Just Before Dawn

by Joshua Hernandez

  “A dream,” said Fadhe. “I felt it stirring in me weeks past and I took my karl to investigate. The dream grows stronger and with each instance it changes. The Bride called me the Bear of Adhe, and in my dreams it was a bear that saved the snake. I fear I am expected to do more than a man can, yet I fear even more to stray from the path.” He paused as if fearing to say the next thing, but saying it nonetheless. “I have faith that Adun will lead me to where I need to be, but what if the dream is not about I?”

  Radhe looked at his son and laughed. It was a bitter laugh with nothing that could be called mirth within it. “I have lost all my sons to war,” he said, “and all have bled for our people. It has been the dream of your forbears to unite our people as one and to bring peace to this war torn place. You have always had a...way about you I did not understand. Your mother did, and that is why you went out and learned while your brothers died in the grass beside The Road. If it is not you...” Radhe shrugged and showed Fadhe his palms as if to say, what does it matter to a dead man. Fadhe looked at his father and said, “Do you believe we can do it?”

  “Go,” Radhe said, not answering the question, “your warriors need you at the wall.”

  Fadhe rose, bowed to his father, and went.

  Days passed and in a frenzy of work the Thorn Wall was moved to the bottom of a shallow dip along a weaving path that would give the Salgara the most benefit should a charge from the Valgara occur. As they began a low set of fortifications to the bottom of the Wall a storm began to rise. The wind blew hot, the cloud grew dark, and the warriors of the Salgara grew uneasy. Many a warrior, each man scarred from years of battle, could be sign making signs to ward of Geghti. Already word from Toninskral had arrived sharing the news of the Bride's fall there, about her madness and crazed prophesies. Among other, less informed circles it was said that Sarai and Fadhe had faced off in a battle of wills, the Bride casting dark magic at Fadhe in vain before the warrior cut her down, muttering a benediction from Adun at the last. Stahl tried to silence those rumors but it was in vain. The people of the Salgara had claimed Fadhe as their hero and they would not be swayed.

  Soon the wind grew into a gale that screamed with the voices of tortured spirits. Every few hours hot rain would fall making the labor that much more difficult while the screams drove fear into the spirits of all who heard. For days the clouds lingered, the rain fell and the wind screamed. Still, through the constant encouragement of Fadhe and his own labor matching their own, the warriors worked at their task. On the eighth day purple, green and bright red lightning flashed through the sky. Thunder rumbled so loud that the earth seemed to shake, and the people of the Salgara began to fear. Though the two Brides of Adun that remained tried to remind the people that Adun was with them many began to speak of heading back south. More rumors began to fill the night and people awoke from sleep with nightmares on their mind and terror in their hearts.

  On the tenth day, as most of the warriors had moved to lay the last eighty feet of the easternmost edge of the wall, the attack came. The wind rose to a constant roar for the first half of the day and the hot rain drove down even harder against the warriors as they labored. It was just after Fadhe had ordered for the western portions of the wall to be stripped of all except a skeleton force that it happened. Thunder crashed and Fadhe felt something he had never before experienced. He turned and looked towards the top of the hill on the northern side of the wall. Through the near blinding rain, the shadows formed an army at it the hills crest. Heat rose through Fadhe's body as he saw the numbers continue to grow. The shadows began to run down the hill, and though Fadhe knew the enemy was shouting their battle cries, over the thunder and wind they could not be heard. He shouted a warning as lightning crashed behind the charging force, blinding anyone that would be looking that direction. No one heard his cry as with backs bent, heads down and bodies working the warriors of the Salgara continued their labor. Fadhe cried out again; the wind rose to cover it. He turned to seek someone or something that could help him alert his people. Within moments the warriors from the north would swarm the hole in the wall and there would be no way to turn them aside. He shouted; again came the wind to torment him.

  Then, on the ground but a few feet away, Fadhe saw a curved horn. It was made of what appeared to be bone carved in eccentric designs and Fadhe couldn't help but think it looked to be brighter than the area around it. Fadhe felt heat rise up in him once again and he reached for the horn in response. He took up the horn and placing it against his mouth, loosed a mighty blast. Thunder began to sound, but as the tone of the horn grew stronger and stronger the thunder seemed to fade. Finally it was as if a great barrier was torn open and the sound of Fadhe's horn carried over the laboring warriors. “To the north!” Fadhe screamed, “to the north! Fill the gap!” His voice carried as loud as the horn and the warriors reacted as only season veterans could. Men took up arms and rushed for the gap in the wall while others ran for long spears help in the defense. Fadhe took up his blade and ran to aid in the defense. He reached the line just as the Valgara assault met with the defenders.

  The result was horrible to behold.

  The well-practiced forces of the Salgara, though acting as a whole for perhaps the first time, did not disappoint Fadhe. Spears lowered and were braced, shields were hefted forth and blades and axes fell. The momentum of the attacking Valgara pushed the line back threatening to buckle the defenders holding the gap. Weapons struck out and warriors died on both sides. Screams of pain, shouts of rage and the clash of weapons rang out. The thunder returned. The Salgara held.

  Fadhe worked in the line, his blade reaching out with unerring accuracy. To his left fell a man who pressed his neighbor, to his right fell another trying to get the warrior at a disadvantage. Before him fell a pair of warriors; one stroke each and Fadhe's blade not fall short. It went on like this for a long while until Fadhe felt someone grab his arms and haul him backwards. Other warriors fell into his vacated space, more Valgara trying to press into the fray every instant. When Fadhe was free of the main body of warriors he turned to find a bloody faced Stahl. The man stood like a grim statue before Fadhe, anger on his face and a wound across his scalp. “We fight,” he said simply with a single jab with his thumb at his own chest. “You lead.” Fadhe made to argue but Stahl's hand flashed out, striking him across the cheek. Fadhe looked at Stahl, stunned at his karl's actions. The man made no move of shame, showed no forgiveness. “Your father and the other kral's come,” the big karl said, “but it is you the people see as a hero. Lead them.”

  “Warriors are dying!” shouted Fadhe

  “And that is the best thing they can do for us right now!” returned Stahl. “Some men die for their people. Others lead them!” Without another word the big man returned to the fray, his shape mingling with the others as the screams of the dying continued. Fadhe, not sure what to do next, began to move back up the slope towards a half-finished watch post. He already had half an idea how to better manage the battle, something he had never before attempted, when another strange feeling struck him. Instead of the heat that seemed to energize and invigorate him it was as if he had suddenly been dipped in an ice cold pool. Fadhe stopped in his tracks and turned back towards the rise on the other side of the wall. Where before there had been the waiting ranks of the Valgara there were now three figures. Two of them appeared to be large men, each of them flanking a third figure that stood between them. It was from that figure that the cold feeling, the despair, came from. How he knew it Fadhe was not sure, but he held no doubts. His destiny had arrived.

  Then, like the floodgates of heaven itself opened, the rain fell in a cold deluge louder than any thunder ever before heard in the valley of Etkaldra. The figures on the rise became masked from the fall but Fadhe could feel them there, watching. Then, on the heels of the rain that had already begun to turn the tide against the Salgara, came a wave of such physical despair that it rocked Fadhe to his core. It was as if all the joy had been sucked out of the worl
d and he was left with a void in his heart that threatened only to spread until he died from the pain of it. Then the screams began. The raised voices of his assembled warriors as they fell back from the onslaught of the Valgara chilled Fadhe. Weapons were cast aside, shields dropped and men wept openly in terror. The line shuddered; the line broke.

  The warriors, men of such bravery that had fought the nomads of the south, the creatures of the wild, and even the men of the Valgara for countless generations wailed like children as pure horror took over their hearts. As they fled the Valgara, screaming out of madness, ran after them like frenzied beasts, cutting them down in a hail of blades and clubs. “Hold them!” Fadhe screamed, somehow mustering up the fortitude to run towards the gap. He grasped at the horn that had called the men to battle for him and loosed a blast. He shouted, waving his sword as he ran at the gap, and blew the horn a second time. Few of the warriors responded, but those that did immediately turned and fell upon their attackers. Fadhe knew it wouldn't be enough. Men ran by him as he drew near the wall and, almost of its own accord, his sword seemed to leap about, drawing Valgara blood with each pass of the blade.

  Fadhe heard himself screaming, felt his blade biting flesh and saw the men falling around him. He spun and cut a man down across his knees, reversed with an upward swipe and clove a man from sternum to chin, stepped to the side and ran his blade through the gut of another, pulled back, and began again. “Forward!” he shouted, “make them bleed!” He knew not if any heard his order, his plea. Four men, frenzied and covered with blood, came at Fadhe with foam dripping from their mouths. Fadhe managed to parry the first three strikes, dodged the next and step away with little flair, but he was still breathing. He reached out with his blade and one of the men fell with a gurgling cry, blood seeping from his hands as he grasped at his throat. The three left came forward and Fadhe tried to defend, but could not hold. Then, from behind, there came a shout. Fadhe fell back from his opponents, turned, and gave a shout of joy. Two dozen warriors atop jar-Talq beasts came charging to his aid, their spears leading with deadly steel. Their wedge drove into the surge of Valgara warriors and for a moment everything stabilized. There was no motion one way or the other, just the continuous fighting within the middle. Behind the jar-Talq came another small group of warriors, a few from each of the towns, led by Stahl. The men were bloody, wounded, and tired, but they fought with a grim determination that raised Fadhe's hopes. If men such as these are what my people are made of, thought Fadhe, there is no limit to what we can do! Stahl approached his master and the two men embraced. Then, turning around to face the Valgara, Fadhe gave a shout, and his own warriors charged once more.

  The rain refused to ease and the warriors, both Salgara and Valgara, found themselves fighting for purchase in the muddy runoff that was accumulating in the midst of their valley between hills. All the warriors knew that to fall was to die. Mud claimed lives as warriors fell and were slain by blade, or by the tramping of feet. Still, more and more warriors of the Salgara came from other areas of the wall, and their numbers were beginning to win the day. The Valgara were dying off and slowly the battle was back to the gap in the wall. A few minutes later, they were fifty feet beyond it. Fadhe had given in to the blood-lust that had invaded his mind and the battle seemed to fly by. Sometime during the fight several siege machines, hauled by massive Singra beasts, began to launch projectiles beyond the Thorn Wall. Valgara died by the dozens as barrels of pitch and oil exploded, as stones fell to crush them, or as bolts by the hundred burst from explosive packages from the sky. The battle quickly became a slaughter.

  A horn sounded from atop the northern rise and the Valgara immediately turned tail. The Salgara cheered at the sight of their foes flight, and only by the order of Fadhe himself did they not pursue them to a man. Fadhe himself want to give chase, but something was wrong. He felt it again, the approach of madness and despair. He felt a drum beat in his veins, so low in tone that it was unheard. Then he remembered the figure on the hill. Something had almost made his men retreat in sheer terror, and looking around, Fadhe noticed that others were beginning to remember the same thing. “There is something wrong,” came a voice behind him and Fadhe turned to find Stahl scowling through the rain to the north. Fadhe nodded. “Something bad,” Fadhe agreed. “I can feel it.”

  A sound like the screaming of thousands of slaughtered Singra filled the air. Fadhe flinched as if he had been struck from the sound of it, and the cheering of his men died weakly. On the heels of the strange sound another of the feelings of terror, this one twice as horrible, struck the warriors. Men fell to their knees or fell unconscious outright from the horror of it. Fadhe went to one knee. He heard Stahl grunt behind him and the sound of a falling blade. The cold rain did not relent and seemed only to heighten the experience. The siege engines, which had still been firing their payloads, went silent. Fadhe felt himself tremble. A sudden surety rose up in him and he turned towards his siege engines and shouted, “Flee!” he cried, “Away from the machines!” He shouted and shouted and before his voice even died on the wind the reason why he called out for his warriors became clear. There was a strange hissing sound and then a lance of fire, as green as the palest emerald, fell among the engines. It moved like a ribbon from machine to machine, and green flames erupted wherever it touched. Man and machine alike were consumed by the light, and even the rain itself hissed and turned to steam in the air around it. Then, in almost the same instant it struck, it vanished. The screaming sound came again, then all was silent.

  Then, as the falling rain and the screams of the injured once again registered in his ears, Fadhe turned away from his dying men. His hair hanging wet on his back, his leathers feeling heavy on his body, Fadhe weakly retrieved his blade. Looking at his men, some of them trying to gain their feet once more, he knew they could not win this battle. Not like it was going. He grabbed at the horn he had stowed at his belt and gave a mighty trumpet. More and more men gained their feet. He gave another blast from the horn, turned to face his men, and raised his sword. One man looked at him and shook his head no, terror on his face. “They have a god on their side!” the man nearly screamed. Fadhe smiled grimly and looked beyond the scared man.

  “If we must die today, whether we are fighting men or gods, then I say we die fighting! We will make them pay for each of us that have fallen, and before I die I will know what color a god bleeds!” Fadhe shouted; his men took up the cry. Then, as one, they charged.

  A horn sounded from the hill. The Salgara charged through the gap and began their run up the slope. From above came the charge of those Valgara that still lived. Behind them came another enemy. Lurching creatures, part man and part something else, came on with a roar. For the Salgara there was no other option. All their warriors were at the Wall, charging up the hill, or already dead. So, they shouted their battle cries and met their enemies with steel.

  At least, most of them did.

  Fadhe charged with his warriors, their skills heightened by a bloodthirsty rage, and all around him there was battle. But wherever Fadhe went, the enemy moved. He saw Stahl kill two foes with a single pass of his long blade, but as Fadhe went to his aid he disappeared behind a wall of enemies. Fadhe stabbed one man in the back, took another man’s head from his shoulders, and moved to kill more, but when they saw who they faced they instead fled. Another died by Fadhe's hand but it was a hollow victory; the man gave no resistance as Fadhe struck him down. Then, as more of the enemy came to face the much smaller force of the Salgara charged it grew even odder for Fadhe. None would face him. Things seemed to slow around him as he watched his warriors battle, their movements slow and clumsy as if they were fighting through air as thick as pine sap. His foes moved sluggishly as well and sound became muted as if he heard it through fog or from a distance. Fadhe quickly found himself in an area of calm in the battle raging around him. The enemy seemed to part, a man falling here, another charging away there, all by chance and yet by design, and Fadhe's heart quickened in his
chest.

  Two men carrying wickedly curved axes upon black hafts walked forward before a third person, the malevolent being Fadhe had previously spied upon the hill. The men were faceless and hairless, covered in armor that looked like stitched hides, but they marched with such strength of intent that it frightened Fadhe to his core. But if the men were monstrosities of terror, their master was horribly beautiful to the point of pure, unadulterated pain. Her face was like the finest sculpted marble statue, perfect from the sweeping of her almond shaped eyes to the fullness of her blood red lips. Eyes the color of slate made her pale skin seem to glow all the more while her long neck accentuated the feeling of lazy grace about her movement. Her hair writhed of its own accord while she moved her hands and fingers as she walked in strange, almost dance-like motions. She was garbed as a warrior, but her body was thin, lithe and grace as a dancer’s. Whatever she was froze Fadhe's heart between beats. She licked her lips as she approached the warrior and Fadhe had to suppress a chill of sudden disgust.

  Fadhe hefted his weapon and readied himself for a fight. “Go back to whatever hell you came from, child of Geghti,” the warrior threatened, “or you will find nothing but death at the end of my blade.”

  The woman laughed and it was an alien sound if ever Fadhe heard one. Her voice was one made of many, each the sound of women crying in pain and torment. “Child of Geghti?” she questioned him, sour amusement in her tone. “No, Geghti was merely...a snack” she laughed, and as she licked her lips again Fadhe was given a view of sharply pointed teeth, each one blackened and vile. “No, child of Adun,” she said the name with disgust, “that creature was merely a shade of the gods that truly exist.”