The demon-possessed soldiers hacked at the barred wooden doors behind them as Ethan followed Gideon. The priests rounded a corner and came into the throne room where they had originally been introduced to King Nichols. Ethan paused while Gideon ran ahead toward the archway where they had entered before.
Ethan searched the shadows. Something didn’t feel right. More demons? He couldn’t place the feeling of imminent danger on any particular source.
At the far end of the throne room, more of Nichols silver and blue clad soldiers poured through the archway. Gideon grinded to a halt then reconsidered and launched into them head-on. Ethan ran toward the fight to help Gideon.
The polished stone ceiling of the throne room exploded downward. Stone and fire fell upon Gideon and the soldiers. Ethan cried out for his friend, then saw the elder priest evade the avalanche only to be swallowed in a cloud of dust again.
Ethan noticed a low whistling sound coming from outside through the damaged ceiling. He saw several small projectiles arc through the sky toward the castle. He didn’t know what they were-only that they were extremely dangerous. He followed the path of one that would enter the throne room and reacted.
Ethan flung the physical sword in his hand precisely into the objects path. Only after he had let go of the weapon did he wonder if it had been the wisest course of action. The projectile managed to fall just beneath the shattered roof when Ethan’s sword struck it.
The weapon exploded. A fireball raced out across the room with a shockwave that pummeled everything in its path. The soldiers, still visible in the dust from the first explosion, fell like wheat to a scythe. Ethan crashed through a heavy wooden chair and tumbled across the stone floor.
He remained conscious, but now he had no idea where Gideon had gotten too. Had his fellow priest even survived?
Ethan tried to catch his breath to shout Gideon’s name, but his feeble effort was swallowed up by a thunderous cacophony of explosions assaulting King Nichol’s castle. He found the strength to stand again. Great pieces of stone fell from the ravaged ceiling of the throne room amid a thick veil of dust and smoke. “Gideon!” He cried, but there was no response.
Soldiers broke through the doors behind him. Only the inhuman shrieking of demon voices through mortal vocal chords pierced the terrible noise of the attack coming from outside. He couldn’t see any way to go in the direction Gideon had gone. The demon-possessed would see him in the physical or the spiritual.
Ethan realm shifted anyway and flew to the pile of rubble left from the first explosion. Ethan searched frantically for a body, but Gideon was gone. The soldiers came into the other end of the throne room, apparently caring nothing for the collapse of the castle all around them. They spotted Ethan and tore through the chamber after him, some running perpendicular along the face of the stone wall while others bounded over and around the rubble.
Ethan still had the advantage of phasing through matter. He leaped through the wall as the soldiers attacked. Their swords bit into the stone after him.
Ethan came out into another room he didn’t recognize. Massive alcoves had been carved out of the castle here by the explosive attack. Many bodies littered the ground, some partially buried under wood and stone.
Two demons shot through the walls at Ethan, forcing him to defend himself. One struck at him before he could retrieve his weapon. He dodged the attack and locked his arms around the demon’s arm, then wrenched the weapon away. He released the brute and thought to use its weapon, but the spiritual sword evaporated in his grip, reappearing in the demon’s hand again.
“You’ve much to learn about this realm, warrior!” the demon snarled.
Ethan’s blade flew from his side to his hand, then morphed into a triple jointed staff. Both demons leaped at him. They struck furiously with their swords, but Ethan blocked with the middle section of his staff, then attacked with both ends.
The demons came again, but more cautiously. Ethan flourished with the staff, then spun around as the weapon morphed into two swords in his hands. No longer did the nightmarish legions of Mordred frighten him. His priestly training had done much to quash the childish fears.
They circled him and attacked yet again. Ethan defended between the two and managed to strike one in the chest. The creature reeled back and disintegrated like wind blown sand. The other demon growled at him. “It’s not over yet, Deliverer.”
Ethan brandished his swords, ready for another attack. The torches still burning in the room snuffed out and, despite the sun beaming through the gouged walls of the castle, an oppressive darkness crept in around them.
Ethan gasped for breath as though he’d been punched in the stomach. But he wasn’t breathing in this realm. Something else had happened. The demon lowered his weapon and smiled. “The master comes, boy.”
Ethan grimaced. “I’m not afraid of Mordred, you Hell-spawn.”
The demon’s eyes flashed with rapturous glee. “I do not speak of Mordred.”
The demon fled through the wall again, leaving Ethan alone. He felt choked by the encroaching shadow. Fear enveloped him. He materialized in the physical realm and ran away from the ruined walls toward the inward parts of the castle. Laughter followed him, dogging his heels as unrealized terror gripped his heart and took control.
Ethan remembered this fear and its source. The demon Jericho-the one who had beaten him and left him scarred for life-painful wounds that ached when the demon came near. His flesh screamed at him now to run for his life. Like a frightened rabbit, he obeyed its voice.
Jericho stood as still as stone, focused on the castle of King Nichols of Macedon. General Hevas Rommil stood attentively beside him on the ridge. The Mortar batteries maintained their campaign against the stone edifice in the distance.
Jericho allowed only Rommil to see him. This much was necessary. The Wraith General could handle it. The common man rarely could without overwhelming fear, sometimes to the point of madness.
Jericho smelled his prey upon the spiritual plane. He alone, among the demons allied with Mordred, held a connection with the boy. His blade had pierced the boy in a way no earthly weapon ever could-straight to his very essence.
Terror permeated the air-the fear of men under Nichol’s command thinking themselves allied to Rommil. Now they understood the treachery involved as the general’s shells cascaded down upon them.
Jericho surged outward with his power, feeling for the Deliverer in every crevasse, along every wall, like a living shadow. He taunted the boy’s spirit, causing him to flee through the broken ramparts in the distance. There is no escape, Deliverer…no escape from me.
“Now, General.”
“My Lord, the Deliverer is present?” Rommil asked.
“Yes, and in no condition to fight now,” Jericho said. “Take your men and storm the castle. Take him alive if possible.”
“Forgive me, my Lord. Can the boy be contained?”
Jericho turned his head, leveling his steely gaze upon Rommil. The General swallowed hard. “I control his fear and, with it, him. My kind, dwelling within your men, will take charge of him. We can hold him in either realm now.”
Rommil bowed to the demon. “Yes, my Lord. It will be done.”
He turned and ordered his men off the ridge as he mounted his great black horse. The soldiers obediently abandoned their posts at the mortar stations, took charge of their weapons, and stormed down the hill after the Wraith General.