by Pedro Urvi
She climbed to a higher branch to get a better view. From her new position she could see the vast monolith of the Gods and the Regent’s Palace. She shook her head. Time to pay a visit to the Regent and the Enforcers. An unexpected visit, bloody and uncomfortable. She smiled, and her eyes gleamed. She put her hand to her chest, where the disc of the Shadows hung. Her eyes lingered on it. She had less and less Power left. She only used it when her own Power failed, or when she needed to use a skill she had not yet mastered and which the disc helped her with. She practiced and experimented every day with her own Power. She practiced to improve the skills she had already developed using her own Hybrid Power, and experimented so as to develop new ones. This was what she liked most. Trying things out and discovering new skills she could develop through her Power. It took a great deal of trial and error, and once she had accomplished something she still had to practice so that it would turn into a skill she could call on instantaneously. It was hard and frustrating, but it filled her with joy when she discovered new possibilities. So she practiced and experimented tirelessly.
It’ll be best if I ration it. Once it was exhausted the disc would be useless and she would have to throw it away. I’ll have to use my own Power. That’ll be interesting to see. But without risk there’s no gain. I have to trust my own capabilities and leave the disc for when I really need it.
She sighed. She needed to go on developing her skills using her own Power alone with no help from the disc, something she was forced to do more and more. The advantage of using the disc in those skills she had already acquired was that they were easier to control. And more powerful. Besides, she hated the feeling of utter exhaustion which was the result of using all the Power stored within her. She hated being left helpless when her source of Power ran out. And oh, doesn’t the damn thing run out quickly. Too quickly. After that she simply collapsed on to the ground, unable to move. A few moments later sleep took her away. The Power which was consumed exhausted the body completely, after which it needed to sleep in order to recover not only the Power used but the energy to allow her to function. I’ll have to be very careful not to consume all my power.
“What do you think?” Ilia asked her. The girl was coming towards her, walking along the huge branch with absolute ease. Pilap and Lial were behind her.
“It’s not going to be easy.”
“It doesn’t matter, we’ll fight,” Pilap said. There was determination in his eyes.
“We’re ready to take it,” said Lial, her eyes burning.
Ilia smiled at her brother and her cousin. “Let Albana speak.”
“The circular area that leads to the city is a problem. I calculate there are about eight hundred paces from the edge of the forest to the wall. We can’t attack from the trees, and they’ll see us coming the moment we set foot on the ground. I don’t like it.”
“They’re making it bigger,” Ilia said. “Every day the circle’s bigger. A few months ago it was only five hundred paces across. They’re killing our forests, Mother Nature weeps disconsolately, the spirits tell us so. We must stop this sacrilege.”
“All that comes to an end today,” said Albana.
Ilia smiled, but there was concern on her face. “We trust you, Foreigner.”
“How are your father and his brother?”
Ilia sighed deeply. “Weak, very weak, but alive. We can never thank you enough for what you’ve done for us, for my family.” She spread her arms wide, including Pilap and Lial in the gesture.
“It’s nothing. I’m glad we found them still alive.”
“Only just,” Pilap put in.
“We’ll never forget,” Lial said gratefully, and hugged her.
Albana had not expected the gesture, very rare among those rough, savage people. Surprised and moved, she turned to Ilia.
“Is everything ready?”
“The Chiefs await your orders.”
“Pass on the word: they have to take the six county capitals.”
“Are you sure?” Ilia asked doubtfully.
Albana nodded several times, with her eyes closed. “Absolutely sure.”
“Let’s divide our forces…”
“It’s a risk I believe we have to take. They’re not expecting an attack, least of all a coordinated, simultaneous one against all the cities. And we’ve already eliminated the Shamans and Proxies of the villages.”
“Yes, all the people are with us. Women, men, elders and children are behind us.”
Albana smiled. “That’s what I was hoping for. But the children and elders mustn’t fight today. Let it be known.”
“I’ll do that.”
“Go,” said Albana.
Ilia saluted and left.
“You two, pass the order on to our people: we’ll attack when the sun is at its highest.”
Pilap and Lial nodded and left at once.
Albana stared at the city a moment longer. I hope I’m not wrong, for the sake of these brave savages. Don’t let me be wrong, she said to herself, gazing up at the sun.
With the sun at its highest there came a deafening cry from all along the edge of the forest. Thousands of green-skinned savages poured out from among the trees and ran across the open space to the city wall, as if desperate to reach an immense treasure. The alarm rang out in the city, and the guard took up their positions on the walls. The rebels in their thousands flooded in from all directions, as if the forest surrounding the fateful cleared circle were sending its children to put an end to the aggressors. They ran in their loincloths, armed with short bows, light hatchets and long knives, without armor of any kind. Yelling at the top of their voices, they crossed the area of open land.
At that same moment, in all six county capitals, the scene was being repeated. The alarm rang, and was drowned by the deafening cries of the rebels in all six capitals. The Guard could not believe what they were seeing. The People of the Trees had risen in arms and were attacking the cities. Thousands of arrows flew from the battlements and the first rebels fell dead. Blood was spilled, and now nothing could stop the conflict until its resolution, one way or the other. Under a storm of arrows and death, the rebels reached the high wall. But unlike in other Boundaries, the walls posed no difficulty for the People of the Trees. With the aid of lianas they began to climb the wall at tremendous speed and with amazing ease.
Tens of thousands of rebels attacked the capital from all directions, as one. The Guard was overwhelmed by the savage thrust of the rebels, who fought like true green demons. They climbed the wall to hurl themselves headlong at the soldiers, felling as many as they could. Once on the ground they struck savagely with knife and axe in a bloodthirsty frenzy. They fought with such rage and fury, striking at everything they came across, that they even caused losses among their own people. Thus fought the People of the Trees, with fury and savagery, and nothing would stop them, and for a good part of the battle it seemed nothing would.
The Guard defended the battlements as best they could, but the rebels overwhelmed them. It was then, with the battle all but won, that everything changed. Suddenly horns rang out, and that fateful sound was followed by a horrible sight: the Enforcers, in formations of three, began to take their positions along the wall. The parapet was now filled with rebels, who held back when they saw the Executors in their silver and blood-red armor, bearing their spears of death. But the rebels were brave and determined, and they hurled themselves against the Enforcers with the same fury they had shown the Guard. They would not cower, no matter how massive and lethal the Executors might be.
The fighting turned frantic. The rebels climbed the wall to attack the Executors. The result, though, was very different to what had happened with the Guard. The Executors sent the rebels tumbling down the wall with brutal blows from their powerful limbs. The rebels, vastly inferior in size and skill with weapons, were no rival for those monsters of death. With brute force and lethal skill with their spears, the Enforcers cleared the parapets in order to regain control of the wall. Th
e battle began to tilt in their favor.
The rebels did not cease their attack, despite the level of casualties they were suffering. They hurled themselves three at a time against the Executors so as to bring them down, then finish them off once they were on the ground. The fury and savage blows of the rebels were beginning to cause damage among the Enforcers, although the cost in lives was phenomenal. For every Executor they managed to kill, they lost twenty men. The Executors speared them or threw them off both sides of the wall like ragdolls, to hit the ground below. Doubt was beginning to make itself felt in their minds. They were losing the battle, and there seemed to be no way to turn things around.
In one last desperate attempt to take the walls, the rebels attacked as one with all their remaining strength. The battlements filled with savage shouting, desperate fighting and death. The rebels were fighting with all their spirit. The Executors repelled them with brutal efficiency. Ilia was fighting alongside her brother Pilap and Lial, trying to open up a gap among the Executors with a hundred or so braves.
“Keep going! Don’t give in!”
The braves with her brought down a couple of Executors and killed them on the parapet.
“That’s the way! Onward!” Ilia cried.
Pilap and Lial lunged at the legs of an Executor as he fought three of their companions. The Executor’s spear ended the lives of two of them, but Pilap and Lial managed to bring him down.
“Now kill him!” Pilap cried.
Lial held on to the spear arm of the Executor with all her might, while three rebels stabbed him until he was dead.
They managed to move a few feet forward on the parapet, but met with another group of Executors. Ilia climbed on to the battlements and surveyed the fighting. All along the wall’s circumference the rebels were fighting the Enforcers, and to her chagrin, they were losing. Now the difference was clear. On the opposite side, Ilia glimpsed Albana. She was fighting at the head of a group of rebels, and they had made their way into the center of the city.
Ilia pointed her out to her brother and Lial.
“She did it!” Pilap said excitedly. “She got into the city despite the Executors.”
“Just like she said she would,” Lial pointed out, with a smile on her blood-smeared face.
Ilia looked around her. “That’s one piece of good news, but it’s the only one. The Enforcers are decimating us.”
“What are we going to do, sister?” Pilap asked uneasily.
“I don’t know, Pilap, we’re losing the battle. Perhaps I should call the retreat.”
“Let’s go on fighting,” said Lial, raising her blood-smeared knife.
“If we keep fighting we’ll all die,” Ilia said. She realized that her men were watching her, looking unsure.
Pilap stared fixedly into his sister’s eyes, “Better to die fighting than go on living as slaves.”
“Albana’s still fighting down there,” Lial pointed out.
Ilia heaved a deep sigh. Then she smiled at them.
“We’ll fight to the end!” she said, and gave the order to her people. “To the end!”
“To the end!” the rebels cried back, and plunged into the attack.
Thanks to the momentum of their brave hearts they managed to make the Enforcers retreat. But it was like wounding a wild animal. The Enforcers counterattacked with all the weight of their superiority, and the rebels began to fall in great numbers. In the midst of the chaotic combat Lial was hit on the head with brutal force, and before Pilap could catch her she fell from the top of the wall into the inner courtyard. She died when she hit the pavement.
“Lial! Nooooo!” Pilap cried in despair.
Behind him an Executor raised his spear to run him through.
Filled with abysmal horror, Ilia did her best to warn him.
“Pilap! Behind you!”
But her cry was lost among the thousands of others that rose to the sky in the din of the battle.
The spear came down to kill him. Pilap turned. Ilia knew it was too late. And suddenly two claws buried themselves in the Executor’s shoulders and bore him away bodily. Eyes wide, Ilia watched as her Flyer, Happy Flyer, whisked the Executor up into the air and then dropped him so that he crashed on to the ground.
“What…?” stammered Pilap, not understanding what had happened.
There came a shrill croak. A moment later others followed, south and north of the wall.
Pilap pointed up at the sky “Look there, sister!” he cried.
A hundred or so of the majestic Flyers were coming down from the heavens to fall by surprise on the Enforcers and help the rebels.
“I… I can’t believe it,” Ilia said. He watched the giant birds fighting the Enforcers. They grabbed them in their huge claws and flew off with them to the clouds, then dropped them or else dashed them hard against the walls. Those Executors who managed to wriggle in their grasp or wound them were torn to pieces in mid-flight by their enormous beaks.
“You have to believe it, now we have a chance!”
“Now I understand why Albana ordered the attack on the county capitals. It was for this. To free the Flyers and send them to our aid.”
“A great trick!”
“And tricks and ruses are what she said we’d need to win.”
Happy Flyer fell on the group of Executors in front of Ilia and Pilap, as a giant eagle might fall on a handful of lizards, and swept them away.
Ilia saw their opportunity. “Re-group! We need to seize our chance!”
The fighting turned into madness. The rebels pushed on while the Flyers came down from the heavens with an eerie croaking. Ilia signaled to her Flyer, who came down to the wall to pick her up. She climbed onto the bird and stroked her neck.
“Thank you, my love.”
The giant bird nodded several times in acknowledgement.
Pilap seized a bow and quiver and climbed up behind his sister. They took off, and Ilia was now able to take in the chaotic battle in all its splendor of blood and death. Pilap shot arrow after arrow at the Enforcers, while Ilia did her best to locate Albana. She guided the bird toward the center of the city. Suddenly a blue-white flash appeared before them, like lightning, and a discharge hit one of the Flyers. Wounded, the bird lost its sense of direction and crashed against the wall.
“What was that?” Pilap asked.
Ilia guided her Flyer to the spot, and they saw it.
“It’s an Eye-of-the-Gods, and he’s using a disc of the Gods!”
Another flash hit a second Flyer, followed by another discharge which hit a third bird.
“They’re killing them!” Pilap cried. He shot an arrow that hit the Eye in the chest before he could use his disc against them. Ilia made Happy Flyer swerve abruptly, and another flash brushed her right wing. The Flyer, frightened, swerved so abruptly that she almost lost her two riders.
Pilap gestured at another giant bird, which had been hit in mid-flight and was falling to the ground fast. “We have to help them!”
“But how?” Ilia said despairingly. If the birds died, they would all die with them. Their fate was irrevocably linked to that of the majestic birds.
All of a sudden she heard a tremendous blast which nearly deafened her. A huge shadow passed in front of them. She was completely at a loss. They were in mid-air, above the city. What could possibly have generated a shadow as high up as that? Before her mind could unravel the mystery, she saw it. Before her eyes: the great monolith of the Gods was falling in all its glory, to shatter into fragments on the floor of the city.
“That was Albana!” Pilap cried.
Ilia guided Happy Flyer to the center of the square, and there indeed was Albana beside the base of the ruined monolith. Very close to her were a dozen Enforcers who must be pursuing her.
“Albana, be careful!” Pilap cried.
But Albana did not seem to fear the Executors. She hailed the siblings with a smile, completely ignoring the Enforcers.
“Tell her to take cover!” Pilap
insisted. “They’re Executors!”
Albana made untroubled gestures for them to come down.
“How? What?”
Ilia brought the Flyer down beside Albana.
“Don’t worry,” she said, looking at the Executors as she spoke. “They’re harmless now.”
“I’ve no idea how you’ve done it, but there’s no way to say thank you in the whole wide world,” Ilia said, as she hugged her with all her strength.
Albana gave them a smile of pure satisfaction. “Didn’t I tell you, with a bit of trickery and Dark Arts there’d be a chance for us?”
Pilap waved a hand toward the Executors, who were wandering aimlessly a few steps away. “Why don’t they attack?”
“Without the monolith they lose their minds. I don’t know why, but that’s what happens.” She pointed up at the battlements, where the same image was repeated before the astonished eyes of the rebels. “Hence my little mission of stealth and shove.” She smiled roguishly.
“We’ve … we’ve won…” Pilap still could not believe it.
Ilia was looking around in disbelief. “So we’re free?”
Albana nodded with a broad smile.
“How will we ever be able to pay you back, Albana?”
The brunette looked up at the sky, where the Flyers were gliding. She said with a sigh: “One day, not very far off, I’ll ask for your help.”
“And you’ll have it,” Ilia assured her.
“It’ll be to face the Gods themselves: all Men, together.”
The two siblings exchanged glances and nodded.
