Sir Devon's Arc

Chapter 4 of 7

Dawn came grey over Frostborn Keep. Devon walked the wall and counted his men. Nine knights. That was all. The dead stood on the tundra below, still and patient, waiting in the formation he had taught them. His stone walls held for now. But nine swords could not hold a gate against a hundred that felt no cold and no fear. Devon knelt on the frost-slick stones and pressed his gloved hand flat against the ground. He searched the frozen earth beyond the wall with his eyes, looking for anything he could use. The tundra was rock and ice, laced with a thin white crust. A young knight came up beside him. "They don't tire, sir," the boy said. "They just wait." "Then we don't wait," Devon said. He remembered the frozen lake. He remembered driving his sword into the ice and watching the rot die. The witch's power ran through the ground, the same as before. And this ground was frozen too. He called his nine down to the yard. "We ride out," he said. "Not to fight them all. To reach him. The lich stands behind them. Cut off the head and the rest fall still." It was a thin plan. His men knew it. They mounted anyway. Devon led them through the gate at a gallop. His cape snapped behind him in the falling snow. The dead turned as one and closed. Steel rang on steel. A skeleton knight in a shredded purple cape swung at Devon's horse. Devon took its arm off at the shoulder and rode on. Two of his men fell before they reached the center of the field. The lich stood on a patch of stone and frozen earth, calm, one pale hand raised to hold his army together. Devon drove his horse straight at him. He did not swing at the lich. He swung at the ground. His blade bit deep into the frost-crusted rock at the creature's feet, into the frozen earth that carried the witch's dark power. The ice split. A crack ran out under the lich's boots. The pale hand faltered. Every risen knight on the field staggered, their burning eyes dimming as the power broke beneath them. The lich looked down at the shattered ground and let out a dry, hollow sound. "You cannot cut what she feeds," he said. The crack sealed with black frost. His hand rose again. The dead steadied and pressed in. It had worked, but only for a breath. The witch's blood held the lich fast. Devon could break the ground a hundred times and she would knit it whole. He wheeled his horse and shouted the retreat. Six knights fled back through the gate. The bar dropped. Devon leaned on his sword, breathing hard. The ice would not save him this time. The lich lived on Drusilla's blood. To stop the dead, he had to reach the witch herself.