DECAN LANCASTER

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When I awoke the next morning, I was told that our forces had almost broken through the Iron Keep’s main portcullis.

The Iron Keep had two parts to it. The first was a wall made of limestone a hundred and fifty feet high and twenty-five feet thick. This wall protected a hill where the actual castle sat.

“It’d be easier if you can just use jynx to simply open a wall for us to walk through,” I jested with Salazar as we broke our fast.

“Too bad charms are put on buildings to prevent us jynxist from altering them.”

“You can’t even raise the ground to get us over the walls?”

“I can only do a small area on the ground that will hold ten soldiers at best. Besides, raising the ground wears out my gates and I’d rather wear it out during the inevitable fight with your father.”

“What about the other jynxists we have? We have about seven others excluding you. If you work together to raise the ground, how many soldiers will you be able to carry over the castle walls?”

“I’d say around forty men.”

“That’s sufficient. When we break through the main portcullis, do exactly that. They’ll focus all of their power on protecting that choke point. We’ll put all of their attention on us so you can attack them from above and break their formation.”

“That’s a decent plan.”

“Also, have Beorn warg into any nearby animals to try and locate where the ritual is taking place.”

“His hawk was shot down this morning. Any animal that gets close to the walls is killed. They’ve executed all of their carrier pigeons and royal pets. It’s as if they were expecting a warg.”

“That’s brutal. Those animals would’ve died for nothing if we had none.” I took a bite from the bread. “How about rats? They can try to kill them, but they’ll never get them all.”

“Rats are hidden, Beorn’s gotta be close to warg into one.”

“That makes it that then. You’ll take the jynxists and forty men and ascend the walls. Beorn will stay with the rest of us.”

When our men finally broke down the portcullis, the entrance it was protecting was bombarded with arrows and firebombs. The arrows were easy enough to hide from, but the flames were problematic and would burn anyone who was standing close to the gate.

The seven jynxists levitated water from the moat before Salazar took control, shaping it into a serpent-like dragon that danced through the gate and exploded into steam, nullifying the flames.

“Your flame powers are useless when you’re wet, Isaac the Torcher,” Salazar taunted. “Run away to your king.”

Salazar went to his battalion and, with the seven other jynxists with him, raised the ground to ascend the walls as if it was a lift. “From the strength of the earth, rise with divine power and alter the land. Earth Pillar!”

With the main entrance and the fire mage drenched in water, we advanced through the choke point with myself in the lead.

I was so confident in my abilities as a swordsman that, whenever I fought in battle, I wore no armour except for a harness that shielded my arms and shoulders. My fate in the field was linked to my sword and if I lost the ability to carry one, I was nothing but a dead man walking on borrowed time.

A soldier charged at me, the tip of his sword clearly aimed at my chest.

I unsheathed Thorn, using its scabbard to sheath the charging soldier's sword and ripping his weapon from him.

“Watch out,” the swordless soldier warned as he backed away from me. “It’s the Sword Devil. I never knew he was left-handed, so it’ll be awkward fighting him. Don’t lower your guard!”

“It seems as if Isaac the Torcher has fled back to the castle and left all of you to die.” I unsheathed his sword from Thorn’s scabbard and tossed it aside. “For anyone who’s a father, a brother, a husband, a lover—anyone who values their life more than highborn that don’t, lay down your arms and return to your families. On my honour as a Lancaster, no harm will come to you. I have no intentions of taking your lives, but if you are in my way and attempt to take the lives of me or my allies, I won’t hesitate to end yours where you stand.”

“D-do you really mean it?”

“Lay down your arms and go home. You don’t have to die today.”

The swordless soldier, who I only now noticed looked like he had just come of age, walked forward. “I have a fiance who just gave birth to a baby boy. Maximus. I haven’t seen him yet.”

“What’s your name, soldier?”

“Garland.”

“Then, Garland, go home. Don’t let your son grow up an orphan.”

Garland walked past me, his eyes never breaking contact with mine. My men behind made a path as the soldiers on the enemy side deserted one by one. By the time the deserters were gone, about half of the remaining soldiers remained.

“What about you men?” I asked. “Do you value your lives? Do you have families?”

“We do.”

“Yet here you stand.”

“And yet here we stand.”

Just then a loud explosion came from somewhere on the battlements.

“Captain Foote,” the commander said, “take fifteen men and help the soldiers guarding the battlements.”

Captain Foote and soldiers toward the back retreated up the walls.

“I want to go home as well,” another soldier demanded.

He placed his sword on the ground and with his hands in the air, he kicked his sword, causing it to slide on the ground towards my feet, tip first.

I stomped the sword to a stop, prompting the remaining enemy soldiers to charge at us.

I stirred dust into the tunnel, throwing off vision to all and delaying the enemy’s charge. When the dust settled just enough for me to see outlines, I danced from soldier to soldier, carving my sword into openings in their armour before they even got a chance to know what got them.

Nine men dropped dead before the dust settled completely.

With the defence outnumbered, we slowly made our way into the walls until we were able to drive the soldiers out into the open.

When my forces stepped out of the tunnel, I spotted the beginning of an enemy jynxist’s attack. The tips of his fingers sparked, causing a bolt of lightning to make its way to me. I threw my sword at the jynxist, causing the lighting to follow its steel blade. Thorn embedded itself in the jynxist’s chest and electrocuted him to death.

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I sprinted to the lightning jynxist, grabbing Thorn and using his body as a shield from the earth spikes another enemy jynxist had cast. But he was soon defeated when the ground he stood on sunk him, leaving only his head exposed. With no way to counter, Salazar slapped his hands together, creating two walls from the ground to crush the earth jynxist’s head into mush.

“On your guard,” Salazar said as he stepped over bodies. “We’ve won, but we’ve lost fifty-nine men.”

“Beorn,” I said. “Is there a rat you—”

Beorn was already sitting in the corner, his eyes an opaque white which meant that his consciousness was currently warged into an animal.

“The Bashful Gardens,” Beorn said. “The ritual is taking place there.”

“How many men?”

“There’s the king, Ser Rueben and Isaac the Torcher, the council, about twenty of House Lancaster’s men, and around sixty others. Significantly less than what they had posted here.”

“Anything else that might be of importance?”

“My lords,” Beorn said. “Do either of you know what this ritual actually does?”

“We don’t. All we know is that once the moon and sun align, a great many people’s lives will be taken. It’s the final component of the ritual.”

“The central fountain in the gardens is now gone. There’s a giant circle on the floor with a five-pointed star inside. Does that mean anything?”

“No, but the eclipse is in a little under an hour. I hope we never get a chance to know what it means.”

Beorn suddenly jerked upwards and grabbed his chest as if something had stabbed him there. “The rat got spotted. They know we’ve breached the walls.”

The Bashful Gardens were in the middle of the castle. There were only four entrances from the ground. One for each cardinal direction.

“Each side will be heavily guarded,” Beorn said. “Where are we going to attack from?”

Salazar said not a word, but all of us knew what he was planning when he pointed at the ground.

Since jynx could do anything, builders had begun putting charms on their work—a simple but effective and ever-lasting spell that prevented the material in a man-made structure from being altered.

The paved grounds in which we stood had charms, but with a simple pickaxe, we could break the bricks and reveal the bare earth underneath.

We first went through the sewers. When we ran into a dead-end, soldiers broke a circle big enough for men in groups of four to go in at a time. Salazar and the jynxists used their powers to begin digging a hole so that we would be ten feet beneath the castle grounds. The dirt in the first couple of feet from the entrance was simply thrown out but when we dug deeper, removing the dirt would’ve been too time-consuming.

Instead, the jynxists compacted the earth against the walls, ceilings, and floors, which made the once soft earth as hard as a rock—which was what it was.

Since we had no way of knowing if we were under the Bashful Gardens, we had Beorn warg into an eagle and fly around unseen.

Beorn was a powerful warg and he’d be able to sense how far he was from the animal he had warged into. So with the eagle far away acting as some sort of beacon, he’d know exactly where we were and where we needed to be.

Beorn pointed a little bit to the right. “Our destination is half a league that way. Keep digging until I tell you to stop.”

“Where are you taking us?”

“The northern entrance to the Bashful Gardens. It’s far away from King Diablo and a basin of water sits outside for use.”

After Beorn signalled us to stop, the jynxists blew a hole upwards. I had Salazar launch me out first where I found a giant black sun floating above the sky.

It’s begun!

“Ser Rueben, keep them at bay,” King Diablo ordered as his eyes rolled back. “We’re starting the ritual.”

Five jynxists stood at each point while my father went into trance in the middle of the circled star. Sparks of red lightning emerged at each point, travelling through the ground and up each of the jynxists which then zapped into King Diablo.

The symbol of the ritual was then projected onto the black sun in a crimson red as souls that looked like a compacted fog were absorbed by the jynxists before being filtered into the king.

“It’s starting,” I told everyone.

Salazar hopped out and, with both his arms extended outwards, clapped his hands, pulling them back before throwing what seemed like an outward punch. “Through pure energy that accompanies the claps of thunder, be one with me and flow through my body. Lightning!” Sparks flew out of the tips of his fingers which manifested lightning directed towards the ritual.

But before it could even touch them, Ser Rueben absorbed the bolt with his sword and stabbed the ground, directing the current into it.

Just then a beam of light emerged from the sidelines, knocking Salazar to the side. Isaac the Torcher punched the ground, exploding the earth which sent flying debris directed towards Salazar.

Salazar took control of the water from the basin, solidifying it into ice to shield him from flying earth.

“Now that’s more fair. Jynxist against jynxist.” Ser Rueben pointed the tip of his sword at me. “And swordsman against swordsman.”

Ser Rueben charged at me, thrusting his sword at my head, which I parried. But he used the momentum from my block to swing his sword around him to attack me from the other side.

I brought up my arm and deflected it with my armour and, with his front vulnerable, I went to stab his armpit. But Ser Rueben didn’t dodge. Instead, he pinned my sword against his rib and arm before bringing his sword up to hack me.

I let go, rolling away just in time.

While I was on the floor, I kicked him in the back of the knee, causing him to fall on one. He dropped my sword which I promptly caught before rolling away.

He got back to his feet and we continued our dangerous dance—one where a mismove from either side could turn deadly.

“I now see why you’re called Decan the Sword Devil,” Ser Rueben said. “But it doesn’t fit you. You’re good, but your movements are rusty and with moves like that, you can never beat someone with as much experience as me. The only advantage you have is that you’re left-handed.”

“May I confess something, Ser?” I kicked him in the chest, giving us some distance before throwing my sword to my right. “I’m not left-handed.”

The battle was evenly matched before, but the seasoned knight could tell that I was gaining the upper ground. He had the advantage in skill, but now I held the advantage with talent.

With each clash of our swords, he stepped back and each movement from the old knight now summoned a desperate breath.

“The moment you thought you had the upper hand was the moment you lost.” I put more power into each strike. “I can’t use jynx and I never cared about anything else other than swordsmanship. A master of one always beats a master of none.”

“You talk too much,” Ser Rueben said before waving his hand and mumbling. “Ohsoldiground,letthyselfrestforamoment. Quagmire!”

He had me. He tried to make me think I was winning the fight, but all he was doing was leading me to an area where the ground was exposed to sink me.

I was swallowed up to my knees.

Ser Rueben brought up his sword in an attempt to hack me with as much power as he had. I blocked his attack, holding it until I produced a dagger to stab him in the neck.

I cleaned my blade on his cape. “Every time I fight someone, they think they're better just because I can’t use jynx. I’m used to fighting people like you and I’m still standing.”

“But how—”

“Your trick was child’s play. It’s the same trick Salazar pulled on me every time we sparred as kids.”

Just as Ser Rueben passed on, our men had just about finished fighting. Even Salazar had managed to drown Isaac the Torcher in a ball of water and help free me from the ground.

“How do we stop the ritual?” Beorn asked.

“Kill the five jynxists,” I said. “They’re like inner gates and the souls are mana. If we kill them, the ritual stops.”

Archers shot all of them down with arrows and in an instant, the souls that King Diablo absorbed exploded back out into the world. The circled star on the black sun faded. Just as King Diablo regained his consciousness, a sliver of light shined at the edge of the moon’s shadow.

“No!” King Diablo screamed. “You foolish child! Do you have any idea what you have done?”

Soldiers aimed their bows at my father’s eyes, but once the arrows neared him, they were deflected by an invisible shield. Runes sparked when the arrows came into contact.

He then stomped on the ground and clapped his hands.

The paved ground transformed into walls in an attempt to crush me. I was able to roll away, but the men by my side, including Beorn, were crushed into pulp.

“He’s casting spells without incantation and using jynx on a charmed structure. That shouldn’t be possible.”

King Diablo then reached for the clear skies as a thunderstorm appeared. The dark clouds that formed above us grew lightning as they struck the jynxists on our sides. He pressed his hands to the ground. Vines grew from the cracks and began strangling the remaining soldiers on our side.

The Quates soldiers dove back into the hole we dug.

As my men died around me, I charged at my father with Thorn at hand. But before I could even take a step, someone grabbed me and pointed their finger at my neck.

“I feared that this would happen.” Salazar’s voice was apologetic. “Sorry, my friend.”