’s name as the palace doors were smashed in. Mordred immediately launched his horse toward the doors. Ethan fought and killed many of the soldiers despite their prowess, but there were always more to stand between him and Mordred.

  Ethan decided to bypass them altogether and shifted into the spiritual realm. But there, waiting for him, was a horde of demons and Jericho standing among them the most prominent. As the physical world and its inhabitants became only a backdrop, Ethan and the demon lord surveyed one another.

  “So,” Jericho said, “you have come.”

  There was menace and perhaps even delight in Jericho’s tone. And yet, Ethan felt no fear.

  “Of course, I’m here,” Ethan said. “The prophecy must be fulfilled. There is no avoiding it.”

  Jericho did not move. Something about that statement had rattled him. Ethan could sense it even if he didn’t see it. He looked around him, trying to take in the sheer number of wicked spirits present—waiting to pounce upon him. “I guess I shouldn’t expect a fair fight from you,” Ethan said.

  Jericho smiled and drew his massive ethereal blade. “Do you really believe it would matter?”

  Before Ethan could answer, a furious howl arose from among the demons surrounding them. In an instant, Ethan found that each and every one of the demons, other than Jericho, was now guarded by an angel. He hadn’t seen them approach. They had just appeared in place, many with their weapons drawn to the throats of their particular demon. One move and they would be dispatched to wherever it was their wounded fled.

  Ethan turned back to Jericho. Confidence shone brightly from his eyes, while the demon lord looked far less than pleased.

  “What is the meaning of this intrusion!” he bellowed. But not one of the angels bothered to respond to him. Jericho looked about him. No one was coming to his aid.

  “So be it,” he said, disgusted. Without further reservation, Jericho launched himself at Ethan. With hardly a thought, Ethan’s blade appeared in his hand. He blocked the strike from the demon and parried.

  Jericho whirled and met his blade as another appeared in Ethan’s other hand. He tried to use some of the techniques Gideon had taught him, but the demon was simply too powerful. Tricks that had allowed him to vanquish other spirits fell short with Jericho.

  None of the other demons dared to interfere. The angels remained on guard, but did not try to help him beyond their mandate. Ethan knew the fight was his. He was the Deliverer of Prophecy. He would have to struggle through by faith.

  For several moments their battle raged on. Had they been perceptible by human eyes at all, they would simply have appeared as blurs of color amid the clash of almost constant lightning.

  Ethan noticed that all of the surviving Wraith Riders had entered the palace by now. He hadn’t been paying much attention to them since facing Jericho. What had happened to the King? By now they might have him. Mordred could already be in control. He had to hurry and get in there to fulfill the prophecy and stop this war.

  Jericho seemed to sense his urgency and increased the ferocity of his attack. At the very least he would prevent the Deliverer from interfering with Mordred’s plans. And then Ethan remembered the one advantage he’d always held over demons even from his earliest memory. He disappeared from Jericho’s sight as the demon’s blade drove through the air where Ethan had just been standing.

  Ethan raced into the palace on foot. He wasn’t entirely sure if he could remain hidden from Jericho. Something about the enormous amount of power exuded by this particular demon had always thrown off his gifts. Even as he had raced after the Wraith Riders, the demons had become less visible to him while he remained in the physical world. Only when he’d shifted before the palace had he realized the full extent of the demonic presence around him.

  Ethan shifted again, entering the ethereal plane, rocketing through the palace. He found the Wraith Riders with Mordred inside a large chamber filled with weapons. The iron doors had been blasted open by what looked like a small charge of gunpowder.

  Inside, Mordred stood with King Stephen kneeling before him. One of the Wraith Riders held a dagger to his throat. The other soldiers surrounded a small group of Wayland priests. Levi and Seth stood among them. The tips of many swords were held waiting at their throats. For once, even Levi had been left speechless.

  Mordred had won. He had taken the king. Wayland would be his if Ethan did not stop him now. There were no demons in the room. No doubt they were all still being held at bay outside the palace by Shaddai’s angels. Only Jericho was loose and he would be here in moments.

  Mordred laughed, realizing his victory. He looked at the prisoners being held at sword point. “Kill them all. They are of no use to me
now.”

  “Wait!” Ethan appeared in the middle of the chamber. The walls were lined with racks of armor and weapons. This must be the King’s armory, he thought. But all these weapons had not been able to stop Mordred and his Wraith Riders. No wonder all of Nod was held by them. And now, Wayland dangled by a mere thread of hope.

  Mordred looked upon him evidently not sure how exactly to proceed. Fear danced in his eyes. Ethan saw it there. He feared the prophecy. Facing the Deliverer might still undo his victory after all. “Stop!” he commanded his soldiers.

  “Kill him, Ethan!” Levi said. The tip of a sword pushed tighter against his Adam’s apple.

  Mordred smiled. “I have your friends, boy. Don’t do anything foolish. If you are trying to fulfill that useless prophecy, you’ll only succeed in getting them killed.”

  Ethan looked around the room. He wasn’t sure what to do. Mordred was right. He couldn’t attack him and save his friends. How could he live with himself if he got them all killed?

  And then Gideon ran into the room behind him and stopped cold with two swords in his hand. He looked at everyone in the room, appearing shocked at the situation he’d found.

  “Well, well, well…if it isn’t my personal assassin,” Mordred crowed. “Could this have turned out better?”

  Ethan suddenly felt darkness enter the room unseen. Jericho had come. His presence filled the chamber with a sense of impending doom. Mordred shuddered at that moment and Ethan saw that the demon had entered him.

  There they stood together in one body, more powerful than ever. Mordred bellowed out his laughter. “My plans have all come together now!”

  Ethan couldn’t tell if it was the demon or Mordred speaking now. Who was actually in control at this point? He had no way of knowing, though he sensed it was probably Jericho—the more dangerous of the two by far.