Void: Book Five of the Nightlord series

by Garon Whited

  Since we followed fairly closely, what happened next took only a couple of seconds. I drove up, bumped the Buick as we screeched to a halt, and Bronze leaped back into the Charger. Mary and I grabbed the badly-mangled Boojum vamp as he was picking himself up off the hood. I slammed his head against the mangled front end of the Buick to occupy him while Mary rammed a wooden stake through his heart. Once immobilized, he was easy to stuff in the back seat. Mary sat on him to avoid accidents. Bronze drove us away. I sat behind the wheel and pretended I was useful.

  Bronze waited outside while Mary and I parked our prisoner in the basement. I wore Firebrand over my suit while my cloak changed from jacket to cloak again. The swordbelt was out of place, but I wanted Firebrand readily to hand. It could also listen for anyone thinking invasive thoughts at us. Mary sat on the basement stairs to watch the whole room and keep an ear—and tendril—on anything on the first floor.

  Once we had the prisoner secured with salvaged ropes and wire, I left him face-down on a dusty, musty old couch and proceeded to examine him for extradimensional connections.

  Thanks to Degas, I had some idea what I was looking for and how to go about it. I also had plenty of dusty surfaces for symbol work and plaster walls for more permanent designs. It’s not my laboratory in Apocalyptica—it’s not even my workroom in Karvalen—but I’m good at improvising.

  Once I located and identified the connection between the physical body and the spiritual entity, I very carefully didn’t touch it. If there wasn’t anything coming back down the line at me, I wanted to keep it that way as long as possible. Instead, I got a grip on the local end of the connection and examined it. There’s a lot to be learned with passive sensors before moving into active scanning.

  The spiritual connection between the corpse and the empowering spirit had two things in my favor. First, it was a minor aspect of the Boojum, itself. Second, it was far simpler than the symphony of patterns necessary to identify the Boojum. If I were trying to do what the Boojum was doing… It was as though I had a tendril extending across universal boundaries to latch on to the body, although on a vastly larger scale. Analyzing it was simpler than I expected. Having a solid pattern lock on the Boojum as a whole made it almost easy.

  I tested my understanding of the connection by trying to suppress it, like kinking a garden hose to cut off the flow to the sprinkler. Instead, it was more like a plastic pipe instead of a hose, and I shattered it, severing the connection entirely.

  Two things happened immediately. First, the remains of the pipe—the connection to the vampire—disintegrated. If it had been an actual pipe, it would have shattered to dust like one of Prince Rupert’s drops. It’s a good analogy, I think. The central force is the Boojum, the tail is the long, thin connection to the vampire in question. I doubt I can hammer the head, but I can snip the tail. Sadly, I suspect the analogy breaks down there. I don’t believe the Boojum suffers any more harm when the connection is severed than I do if something destroys a tendril.

  The other thing was the effect on the vampire. It crumbled rapidly. The forces contained within its flesh escaped through the ruptured connection, venting invisibly in the spiritual spectrum. As they poured out, the physical integrity of the animated corpse diminished, starting with the outside and working its way inward. Its skin crackled and turned to dust, followed by layer after layer, working down to the bones. Even the bones split and splintered, fractioning down to fine powder.

  The wooden stake was unharmed, as were the clothes.

  Mary said something unladylike.

  “What the hell was that?” she finished.

  “Dying vampire,” I replied. “What did you sense?”

  “A huge rush of energies, almost audible. It put me in mind of a banshee screaming in the distance.”

  “It heralded his death, that’s for sure. I think the difference between killing one of these things and severing the connection is some sort of spiritual thing. The connection dwindles and disappears when you kill one, so it takes a while before it starts to crumble. When you cut it off suddenly, it falls to dust suddenly. At least it looks—”

  Mary cleared her throat and derailed my train of thought. I switched to another track.

  “Oh. Yes, dear. I’ve got what I came for. Let’s get out of here.”

  “You think the glowy thing noticed?” she asked, opening the door and holding it for me. I headed up.

  “Yes,” I agreed. I waved a hand at the tractor tire, removing the marks chalked around the opening and the mystic forces around it. “I’m just not sure if he noticed it in terms of ‘Oh, some random idiot died,’ or ‘Ow, something just bit my finger!’ I’d rather not find out by being at ground zero.” We left the building and Mary politely locked the door behind us.

  “So we grab another bloodsucker?”

  We entered Bronze’s Charger. I held my answer until the doors were closed and we were moving.

  “Not right now. Right now, we run. For all I know, every vampire in New York is headed for our position.”

  Mary patted the dashboard.

  “Faster, sweetie.”

  Bronze obliged. Negotiating pre-dawn traffic was even easier than late-night traffic, so we made excellent time.

  Rethven, Tuesday, March 20th, Year 9

  Once we made some distance, I built a temporary spell-gate and we drove through it into Apocalyptica. Bronze added the Charger to her wardrobe collection. Diogenes added some orichalcum accessories to make changing outfits that much easier.

  I wanted to hunt down a Boojum-bloodsucker and test my new Sever the Dark Powers spell on it, but the schedule didn’t work out. The Queen’s troops—well, Liam’s troops—were closing in on Salacia and I wanted to watch.

  Okay, to be fair, I wanted to watch and maybe be ready to do something if horrible disaster struck. Or something horrible if a more mundane disaster struck. There would doubtless be horrors and disasters, but which one went where was up for grabs.

  On the other hand, if they laid siege to the place, maybe I could talk to Lissette—or Liam—and find a way to help.

  Bronze, in her statue form, accompanied me through the gate in the mountain and watched over my shoulder as I took control of the sand table.

  Early in the afternoon, Liam’s forces crossed through a forested region just east of Salacia and came into view of the city proper. The city waited in a delta with a medium-sized river flowing into and through it. Judging from the fortifications, the hole in the wall letting the river into the city was not the weak point. Someone in the city’s history—possibly several someones, over the course of centuries—decided to make it very clear that the river entry was a traditional weak point, they knew it, and they took steps against it. A barbican, additional towers, portcullis, permanent gratings, and several enchantments to keep prying eyes out of those defenses—It wasn’t a way in or out and they fortified it as such. I wouldn’t go in there on a dare.

  The rest of the city—well, most of the city—lay behind a simple curtain wall with towers. The wall had an overhanging battlement along the top. The inevitable slums and poor districts outside the walls remained vulnerable, but the populace was already safely inside.

  Salacia had two more inner walls and a citadel, reflecting its growth, like rings in a tree. Most of the people were between the outermost wall and the second. The second wall marked a sharp divide between people living on the streets and people merely doubling up in the inns and homes. Inside the third wall, there were far more guards and large, singular houses. That region was merely sold out, not standing room only. And, of course, in the middle of it all, the citadel—strictly the nobility and military.

  Except, in this case, the central citadel had all the fancy vestments, as well.

  I swooped my viewpoint in for a closer look and the sand collapsed into a flat, level surface. Shielded, darn it all. I restarted the sand table and focused on the region again.

  Liam deployed his forces—okay, okay, Torvil and Kammen d
eployed them. I’m sure they did most of his planning, but Liam was in command. So, Liam deployed his forces into the area with some caution. Cavalry scouts ranged far ahead on the road. Infantry scouts moved through the farmland on either side. I don’t know what they were growing out there, but some of it was tall enough to conceal troops. The main body advanced and formed up for a fight. Shields were strapped on, packs shed, weapons readied, armor donned or tightened.

  The troops advanced in good order toward Salacia.

  For their part, Salacia did what one might expect. Bells rang, horns blew, people shouted, and much running around ensued. Priests came out to calm the packed masses of the outer city while the professional soldiers manned the walls, hauled in supplies, started fires to bring the oil and pitch to a boil.

  I sat back as I watched the city prepare to defend itself. They brought in their supplies, sure. They called in their citizens, sure. They even had enough arrows on hand to make a difference. But why didn’t they do any of this yesterday? Or last week? Maybe they did, in a small way—a single squad of soldiers assigned to haul barrels of oil to the top of the wall could easily be missed by an aerial scan. The thing I wondered about was why they didn’t do anything… well… organized.

  They were doing it now, though, which made me wonder. Who was in charge of telling them what to do? Or, perhaps more relevant, who was in charge of telling them anything at all? Priests, probably. A representative of the church, certainly. Perhaps a politically-significant organization within the Church of Light? Such as… the Hand?

  I’m suspicious by nature and paranoid from experience.

  Liam’s forces approached the arrow-line—an imaginary line as far from the walls as a bow was likely to shoot an arrow—and spread out, tearing down hovels to clear a battleground before the outer wall. Wagons—most of them commandeered along the way—rolled from the tree line while men with axes started chopping wood. They didn’t bring a ram or other siege engines, so they set about building them. Even the torn-down slums turned into resources. Within an hour, they had dozens of trees felled, stripped, and hauled down to the camp to aid in construction.

  I’ll say this much. Someone down there knew their business when it came to siege engines. Maybe they brought Flim or one of his sons to boss the work. Frames took shape for trebuchets surprisingly quickly. I suspected the plan was to bombard one of the city gates until it was rubble and go charging over it. They even picked a good gate for it. The outermost wall was pretty new, but not all the doors into the city had gatehouses. They were parked outside one without a gatehouse, only some foundations for future construction.

  The slums continued to fall apart into materials as the catapults took shape. Siege ladders formed, as well, much more quickly and by the dozens. Nobody fired arrows from the walls to disrupt the looting of the troops, though, despite frequent foraging within bowshot of the walls.

  The sun started to go down, but I didn’t go for a shower. I set a cleaning spell going and continued to watch.

  They hauled the trebuchet arms down, loaded up, and launched. The first few shots were flammables, both to potentially set the wooden gates on fire, but also, I suspect, to illuminate their target. The magical interplay was interesting to watch. Spells and counterspells danced back and forth. The defenders tried to deflect or destroy the pots of oil while the attackers tried to keep the pots on course and unharmed until they hit. Other spells tried to extinguish the flames, more spells tried to enhance them. The magical superiority was clearly on the Karvalen side, but the local wizards were surprisingly proficient.

  Public education is so important to a nation.

  After that, the shots were either single rocks to start breaking apart timbers or oil jars to get the gates going more thoroughly. I was wrong about battering the gates to rubble. They were mostly going to burn, but there would be some hammering involved as the fire weakened them. Bowmen on the walls started shooting back, but the range was extreme. With assistance from their wizards, they did plink a few flaming arrows down on the troops and the siege engines, but it wasn’t for long. Karvalen wizards quickly put a stop to it. Still, the expenditure of power on the Karvalen side was probably all the defenders wanted.

  The magic-workers in the city started the process of putting out the flaming gates while more mundane measures included water and sand. They had proximity going for them, but the Karvalen wizards kept up a steady barrage of counterspells. The trebuchets launched a fresh load of missiles to refresh the flaming oil, tar, and other accelerants splattered on the gates.

  After the volley, Salacia attacked.

  The gates boomed open like the flaming mouth of Hell. Someone blew a horn and the big, double doors swung inward. I zoomed out, widening my field of view. Two of the city’s other gates—each a quarter-mile or more to either side of the burning gate—flew open. Drums sounded all along the wall, rattling out a rapid-fire beat. A sound like ocean waves breaking on rocks responded. Men on the wall above the burning gate dumped loads of dirt, smothering a path through the fire. Men and horses charged out, dragging chains, hooks, and rakes to catch fiery debris and sweep it out of the way. People—not soldiers, just regular people—poured out over the steaming mud. The other gates had no such problems and a flood of people surged through them. Horns sounded in the Karvalen camp and people scrambled to their places.

  They had plenty of time to form up and prepare. The people of the city flooded out through the gates and flowed toward each other, forming a loose mob between the city and the army. The mass of them kept growing as more and more people continued to charge out to the drumroll. I didn’t see any actual soldiers in the mob, just regular citizens, all armed with whatever they could find to hand. Hatchets, knives, cleavers, clubs—not formal weapons, perhaps, but if someone is hacking at your face with a meat cleaver, the distinction is irrelevant.

  Someone had the bright idea to fire the trebuchets again. The troops hauled and cranked the things back down, reloaded, and launched. Rocks and burning oil descended on the mob, killing a few people outright and wounding many more. Horns blew on the walls and the drums fell silent.

  The mob screamed as with one voice and charged. The Karvalen troops set spears, braced behind their shields, while the archers behind them started a steady rain of arrows. The mob didn’t care. Karvalen wizards lobbed a variety of spells into the charging wave, but aside from stopping a few people, they had little effect on the human wave as a whole. By and large, the mob simply ran as fast as it could, sprinting across the open wasteland like a wave rushing up a beach.

  The leading elements hit the spears and didn’t give a damn. Some died instantly. Most fought on, taking their wounds and grabbing at the weapons. Many fought to pull the spears away from the wielders. Several, pierced through by the spears, pulled themselves up along the spear-shafts to reach the men holding the shields.

  Those were only the ones at the front of the mob. More and more kept piling on as fast as their legs would carry them. Dead and dying men weighed down spears. Living men trampled them underfoot to slam into the shield-bearers. Swords flashed among the soldiers, but bodies by the thousand mobbed the shield line, climbing over each other and over the shields as the army tried to hold its line.

  There was no science to it, no tactics, not even any control that I could see. Thousands of men and women of all ages rushed out of Salacia and charged into the army. They ignored minor considerations like pain, suffering, and death. It was a human wave, like the ocean pouring over rocks, and holding them back was just as futile. In a matter of minutes, the battlefield was littered with thousands of corpses, most of them from Salacia. The wounded were trampled underfoot or crawled forward, still trying to attack.

  The dead bought their fellows the chance to break the lines. Shield-men went down, followed by swordsmen and spearmen. Archers took a toll, firing at will into the mass of the mob, but their arrows could no more stop the screaming wave of attackers than they could stop the sea. I saw on
e man with no less than sixteen arrows in him grab a broken spear-shaft, using it as a club, and splinter it to pieces with a single, one-handed blow that killed a Karvalen infantryman. This from a lunatic bleeding profusely, soaked in red from the chest down. He was dead—well, dying—but it didn’t appear to bother him. An arrow through the eye brought him down before blood loss could.

  Karvalen horns sounded. The army began to fall back. The mob howled all the louder, attacking like frenzied, drug-fueled maniacs.

  It came to me, one thing after another, click-click-click! That was exactly what they were. With the pleasure centers in their brains stimulated to the point of overload, they wouldn’t mind being shot, stabbed, or set on fire. They might not even notice little things like sucking chest wounds until the blood loss forced their brains to shut down. They were like some particularly bloody version of fast-moving zombies. They had no fear, no pain, and the ability to exert themselves—albeit temporarily—to the physical limits of flesh and bone.

  And why were the priests in the outer areas of the city? To preach to the faithful? Yes, but also to prepare them for battle.

  Why were the slums allowed in the city at all? When a besieging force comes down the road, you don’t want thousands of extra mouths to feed. You do want soldiers. You want cannon fodder. And if you can turn beggars, whores, and homeless into screaming maniacs for The Cause, why not? Who cares about a butcher, baker, or candle-maker? If they die to kill an enemy soldier, it’s a good trade. They’re only commoners, after all. The nobility certainly wouldn’t object, even if they weren’t brain-addled happy-addicts, themselves.

  Salacia had no need for preparations. They already prepared. They easily had six times as many combatants as the Karvalen troops. True, relatively untrained and wielding improvised weapons, but stronger and faster than most humans, as well as immune to fear, pain, or any failure of morale. They were organic robots, charged up, programmed, and sent out to kill or die or both.