by E M White
She’d said in the command tent, as he shook his head, as she squeezed his fists, “When it’s over, I want you to tell me…how it feels. To have no limitation!”
He reached for the handle of the flag in his knee-high boot. No trusting it with anyone else. He pulled it out, halfway back to the rising slopes of terrain where the rest of his comrades were waiting. He held it out, and the thing snapped open and fluttered violently as he desperately rode on.
One last time, he glanced over his shoulder. He saw three more of his riders grasping at arrowheads exploding through them and go down.
He clicked his cheek in regret.
Given all the commotion they’d meant to cause, it was hard to say, but…
…it looked like half of Magnus’ monstrous army was scrambling to give chase.
He smiled.
The fools.
Vadric, Bastard of the Highlands
17
Vadric Springs The Trap
When Vadric saw Markus’ flag, he was convincing the stragglers of his unit over the final hill. “I’ll rip your heads off and eat your tongues from your necks, you don’t get your asses moving!” He swung his humongous battle-axe over his head in case anyone needed further convincing.
His big heart began to pound even harder than all the browbeating called for.
He longed for, ached for Markus to get back safely. All the life in his chest reached out for him, his human brother in arms.
Markus, you ride like hell!
He pointed at Onäs, yelling across the floor of the narrow valley.
“Get ‘em up, elf. You see anyone walking, you cut their arms off, you hear me!”
Onäs was now in charge of the town garrison from Tias, halfway nestled into a small glen that fringed the larger valley. He was doing just fine. But Vadric needed to bark and yell. To vent some of the steam bursting his seams.
They had only seconds now.
Vadric leaned his pointed ears to the low rumble of hooves. He craned his massive neck for a glimpse of what nightmare was pursuing Markus. Suddenly, Markus and his two hundred riders exploded into the valley, all fury and madness, white foam spilling from the mouth of every steed.
Arrows protruded from some, riders and horses. But on they rode, near death or in pain or not.
He also knew what horses looked like when they were pushed far past their limits. He needed to be prepared to act. Now.
He looked upward. He hoped Sarina was seeing all this. Everything coming together as she’d planned, as she’d demanded of her consorts in her command tent the night before.
Vadric groaned with pleasure.
Fucking gorgeous.
Vadric checked on Onäs’ position again. But Onäs knew what to do. Maybe being in charge of a small unit of villagers who were way out of their element was a bit much to ask of a duelist—but the elf had some damn heat in his pipes, his sword already drawn from its sheath.
Those sergeants that Vadric had left in charge of the trailing elements of the company also had their warriors stoked to the edge of control. Like he’d taught them to do.
Vadric leaped to the front of his own contingent of warriors, seven hundred handpicked barbarians—swordsmen, axemen, even a unit of female archers from the Brintha Mountains. He turned to them and opened his tusked mouth wide, a rage swirling within his chest. He raised his battle-axe and, flexing every muscle in his towering body, he bellowed at his soldiers—his call to battle an explosion of rage. They roared at him in return, loving it. The half-orc simply had a way with soldiers. And he knew it.
Together they flew down the hill, screaming and hollering the whole way. The Brinthan archers lined themselves along the slopes, peering down into the eventual kill zone.
Less than ten seconds later, the first of Magnus’ warriors burst onto the scene. Bullywogs led the horde, riding murderous, screeching feathered ostricausts. They rode in no order. They surged into the valley guided by nothing save bloodlust. They were followed by humans on horses, less than half in armor. Behind them, was a long spread of races no one would waste time counting.
Almost two thousand disorganized warriors chased Markus’ riders into that valley. Those warriors, mostly roused from their sleep barely ten minutes before, were about to discover their escape was totally cut off.
Vadric and his men cascaded down behind them, bringing terror along the way.
Vadric watched the marauders funnel in with immense pleasure. They were all butchers and murderers, cruel even to the most innocent child, the worst of these bad times. And they didn’t know they were practically dead already.
Farther into the valley, where lack of space would force them to begin stepping all over each other, Onäs and Markus and all the fresh soldiers lying in wait would pick them to pieces.
So fucking gorgeous.
Just before splitting open his first skull of the day, Vadric looked up to the edge of the cliff above them.
He saw Sarina way up there, her black cape fluttering above her horse. She looked like a blackbird jostling the gray sky above, black wings ripping at the air, the smartest animal among them. Smarter than the big bear, Markus. Smarter than the mysterious snake, Zacharius. Definitely smarter than this loud orc with all the bad manners.
She was watching him. He loved that!
He roared with laughter as he raised his golden flag to her, as arrows from his own archers zinged over his head. Then he raised his battle-axe. And let the battle begin.
18
Magnus Sinn Begins His Approach
Akimi turned to Sarina.
But Sarina beat her to it. She called out, “I damn well see!”
She slugged her flagman squarely in the shoulder with a belligerent laugh.
The princess couldn’t sit still on her mount. She was pulling her reins this way and that, confusing the horse. The horse sniffed and whinnied in protest. But Sarina would pat its neck and talk the animal through the first stages of the battle, rejoicing in the riotous ecstasy.
She was talking to the horse more than to anyone else. She bellowed at the horse how Onäs and his troop of Tias guards descended upon Magnus’ harried warriors, the gnolls, the bullywogs, the humans, the towering ogres!
She rejoiced to the horse how Magnus’ warriors were panicking, most of them unable to form any fighting lines. She told the horse how Vadric was already moving out into the plain beyond the hills, advancing toward the haphazard formations sprouting out—without cohesion!—from Magnus’ remaining camp.
Akimi was excited and proud of her mistress. So far so good.
“Your Highness, a wing of the enemy is circling around.”
Sarina frowned.
She followed the extended finger of one of the red-haired twins—who’d come up without anyone noticing. “What?” She galloped her horse toward the end of the plateau to get a better look.
Akimi suddenly did not like the look on her mistress’ face. She trotted up quickly beside her. But Sarina was grunting and fighting with her stallion more than she should have.
Akimi knew Sarina too well. Her Highness was allowing herself to get too worked up, boiling with aggression and itching to get into the fight herself. “What do you see, Your Highness?” Akimi asked, feeling for the hilt of her long sword at her side.
Suddenly Zacharius was there on foot next to them, staff in hand.
He calmed Sarina’s horse, sliding his hand in the horse’s bridle, easing its spring with a whisper. He rubbed the animal’s muzzle, kindly. It hadn’t been many days since his own horse had perished under him.
He looked out over the long plain before them. He said calmly, “It’s Magnus. Himself. He’s on the move.”
Akimi’s heart plunged. This was the one variable no one could agree upon last night in the command tent.
She stretched the limits of her elven eyes. Even being a half-blood, she could see farther than any human. But soon it wouldn’t matter.
It was Magnus. And nearly a hundred rid
ers. Galloping upon huge horned beasts, immense doomarks, brown skins thick like armor, enormous curling tusks, thicker than a man’s arm, swinging from their cheeks. A cloud of dust rose behind them, a dark billowing harbinger of something truly awful coming toward them on the plain below.
No, Magnus wasn’t coming to join the rest of the battle.
“He’s coming up here.” Zacharius tightened his grip on Sarina’s bridle.
He pointed to a strip of land, like a natural switchback, that provided an approach up to the plateau if he were to push his mounts hard enough. Zacharius’ voice wavered. He stepped in front of Sarina’s horse. “He’s coming for you, Your Highness. I can feel it.”
Sarina looked furious. “Feel it? I can fucking see it.” She seized her helmet from Akimi’s saddle.
Akimi yanked on her reins, cranking her mount around while Sarina began cursing loudly behind her.
Akimi screamed at the two hundred reserve warriors, “Riders incoming!”
Her own voice, usually so precise and modest, ripped through the air—like an animal at slaughter.
19
Akimi & Zacharius Fall
Zacharius saw Magnus Sinn crest the rim of the plateau in a roar of beast and erupting soil. A nightmare rising from the plain below.
Zacharius saw the karnogs and their monstrous horned mounts come to a halt, all of them raging for breath. Quickly they spread into their line. Face to face with Sarina’s formation of jittering spearmen—whom they completely dwarfed.
Magnus was at the lead. Of course. His bronze armor gleamed from his chest and shoulders. Like the other karnog riders, he wielded two gigantic spears, both in his right hands. Various armed creatures crouched upon the rumps of the doomarks, behind the ferocious karnog riders. One doomark, very near to Magnus, was completely covered with nothing but a boiling mass of green and brown goblins, screeching wildly, almost laughing, in every direction.
There must have been a hundred riders. A hundred doomarks. Together they brought more weapons and armor than all of Sarina’s reserves put together.
Sarina drew her sword atop her horse. She’d thrown her headpiece to the ground and replaced it with her winged helm. She was securing it over her blonde hair as she yelled, moving to enter the fight that was seconds away from commencing. She raced behind the ranks of spearmen, back and forth, shouting at them, commanding them to hold. Hold these beasts until the swordsmen could secure the flanks. She shouted with such force, from such depth in her being, as if her will alone would see that none should get through.
But nothing prepared them, could have prepared them, for the first charge of the mounted doomarks.
When the heads of the huge horned mounts began battering the spearmen, the death began immediately. The weight of their massive curved tusks—and the power of the necks behind them—was enough. But their points made the battering especially gruesome. Spearmen were launched in every direction. Long knots of viscera and gore and huge clods of earth flew about. And wailing screams followed.
Zacharius felt fear overwhelm almost instantly. His legs jerked beneath him. And a sudden pain spiked his heart.
Shia gives me courage.
He staggered back a few paces. For no reason, really. He began conjuring the energies from the soil beneath him. From the Boiling Duality that was limitless in its violence—if only he had the experience to summon it efficiently.
It was one thing to call upon Shia with uttered spells. Moving matter, projecting energy, striking out at his enemies from across the battlefield—that was altogether another type of magic. And his stamina was still small. He could be a hundred before he learned to tap the Boiling Duality himself throughout an entire battle. To have that kind of focus. To have such courage. To be a true war-mage.
Suddenly, he was having severe doubts about living so long as a hundred.
Perhaps today the Unity would reclaim him.
Would reclaim all of them.
He saw several impaled, partially disemboweled bodies crashed into the soldiers just in front of Sarina, taking heavily armored men and women off their feet. Many weren’t getting back up. Some limped semi-consciously in the wrong direction, hunched over and twisted over bones that protruded from where their armor had been ripped off.
He rushed toward Sarina, his staff swinging in hand as the green stone atop its length continued to charge from the ground below.
Several gnolls slid from the backs of the mounts, yipping and barking, brandishing scimitars in their claws. Their wolfish eyes remained on Sarina the whole time. A rush of swordsmen created a wall of blades and shield between them. Sarina drove her horse, leaping into the mix along with the others. Her sword swung down over and over, taking more than a handful of lives from her attackers.
Both sides were drawing a tremendous amount of blood by now.
Zacharius saw Sarina make the near-fatal mistake of driving her mount too far, too aggressively into the enemy’s ranks. She killed three gnolls in as many swings of her sword. But Zacharius saw her horse twist and bay when the foul creatures turned their attacks upon him. Zacharius heard the horse perish.
And Sarina was suddenly a foot soldier, lost in the mix of battle.
Akimi sprinted out first. To protect Sarina. She ran with incredible speed from behind the crumbling formation of spearmen. Her short sword led the way, her long sword trailed from her hip. Zacharius watched her cut a bloody path to their princess.
And still, Zacharius desperately urged the nether powers of Auzurix to fill his staff for an attack.
Akimi threw herself in front of Sarina, swords dripping. Her face was as determined as it was ferocious. She parried the scimitars of onrushing gnolls, hellbent on slaughtering Sarina. Akimi’s two swords flashed as she defended her mistress. She flew up, spun once in the air, came slicing down upon the top of several them, dropping them to the dirt, heads cleaved in two. Behind her, Sarina clashed with two grotesque bullywogs that wouldn’t die so easily.
A doomark came into their cluster of battle—from nowhere. It surged at them all, knocking comrade and enemy down indiscriminately. Needing no steering from its karnog rider, it lowered its huge shoulder as its head swung, slamming into Akimi with the side of its huge tusk. Akimi, who hadn’t even seen the beast coming, went flying twenty paces onto the hard clumps of grass.
Four spearmen plunged their weapons into the huge neck of the doomark, and it spewed barrels of red blood before going down.
Sarina was trying to find Akimi.
So she was looking forward when Magnus Sinn himself maneuvered his unit of doomark riders to join this portion of the battle.
Zacharius saw him, however. Many of the swordsmen did too. They immediately began shouting and trying to collect themselves into some sort of defendable position.
Magnus and his riders, five of them, pivoted like a wall to face them. Magnus pointed his spear directly at Sarina—who just then saw the immense danger of this development.
Zacharius had been preparing for this one moment for the past ten minutes. His staff cast such brilliant green beams of light it was impossible to look at. Shadows splayed out from that epicenter upon the plateau.
He looked at Magnus and his doomark. He swung his staff along the ground at his feet. And the ground, maybe six thousand pounds of rock and earth, exploded outward, a blinding earthen wave, twenty feet high, spraying their foes.
It sent Magnus reeling backward. His doomarks reared and roared—unused to experiencing fear.
In the diversion, Sarina rushed to Akimi. She picked her up from the ground, cursing loudly, shaking her. She was yelling for her to get moving.
Akimi staggered up, keeping all her weight on one leg. Even from Zacharius’ vantage, he could see Akimi could barely stand on her own.
Sarina saw her flagman laying in a pool of blood five paces away, his chest cracked open. Sarina flung open his satchel and dug for the red flag. She thrust it into Akimi’s hands. She screamed at her, waking her up at last
, “Go!”
Zacharius could tell, Sarina was giving this task of flag-sign to save Akimi’s life. But the tent maiden was digging in at Sarina’s side.
She screamed again in Akimi’s ear, shoving her away, “Go!”
Now Magnus and three other riders, their doomarks huffing gusts of soil at their swinging chins, had moved from the rest of their formation. They were circling. Isolating Sarina from her reserve of warriors. Their singular intention since mounting the plateau was as plain as day.
Zacharius aimed his staff at the ground between them. He summoned everything he had left, put it all into one spike of tremendous focus. He poured all his intention upon the one point—among all the Boiling Duality in the universe. It was the only point that mattered. It was now all or nothing. His magic would be depleted after this.
Shia guides me!
From the top of his staff, the ground split open in a line, a straight bolt of energy traversing just under the surface. It smacked into the doomark next to Magnus. The beast roared as it flew back behind a curtain of soil, its armored rider propelled high and away to crash unconsciously far behind.
Zacharius stumbled back. For the moment he couldn’t breathe. His lungs were shrunken. He felt like he was lost in a vacuum. He grasped his staff just before he fell to a knee. Though he had no air, he tried cursing through his teeth.
Magnus smiled at Zacharius from high atop his doomark. The huge commander knew that Zacharius had missed his target.
Zacharius cast his staff to the ground. He had no more magic to give. He wasn’t good enough to keep on. It looked like he never would be. He drew his two curved blades, lowered his stance, finally regained his breath, and prepared to die.
But Magnus wasn’t even looking at him anymore. He was staring at Sarina again. Watching her rally an assortment of displaced swordsmen and spearmen to stand at her side. She was trying—yelling and pointing—to build some sort of cohesion at her position, among all that confusion.
