by Jim Hodgson
Wagast heard Yonca go, “Huh,” at it.
The mage flicked some magic at himself, then spoke in an amplified voice. Wagast guessed the spell he used also made his voice a bit deeper, because it was unnaturally deep and gravelly.
“Your country, Dilara, will have the great honor of being the last kingdom to kneel to me, Lord Yordam,” the wizard said. “I have been saving you for last.”
“Fuck off!” someone yelled. Wagast almost snorted with laughter.
Yordam smiled. “I do enjoy your spirit.” His right hand began to twitch almost imperceptibly. He was weaving something big.
“He’s casting,” Yonca hissed.
“What other kingdoms have you conquered?” Wagast shouted. Then, quietly to Usta, he said, “Evacuate the tunnel.”
Usta looked horrified.
Yonca said, hurriedly, “Whatever he’s about to cast will at least destroy the forward defenses if not collapse the whole tunnel. Please do it, Your Majesty. Save as many lives as you can.”
“I do not need to detail my accomplishments,” the mage said. The hand stopped twirling, then began to cast something else. “But you might enjoy this.” The figure reached behind him as if into a satchel for a warm scarf. When he brought his hand forward, lights in the distance twinkled and there were wet slapping sounds as the dismembered corpses of men and horses fell from the sky, wetting the ground with blood. Most of the men had been beheaded. There were no black bones among the mix, though. Perhaps the extramortal strike force had achieved some success.
There were screams from other defensive positions. Lord Yordam walked forward into the gore. As he stepped closer into the light Wagast noticed that the hem of his black robe didn’t get dirt, dust, or blood on it.
“I’ll attack,” Wagast said. “You do the shield.”
“Already ready,” Yonca said.
“Did you say ‘Yordam?’” Wagast yelled over the wall. “With a ‘Y’ at the beginning?”
The mage sniffed at the air, then smiled. “Ah, Wagast the Wise. You’d do well to do all the talking you intend to do over the next few hours, by the smell of it.” His smile became a self-satisfied smirk. “To think that you’ve been done in so easily. Embarrassing.” He chuckled.
Behind Wagast there were shouts and the sound of running boots. It was now or never. Yonca was almost done. “I can tell you’ve never had a proper master, Yordam,” he yelled. “Only an apprentice would allow himself to be so smug!”
Wagast waited a split second for this remark to make its way to Yordam’s brain, then let fly with a spike of fire the size of a fishing vessel. As he did, Yonca released her shield spell. It wouldn’t stay up for long, but it would give them time to retreat along with the rest of the tunnel defenders. Wagast caught a glimpse of Yordam casting something against the shield as he was recovering from the heat of the flames. The shield held for the moment.
He pelted down the corridors after Yonca. Eustace was clicking along behind, but after a few more of Yordam’s spells made the very air vibrate with the power of their assault, the spider overtook them and headed for the Dilara side of the tunnel as fast as possible.
A long night passed for the defenders of Dilara at the tunnel mouth. The king was overseeing hastily dug fortifications arranged in a ring around the tunnel mouth.
“Do enough to protect yourselves,” Usta called. “But save your strength. We must maximize our archers!”
There were enthusiastic cries of “Yes, Your Majesty!” and other shouts of agreement, but there was no mistaking, to Wagast’s ear, that the defenders were afraid.
Usta looked around for men in earshot. Seeing none, he said quietly, “All that work to build the fortifications and we abandoned them to come out here and dig trenches. What a waste.”
Yonca said, “Without the tunnel I think Yordam would have focused the entire attack on Dilara itself. Might not have been a better situation at all.”
Usta grunted, then walked away to encourage and lead his men. What a king, Wagast thought. Dilara was lucky to have him.
There was a little good luck in that Yonca’s shield at the mouth of the tunnel had held longer than expected. The sky was getting lighter through the tops of the trees to the east, which meant that the archers would have a much better chance of finding their targets. It wasn’t much, but it wasn’t nothing.
Wagast felt someone nudge him. It was Yonca, he knew. No one else nudged him. He smiled at her.
“Don’t you give me that wise old wizard twinkle,” she said. “Let me see your wound.”
Wagast started to protest but she glared him into silence. He turned his back to the soldiers and held his robe aside.
The wound looked worse than awful. Wagast thought for sure Yonca would yell at him, but she only looked at him with tears in her eyes and then wrapped her arms around him. Her body was strong and warm, and her hair smelled like flowers.
Wagast thought, I have had worse days.
There was a boom in the distance, felt more in the ground than heard. A few moments later a cloud of smoke and dust rolled out of the tunnel mouth into the crisp morning air. Shouts went up. Arrows were nocked. Men who had been digging defenses assumed positions behind them. The battle was nearly upon them.
Chapter 42
The beginning of the Battle of Sakir Tunnel was almost overwhelmingly a Dilaran victory. The first waves of Yetkin attackers to clear the tunnel mouth were shot full of so many arrows it looked like tiny forests were sprouting from their bodies. Soon, though, the number of attackers charging out of the tunnel began to rise such that the archers started pacing themselves in order to keep up. And still, the attackers kept coming.
When the archers’ attacks began to slow, the magical troops helped take over. Though most of the capable magicians had been left behind to guard Dilara’s coastline, enough were on hand to pick up some of the slack of the tunnel mouth defense. After a terribly bloody skirmish, a pile of Yetkin bodies littered the ground and the attack slowed. A tentative cheer went up in the ranks of the defenders, but it was short-lived.
The rhythmic noise of an ordered march began to sound. The ground again shook with the Yetkin army marching, no longer flinging itself into the defenders’ lines, but formed up and orderly, advancing toward the mouth. Their shields were locked to defend against arrows, and Wagast could see the Yetkin mages were ready to defend against magical attacks as well.
A horn blew somewhere along the line, and the Dilaran foot soldiers, armed with war axes and roaring like wild animals, surged forward from the earthworks defensive lines to engage the Yetkin before they could get out of the tunnel. It meant sacrificing their ranged attack as well, but there might be an advantage to be had.
The attack went well. The Dilaran soldiers had been spoiling for a fight for days now, marching, waiting, digging earthworks. Now that the battle was finally on, they hurled themselves forward. The Yetkin front line suffered huge losses, but as the huge Yetkin warriors were taken down, the mages behind them had clear lines of sight. Magical explosions devastated the Dilara line here and there, forcing the defenders to retreat and regroup.
By midmorning, the Yetkin had forced Dilara’s defenders to retreat and were forming up outside the tunnel. Dilara had planned for this. Pretending to retreat, they staged a few headlong flights only to turn and pounce on groups of Yetkin attackers. The Yetkin learned their lesson slowly, but by late afternoon they weren’t falling for the ruse anymore.
Yonca sent magical signals high into the air, triggering the attack of her spiders lurking on the mountainside behind many of the Yetkin. There were screams in the distance as the spiders did their work. Yonca rocked slightly with her eyes closed as the spiders killed and were killed. In the end, the effect was similar to what they’d experienced so far. Yes, they could take a heavy toll on the Yetkin, but there were so many of the attackers it hardly mattered. More just came marching out of the tunnel, stepped over the lifeless bodies of their fallen comrades, and took
their places.
Usta walked among his men in the late afternoon, congratulating them and thanking them. They had fought bravely and taken a heavy toll on the attackers. They’d also given up miles of ground. He could rest his men here for the night, though the quality of the rest would be poor. Or he could order them, exhausted and wounded though many were, to march through the night.
At least this way they’d be able to fight tomorrow in sight of Dilara itself. A small voice in his head said two things. First, that what he was really doing was giving his men a chance, not to fight, but to die in sight of Dilara. The Yetkin were only a little stronger than the Dilaran army, but it was the numbers that were the real problem. There were just too many of them.
As he was having these thoughts, Nazenin approached. She said, “Your Majesty, I’d like to suggest something that might sound a bit peculiar.”
“I’m open to any ideas at this point, General. Any at all.”
She gave a sardonic smile and continued. “Perhaps we should retreat to Dilara. We could join with the forces that are there, make a stand with the city in sight.”
Usta grunted and didn’t reveal he’d been having the same thoughts.
Nazenin continued, “You could be with Elgin. And I could be with Alabora. And other men and women who would like the same could be with their people.”
She wasn’t saying it, but he knew what she meant. They’d all be dead in a day or two. They might as well see their loved ones one last time, even if it meant an overnight march when they were already exhausted.
“Very good,” Usta said. “We’ll do it. But, Nazenin?”
She turned.
“We should pretend that this was always the plan.”
She tilted her head in agreement.
Well, Usta thought. I’ll have to tell my love that I’ve failed. But at least I’ll get to see her once more.
Chapter 43
Ergam heard the scrabbling again that could only be another extramortal coming up the slope. It was not great timing. He had heaped all the chains and scrap metal about himself, using a discarded sword blank to help reach the chains once his feet were immobilized. He was now at the center of a pile of rusty metal, secured to the pole.
Even for an undead skeleton who had covered himself in ash to disguise his body for a nighttime raid, the man who appeared looked terrible. His bones were splashed with mud, or what looked like mud, blood, dirt. They were nicked in places. One of his arms was smashed and hanging loose. He scrambled to the top of the mountain on his two feet and one good arm and then paused, seeing the top end of Ergam poking out of the pile of scrap metal.
Whoever he was, Ergam didn’t know him by sight. The man seemed pinned by his reluctance to pass another extramortal without saying something.
“How is the battle going?” Ergam asked.
The man shook his head. “Mixed results. Disabled some of the throwers, but everyone destroyed. I am the last.”
“And Dilara?”
The man shrugged, then jerked when the movement hurt. “If they’re still alive? Maybe a day or two. There are too many Yetkin. Many too many.”
Ergam nodded. So. Everything would be destroyed, not just his father and himself. All his friends. Everything he knew and loved. In a way, that was comforting. A complete tallying of the books. He’d not have believed he could feel more empty, but he did. He felt like a gourd whose seeds are already scraped out now having its sides raked with the spoon as well. He waved the sword he’d been using to pile his chains. “Could you help me with some of this?” he asked.
The man regarded him, the pole, the scrap metal, for a long moment. Then, at last, said, “No.” He scrambled on, holding his ruined arm against himself until he was out of sight.
Ergam shrugged. Or would have, had he not been weighed down with all the metal he could lift onto himself. The clouds were gathering. It wouldn’t be long. Perhaps even ....
He felt the charge grow as if the ground was reaching up for the sky. The air tingled, almost sizzled, and he knew the moment had arrived. The mountain was reaching electrically for the sky and the sky was reaching back. When they finally met it was as if the fabric of reality had been torn in half by the hands of an angry god. As fast as everything went blue-tinged white, it went black again and Ergam was gone.
Chapter 44
The march was as hard as Aysu had known that it would be. The archers, the mages, the foot soldiers … everyone had given everything they had fighting for days. Everyone had lost friends. Everyone was caked with blood and dust. And still, now they marched through the night.
Aysu did what she could to repair armor and weapons, but since they’d constantly been on the move she hadn’t been able to raise her portable forge. She could do some small repairs thanks to her enchanted hammer’s instant heat, but it was a tricky business. She was as likely to blast an axe head in half rather than mend it, if she hit it too hard
As the sky began to lighten once more, the scouts ahead of the party returned with reports that suggested they could surprise the Yetkin who had come ashore. They might be bringing a horde of attackers at their backs, but at least they could try to surprise the ones already nearly upon Dilara. That made sense to Aysu. There was a rumor in the line as well. Ozel had disguised himself as a Yetkin and gone into enemy lines to destroy some of the throwing machines. He’d been trapped, shot by multiple arrows, but he destroyed all the throwers and hundreds of Yetkin soldiers and mages.
She heard it from a soldier who had broken his axe handle. She was fitting a new one into the axe head. Her heart stopped in her throat. “Is he okay?”
The soldier shrugged. “That’s the rumor. He destroyed the throwers, killed hundreds of the beasts, then somehow made it back to our own lines. They shot him full of arrows, but he’s alive. They’re calling him Ozel the Fierce.”
Aysu gasped. “Ozel the Fierce? Really?”
The soldier shrugged. “That’s what they say. Sounds pretty fierce to me.”
She nodded, because it was all she could bring herself to do. She handed the soldier his axe, then turned as if to concentrate on her next task. The tears came, a mix of fear for Ozel, of longing for home, and even of loss for Guzul the Fierce years ago. She hefted her hammer, feeling the weight in her hand.
She grabbed a helmet from nearby. It needed mending to sit properly on her head in a fight, but it would sit long enough that she could blend in. She whipped a cloak around herself so that she looked like just any other soldier, and took up a broken axe to complete the illusion. Then she went looking for whoever would be first to charge into the fray.
She planned to cast the broken axe aside and pull out her hammer once it was too late for anyone to notice that Dilara’s top blacksmith had snuck into the fight. She wasn’t about to sit idly by while all her friends were sacrificing themselves. And besides, they’d shot Ozel full of arrows.
It would be dawn soon. And then some of these Yetkin were going to get a taste of hammer.
The charge into the flank of the Yetkin invaders from the beach was a success, thanks in large part to the element of surprise, but also due to their disarray and bewilderment at having been nearly decimated by a single wizard just hours before.
The Yetkin had nowhere to go, driven into a wedge of land with the sea on one side, the Dilaran defenders on another, and the recent arrivals from the tunnel charging into the open end. It wasn’t a total rout, but enough that the defenders dug in outside the castle cheered and whooped as their countrymen arrived.
Someone grabbed Aysu from behind, restraining her from charging alone into a group of Yetkin beasts. She’d already killed half a dozen, fighting alongside the rest of the soldiers, but unbeknown to Aysu, who was so full of anger and frustration that she could feel little else, the attack was breaking off.
“Let them be, young miss,” a voice hissed in her ear. “There will be time yet for more fighting.”
Aysu tried to wiggle free, but was held as if by i
ron bands. She turned to see Nazenin’s weathered face smiling at her.
Nazenin nodded. “Are you sure you aren’t really from Ilbez? You fight like you might be.”
Aysu replaced her hammer in its loop on her belt, leaving a smear of blood on her clothes. She was covered in filth and gore, just like everyone else. She panted for a moment. “I don’t think so. I just want to make them pay.”
Nazenin grinned. Aysu saw something terrible in that grin, but it didn’t terrify her to see it in the old warrior so much as it did to know it was in herself as well.
They approached the Dilaran defensive line to more cheers and whistling. As they drew close there were smiling faces and slaps on the back calling them the “saviors of Dilara.” That made Aysu uncomfortable, but she didn’t say anything. They’d find out soon enough that there were no saviors, the fighting was far from done, and an army beyond imagination was on the way.
She felt a little like collapsing. The way to Bilgehan was clear from here. She could go into Dilara, gather her family, and run. It could be weeks or months before the Yetkin made their way into the crevices of Dilara, past Kanat to Bilgehan. But then again, she’d have to live those months knowing she’d abandoned her friends.
A large man with an axe was rushing toward her through the smoke of the campfires in the rear of the Dilaran defensive lines. She had barely time or energy to react before he swept her up and held her like a child, kissing the top of her head and weeping into her hair. It was her father. For a moment, she was a child again. She cried into his big shoulder, and told him over and over that she loved him.
Then he put her down, wiped her face and swiped at his own with the back of his hand.
