Chapter 27
The King lay awake in his bed that night. He was pondering what tomorrow may bring. The nagging feeling that all was not well haunted him throughout the night. Nothing had been seen of Bhryll. So far, only The Watcher had been spotted. This sent a shudder running down his spine. The thought that there is one army in this world that is comprised of the foulest creatures alive was enough to turn anybodies stomach. The possibility of there being another army, headed up by Bhryll himself, brought swift feelings of nausea and panic.
“I would know if there was another army. My scouts have searched the land and returned with nothing to report.” Henried thought to himself. The old cliché suggested that no news was good news. Henried did not believe this. Instead, he thought that knowledge was power. The enemy of Thorntonvale was a lesser god. He would be able to locate and destroy the entire human army without breaking sweat. However, this so called god had yet to get involved in the battle.
“He will come.” Henried said aloud. Only the rickety wooden walls were listening. It was more of a bivouac than a real hut. He had put it together himself with some of the spare wood from Bowton. A few others had done the same but most slept in tents or just out in the open. At last the King drifted into unconsciousness.
Rhyll, Conrad and John could not sleep either. They had decided to share a tent. Each trusted the other implicitly and figured that there were no others they would rather be close to; in the event of a surprise attack.
“This must be the calm before the storm.” John said referring to the stillness that hung in the air.
“That can soon be rectified.” Conrad said letting out a large fart.
“Oh, that was just lovely, Conrad. Could you have picked a more confined space?” Rhyll said sarcastically.
“Sorry, I had beans for tea.”
“Bloody hell man, that is ripe.” John said holding his nose. “Have you been sleeping naked in the sewers again?”
“What do you mean?” Conrad asked.
“I think a rat has crawled up your arse and died.”
They all began to chuckle. The next few hours were very light hearted. It seemed that from out of the fear, tension, and unease at waiting for their deaths, a glimmer of happiness was allowed to shine through.
For many in the camp, this night seemed the worst. Each and every man had a strange sense of impending doom. Not a single person on this field of battle had any psychic powers but everyone felt like they were in a vice as if something was closing in, squeezing them from all sides. As the first ray of light appeared on the eastern horizon, their fears were confirmed. The faint sound of a drum beat was heard by the watch. One of the guards ran to the King’s makeshift hut to inform him. He burst through the door nearly falling over his own feet in his haste.
“My lord, they are here.”
The King; still rather groggy from having only a few hours of sleep, sat up and rubbed his eyes.
“What are you going on about? Speak slower and speak clearly?”
“The enemy, it approaches. We heard the first drum beats barely five minutes ago.”
Henried shot out of bed as if he had just discovered a deadly spider in his sleeping roll. He winced as the pain in his leg returned, forgotten overnight. He could walk again now but the injury still pained him some.
“Raise the alarm. Get the men ready.” He ordered.
The guard raced out of the hut neglecting the formality of bowing. He ran across to an open plane where the embers of last night’s campfire were still smoking. A large horn had been mounted on a stand. The guard raced up to the horn, wrapped his mouth around the end and blew with all his might. A deep bellow boomed across the plane. The first boom roused most of the camp from their slumber. The second bellow set people into motion. To an observer, events in the camp looked chaotic and uncoordinated. The reality was that the men were well drilled. They packed their tents away with lightning pace, donned their armour and weapons and raced to their positions. When all the chaos died down, there stood a magnificent army of human beings. They were not jus here to fight, but to make an impression. Standard bearers held aloft the flags of each city in the Kingdom of Thorntonvale. This looked like a long wave of colour. The armour of each individual had been polished and buffed to a glimmering shine. Some wore silver armour, others black. Shields had one of the four crests of the Kingdom on them. The crest of the north, engraved onto the shields of those from Beskholme, had a massive eagle standing on top of a rampart with an open portcullis below. The eagle had its massive wings spread from the top right to the top left of the shield. This indicated power. Soldiers holding shields with the crest of the south were few in number. These people hailed from Thorvale. Their crest was the picture of hundreds of men with their arms above their heads. They were lifting an image of the city of Thorvale. It was supposed to be a symbol of unity. There were few people from the east as well. Their crest was a forest on either side of a long winding road that led from the bottom point of the shield up to the centre. At the end of the road and rising majestically over the trees was a waterfall. This spanned the entire upper part of the shield. This was meant to indicate hidden beauty. Finally, the most common crest on the battlefield was held by the armies of the west. They had the image of the sacred hills in the centre of the shield surrounded by stars. This was meant to indicate tranquillity. This was truly the most majestic army of humans ever assembled. It was like each man knew that he would perish and as such had turned out in their best clothing so that they would go to the next world looking smart and clean. In the time it took to get organised, the enemy had neared. There was still almost a mile of land between the armies but the stakes and traps that separated them were now at the foot of the enemy force. The Watcher’s army could not have been any more different than that of the humans. Few of the creatures wore armour. The Orcs were the only race with any real form of protective clothing. Bones and skulls covered their rotting flesh. They looked very intimidating. There were few goblins and skeletons. The goblins were the only other race with any armour. They wore leather and tree bark armour. The bark had been hardened so that it wasn’t as brittle as it may have been. To look at the human army from afar, one would believe that everyone was the same height. The chaos army was very uneven. The Watcher could be seen standing nearly seven feet tall. Behind him, the hunched forms of the many thousands of Orc could be seen. Behind them, the lanky and slender row of goblins had formed. Then the Trolls stood awaiting their orders. Finally, two huge spiders towered over everything. The only race that was not clearly visible was the wraiths. They surrounded The Watcher like a cloak but from a mile away, where the humans stood, they were barely visible. One hundred Wraiths did not stand out amongst a crowd of around eighty thousand. Both armies quickly settled, eyeing each other up from a distance. When the last creature of chaos was in position, the drumming ceased. Silence spread over the land. Even the wind stopped whistling through the stakes that had been placed in the ground. It was a deafening silence. If a pin had dropped at that moment, all would have heard it. The King marched out in front of his army and broke the silence.
“I am not going to give a rousing speech. You all know what is at stake here. But I want you to do one thing for me. Look carefully at that army over there. They stand here ready to defile the land you live in. They will burn your homes and slaughter your families. They would claim this land their own and lay waste to everything we have spent centuries building. With these images in your head, find the one that hits home the hardest. Use the anger you feel at imagining this. This is our homeland. Are we going to allow the enemy to take it?”
“No” the soldiers shouted.
“Are we going to let them burn our homes?”
“No”
“Are we going to let our families be slaughtered?”
“No”
“Are we going to win?”
With that the entire army raised a cheer that lasted several minutes. The speech may n
ot have been the most rousing speech he had ever given but on the spare of the moment, Henried felt it was effective.
The King turned from his men and shouted at The Watcher. “If you want to take our land and our lives, come and claim them or die trying.
The King let loose a mighty scream. It was more a scream to release his anger and fear but the troops saw it as a sign. They shouted with him. The noise of fifty thousand men screaming at the top of their lungs sent a deafening sound across the land. Some of the Orcs were spooked by this display of unity. Their small, feeble minds could not comprehend the sight before them. Each Orc saw the human army in its entirety. They themselves felt like individuals and could not comprehend that they had the superior numbers. They started to twitch nervously. If they had not been hemmed in by the other races, they would have run.
“We end this now.” The Watcher said to his wraiths. A series of loud screeches echoed across the land. For the humans, it was time to be scared. For the creatures of chaos, it was time to march.
*****
Resurrection (Book 1: The Chronicles of Chaos) Page 29
