Rider and mount strutted before the entire expanse of barrier and throughout her spear was held at a resting position. When she was finished moving in front of the barrier she nodded to herself and then rider and mount leaped. That was all there was to it. The wall itself was nearly six feet in height. No horse could clear it without being impaled. The beasts of the Sa’ba Taalor were not horses, he’d known that, but he did not expect them to jump the wall as easily as a cat might leap onto a table. But that is what happened. The great monster rose over the wall and then crashed down, and the rider hurled her spear even as the beast turned toward the soldiers making up the wall.
King Kordis had a perfect view of their faces as the great monster lashed out and ripped two soldiers away from the barrier. The wall foundered there, falling as the men were pulled away.
The spear was hurled with terrifying force and drove into the first of the archers, throwing the man sideways with the force of the impact.
By the time the spear had finished its travels, a dozen more of the hellish riders were coming over the living hedge, their beasts roaring out in battle cries that sounded as unsettling as the riders themselves. One of the mounts did not quite clear the barrier and took a spear in the shoulder that ripped a great wound all the way down its length. It fell on the barrier and knocked more shields and soldiers aside. After that, chaos. The wall did not hold, although the soldiers did their best to push forward against the rising tide of the enemy while trying to defend themselves from the great claws of the monstrous mounts. Soldiers took strides forward and then were hauled back and torn open. In the face of that fury the ranks collapsed and despite no order being given, several archers took aim and only added to the chaos. Some might have hit their targets, but not all of them.
The great wall of Sa’ba Taalor that crashed against the remaining wall of spearmen took down their enemies, bloodied and bloodying with the same zeal.
Soldiers retreated. Sa’ba Taalor charged forward. The sheer savagery of the assault left Kordis stunned and speechless.
Enough!
Kordis shook off the unexpected sight and drew his sword. Around him others did the same. Lances were no longer an option; there was simply too much chance of crushing and impaling his own. But swords were a different matter. The horses charged down toward the Sa’ba Taalor and responded to the simple pressure of knees into sides. Horse and rider worked as one, and the king swept his sword across the side of one of the mounts as it came past him, roaring. The sword smashed into heavy armor and cut but not deeply. The impact ran up King Kordis’s arm and he grunted.
One of the gray-skins saw him and swept a long mace at him, but instead of striking the king, the weapon shattered his horse’s face. The horse, well trained or not, was unprepared and dropped, screaming its agony into the air.
The animal fell and so did he, rolling as best he could in full armor. The impact was brutal and surely the gods favored him as his horse did not roll over him during the crash to the cobblestones.
Hooves and legs moved around him as he tried to rise and one of the great mounts landed on horse and rider alike not five feet away, taking both to the ground. He saw the thick claws hook into the flesh of the horse and peel it back with terrifying ease, revealing meat and blood and bone. The teeth focused on the man and savaged his neck, nearly tearing the poor bastard’s head away.
King Kordis made his feet and gathered his sword, sweeping the blade toward the mount. The animal was faster than he’d have imagined and ripped the blade from his hand with one claw. The great, armored face roared. The rider above swept a chain over his head and brought it down on the man next to the king.
He changed targets, Kordis was certain of it. The man had planned to attack him and changed his mind.
No matter. The sword was gone but he was not without weapons. His axe came free and he swept it into the chest of the closest of the gray-skinned enemy. The man blocked his blow and shoved him backward into the side of a horse still standing despite the nightmarish mounts. Kordis stumbled and was hit again, by what he could not guess but pain crashed down his side and across his back and he stumbled but righted himself.
This was so much worse than he’d expected. The lines of combat were supposed to be formal. He’d trained for years with his sword, for years with his axe. He was a proficient archer and a skilled horseman! But in seconds it all fell apart. Where were the guards who were supposed to ride with him? One he’d seen killed but the rest could have been anywhere at all and he would have never known.
A gray savage strode forward and smashed into him, using a heavy shield to send him backward once, twice, a third time. Kordis grunted, staggered back and fell to the ground on his ass. Each blow of the shield had hurt, but none of them broke anything.
He came up as quickly as he could and took his axe to the shield bearer; the blade sank into wood and metal but before he could pull it back the man smashed into him again, using the shield to cast him aside. The axe remained where it was, the gray bastard grinned at him and kicked him in his chest plate, sending him sprawling.
They were everywhere. Soldiers from both sides attacked, hacking with blades, swinging axes, maces, sticks, whatever they could find to attack with after a few moments of heavy struggle. People fell. Some got up while others were stomped into the ground by hooves, boots or clawed feet.
It was overwhelming! King Kordis could scarcely breathe. Hot blood from someone or something spilled across his face and into his left eye. His weapons were gone but he swung with his fist and hit someone. He wasn’t even sure who, exactly, only that they’d felt the blow.
A body smashed into him from the left and another from the right and yet another was pushed into his chest as someone brought a curved blade down and cleaved the poor bastard’s head open.
Kordis lunged forward, hoping to at least manage to find a shield or a blade to use. He was dealt a blow to the side of his head that dropped him again to the ground and left his ear feeling like a hot iron was pressing into it.
The hands that grabbed him were not friendly. He was lifted and spun and thrown through the air and then left to crash into the ground once more.
When he rolled over to stand, the boot that caught him in the side felt like a mule kick to the ribs.
He could not rise. Someone was standing on his back and pressing his face into the dirt at the same time. He tried to move, but was pinned properly. Looking up as best he could he saw the gigantic form of the King in Iron over him, watched the man hack a soldier with the massive sword he wielded and felt the blood of the man wash over him.
Tarag Paedori reached down and caught him by his arm, hauling him to his feet and dragging him along through the crowd of combatants. He did not have a chance to collect himself or even take his feet properly.
“You should have surrendered, Kordis! Your life would be easier, yes?”
Tarag Paedori held him off the ground by his arm and roared, “Here is your king! Here is Kordis!” then threw him to the dirt again.
He had enough time to look up before that great sword of the King in Iron came down and cut his neck open. Kordis’s life ended a few seconds later.
Tarag Paedori looked down at the king of his enemies and nodded. It was good. It was proper. They had met in the field of battle and he had won.
Now he would claim his prize. The dead man’s head was mostly severed. One cut and it came free.
“Take their heads! As many as you can. We will bear them to the palace and let them know what they will face!”
A javelin was all that was required; he drove the tip of one into the bloodied stump of a neck and then raised the head up high for all to see.
“Take them! Take them all, and if your enemy is still alive, take them just the same!”
He rode forward, prize held high, “For Truska-Pren! Take them all in his name!”
His followers listened, and they obeyed.
The best of armies can be weakened by the loss of a le
ader. In this case the armies of Goltha did not flee, but they writhed and howled and were taken by the tide of the Sa’ba Taalor.
An army is hard to miss. A single individual is often harder to see. Theran did not stride angrily up the hill, either; he approached with extreme caution, knowing that an army waited above and that they were currently raining destruction down on the buildings behind and around him.
King Kordis amused him. The man was standoffish at the best of times and while he was a competent enough ruler, he was not a very good person. He was self-centered, a whoremonger – it did not matter how much a whore cost, he or she was still a whore and Kordis gleefully indulged in both sexes – and believed that the sorcerers should do his bidding. Some fool had told him that wizards could make the sky rain diamonds and since hearing that he’d tried several times to convince Theran to give him a ransom in the gems. The argument over that particular debacle lasted over a year, and only really came to an end a short time ago, when Desh Krohan leveled several miles of forest. After that the king looked at Theran with a great deal more apprehension and possibly even respect.
All of which meant nothing at the moment. The king was off to the north and trying to stop an enemy that was, frankly, terrifying.
And Theran himself was trying to do the same. He doubted either of them would have much success.
Are you there, Corin?
Of course, brother. I am with you. How fares your war?
I haven’t seen them yet. He paused a moment as a loud groan filled the air and a moment later another boulder rolled through the air, whistling and hissing as it rose higher and higher. I am close, however.
How close?
I will see them in another few minutes.
What will you do?
What else? I will attempt to destroy their rock thrower and as many of them as I can.
You are worth more than a rock thrower. Be careful.
He chuckled at that. Rest assured of that. I have no particular desire to die this day or any other.
Corin had been his source of information and the voice he heard the most as he dealt with news of the war on Fellein. It was the other man’s voice that had warned him of the ships coming their way, of the great army coming from the north. He had sources everywhere. He had not known about the eastern attack, but he had definitely warned of all others and had allowed them the chance to strike at the western wing of the attack before it came to the city proper.
Corin was his source for all the news that he needed.
Now, however, he was on his own. The Sooth were being stubborn and refused to share. Corin was easily one of the masters when it came to the Sooth and if he could not get a straight answer from them then surely they were in troubled times.
Theran did not hurry up the hill, but neither did he take his time. When he reached the crest he was wise enough to drop to the ground and look over the edge.
The closest of the enemy was close indeed. The gray man stood only four feet away and looked back at the war engine that his people had created.
The ground was mostly level, with a gentle slope, and the machine that rested on that slope had been stabilized quite well. The framework was built mostly of wood, and in the center a vast arm lay cocked back and ready, with a collection of stones and chunks of wood in a cup large enough to hold a couple of men. Two women were adding more wood to the collection, heavy branches that were burning properly. The wood inside the collection must have been treated for it caught fire easily.
It was the fire that made him move. The vast rocks had done enough damage but the fiery logs scattered among the rocks the size of melons? Theran could only imagine the destruction they would cause.
He focused on the engine itself and used what was already available to work his sorcery. Before they could do whatever it was that would send the rain of stone and fire down on Goltha, Theran forced heat and pressure through every part of the device.
Wood bulged and cracked and exploded in seconds. Several of the gray-skins were caught in the explosion that sent daggers of burning timber in all directions. One of the women lighting the fire staggered backward with a brand burning through her ruined face and fell dead – please, by all the gods, dead. That he could make anyone suffer that way was enough to cause Theran nausea. Several others cried out in pain or challenged whatever might have attacked them in their own language. Words alone did not make speech. Their need to attack and stop whatever had assaulted them was obvious.
It was enough. As far as Theran could see there was only the one machine and that was now burning and ruined.
He backed up as carefully as he could and prepared to flee.
The javelin took him in the side of his neck and drove deep. Theran did not die, but he fell flat and could not move. None of him would move. Not even his smallest finger. He could not shift his eyes, so all that he saw was the boots that came toward him, muddied and well worn.
The voice that spoke was unknown, but he heard the words and understood them.
“My king! We have a sorcerer here. One of the Fellein that can cause magic.” There was a pause and he could nearly feel the eyes that scrutinized him. “I wonder what Ordna will think of him.”
He had no idea who Ordna was. It did not matter. He could do nothing in any event.
In the south the black ships wallowed, stuck against the great iron wall that stopped them from going into Lake Gerhaim. The Sa’ba Taalor attacking the gates were at a disadvantage until their hounds arrived. The vile creatures roared and snapped and took arrow after arrow, distracting the guards from the attack coming from the archers off the ships and keeping them from paying much attention to the gray-skins climbing over the iron gate itself.
The iron was uneven and sawed at skin and leather alike. Many of the Sa’ba Taalor used their tools to make the transit easier, hooking metal with axe heads or wrapping their hands in leather before going further. In any event they progressed slowly across the distance and finally reached the vast openings where the gate rolled out across the waters on hidden tracks in the water.
From there it was only a matter of time. The mechanisms were mostly on a level below the ground and they climbed past the worst of it on the gates themselves, through waters deep enough to require swimming. Those who could not swim were forced to crawl higher in the hopes of finding another way, but remarkably few sailors fail to learn how to swim.
The locking mechanisms that kept the gates extended were guarded, but not by a large party. It was not long before the Sa’ba Taalor seized the areas and then started puzzling out how the devices worked.
Trial and error. Fifteen minutes after they accessed the locking mechanisms the Sa’ba Taalor managed to unlock the gates. After that all they had to figure out was how to make the gates part and recede.
Callan and his crew moved along the river at a steady yet impossible clip. He could not have traveled at the speeds he was managing, and yet he did. Miles of river roared past, though there was little breeze and no indication that he or his ship could possibly be going at such speeds.
Daivem Murdro still stood by his side, looking toward the horizon. He studied her face, the explosion of braids that ran down her back. She was dressed in a white cotton top and a skirt made from a fabric he had never seen before.
Ahead they could see the great gate had been closed. He had only seen one of the massive gates in that position once before and that had been on a different river heading for Goltha.
“That’s going to be a challenge, I fear.”
“We are not worried about reaching Goltha this day, Captain Callan. We are here to visit the people who killed your crew, yes?” Daivem smiled at him, mischief in her eyes. She held no weapons save her walking stick, much like her brother’s but with fewer skulls carved into the hard wood, but she did not seem at all afraid of the Sa’ba Taalor.
Callan could not say the same. He was bloody terrified of the very notion of running across the gray-skins a second time. But he wo
uld do this, because he owed it to his crew. They’d been murdered brutally and much as he wished he could forget that, he could not. He could not forgive it, either; they were a mostly honest crew who wanted little but to make a living and he’d sent them into danger and watched as the Sa’ba Taalor slaughtered them.
And the bastards had let him live. That was the worst of it, really. That was the unforgivable sin. They’d left him alive to suffer with what had happened. He wanted them dead for that.
He blinked back the sting of tears.
Daivem looked his way and nodded. “Sometimes the pain of witnessing so much death is enough to drive anyone mad.”
“So let’s do this. Let’s give the dead their satisfaction.”
Daivem nodded and then pointed toward the black ships. Shapes scaled the great iron gate and at first he thought they might try to pry the locked bars apart but instead they moved sideways over the crisscross of bars, heading across the vast river in both directions, crossing over the locked gate like ants moving over a tow line.
“What goes through their minds?” Callan spoke mostly to himself.
Daivem answered just the same, “They want to force the gates, I suppose.”
“Is that even possible?”
“I have no idea. I’ve never seen the gates of Goltha before.” She frowned a bit, smiled a bit and then bared her teeth in a wide grin. “They are glorious, are they not?”
Callan grinned back. “They are impressive, but not so much of a pleasure to see when you are waiting for them to part and lined up seven boats deep.”
“What shall we do about these black ships, Captain Callan?”
Callan looked at the gathered ships. There were enough of them to be sure. Twenty or more of the vessels were pushed up along the gate that would, he suspected, be opened sooner rather than later.
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