Arrows of Ladis

by RG Long

  That made her feel a little better when she was shown where the group she was following was going. Inside the walls of Grellis, long hallways ran and allowed for soldiers to move quickly from one place to another. Olma saw several of them marching quickly from place to place.

  “Get out of the way!” the soldier at the front of the pack said. Olma hadn’t realized she was standing in the middle of the path and sidestepped to avoid being trampled by the soldiers.

  She felt odd.

  Her entire life, she had been surrounded by people who cared for her and loved her. Now she was in a city of strangers, with the only family she had dragged off to fight in a siege. She felt lost.

  Octus had said to find a family, a mother with children, and try to stay with them. Olma looked around. She had been allowing herself to be moved by the whims of the crowds around her. That’s how she had ended up here. Now that the soldiers had passed, however, she didn’t see any women around. Or children for that matter.

  The stone hallway was lit only by torches carried by soldiers as they passed. Olma stepped backward and tried to get out of their way. She did her best to blend in to the walls that surrounded her. She found herself next to a crate and sat down beside it. Curling her knees up close to her chest, she wrapped her arms around her legs and put her head down.

  What was she going to do?

  How was she going to make it?

  “Find a mother,” Octus had said.

  She had a mother, but she was dead now. Claimed by the lizards. Was she going to be claimed as well?

  Reaching into her pocket, she took out the two pieces of stone she had brought from her village. They were rough and only scratched as a sign of inscription, but they were precious to her.

  “I’m scared,” she whispered to them. “I want to be brave like you were, but it’s hard.”

  Tears fell freely as she wept over her stones. She couldn’t imagine how this could have been made worse. Her parents dead, her village destroyed, uprooted and stuck in a castle that was about to be attacked by an army of foreigners.

  She took a deep sigh.

  “I know we don’t have enough men to fortify the defenses,” came a voice that was high in pitch and full of authority. “If the Princes would have actually given us the men we had asked for, we wouldn’t be in this predicament.”

  “The Princes refused the request for more troops you sent in?”

  “They’ve refused EVERY request I’ve sent in!” the high voice said. “They squabble over land to the north and fight a pointless war in the Disputed Lands, all while the bastion of the Southern defenses is about to be laid to waste by Isolians! Grellis has always needed at least a thousand soldiers to man its walls. We have barely five hundred and that's including the rabble we’re forcing to fight off of the streets. Two Princes are here and maybe now they’ll see reason. Of course, we may all be dead by morning. May death take both Farnus and Ditrus and forget they ever walked this life.”

  “Careful, Patus,” the second voice said. “You don’t want to call down anything evil on us.”

  “Evil’s already at the gates,” the high voice replied.

  The two men walked right passed Olma, not seeing where she sat or recognizing that anyone had overheard their conversation. She didn’t know what to do with what she had heard, but Olma did know one thing.

  She could hear the sound of trumpets outside the walls like everyone else in the city could. A cloud of dust fell from the ceiling and Olma clutched herself tightly as the castle walls shook.

  32: Form the Line

  The suns were just about to peek over the horizon. Ealrin could feel the morning air losing its chill. For an hour now, the Isol army had been preparing their line for battle. They had been placed long before any other soldier had taken to the field.

  He, Silverwolf, Gorplin, and, to his surprise, Barton, were set down facing a large castle structure. Each of them had a spear pointed at their back and an arrow aimed at their chest. Yada had given explicit instructions: if they moved, they died.

  Ealrin was wet with the morning dew, but the woman who held a spear to his throat had already made a threatening noise when he moved to wipe away a drop from his eye. So his hands stayed in his lap and he let the dew run down his face without moving to take it away.

  In the grand scheme of things, it was a small inconvenience.

  Lines and lines of troops began to form around them. Soldiers holding long spears, others who wielded bows and arrows. Still others came who seemed to only bear shields that were as tall as they were and wide enough to hide their entire body behind. Ealrin looked sideways at one of these soldiers who passed by.

  The shield they carried had a slight glow to it. He guessed the reason before he saw the answer. Each was engraved with ornate runes, and in the top and bottom, a Rimstone was embedded into the metal that held the shield together. These blue and white painted shields were given to soldiers who stood in groups around figures dressed in robes.

  Speakers.

  A few of them then came to their area and joined the guards who still gave their charges stern looks.

  “Her Holiness has something special for you,” a woman said who wore a slightly different uniform than the others. Instead of all blue with white sleeves, like the rest of the army, she had a white chevron across her chest and blue plumes that came from her helmet.

  A captain, Ealrin guessed, or else some other high-ranking official.

  Blume just stood silently, facing forward.

  Her guard was different than the rest of theirs.

  Instead of a spear and arrow pointed at her, three Speakers dressed in blue and white robes stood with arms outstretched and faces marked with concentration. They had relieved the first group of three a few hours into their placement here. Ealrin imagined more would be coming soon.

  Blume’s amulet had been taken yet again by Yada. Ealrin feared Silverwolf would have a much harder time stealing it back this time.

  More and more soldiers gathered around the battle lines. Captains and sergeants shouted orders, while generals rode around on horses, demanding answers and reinforcing instructions.

  After a few hours, the suns had risen completely. The light cast long shadows in front of Ealrin. The army would be fighting away from the sun. Clever tactics.

  Ealrin had known a general that would do such things, like take advantage of the natural world around them.

  But Holve was nowhere to be found. Silverwolf had said she saw the guards who had come upon them throw Holve and the others into a cart and ride like crazy north. Were they in the city they were about to watch undergo a siege?

  Ealrin took a deep breath and let it back out.

  He didn’t know what to think. If Holve was in the city, that meant his friends weren’t far away. Then again, if they were and Isol was successful in their attack, that may mean they would witness the death of their companions from afar.

  But if Holve wasn’t there, where would he be?

  And what fate would await him wherever he had been taken?

  A noise behind him interrupted his thoughts. He almost turned his head, but then he saw the gleam of the suns off the spear tip. Resolutely, he kept his eyes forward.

  Spears began to beat against shields in rhythmic unison.

  Twap. Twap. Twap.

  “Ha!”

  The call was loud and got louder each time it was repeated. Ealrin moved his eyes in every direction to see what the commotion was all about. Then it passed right in front of him.

  Two Speakers with their hands held high walked right beside him. In between them, a large object wrapped in cloth floated gently by. It was nearly the size of a horse, round on one end with a long arm sticking out facing forward. The Speakers set whatever it was right in front of Blume. It landed with a soft thump and settled down.

  The arm was directed right at the castle ahead.

  Twap. Twap Twap.

  “Ha! Isol!”

  The last wor
d came out loud and clear. Then, over all of them, Yada’s voice rang out. Ealrin guessed it was magically augmented to be heard over the field.

  “Soldiers of Isol! Today, we take vengeance!” she called out over the crowd. A cheer rang out in response to her call .

  “Once, we were a people with pride. Now, we have been sent away in shame to an island that is not our home. Who took our home from us?”

  “Ladis!” was the echoed reply.

  “In the name of Yada, what do we seek?”

  “Justice!”

  “Today, we seek justice against those who banished us from our homes, stole our castles and cities, and banished that which they feared! Today, we will show them why they should fear us! Today, we will rain down justice!”

  A wild chorus of cheers rang out, nearly deafening Ealrin and muffling Yada’s next words. But he just barely managed to hear them over the tumult.

  “Ready the weapons.”

  In front of him, Ealrin saw the Speakers turn their outstretched hands into balled fists. The wrappings came away from the object and Ealrin marveled at it. Metal had been worked into the shape of a ball, with runes carved all around it. Rimstones were placed inside the runes at the side of the ball, with the arm forming the fourth side. The arm was tapered at the end, with metal rings floating, unsupported, and spinning in silent rotation around it.

  It was magical and like nothing he had ever...

  But he had seen something like this before.

  A fog cleared in his mind and he was sitting around a table. A model of these contraptions was made out of wood. Several of them. They sat on model cliffs. Ships that sailed on the air were held up by wooden stands. People stood all around as a man in a gray coat pointed at them with a cane.

  “It’s their answer to our ships, boys,” he said. “And they’re a danger we haven’t faced until today.”

  “Surely we can outfly them!” Ealrin heard his own voice say.

  “You can’t outfly magic, boy!”

  Then he was back on the field of battle, staring at the cannon again.

  A magical cannon. Yes, that’s what it was. He had seen these before. He must have. In Redact.

  “Send them a warning shot,” the woman who stood beside him said. The two Speakers nodded and placed their hands on the runes. Both muttered incantations aloud and the rings around the arm began to spin faster and faster. A deep blue and white light formed there for a breath. Then, with a shattering of the air around them, a huge bolt of magical energy shot out across the field, over the canyon, and towards the castle’s walls.

  It crashed into a corner of the wall and decimated the stones and mortar there. Soldiers scattered and fell from the wall to their death. Though they were only small dots to Ealrin’s eyes, he saw each one and felt a pang of fear for them.

  The castle of Grellis would fall before evening.

  33: The Prophet’s Chance

  “How did they escape again, you insolent fool?”

  Jerius had little patience for the Prince’s shouts, but he also knew that he was in a precarious situation. His guardswomen were close behind him. There was a certain pride in him that they stayed by his side.

  No one wanted to be on the wrong side of Prince Farnus’ wrath. Yet they knew what it would mean if they fled and left him to face this alone. His own malice was not to be toyed with.

  “The city is walled in on all sides!” Farnus shouted again. “How could you lose him!? Find him and his freak companions and return them to me, or so help me, I will begin an official inquiry into your role as Arranus’ prophet!”

  The soldiers who stood on the wall did not turn to face this encounter, though Jerius knew that they were stealing sidelong glances at the situation. They stood in such a place that soldiers were both behind them along the wall facing away from the enemy and in front of them facing the oncoming foes. The suns were not up yet, but the sky was lightening, heralding the dawn.

  Once Jerius had collected himself, gotten a new whip, and chased after the three prisoners, they had disappeared into the crowds. The city’s overflowing population hid them well. Everyone he interrogated gave him answers that led his guardswomen down back alleys and corner streets but produced no results.

  Some of the witnesses were still recovering from the wounds he had given them. He hoped they spent at least a week unable to walk, now that he was having to go through this ordeal.

  “Whatever you think is best of course, Prince Farnus. But, your Grace, perhaps we can give this matter its proper attention once the siege has concluded?” said the man who stood to Farnus’ left but looked over the wall with a small interest. “It is rather unimportant considering the current calamity.”

  Jerius tried, with great difficulty, not to insult the Prince for his use of proper language in front of Farnus. Jerius knew Prince Ditrus from his youth. The man had studied in Arranus alongside him as a prophet. His family had been adamant that he learn the correct things about Ladism before taking on his full responsibilities as a prince.

  Ditrus was proper and respectful, when he was around Farnus. Being the High Prince, Farnus was the next in line to the throne. Every other prince who ruled a portion of the Theocracy knew this and was overly polite to him. But Ditrus took this to another, certainly more annoying, level. He always deferred to him, always complimented his every move and praised his every action. It crept underneath Jerius’ skin like an itch.

  Perhaps Ditrus thought that once Farnus was exalted that he himself would have a greater position given to him. Perhaps a more peaceful land to govern or a more prosperous one.

  Grellis was important to Ladis, but only for its fortress. It offered little else to the Theocracy and often had to ask for resources from neighboring provinces. Jerius knew this because they were often petitioned for meat or for men, timber or trade. It was infuriating how often Ditrus’ letters came to the temple.

  And Farnus would give in.

  “I will give this treachery the attention it deserves now, Ditrus!” Farnus shouted, while still looking down at Jerius.

  The older, higher prince was red in the face. Jerius had seen the prince only mad like this a few times. He had also seen the men at whom this rage was directed put to the sword within the hour. A castle that needed to be defended was the only thing Jerius had that might distract the prince from this wrath.

  And the likelihood of that preserving his life was minimal.

  Farnus was in a rage. Not only had Holve broken free from his grasp, the country of Isol was invading Ladis for the second time during his life. Farnus held very long grudges. Jerius was sure the prince considered it a personal affront that this had occurred without any warning.

  Then again, the prince had been on a chase in pursuit of Holve. Perhaps the warnings came but they weren’t there to receive them? Jerius knew that the very thought of that happening must have boiled Farnus’ blood.

  “My Lord,” Jerius said, bowing in what he hoped would be seen as deference. “I cannot fully express my apologies about the traitor escaping.”

  The words tasted bitter on his tongue, but he persevered.

  “I will do my very best to apprehend him as soon as I am...”

  “Enemy lines!” the call came over the walls.

  Every eye, for once, turned from the conflict happening on the wall, to the one about to begin outside of it. The suns were beginning to rise over the horizon, covering the full numbers of the attacking army.

  But they were beginning to chant and to cheer.

  Jerius looked around and felt that he was on a precarious standing. Surely they would begin their assaults on the walls soon? He had read, if only briefly, about sieges. Attacks were normally exchanged at range for a long time before actual fighting man to man occurred. He needed to get within the walls.

  To find Holve, he would tell Farnus, As an excuse.

  As much as his religion and faith was placed in the death he would be given one day and the path he would set on after th
at occurrence, Jerius did not desire that day to come quickly.

  A small and, admittedly, unfaithful part of him feared death.

  “Blasted Isolians,” Farnus grunted. He turned to face Jerius. “I am not finished with you, prophet. If Holve escapes from my clutches again, the blame lies solely on you. I will personally send you on to death’s door. And may you find it difficult to pursue whatever path you find there.”

  “My Lords!” came a voice from behind Jerius. He turned to see who it was, though he knew the armored man coming in their direction was not seeking him out.

  His voice was high but authoritative. He was the general in charge of the soldiers here in Grellis.

  “What is it, General Patus,” Ditrus asked. “Are we prepared for the assault?”

  The man Patus bowed to both princes.

  “As best as we can manage. We’re short manned for such an attack. We’ll need to focus our efforts on defending the gate and the bridge.”

  “You have leave to do so to the best of your abilities,” Ditrus said, with a wave of his hand.

  The general flinched, but Jerius was certain only he saw it. The man had hatred in his eyes, but his face was a tight line of obedience. Jerius had made that face himself before many times and he knew it well.

  “My Lords,” he said through gritted teeth. “Perhaps your presence at the gates will inspire the men to fight with all the ability they have?”

  “Go prepare us a suitable place,” Farnus said.

  The man bowed again, then hurried away. Jerius watched him go for a moment, marking him in his mind before he turned to face Farnus again.

  “May I have your leave to search the city for Holve?” he asked.

  Farnus looked at him through narrowed eyes before sighing and waving his hand again.

  “You had better find him before nightfall,” he said. “Or your life is forfeit.”

  “Understood, Your Grace,” Jerius said, bowing himself and turning to leave the wall as quickly as he could. The guardswomen who had followed him here were close at his heels. Jerius heard the loud chanting going on the field before the castle died down. Was the army there preparing for something?