by Jack Conner
“The art?”
He took the last sip of his liquor. A pleasant burning slid down his throat and warmed his belly. “Oh, yes, the Borchstogs very much consider it an art. Ungier even more so. When he would direct my sessions ... ”
“Is it true you were a slave there for three whole years?”
He ran a hand through her long, dark hair. “Why don’t you make us more drinks?”
She rose obediently and sauntered off, naked and glistening. With a smile, he watched her go. Soon she returned with two more glasses of cinnamon-spiced liquor and sank next to him.
“To freedom,” she said, and they clinked glasses and drank it all down in one swallow. It burned his throat and fired his belly, and a pleasant fuzzy sensation swept his mind.
He pulled her down and kissed her, and she wrapped her legs about him. The fire was hot on his backside, and she was hot to his fore, and the drink was swimming in his head. He felt good. He felt alive. He almost felt—
Someone knocked on his door. He tried to ignore it, but whoever it was would not be denied, and at last Baleron barked for whoever it was to enter.
Logran did, grim and worried. Amrelain let out a little squeak and threw the bear rug about her, hiding her nakedness from the sorcerer.
“What is it?” Baleron demanded. “Have you purified Rondthril?”
“Glorifel is under attack. It’s Ungier. He has an army, and it’s already broken through the border outposts. He’s almost here.”
Chapter 8
Hastily Baleron dressed, kissed Amrelain, and descended to the royal armory to be armed and armored. There the other princes had already gathered and were with some assistance preparing for battle. The princes talked little among themselves, but all were tense. Baleron joined them and soon was properly outfitted.
He left with them to meet their father in the courtyard before the Castle. The king was mustering mounted troops, and he was already wearing his spiked armor and death’s-head helm. Chill wind howled all around. To the south, a tide of dark clouds, flickering with lightning, swept this way.
A troop of knights assembled in King’s Courtyard. Grooms led out horses, and knights donned last pieces of armor or weaponry.
Onnng sounded the endless bells beyond. Onnng. Onnng.
A groom brought out Baleron’s black mount (also armored) and the prince heaved himself into the saddle. Once mounted, he exchanged grim looks with the other princes, who were likewise swinging astride their steeds.
“We’ll show that damned vampire,” said Larik. He sounded especially young, even though he was older than Baleron. “Ungier and his ‘stogs won’t get past our wall!”
“We’ll send him packing, all right,” promised Kenbrig, the oldest after Rilurn.
Rilurn, whose face looked especially tight, said, “Maybe he’s come for Baleron.” To Baleron, he added, “Maybe he missed you.”
Kenbrig chuckled.
Baleron said nothing, only met Rilurn’s gaze unblinking.
“We don’t have time for this,” the king said. “Save your anger for Ungier.”
At the head of the procession, King Grothgar led them all down King’s Road toward the South Gate, and Baleron and his brothers followed behind him. Alarm bells continued to toll ominously throughout the city, and the thunder of horse hooves echoed off the tiled roads. Teams of oxen pulled catapults and ballistae. The air tasted of storm.
As he wound up the street, Baleron saw townspeople scurrying about, seeking shelter or provisions. Men rounded up their families and ushered them into storm cellars, then armed themselves and rushed toward the wall to reinforce the troops.
The royal company reached the southern arc of the wall, where soldiers frantically hurried into position—some on the ramparts and towers of the Wall, some near the gates, some running messages or errands. Captains shouted orders. Sorcerers meditated or drew strength from elvish artifacts. Catapults were wheeled into position. Archers formed lines.
Thunder rolled across the sky, shaking the earth.
“The storm draws near,” Logran noted.
The king ascended a stair and joined his captains on the ramparts of the Wall near the high white arch of the South Gate. Baleron, Logran and the other princes followed. Here the wind was even colder, and Baleron felt a few chill drops of rain beat at his helmet.
The first he saw of the enemy were the glarumri. There seemed to be hundreds, maybe thousands of crow-riding Borchstogs wheeling and spinning through the sky, whole columns of them slipping through flashing tongues of lightning.
“Is the aerial shield in place?” Albrech asked Logran.
Logran patted his breast, where Baleron assumed the Flower of Itherin to be. “It is,” he said. “I only wish it could keep out the ground force, as well.”
Albrech told a nearby captain to pass the word along the wall not to worry about the fliers. “Tell them to concentrate only on the ground force,” Albrech said.
“Yes, sir,” said the captain and hurried off to spread the word.
General Kavradnum approached. He, too, wore thick, stylized armor, but his helm was in the shape of a lion’s head.
“How goes it?” Albrech asked.
“The men are in position. Many are new recruits, their training incomplete. I’ve sent messages off to the other cities, demanding aid, but that will take some time. Days, maybe weeks.”
The enemy host drew nearer and nearer, and Baleron cursed when he saw the great wave of Borchstogs and trolls and gaurocks—the terrible Serpents, given the capital S because they could stretch two hundred feet or more—and vampires and great arachnids and more hastening over the rough, rolling countryside, firing farms as they went. The farmers would have abandoned their homes and fled to the city at the first sign of the army.
“There must be hundreds of thousands,” Baleron whispered.
“This is your phantom army,” General Kavradnum told him with some rancor. “Do you wish to send troops to Larenthi now? Surely we can spare a few.”
Baleron said nothing.
The general scowled at him a moment, then moved on down the wall, directing troops.
The prince had brought along a spyglass, and, taking the opportunity to squint through it, through the rain and darkness he watched the enemy march closer and closer. He panned the faces of hundreds of Borchstogs. They wore jagged, spiked armor and helmets shaped like the heads of wolves and demons and boars and more. He saw actual monsters of a hundred descriptions, but perhaps what chilled him the most were the giant armored arachnids. He’d never seen their like before.
“The Spiders—they’re the igrith,” Logran explained. “The direct brood of Mogra. Malicious and intelligent.”
“Mogra,” Baleron repeated, stunned by the thought. She was no more real to him than a legend, a name out of myth, said to be not only the lover of Gilgaroth but also his mother, if such a thing could be true. “Is she ... here?”
“I doubt it,” Logran said. “She likes to work behind the scenes, like the spider she is. But I have heard reports that she’s on the move, that she has taken an active part in this war. She is a seductress, a shape-changer, great and powerful, more ancient than the world itself.”
He moved on, and Baleron resumed his study of the oncoming army. At last he found the figure at the head of the host, the figure who rode a great black gaurock alone, batwings folded behind him. The light was dim, but Baleron thought he saw Ungier laughing, his scabrous head thrown back, his fanged mouth agape, shoulders shaking.
“I’ll have your head mounted and stuffed and put over my fireplace before I’m through,” Baleron whispered. “See if I don’t.”
Though no longer laughing, Ungier seemed smug as ever. His jagged crown was gone from his head, and his all-black eyes narrowed in disdain as he observed the human city. Thunderheads rolled across the skies and lightning struck the ground like white-hot whips all around.
The vampire’s host didn’t pause. It surged forward relentlessly, in
exorably.
Baleron expected them to stop their march beyond arrow and catapult range, then ring the city and set about laying siege. But instead Ungier led his army on, and on, closer and closer. Baleron found himself holding his breath. He had been pleasantly tired and drunk an hour ago, but now he was as sober and alert as he had ever been in his life, perhaps more so.
“Catapults—fire!” Albrech shouted.
The catapults launched flaming pitch over the Wall and into the ranks of the oncoming army. The payloads struck. Dozens of Borchstogs died instantly in flashes of fire.
The army swept forward steadily, never breaking its relentless pace.
Logran led his sorcerers in summoning Light from elvish artifacts, in directing the flows of energy. White beams shot from the ends of their staffs, or from their palms and eyes, and lanced into the Borchstogs, setting many aflame.
Still the army came.
Ungier led his host within arrow range.
“Arrow—fire!” Albrech ordered.
The archers fired. A hail of arrows arced over the Wall and struck down Borchstogs and others.
“Fire at will!”
The archers fired again and again. The air thrummed with the sounds of raining arrows.
Finally Ungier’s host reached the clearing around the city wall itself. Ungier blew a horn; it looked to Baleron like the blackened horn of a Grudremorqen. At the signal, a dozen gaurocks, each two hundred feet long or more, surged forwards across the clearing. These were well armored; in particular, their heads were sheathed in thick metal with three long, strong iron spikes sprouting forward from the face.
“They’re going to ram the Wall!” Baleron cried.
He grit his teeth; one great serpent was aiming directly for the section of wall upon which he stood. Rain bounced off its onrushing iron spikes.
Logran pointed his staff at the creature, and a lance of light shot out of its end and burned through the gaurock’s helmet and into its head. It shrieked. Smoke rose from its flesh. Still it came.
The beam of light intensified, ate into the monster’s brain, and the serpent stopped its charge, wailing horrifically, writhing about in the throes of death.
Only a few gaurocks succeeded in ramming the wall, and the sorcerers bolstered the Wall so that none got through. But their charge successfully distracted the mages so that they could not assist repelling the first wave of Borchstogs.
Braving a hail of arrows, the demons marched right up to the Wall, and Baleron grimaced; they stank of offal and rotted meat. Their red eyes flashed in pitch-black faces hidden behind terrible masks of ghouls and monsters.
They threw up ladders and one thunked into the Wall right before him. He drew his sword with a grnnng, wishing it were Rondthril.
Borchstogs climbed.
“Fight well, my sons!” shouted Albrech, gripping his own sword tightly. “Make me proud!”
Baleron peered over the side of the ladder that was thrown up before him. A steady stream of armored Borchstogs climbed toward him.
“Be steady!” shouted Albrech, to everyone. “Be strong! Be swift!”
The first Borchstog reached the top.
It wore an eel-head helm, and its red eyes blazed with bloodlust. It opened its mouth in a howl of rage, and lightning reflected off of sharp teeth.
Baleron stabbed it in the face through the eye-slits of its helm. A shock ran up his arm. With a sickening crunch, he jerked his blade free. The demon fell away, off the ladder into the throng below.
The next one came. He stabbed at its neck. Its gorget protected it. The blow went wild. He kicked its chest. It fell away, growling and grasping for his ankle.
More streamed up, and Baleron fought them alongside his brothers and his father. To either side of him, soldiers did battle with the demons upon the wall while a seemingly endless wave of Borchstogs poured over the lip.
The air overhead rippled with reddish color when the field was struck by a glarumri, and the great birds cried out and flew away.
Ungier had his own sorcerers, however. These threw down lightning upon Logran’s shield, which shimmered and rippled under the assault—but held. They caused the very ground to quake, and Baleron lost his footing more than once, but he fought on, though he felt naked without Rondthril. He missed the sword’s bloodlust and its power, and he hoped Logran finished with it soon.
Baleron slashed and stabbed, kicked and cursed. Borchstogs fell away, dead, but more kept coming. And coming.
He booted one now in the chest, nearly impaling his foot on a spike in the process, and it tumbled off the ladder.
He chopped down on another’s helm, and the vibration nearly wrenched the weapon from his fingers. If he’d had Rondthril, the helm would’ve split, but as it was the Borchstog was merely stunned. Baleron kicked it in the face and it fell to the ground ten yards below.
He swung his sword past the next one’s neck guard and half-severed its head. Black blood jetted high. He danced back, as the blood was a poison; it would not kill him, but it would burn him and weaken him, maybe blind him.
The dead Borchstog’s grip on the ladder held firm. The corpse refused to yield its hold. The next Borchstog up had to climb over its body.
This one looked up at Baleron just as lightning flashed, and its red eyes widened. “Ul Ravast!”
Baleron grimaced in distaste. “That’s right,” he told it solemnly. “I’m the Ender. So, devil, meet your end.”
His blade bit into its neck. No gorget protected this one. It gurgled and died.
More came. He lost himself in a frenzy of violence, and for a time he forgot who he was, what he was. His mind burned.
He was dimly aware of soldiers fighting to either side of him. His father the king in his thick, spiked armor and death’s helm also fought, wielding a heavy broadsword. He wasn’t a large man, but he was stout, and he wielded his weapon expertly. Prince Rilurn fought beside him. Archers shot their bolts into Borchstog necromancers below, who conjured spells against the Men. Logran and his sorcerers made the ground quake and split beneath enemy feet and hurled down searing beams of light. Necromancers caused sicknesses and hallucinations among the Men. Catapults from within the wall released flaming loads of pitch that passed (with his will) through Logran’s shield and smote ruin among the onrushing Borchstogs.
Baleron continued to fight. Sweat and blood flew.
Around him, soldiers fell. Human as well as Borchstog corpses began to litter the catwalk.
Soon he saw one stir.
“Mogra’s dugs!” he swore.
The body, a young soldier no more than seventeen years old, picked itself up. It had an arrow through the neck and another through the heart, but it was moving. Its eyes were blank, lifeless, its movements jerky and odd.
It ambled toward Baleron, arms outstretched, ready to tear into him. Another undead thing joined it, a bearded man whose head was cloven in.
Baleron gritted his teeth. Anything but this.
“Find the vampire!” he shouted to a squad of archers nearby. “Kill it!”
He saw that down below, half hidden in the fury of advancing Borchstogs, a daughter of Ungier was grinning, bloated and smug and bat-like. Like all vampires, she could animate the dead.
The archers found her and sent a rain of arrows hurtling down at her. She waved a claw, conjuring a strange wind, and knocked the arrows aside.
The undead soldiers closed in on Baleron, but he was busy repelling Borchstogs and could not spare a moment to deal with them. Their hands clenched and unclenched, eager to tear his flesh from bone.
Another hail of arrows sought out the vampiress, and again she sent them away. But the effort distracted her just enough for the undead things closing in on Baleron to pause, to waver.
A Borchstog leapt up the ladder. Baleron chopped down on its head and it fell. Taking a moment, he kicked the walking dead into the ranks of men on the inside of the wall, and the living soldiers set about securing or dismembering the dead.<
br />
Baleron turned back to the fight. The vampiress had gone.
The battle stretched on, and Baleron tired, his sword now dull. Glarumri wheeled through the skies, frustrated by Logran’s shield. Some flew low, shooting poisoned arrows into the men on the wall. Havensrike archers fired back.
Ungier for his part did not fight openly in the conflict but rather conducted the battle from afar. Baleron could see him now and again, as he often winged over the battle, directing his battalions from the air. Havensril archers fired at him, but he was far away and his power was greater than any other vampire. No shaft struck him.
Enemy catapults hurled flaming loads of pitch at the city and its wall, but Logran’s shield disintegrated them if they passed too high yet allowed the missiles of Havensrike to pass through in the other direction.
But the deadly rain did not concern the Borchstogs and the other darkspawn. Ungier’s army kept rolling up the walls, and the men kept resisting. The great losses the Borchstogs incurred did not give them pause; they did not value life as the men did. They depended on sheer numbers to overwhelm the Havensri, and numbers they had. Wave after wave broke against the walls, and their black blood smoked upon the stone and poisoned more than a few Havensrike soldiers. Baleron once got a spurt of the black stuff in an eye, and it temporarily blinded him, and made him so sick that another soldier had to man his position until he cleansed his eye with a squirt from his water-gourd.
As he retook his position, Baleron saw something that seemed to stop the very turning of the planet.
He saw the Lord of Oslog, Enemy of the Light, Breaker of the World, out from behind the Black Shield of the Aragst.
Gilgaroth had come himself to the war.
Gilgaroth had drawn a veil of darkness about himself, and he could only be seen as a great shadow, his fiery eyes blazing from the darkness. He surged forward, indomitable. It was hard to tell through his shadow, but Baleron thought he’d taken the form of the Great Wolf, that half-mythical shape that Baleron may or may not have seen three long years ago in the Aragst, and had seen once more for certain at the fall of Celievsti.
