All eyes were drawn instantly to the hooded man atop the battlements, his sable cloak awhirl like a dancing shadow, his twisted staff held high to the abyssal heavens. The sorcerer was etched blackly against the virgin azure sky, proclaiming his darksome conjuration in a time-lost dialect which no human had uttered since the primeval seas had risen to devour the first bastions of the ancient god-kings countless millennia past.
“By the Twelve Temples!” exclaimed Viseth. “He is a battle-mage after all!”
Caylen turned to stare out at the imperial host. “But what manner of war-spell does he recite?”
Viseth shook his head. “The gods alone know!”
As Caylen watched in rapt silence, the ground beneath the distant imperial mangonels slowly began to shake. The movement was subtle at first; an almost imperceptible shifting of the dolent sand dunes which flanked the great army. Then, a latticework of deep furrows abruptly appeared in the arid surface of the vast gravel-strewn arroyo upon which the legions were assembled, and a baleful, augural rumbling sound not unlike distant thunder became audible to the men of both armies. Within seconds the noise had burgeoned to an ear-splitting din and the earth proceeded to seethe and undulate like the churning surface of a sun-seared sea.
Then, from the riven sand erupted a titan born of fever-dreams and primeval legendry. The great worm exceeded one hundred and fifty feet in length and was twice as broad as a tundra-mammoth. Its colossal spiked head sported a gaping triangular maw studded with hundreds of curved dagger-like teeth and its vast, segmented body was encased in chitinous armour plating. Amidst a billowing storm of sand and stone the creature bore down upon the imperial war machines, its mighty bulk smashing the nearest mangonel to shards of wood and twisted metal. A score of men and beasts were crushed instantly to red ruin by the thrashing of the monstrous sand-worm, and keening chaos enveloped the imperial host. The creature drove its mighty head into another ballista, utterly obliterating the machine and the troops which flanked it. A single volley of imperial arrows was desperately loosed against the fiend, but the shafts merely rebounded harmlessly from its mottled, adamantine hide. Again, the titanic beast struck pitilessly against the imperium’s engines of war, its abyssal mouth closing murderously upon a fully laden onager. The machine was instantly ground to mangled wreckage by those glistening scimitar-fangs and the sundered remnants were rapidly ejected in a viscid torrent of noxious slime. A trebuchet was abruptly reduced to detritus by the worm’s next arc of destruction, the broken bodies of many legionaries crashing to the sand with the remains of the shattered construction. A heartbeat later, two of the imperial host’s lofty siege engines were ravaged, their scaffolds rent to jagged splinters and their great iron axles irrevocably cloven.
Caylen watched enthralled as the spectacle of carnage continued, following the movements of the direful monster with grim fascination. Then, he glanced back at the watchtower upon which the sorcerer stood, still bellowing his baleful incantation to his colossal, chthonic vassal. The clansman’s brow furrowed as he witnessed the gaunt wizard suddenly drop to his knees, his ensorcelled staff tumbling from his grasp. The arcane recitation abruptly ceased and a scant second later the cowled man completely collapsed, the flesh of his face and hands seemingly aglow with a strange, rutilant incandescence. As Caylen watched, the sorcerer’s body rapidly transmogrified into a lifeless, cinereous husk which then promptly crumbled to pulverulent ash, leaving only his empty sable cloak billowing forlornly upon the stone parapet.
Instantly, the sand-worm’s rampage ceased, its great head rearing languorously backward. The behemoth loomed silent and motionless for a single moment, then its vast jaws snapped shut and it plunged abruptly into the massing dunes. The ravaged earth shook with its departure and as the dust settled, the imperial army began to reckon with the devastation which the titanic beast had left in its calamitous wake.
“By the gods!” Caylen exclaimed. “What a fiend!”
“The big ones are said to prowl only the deepest desert,” said Viseth. “No man has seen a monster like that for more than a hundred years!”
Caylen sighed heavily. “We’ve lost our battle-mage. That spell evidently exacted a heavy toll.”
“Well, that wizard proved his worth, without a doubt,” Viseth replied. “Conjuring that blessed worm may have just increased our chances of survival tenfold!”
Chapter V
Red Steel on the Ramparts
For two days following the sand-worm’s attack, the imperial forces launched no assault against the fortress. The pensive Vyrgothian troops observed from the ramparts as the legions proceeded slowly and methodically with their preparations for the siege. The emperor’s great sable pavilion had been erected towards the rear of the imperial host, its vibrant scorpion-sigil banner rippling idly in the gentle breeze. The empire’s sole remaining siege tower stood ready and the colossal iron-headed battering ram known by the legions as “The Bringer of Woe” had been hauled into position behind the assembled ranks. And so, the soldiers of both armies waited, sharpening their swords, checking the buckles on their cuirasses and waxing their bowstrings.
Finally, at dawn on the third day, an imperial clarion thundered three baleful notes and the legions surged into action. Ranks of archers bent their deadly bows of horn and wood and unleashed a storm of shafts against Gul-Azlaan which all but obscured the light of the rising sun. Scores of men fell before the black hail of slender arrows and the Vyrgothian archers duly loosed volley after volley in response. For many minutes, death rained pitilessly from the sky above the battlefield, the stone and sand swiftly becoming a red charnel-field of gruesomely transfixed flesh.
At length, the volleys ceased. The baleful beat of countless goatskin nakers then resounded across the desert and the imperial siege tower slowly began its advance. The great construct lurched ponderously across the arid ground toward the looming walls of the fortress, grinding the sand beneath its iron axles and broad wooden wheels. The vast scaffold was armoured with planks of oak upon which had been affixed stiff leather hides, and from its wide base protruded long poles at which strained dozens of heavily muscled slaves who woefully pushed the engine onward, compelled by the cruel whips of their captors. Scores of troops accompanied the tower, bearing broad shields and pavises with which to protect the labourers from shafts and stones. As the siege engine drew closer to the walls, the imperial archers unleashed another withering volley of shafts just as the defenders began to target the juddering tower with canisters of pitch and oil. Ceramic jugs shattered against the armoured timbers of the tower, spattering a viscid, flammable ichor upon the reeling construct. Instantly, a wave of flaming arrows howled from the battlements and the upper platform of the siege-engine became enveloped by a sheet of searing flame. Thick black smoke billowed from the burning wooden planks and the tower’s broad beams swiftly began to smoulder. Volleys of suppressing arrows and sporadic springald bolts continued to lance forth from the imperial ranks as the tower trundled and clattered its way ever closer to the base of the western wall. From the ramparts, the defenders hurled great razor-edged stones down upon the beleaguered imperial troops, along with crude containers of burning sulphur and quicklime. Huge casks of boiling oil were tipped onerously over the battlements, the blistering liquid spattering against armour, shields and flesh. Finally, the swaying, smouldering tower reached the western wall of the fortress and its wheels ground to a juddering halt. The thick hempen ropes supporting the great drawbridge at the tower’s face were slashed and the wide breaching platform crashed swiftly down upon the battlements. A score of swordsmen clambered desperately up the wide ladders in the construct’s interior and with a guttural battle-cry on their lips, the first imperial troops surged forth from the tower and gained the walls of Gul-Azlaan.
Caylen parried a furious strike from an imperial swordsman and riposted, driving his broad blade deep into the throat of his foe. He dragged the reddened sword free as the man crumpled to the ramparts and spun to face
another warrior who was vaulting over the battlements. Before the man could attack, Caylen brought his blade down hard across his outstretched sword-arm, shearing through armour, sinew and bone. The warrior howled in pain and Caylen booted him squarely in the chest to send him flailing back over the wall.
Another swordsman loomed suddenly before Caylen and aimed a vicious thrust at his midriff. Caylen desperately knocked the blow aside and drove his steel through the man’s lamellar armour, sundering leather and cleaving the flesh and muscle beneath. The man toppled screaming from the stone ledge to plummet to the courtyard far below. Bellowing a guttural war-cry, Caylen then engaged an imperial warrior who had just pulled his sword free of a Vyrgothian defender’s belly. The man raised his tulwar too late to block the blow, and Caylen’s steel bit deep, slicing into his opponent’s jugular and sending a vibrant spray of arterial blood arcing across the ramparts.
A scarred swordsman suddenly leaped to the attack and Caylen barely parried his vicious thrust before delivering a devastating counterstrike which clove the legionary’s crescent-shaped wicker shield and all but severed the man’s arm at the bicep. Screaming in pain, the swordsman lost his footing upon the reddened stone and plunged to the gore-churned sand.
Wiping blood from his eyes, Caylen hefted his sword and surveyed the battle which was raging upon the walls of Gul-Azlaan. Imperial troops were still swarming from the smouldering siege tower, but were paying a calamitous price. The defenders had met the foe with steel and fury and thus far the legionaries had failed to make any significant headway upon the bloodied ramparts.
Caylen glanced towards the eastern watchtower where the fray was raging and saw the northman Haakon in the midst of the carnage, his great axe clotted with brains and crimson gore. As he watched, two imperial swordsmen fell to a single pitiless blow of that murderous axe, their cloven bodies pitching from the battlements like butchered meat.
Suddenly, a great crackling and groaning din crested the clamour of the battle and Caylen turned to see the imperial siege-tower finally began to buckle, its beams and stanchions at last yielding to the fire which had inexorably exacted its ruinous toll. The great construct began to topple gracefully, listing like a great ship lashed upon a tumultuous storm-wracked sea. But before the tower crashed to charred and smouldering shards upon the sand, one last imperial warrior leaped across the ravaged breaching platform and onto the wall of the fortress. The man was a giant, standing nearly seven feet tall. He was clad in blackened scale-mail armour and a full-faced, spiked iron helm, and he wielded a great curved tulwar with a notched and glyph-scored blade. Three Vyrgothian warriors fell instantly before that vast sword, their armour rent and sundered.
Caylen watched enthralled as Haakon suddenly spied the towering swordsman and strode resolutely to meet him, his mighty blood-kissed axe dripping red. Like two titans born of legend the men met, rutilant sparks erupting from the resounding clash of their steel. Locked in a gruelling battle of untrammelled might, neither warrior yielded an inch, their colossal weapons grinding and shrieking in a cacophony of pattern-welded death. Suddenly, the giant swordsman drove an armoured knee into Haakon’s groin and the northman bellowed in pain and rage, his axe faltering momentarily. Seizing the advantage, the huge imperial warrior drew back his blade for a devastating strike, but Haakon instantly hammered a mighty fist into his foe’s mail-clad ribs. The sound of cracking bones was audible even over the battle’s tumult and the swordsman reeled backwards, his curved blade dropping for a single fleeting instant. In a flash of crimson and silver, Haakon’s ensanguined axe struck, cleaving through armour, flesh and bone to sweep the swordsman’s head cleanly from his body. A great fountain of blood erupted from the cloven neck stump and the giant’s corpse pitched over the battlements to crash down upon the war-churned sands. Cheers arose amongst the defenders as Haakon gathered up the swordsman’s head and hurled it as far as he could from the ramparts and back towards the imperial army. The battle raged balefully on for many gruelling minutes before the last of the imperial troops who had gained the wall were finally slain. The defenders unceremoniously hauled the dead over the battlements as the first engagement of the siege drew to a close, the ramparts slick and slippery with blood beneath their feet.
Viseth suddenly vaulted lithely to the parapet upon which Caylen stood, his once pristine cloak and cowl now stained bright crimson.
“You look like a butcher,” observed Caylen.
Viseth smiled. “As do you, my friend. Thankfully, none of this blood is mine.”
“Their tower is finished. When will they attack again?”
A sustained, funereal note from an imperial war-horn suddenly sounded in the distance.
“At once!” Viseth hissed, hefting his imbrued scimitar.
A vast cloud of imperial arrows once again darkened the sky as Caylen and Viseth leaped for cover behind the battlements. Caylen gathered up a fallen soldier’s wicker shield scant seconds before the volley struck, the shafts raining down like a baneful torrent of havoc. Countless hundreds of iron-tipped arrows tore into flesh or rebounded from the stone walls, the screams of the wounded and dying echoing throughout the fortress. Four more volleys followed and many dozens of defenders fell, their bodies transfixed by the barbed shafts of the foe.
Caylen dislodged three black-feathered arrows from his shield and guardedly peered over the battlements. Hundreds of imperial troops were rushing towards the wall, many bearing scaling ladders, ropes and grappling irons. The Vyrgothian archers proceeded to loose volley after volley into the approaching horde, felling scores of the attackers, but the teeming throng persisted, vaulting and trampling over the bodies of their slain comrades until they inexorably reached the base of the western wall. Scaling ladders clattered against the stone and grappling irons clawed the battlements as the imperial troops pressed their attack. The defenders maintained a withering hail of shafts as the legionaries began their ascent, slaying scores of men as they desperately climbed the great ladders and knotted hempen ropes. Casks of boiling pitch and hot sand were tipped over the wall to lash the ascending warriors, sending dozens of men to a searing, blistering doom. The Vyrgothian troops waited impassively until the broad ladders were fully laden with attackers before they hooked their ridged, iron-tipped poles around them and pushed the climbers from the wall, watching with grim fascination as the ladders and legionaries plummeted to the sand below. By stark weight of numbers, a contingent of imperial troops finally gained the battlements and forced a wedge through the defenders’ line, enabling countless more warriors to successfully scale their ladders and ropes to clamber onto the embattled walls. As the glowering sun ascended the cloudless sky above Gul-Azlaan, the clamour of combat once again resounded throughout the bastion and the bitter, pitiless battle continued apace.
Parrying a lateral strike from an imperial soldier, Caylen dropped deftly to one knee and drove his blade up into his assailant’s abdomen. The man screamed and Caylen pulled his sword free in time to block a brutal blow from a second warrior whose gaunt face had been blistered by the touch of hot oil. Caylen hammered his boot into his foe’s knee and swept his sword out in a strike which opened a great gaping furrow in the man’s neck. A glancing blow from a tulwar struck Caylen’s midriff and he spun to parry a second strike from the attacker before bringing his broadsword down in a pitiless arc which hewed through leather and bone to hack the man’s hand off at the wrist.
The stone ramparts were slick with blood as Caylen engaged another imperial warrior, driving the crossguard of his sword into the man’s face before grasping him by his cuirass and hauling him over the wall. Roaring an oath, Caylen vaulted back into the fray and dealt a terrible blow to an attacking legionary which tore through the man’s lacquered breastplate to shatter his clavicle and sternum. A tulwar suddenly bit deep into Caylen’s vambrace and he whirled to the counter-attack, his blade rending leather and flesh to open a yawning fissure in his foe’s abdomen. The legionary’s entrails spilled forth to land
wetly at his feet in a steaming, pulsating mass. Another warrior struck a glancing blow against Caylen’s shoulder and instantly lunged low in an attempt to drive his blade into the clansman’s gut. Caylen knocked the sword aside and riposted with a grievous strike which punched through the face-guard of the man’s helmet and out through the base of his skull.
“Your fighting style is little more than crude butchery,” came a sombre voice at Caylen’s back.
He spun to see Chiyome crouched behind him in a defensive stance, her twin short-swords slick with blood.
“Mayhap,” growled Caylen. “But it gets the job done.”
Chiyome laughed mirthlessly. “In the past two minutes alone, I’ve saved you from three blades in the back. It’s a wonder you’ve lived this long.”
Caylen wiped blood from his eyes and lips. “Perhaps you prefer the style of the Shadow Hand,” he said, pointing towards a section of the ramparts where Mazares and his black-cowled cohorts were engaging the attackers. The blades of the darkling assassins wove a swift and scintillant web of death about their foes as they leaped and spun in a sublimely graceful but searingly deadly dance of murder. Mazares dispatched two imperial troops with a single blow of his slender blade and before the second had fallen he was already engaging his next adversary. Vaulting lithely over the head of the legionary, he landed silent and cat-like at his foe’s back and severed the man’s quadriceps tendon with one cruel stroke. Spinning in a coruscant pirouette, Mazares then sheared through the jugular of another attacker and leaped over the collapsing body to open the femoral artery of the man behind him. And all who bore witness to that elegant and beauteous carnage knew that the ramparts of Gul-Azlaan ran red wherever the pitiless blades of the Shadow Hand sang their sombre song of death.
The Chronicles of Caylen-Tor Page 3
