Sprinkled farther into the hill country were a surplus of successful snares. Some looked smaller or a tad larger in scope, while others contained more thralls than roots. A few even copied Furubiro’s arrangement of an absorption rune carved within a village, but the end result was always the same. Despite the exhaustive slaughter, we continued to find the infrequent survivor. An important factor that determined whether someone was spared from a trap or an attack was the fact that most survivors had already been isolated and alone at the time. Groups larger than three simply attracted too much attention for them to escape.
In case the runes could be aroused again, I let Aranath burn whatever exposed design he saw. I likewise advised for earth specialists in the army to churn up the ground ahead of them whether they saw a rune or not.
Once the army got a couple of days deeper into the hills, I decided to set off a little farther on my own, and by “on my own” I meant my group and the four guildsmen. An improvised saddle had been fitted behind the fifth seat so Ujin could strap himself in without worrying about slipping off. Shifa was left to cling to one of us, but in the event the dragon needed to perform some evasive maneuvers, I suggested to Ujin that he unsummon her or hold her tight so she wouldn’t fall off.
We pulled away from the army under a bright morning. A cold wind blew in the day before, but had by now cleared away most of the rain clouds that came with it. We were too far south for snow to be a common occurrence, but several taller hilltops showed that a peppering of white flurries had settled on the smooth-edged peaks. The sunlight would make short work of this trifling snowfall.
We flew high and in a zigzag pattern. Even Aranath had trouble making out details on the ground, but we were no longer looking for subtle clues. It was Ghevont’s crystal I was counting on. If even one healthy nismerdon colonized the area, then his staff should respond to it.
A few hours into the flight, Ghevont poked my shoulder and said, “North! Go north!”
A mere minute after guiding Aranath to face the top of the world, the dragon growled, then said, “Foul magic is in the air, and it isn’t only from a nismerdon.”
“What does that mean!?” I asked.
“There are tinges of corruption… and something more. It’s too indefinite to identify.”
“Lovely,” I said, my soft words breaking up in the wind as soon as they escaped my mouth.
Not long afterward, the dragon asked, “Do you see it yet, boy?”
It took a few moments of me squinting, but I spotted what he spoke of. The light not absorbed by its dark purple facade shone back at me. The pyramid-shaped ward easily eclipsed the surrounding hills, though its height appeared to be elevated further by a squat hill it stood upon. I feared no ambush thanks to the bright, clear day, so I risked taking Aranath closer to give his sharp vision a chance to spy the ward’s surroundings. Once he gained a rough idea of the layout, I turned Aranath back to the west.
On landing by the army, I held the summon long enough for the dragon to impart his verbal sketch to the prince and the Jegeru commanders. Aranath recounted several unique features. Firstly, from the north side of the pyramid he saw a river split into two thinner streams that each flanked the massive barrier and ended in their own little lake about a mile south of the ward. Also flanking the ward on the west and east were two hills, most of their slopes fashioned to be steeper than nature intended. Surrounding or crossing right through these particulars was a stone wall and their towers.
The description and a good map was all that we needed to know that Aranath had seen Nakjopo, an old castle erected in a time when Jegeru was made up of multiple warring nations. Unless an intensification in bandit activity called for it, only a token force tenanted the garrison within the walls. Now who knew what in the gods’ names inhabited the fortress. Omen? One giant? All of them? We needed to find out.
Over the next couple of days, I and other scouting parties surveyed the castle’s surroundings. Each time we got closer and closer, trying to determine how to best approach the fortification and the situation as a whole. Curiously, while the villages near the castle were abandoned, there did not appear to be any large-scale signs of death and destruction. No obvious runes or traps lied in our way, though we stayed at a cautious speed.
On the third day since its discovery, Aranath recognized quite a bit of activity coming from within the walls. He identified thralls, those taller thralls, and armored humans. Many stemmed from the steep hills adjacent the castle, making them ants scurrying out of their anthill from my vantage point. How much easier would life be if I knew a spell that could shrink my enemies to such a size? Or grow myself until my boot could flatten an entire hill? I’d have to get Ghevont on that later.
The thralls organized themselves at the weakest points of the defenses, namely the southern gate. The humans lined up on the battlements or behind the southern wall. Altogether, there looked to be somewhere between fifteen and twenty thousand, the thralls numbering twice as many as the humans.
Spread out over the five or six miles of wall, the defenders didn’t give the impression that they were a formidable force. Of course, the true power of their army lied in the giants. How many were there? Would they leave their ward and join the battle? Or would we have to force them out of their barrier? Maybe the ward and nismerdon prana we sensed were a ruse and no giant of consequence sought refuge in the castle.
We approached the defenses from the south. Going anywhere else meant having too many hills overlooking and confining the army. That said, several thousand horsemen split from the main assemblage to form highly mobile bands that could roam the hills with greater impunity and thus react to attacks to the flanks and rear. Having to churn the soil slowed us down, but soon we reached a plain with an unobstructed view of the ward. We had to spend a night camped with that perversely glowing pyramid, which would randomly pulse brighter for a minute or so, meaning more scouts had to stay awake to watch over the others.
The next day we prudently closed the distance to the southern gate. While the humans on the battlements sometimes moved, the thralls twitched or walked as often as dusty figurines in a basement. As we set up camp for the evening, a bitter northern wind howled through the hills, bringing with it an icy rain that only abated until much later in the night. Few of us slept soundly, if at all.
During a muddied dawn, a scout reported that two people on horseback had gone through the gate. One of them carried a white banner of truce. Along with a hundred airborne warriors, a group of fifty horsemen protecting the prince and a squad of guildsmen accompanying my group set off to meet the Advent envoy. Given our proximity, I had kept Aranath summoned for too long the day before, so I rode a horse and stored the dragon in his realm while I recovered every drop of prana I could.
We trotted about a mile to meet the two Advent a mile from their own army. A tinge of green shaded his blank expression and blood vessels, but I didn’t recognize the armored man carrying the banner. On the other hand, the woman was Lady Nomura, a flowery robe flowing around and behind her. No inhuman green marked her skin. Not trusting that an invisible enemy was not going to sneak up on us, Odet cast a thin dome ward over the main group.
Bowing her head, the former headmistress said, “Welcome to the beginning of the new world.”
“I take it you’re not here to surrender,” I said.
“No, Veknu Milaris. I’m here to present this army an offer we proposed to every army we’ve encountered before. As you can see, those who accept our terms can preserve their minds and begin to share in the power that will reform and strengthen Orda.”
“Anyone who accepted your terms did so out of pure fear,” said Odet.
“Fear leads one out of a burning building, princess.”
“I really hate when people say my title in that belittling way. I am not just a princess. I am a holy valkrean warrior. I bear the crystal shield and moon spear of Mytariss, the right-hand servant of the night goddess herself. Prince Ashina brings the
might of Dethorm in his blood, and the strongest flame of Tahlous boils in the veins of a corrupted dragon knight. The gods of balance conspire against you.”
“And so we’ve prepared to fight the gods themselves. Our masters, as powerful as they are, are still beings restricted by the chains of mortality. However, after all these centuries experimenting on themselves and others, they have not only learned to uplift a human’s longevity and power, but to uplift one of us beyond mortality itself. The very holy power that helped restore our masters will work in harmony with corruption and a nismerdon’s prana to birth a god of our own.”
“Ah,” said Ghevont. “That explains the distinctive oscillations I’ve sensed. Clashes of different prana types are occurring within your ward. It seems birthing a god is an unstable process.”
“Hmph. I confess that a little more sacrifice will be needed to complete his transcendence, but Omen is presently powerful enough to contend with anything less than the gods themselves.”
“Yet he hasn’t shown himself,” said the prince.
“We’d rather absorb the souls of resisters, not obliterate them.” At a sounder tone so everyone with us could hear, she said, “Reject our proposal and you merely become the sustenance and thoughtless servants for our new god. Join us and become the advent for a stronger humanity, a humanity that will not need to feat the whims of unknowable gods, mad fiends, and self-seeking dragons.”
“You may return whence you came,” said an unyielding Odet. “If I recall, this is now the third time the dragon knight has heard your supplications. To no avail.”
“So be it.” She snapped her reins and galloped back toward the castle.
When she and her escort were well out of eavesdropping range, Ghevont said, “So raising a god is still their goal. Fascinating. I wonder how close they are to accomplishing such a grand exploit.”
“Or if they even can,” I said. “I’m willing to bet the rest of my soul trying to make a god won’t exactly go according to plan.”
“Be that as it may,” began Odet, “we can’t wait to see how close they can get. Even creating a being on par with an elder dragon or Mytariss will cause incredible damage before we can stop it. We have to attack as soon as we’re ready.”
“Agreed,” said Wuhen. “We can attack within the hour if the tactics we’ve been discussing can be agreed upon.”
“It all sounds pretty straightforward to me,” I said. “This isn’t the time for risky tactics. We have the numbers and superior air support. Aranath and I will lead most of the winged scouts through the ward after we help your ground forces breach the wall. Once on the other side of the ward, I’ll either focus on bringing it down or go after Omen, whatever can happen first.”
“Very well, then I’ll order for all my men to form up and summon their allies. Once you summon your own, dragon knight, that will be our signal to charge.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
In half an hour our army grew by a third when those with blood pacts with another species summoned them, many being from the minotaur realm. Quite a few were not ready with their armor or weapons, but it was simply a matter of them summoning for their equipment and gearing up. As for the prince, he called forth a noble being of his own, a minotaur chieftain named Vamreer Khastis the Jerdea. While no taller than most of his kin, Vamreer’s sinewy, lean muscled frame gave the illusion of being so. What was no illusion was his much more graceful movements compared to his bulkier equivalents.
The same increase transpired over the walls when elemental sprites and other wild, simpleminded creatures popped into Orda. I imagined the Advent could not convince many intelligent creatures from other realms to fight for them, if they even tried at all. There didn’t seem to be any corrupted eidolons standing in the way, but I figured any that were left were guarding the nascent god in the ward.
Once every minotaur equipped themselves and formed ranks, I thought it time to summon Aranath. The appearance of the snarling dragon stirred up the minotaurs and griffins. Resonant roars, bellowing bulls, screeching squawks, and heavy stomping served to galvanize the heart of a warrior better than the precise percussion of ten thousand war drums. I bade the dragon to take to the air when his passengers secured themselves on his back. Given that his unrefined fighting ability made him unsuitable for an attack against the Advent’s heart, Ujin was not one of them.
Shifa and her father prevented their summoner from being a complete liability. So using his horsemanship skills, Ujin was to stay with the army’s healers and either protect them or bring them wounded. It looked to me as though the poor bastard was still coming to terms with what it meant to accompany the dragon knight. He didn’t strike me as the deserting type, but I would not blame him in the least if he made a run for it during the battle. Not everyone was suited to follow someone who sought a fight. Some just had to find out the hard way. Whatever he learned about himself, I wished him well.
The dragon taking to the air prompted the ground forces to march forward. Calvary was not exactly appropriate for a siege, but rows of them intermixed with the lead units anyway. That included the prince. As grim as it sounded, the horses were not really for mobility, but in the expectation that their bodies could be used as a living buffer against attacks from roots and thralls.
Wuhen’s speed influenced everyone else’s, so when his horse trotted, everyone else had to keep up. As he sped up to a full gallop, the ground in front of the walls erupted in a mass of barbed roots. They were not yet aiming at any of the charging army. Their express purpose seemed to be to add another layer of impediment. Numerous roots even reached up well over the wall and curled over the heads of the defenders on the battlements.
As for those of us in the air, hundreds of griffins flew in a prearranged formation that put Aranath in the middle of the best ward casters. A dragon’s scales made one nigh invulnerable to conventional attacks, but anyone with one diseased eyes could see where that defense was weakest—their wings. The Advent did not retain a large winged force. Regardless, “not large” still meant at least five hundred war beasts soaring up to clash with us, and in all likelihood they had been instructed to rip the membranous skin that allowed for a dragon to be such a dominating force.
Given our speed, the attack in the sky started first. Most of the enemy was intercepted before they could take aim at Aranath much less unleash a spell or bolt, but a narrow space in front of the dragon had purposely been left open to entice our more unwise foes. They received puffs of dragon fire as a reward for their foolish bravery. As her main objective was to protect Aranath’s head, Odet sat right behind me to be as close as possible to it. So with a confident roar, the dragon partly folded in his wings to dive at the battlements, many of the scouts following him down.
Elemental sprites and treacherous soldiers let loose an inverted hail of spears made from earth and ice. Most met with wards or allied bodies. In another second our allies cleared away so Aranath could spew a stream of his incendiary attack onto a thousand feet of the western side of the gate and wall. Impromptu roofs made from roots and earth sacrificed themselves to protect a small percentage from bursting into ash, but many that simply stood close to the concentrated flames suffered torrid burns that roasted their very bones.
Aranath climbed the sky again when his momentum slowed to the point he needed to unfurl his wings almost all the way, leaving them far too exposed for comfort. His dive and swooping attack also had him out-flying many of his defenders, forcing us to regroup higher in the air.
A long glace downward showed the ground forces now being opposed by newly sprung roots more actively seeking victims. Earth specialists were going to be pulling double duty trying to keep the ground beneath the army stable while also filling their traditional siege roles, which included pulling down stone walls and erecting earthen barriers that protected groups of allies from rival volleys. Earth casters on the other side of the wall worked to bury the dragon fire still melting their defenses.
Aranath
soon regained his escort and a target to strike. This time his flame engulfed a more focused area, one just west of the gate. The enemy and the roots had not yet been able to quench the penetrating fire here at all, so another vigorous blast worked to turn a hundred feet of white hot stone into a boiling puddle of pudding. Our allies weren’t exactly going to break through that broiling mess, but they would instead direct their efforts on the softened metal gate and the less steaming parts of the enfeebled wall.
The brief pause Aranath took to douse the wall allowed a handful of arrows and elemental spikes to impale themselves somewhere on his wing, though I doubt he noticed them after their initial disturbance. Time and energy compelled us to divert our energy to the ward next. Aranath ascended higher than he had yet, signaling to the scouts assigned to us to begin amassing behind the dragon’s wake. The dragon circled the battlefield a couple of times to give everyone a chance to line up behind him, then we turned for the imposing ward.
Most of our winged adversaries pursued us, giving some respite to the ground army. No sense having to worry about attacks from below and above. Still, despite our superiority in numbers, the airborne Advent fought as though losing an arm or two was a mere inconvenience. A consequence of the giant’s power now welling in many of them.
Aranath flew right up to the pyramid’s peak and expelled an expanding ring of flame. At the same time, I threw a dragon stone and ignited it with corruption. On contact with Aranath’s flame, I allowed the corruption to spread. The morbid blaze crashed into the ward as though it were a mass of viscous sap. After a moment of buckling from the strange combination of conflicting influences, the top third of the pyramid popped like a bubble. It would have reformed itself if allowed to, but I held on to much of my black flames as the dragon hovered in midair, a shrill battle bustling around us.
The Dragon Knight and the Light Page 44
