“You…” he stammered. “You did this. I always knew taking you in was a mistake. I warned His Majesty not to listen to Tevek, to send you away—”
His words choked off as his entire body abruptly went rigid, and the field of protective energy surrounding him dissipated an instant later.
“You don’t get to speak his name,” Krystia said, her voice a chilling whisper. She opened her palm, and the High Priest collapsed to the floor next to the guards, clutching at his head. His mouth gaped open in a soundless scream.
Moments later, the great throne at the center of the room pivoted towards the door. Sitting atop it, hunched and withered, was an ancient man who barely seemed strong enough to breathe. His eyes had gone white from atrophy, but Ethan knew that even with Tyrius Areekan’s mind splintered all across the nation, he was now perfectly aware of those standing before him.
“Krystia, my child,” he rasped.
“I was never your child,” she told him, striding forward. “I was never your servant, either. I am the voice of those you damned to a life of imprisonment—the cry of those who have died from your cowardice. The Alliance needs a strong ruler who will stand up to our enemies and bring hope to our allies.”
Krystia moved within a few feet of him, electricity arcing dangerously between her outstretched hands. “They need me.”
The lightning leapt from her fingertips and struck the old man. An explosion of light filled the corridor, and Areekan’s screams echoed across all of Torsia.
***
Darius Iouna squinted out the window of the Garos Command Tower, his lip furled in annoyance. Behind him, a dozen priests coordinated their forces on the ground while one of their brethren projected a tactical map on the circular wooden table at the center of the room. He updated the map as he received telepathic reports from the priests deployed on the battlefield.
“The warding barrier is still holding, sir,” Selwin informed him. “We estimate enemy casualties at near ten percent, and our troops report the last of their manticore wings has now taken flight.”
“Relieve wings four and five,” Darius ordered calmly. “Also, order Captain Vertien to be more aggressive with his archers on the southwestern wall—we’re not trying to conserve arrows here.”
Beside him, one of his lieutenants stirred. “If I may say so, sir, you look…troubled.”
“The Crell are throwing away gifted troops in a futile battle,” he told her. “This makes no sense.”
“Perhaps their bloodlust finally got the better of them.”
Darius sighed. The others didn’t understand. They were so focused upon an easy victory that they couldn’t see the bigger picture. Still, he couldn’t exactly blame them. The army had been looking forward to this war for years, and now that it was finally upon them…
Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a number of massive black blots taking shape on the horizon. Apparently the Crell had finally decided to deploy their dragons.
“The Crell dragons are advancing, sir!” Selwin warned.
“I do have eyes, you know,” Darius muttered, glancing down to the translucent battle grid. “Have wings eight and eleven break off and engage the southernmost dragon flight. Make certain standby wings eighteen and twenty-one are ready to ascend on my mark.”
He received acknowledgements from all around and watched the grid expectantly. Given how outnumbered they were, the Crell riders were putting up a valiant fight. Their discipline was making the biggest difference; many of the Alliance riders were inexperienced or overly eager, and it was costing them crucial opportunities. By contrast, the Crell manticore divisions held their lines and formations like seasoned veterans—one of the boons of constantly warring against your neighbors. On top of that, their commander was bold and unpredictable. It irritated Darius to no end that their intelligence on current Crell military leadership was so poor. He would have paid a king’s ransom to know who was actually coordinating this battle…
“Several of the remaining Crell wings are breaking formation and setting up attack runs on the fortress, sir,” Selwin reported, clearly baffled. “They seem to be abandoning their ground forces altogether.”
Darius frowned at the tactical map, then glanced out the window and watched the wings of manticore riders break free from their engagements and veer directly for the Garos battlements. In about thirty seconds, the Crell ground troops would be completely exposed; a concentrated attack of griffons could shatter their Aetheric barriers, and after that they would be completely defenseless to an aerial attack.
“What are you orders, sir?” Selwin prompted.
“It’s a trap,” Darius reasoned. “They have to know they won’t get through our barrier in just one pass.”
“Sir?”
He sighed. “Attack their ground forces. Keep wings eight and eleven on the dragons, but all other wings should begin aerial bombardment. The cavalry and siege engines are top priority.”
There were plenty of times in battle, he knew, when a commander’s worst enemy was his own mind. He could over analyze a situation or second guess his decisions, and both could ultimately lead to bitter defeats. If the Crell had something so miraculous up their sleeves that they could turn around this hopeless battle, then no amount of preparation or contingency on his part was going to save them. This was a huge opportunity to end the siege before it really began, and he would be a fool not to take it.
He turned his gaze to the skyline and watched. As his forces drifted farther away, the red-scaled Crell manticores dove towards Garos in perfect formation. The battlements let loose a barrage of arrows before the priests brought up the shimmering protective barrier once more. Lights flashed from the hands of the encroaching riders as they summoned forth volleys of energy—
And then the men and women standing behind him abruptly shrieked in pain. The tactical map vanished, and Darius whirled about to see Selwin and half his other aides—all Bound—clutch desperately at their heads and drop to their knees.
“What the hell is going…?”
Darius trailed off as someone else screamed and pointed out the window. He spun back around—
And suddenly the tower detonated around him. A thunderous cacophony of screams and explosions assaulted his ears, and before he even knew what was happening, the force of the blast hurled him across the room. He felt a jagged shard of metal stab through the back of his breastplate, and his shoulder dislocated on impact with the wall. He tried to scream, but his lungs were filled with blood. A cloud of dust and fire filled the room, and the only forms he could make out were those of the Crell dragons veering away from what remained of the Garos Command Tower.
Darius fell into blackness as the rubble collapsed around him.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“The gains of violence are temporary. The echoes of destruction are permanent.”
—Excerpt from Wisdom of Anvira
Jason hacked and coughed as he braced himself against the rubble and tried to stand. He had miraculously avoided getting crushed by the huge chunks of stone from obliterated battlements above him, but the explosion had still knocked him from his feet. With the fortress’s protective barrier shattered, the Crell attack had completely decimated their position. Just minutes ago, this battle had seemed like an easy victory; now it had abruptly transformed into a struggle for survival.
A firm grip clasped his arm as Sarina hoisted him back to his feet. She was covered in dust, but other than a few scratches here and there she seemed fine. Many of the Alliance soldiers near them hadn’t been so lucky. Their unit captain, Vertien, was nowhere to be seen, and most of the archers were now desperately trying to leap off the wall before the Crell manticores swept around for another pass. A few stalwart souls were valiantly firing at the enemy riders as they regrouped a few hundred feet in the distance.
“What the hell happened?” Jason stammered. “How could they have possibly breached the barrier so easily?”
“I don’t know, but th
ey obviously knew it would happen,” Sarina replied, wiping a hand across her face. “They were planning on it.”
Swearing under his breath, Jason leaned over the edge of the wall…and realized the situation might have been even worse than it seemed. Below them, the infantry and cavalry stationed in the courtyard were in full panic. Many of them seemed to have fallen off their mounts, and some were still clutching at their heads as if something were assaulting their minds….
And then he belatedly understood.
“Galivar’s blood,” he rasped. “The Bound—the Crell must have found some way to sever all their bonds at once.”
“Not all their bonds,” Sarina said, pointing down to the far side of the courtyard. Selvhara was there, levitating down atop the wounded and desperately trying to mend the worst of their wounds. Her magic was obviously working just fine…
“Then it wasn’t the Crell,” Jason reasoned, a lump of bile rising in his throat. “Something happened to King Areekan.”
His thoughts abruptly shifted to his vision, to Malacross’s grim prediction that he and his friends would stand alone against the Crell…
“We need to move,” Sarina warned. “Now!”
She grabbed the edge of his jacket and dragged him down the nearest staircase. They leapt over what rubble they could and climbed over the rest, and they had just dropped down onto the second level when another round of explosions rocked the battlements. Jason risked a quick glance upwards, and he spotted the Crell manticore riders diving down towards the front gate. Without Bound griffon riders to oppose them, they could blast Garos into a smoking crater with total impunity…
The main gate buckled in a matter of seconds. Fireballs from the Crell Imperators melted the wooden doors, and bursts of raw Aetheric energy disintegrated the metallic locking mechanisms holding them in place. Soon the Alliance infantry holding position inside were scattering away in terror before a single Crell soldier had even set foot inside the fortress.
“We have to get to the others,” Jason said, dropping to a knee and struggling to catch his breath.
Sarina pursed her lips, and her green eyes scoured the battlefield for inspiration. “We might be able to escape through the east gate before the Crell surround the city.”
“We’re not leaving. We just need to coordinate a defense.”
She blinked. “Jason, the battle is over. Without Bound, the Solarians can’t—”
“They still have us and Elade,” he interrupted. “We just need to quell the panic and rally what forces we can in the courtyard. If we can find Darius, we might still be able to coordinate something.”
Sarina shook her head and pointed off in the distance. “He’s dead. Look.”
Jason followed her eyes to the Command Tower—or rather, what was left of it. The walls had crumbled in on themselves, leaving behind a smoldering pile of rubble. If anyone had survived, they were buried and unreachable without a full-scale recovery effort. The entire Alliance command staff had been in there, shielded behind a second barrier that had also collapsed. The ranking field commanders would have to take charge of the fighting, but without the Bound, there was no way to effectively manage this many troops. Panic spread faster than flames, the old saying went, and the Solarian lines were already broken. At this point they wouldn’t even be able to organize an orderly retreat….
Sarina abruptly grabbed his arm and flattened him against the stone as another booming roar rumbled across the sky. Peering up, Jason watched in silent horror as a flight of six dragons soared over the fortress, each dropping massive metal crates from their talons. Some smashed inelegantly into standing structures, bursting apart and scattering angry groll shock troops everywhere. Others crushed hapless soldiers below or skidded recklessly into walls. At least one landed cleanly on level ground, however, and it burst open just fifty feet away from Jason and Sarina.
His first instinct was to run, but of course there was nowhere to go. The battlements above were a death trap, and the courtyard below was flooded with terrified soldiers. The two of them were stuck here…but at least they weren’t completely alone. Off to their direct left, a half dozen terrified Alliance soldiers were scattering away from the crate.
In that instant, another long dormant instinct kicked in, and Jason drew his sword and rushed forward. “Form up! Form up!”
Sarina nocked an arrow and took aim at the crate. The soldiers glanced between her and Jason as he screamed for them to stand ready. Most of them looked like fresh-faced recruits caught in the middle of their first real battle, but one of them was Jason’s age. He snapped out of his shock first, and he grabbed onto his pike and ordered the others to move up and hold the line. The men obviously heard him, but they were still slow to respond…which meant that perhaps they just needed a little help.
Form up, Jason ordered into their minds. Defend your country. Defend your homes!
They weren’t exactly telepathic commands—he had no idea if he was even capable of such a thing—but he did push into their subconscious minds and remind them of their duty here. Telepathic inspiration was one of the primary functions of Bound channelers in any modern army, and without the Alliance priests, boosting morale was now apparently up to him.
Thankfully, the soldiers responded just the way Jason had hoped: their expressions hardened, their minds focused, and they gripped tightly at their pikes as they rushed up to form a defensive line in front of the crate.
Just in time. Six angry groll smashed through the wood, their axes flailing in savage, barely-contained fury. The behemoths might have had the combined intelligence of a Borden sailor, but they boasted the muscle of a dozen Asgardian warriors. Jason’s mind flashed back to the siege at Fort Isen all those years ago. He had been little more than a boy at the time, completely unprepared for the horrors of war. But today was different. Today he was a man.
A man who happened to have an Asgardian huntress standing right next to him.
Sarina fired. Her arrows peppered the lead groll, piercing his throat twice before he managed a single step forward. His companions impatiently shoved his staggering corpse out of the way as they charged forward, axes flailing. Sarina continued to fire, and the Solarians rushed into the fray.
Taking a deep breath, Jason leveled his hand at the groll just as Selvhara had taught him. The creature was a lot bigger than a rock, and he wasn’t too worried about pinpoint accuracy. Lightning crackled in his palm and then flashed between himself and the groll. The creature collapsed forward, a blackened, bloody scorch mark smoldering at the center of its torso. Sarina felled another one at nearly the same instant, burying a pair of arrows in its skull.
Sensing an opportunity, the Solarians struck. Three of them skewered a groll before it could finish a swing, but the second group wasn’t as lucky. Just as they bit into their target’s flesh, the lumbering monster made a sweeping attack with its axes, shredding two of the soldiers and battering the third prone. The groll, standing still with a pair of pikes jutting out from its legs, roared and slashed down at the remaining soldier.
Jason released another bolt of lightning, catching the monster in the shoulder. It rumbled sideways, its axes scraping the stone ground and narrowly missing the hapless soldier. An arrow lodged in its head a second later and finished it off.
The strike had saved the man’s life, but it had also cost Jason precious seconds. The last groll lunged towards him, and he unsheathed his sword in a last-ditch attempt to mount a meager defense. Jason parried the first slash…but he was no match for the groll’s strength. He crumpled beneath the assault and flopped down to a knee, and he fully expected a second axe swipe to splice open his skull. But an arrow pierced through the creature’s arm mid-swing, and Jason felt the whoosh of air rush past his face as the blade missed a killing blow by a quarter inch.
Jason blinked in shock, and he watched in paralyzed terror as the creature righted itself and prepared for another strike. But just as it lifted its axes one last time, Sarina shot it
in the throat. The groll gurgled in surprise and stumbled forward awkwardly…at which point Jason belatedly realized it was about to fall on top of him. Diving hard to his right, he narrowly avoided becoming a permanent indentation in the stone.
Breathing hard, he took a moment to survey the impressive carnage. These groll were dead, but Garos swarmed with countless others…and more were likely on their way.
“We can’t hold this position,” Sarina warned. “What do you want to do?”
Jason turned back to the Solarian soldiers still gathering their wits and trying to ignore the corpses of their two squad mates. “We can reinforce the gate. If we can hold off the Crell advance, we might be able to convince them to fall back and regroup. We still have a sizeable advantage in raw numbers.”
She cocked a skeptical eyebrow. “You realize they can just torch this place from the air at any time, right?”
“Yes, but they can’t actually conquer it that way, I bet gold to platinum they’d rather not have to rebuild this place if they don’t have to. It will take them a while to surround the east gate, if they even want to. They might just want to convince everyone here to retreat.”
“I think they’re going to get that wish pretty soon,” Sarina murmured. “Whatever we’re going to do, we need to find the others.”
“Agreed,” Jason said, standing. “Let’s go.”
***
With a vicious downward slash, Elade severed the groll’s arm at the elbow. The monster screamed as a torrent of dark blood sprayed from the wound, and it whirled about with its remaining axe in a last, desperate attempt to cut down its attacker.
But Elade was already gone. Charging through the courtyard on her horse, she desperately tried to rally the terrified Solarian troops and contain the flood of Crell shock troops. So far, she had only been moderately successful—the groll had mostly been defeated, but the panic they’d caused was doing far more damage. Without the ability to quickly relay orders, the Alliance field commanders weren’t having much luck keeping their troops in formation, let alone coordinating a counterattack. Elade could barely make out particular voices amongst the screams of the wounded, the crumbling of the fortress walls, and the omnipresent ringing of steel on steel.
The Godswar Saga (Omnibus) Page 81
