by P D Ceanneir
Sometimes historical exaggeration could be close to the truth.
Chapter Twenty Nine
Attrition
A
t midday, the Cybeleion arrived at Cromme Castle. On her journey from Aln-Tiss, fourteen smaller cargo Sky Ships and an escort of four battle-galleys that was the advance Ternquin fleet, had joined her. For the most part of the month the Ternquin’s of Assassi had moored at Hoath Harbour, awaiting word from Havoc at one of the islands of the South Sea Horn called Indral which sat due south of Tattoium-Tarridun. Now, once they received fresh orders to move, they made all speed to the Dragorsloth.
The king and his Paladins warmly welcomed Captain Danyil as they stood in the ruined castle’s courtyard surveying countless maps of the island on a hastily built table of dead birch trees. Down on the battlefield the dead shared the marshland with countless ravens and Powyss had ordered parties to collect the Rogun dead and do a meat-count. The battle had taken its toll on the Raiders and the Fyrds of Falesti even though they were using the relative safety of the ruins; the king had lost fewer men at the Battle of the Fess many years before.
‘So, my liege,’ said the captain as he bowed, ‘what happens now after such a great victory?’
‘Now, my friend,’ smiled Havoc, ‘Without Creed being in the way, now we take the fight to the enemy on his own land.’
They all looked down at the marshland beyond the battlefield where officers and nobles were herding thousands of marching soldiers onto the decks of the small cargo Sky Ships. Even with the men and supplies jammed together in the holds or on deck there was still not enough room for them all. Many would have to travel with the Raiders on the Cybeleion or ride with the cavalry who had headed off hours before, with Lord Rett leading them. To make matters worse, or better, depending on one’s viewpoint, a mass of local militia marched in from the marshland villages, Little Dorit, and from the foothills of the Withers to join the large Rogun army before they departed. These new arrivals were obviously responding to the call-to-arms messages Havoc had sent out before departing for Castle Cromme. Although the king greeted them all warmly, yet he disguised his disappointment. They had not offered aid to their king before the battle, but waited to throw in their lot with the winner; this was something he would not forget.
‘I have given the order to dump any non-essential items into the marsh to reduce weight from every ship, sire,’ said Danyil. ‘I’m hoping they will get off the ground with the extra load they will carry.’
‘Thank you admiral, good thinking,’ said the king.
Danyil started at Havoc in wide-eyed surprise.
‘Admiral?’ he said.
‘Of course. Admiral Danyil of the Temperance League Sky Ship fleet. It has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?’
Danyil’s lips slowly moved into a wide smile. ‘Aye, sire, aye it does that.’
King Kasan had spent ten days in Sonora fighting sheer boredom since his arrival. He had kept himself busy sending messengers and spies to his forces, calling them together and asserting his authority over the city’s officials since the queen was absent, along with the mysterious Lord Sernac, several days ago.
After the seventh day Lord Nethroin arrived with his army and the king quickly took charge of the host. As he left the citadel after two weeks, the city officials breathed a sigh of relief at his departure.
Once his host grew in number, enlarged by the other recalled units, he marched on the town of Aquen. The small Rogun army there put up a strong fight for six long days but without suitable siege engines the king’s task was hopeless. He sent scouts to Caphun in order to find any catapults or trebuchets in one piece, yet the Caphun Rangers had burnt any they deemed serviceable. By the sixth day they had managed to secure the west wall and scale it’s height, they fought through the Rogun contingent there, and take the Merchant Quarter of the town while the Roguns retreated to the baron’s keep.
Intelligence gathering became the key to victory and the reports of his scouts and spies became increasingly disturbing. Four days after besieging the town, he got word of the Rogun Navy landing soldiers up and down the Dutrisi coast. On the fifth day one of his scouts discovered a large portion of his son’s army camped near the Haplann Hills. Creed’s soldiers gave back fragmented reports about the disaster at Castle Cromme and Prince Creed‘s defeat and death at the hands of King Havoc of the Roguns.
King Kasan showed no emotion on hearing the news; Havoc had now been responsible for the death of both his sons. He hid himself away for several days in an abandoned townhouse, there he mused over the situation as it now stood, while his officers concentrated on taking back Aquen, street by street.
In the past Lord Sernac had told him about his visions of victories and the great rise of the Brethac Ziggurat. Was it all just a lie? Why was the war not going the way he had foreseen?
Word reached him two days later of reported sightings of an invasion fleet on the horizon. He and his aides rode to a high vantage point on the Haplann Hills. The dim light of the late evening sun revealed a large fleet of Sky Ships crossing over the red dusk laced clouds.
The Vallkyte king’s worry increased as he realised that they were heading for his beloved kingdom.
‘Leave two thousand of the War Wolves in Aquen and assemble the rest of the host,’ he said to Nethroin. ‘We’re marching home with all haste.’
Havoc felt exhausted after so many sleepless nights and battle. The frigid water from the wide waterfall that Linth had found down by the floodplain helped to revive him and wash off the sweat, grime, and dried blood of the past few days. The wide sheet of melt water had brought others who quickly stripped off their armour and washed the stains of battle away. Several of the Paladins joined their king in the waterfall but hurriedly finished as Tia, naked as the day she was born, walked under the cold cascade without a care in the world and helped to scrub the king clean.
Time was of the essence. When the smaller Sky Ships were finally loaded, they set off. A new strategy had formed in Havoc’s head. At first, he had only sent Uriah, Carbaum, Jericho, and Mad-gellan with their forces to keep the Berthac’s main base contained with siege and cut off their supply line, while Havoc took care of Creed. Now with the defeat of the Vallkyte De Proteous, and his fearsome Unduli, accomplished earlier than planned the king could now move against the Brethac Ziggurat’s stronghold of Dulan-Tiss.
The fleet took a direct route, first they followed the cavalry, commanded by Lord Rett, as they galloped to the long valley that led to the Wyani lands, and then they veered north east to catch the winds that would take them over the Dulan Plain. The new Admiral Danyil sent the battle galleys to bombard Fort Tressel into submission while the Rogun Cavalry forces passed unhindered.
Most of the king’s Paladins, exhausted like their liege lord, spent their time preparing the men for battle, setting out plans, and checking and maintaining equipment. They took little sleep. When Bleudwed heard of this she put her foot down with an angry forcefulness that got their attention and ordered them all to their bunks, but they stubbornly refused; if their king remained awake then so should they.
‘Go and rest now!’ she yelled at them. ‘Let me handle the king.’ And handle the king she did, she found him in the Cybeleion’s map room going over some of the final details of the invasion with Sir Powyss and Admiral Danyil.
‘Right, that’s it, your majesty!’ she said calmly, but with a note of annoyance in her voice. ‘You are ready to drop, you must sleep. What conclusion would this invasion come to if its organiser is unable to function?’
‘In a moment, Mulvend, I have much to do,’ said Havoc, without taking his eyes away from the maps.
‘Now!’ snapped the countess with such force that all of the men, including the king, looked up at her.
‘The countess is right, my boy, you look beat,’ said Powyss, an opinion that the admiral shared.
Havoc reluctantly nodded and took his leave of his friends, who both grinned as he
allowed Bleudwed to take his arm and lead him to his bunkroom.
‘Never knew you could be so forceful,’ he said to her as he lay back on his bed.
‘Only where it concerns you,’ she said softly. ‘Lie back and close your eyes.’ She lay beside him and wrapped her arms around his chest. ‘I don’t think Tia would agree to this,’ she went on, ‘she would tire you in other ways, correct?’
‘Hmm,’ said Havoc, too tired for small talk.
‘Just as I thought, still we must make the most of the time we have together,’ she sighed. The deep breathing from Havoc told her he was already fast asleep.
Some time in the early hours of the morning Havoc was dimly aware of Bleudwed extracting herself from his arms and leaving him to sleep alone. He woke later to the sounds of whispering.
Sleep still gripped him and the inky black depths of blissful oblivion still grappled with his body, but he hovered on the surface of the waters of deep sleep listening to the voices.
One was male the other was clearly female. He cracked open one eye halfway and saw that a dull blue light had filled his bunkroom. He recognised the pale suffused glow as that emanating from the Talisman of Mortkraxnoss. He twisted his head slowly to the right and saw the Nicbetha.
She took the form of her younger self, long full curls of yellowish-white hair framed her beautiful face, a silvery dress flowed around her as if she was floating languidly underwater and she seemed to hover and glide through the air. Her body was translucent and insubstantial; Havoc could clearly see the door of his bunkroom through her shimmering form.
‘You know the futures as well as I do, Reaper,’ she said to someone else in the room. ‘The outcome of this war will be settled by sacrifice.’
With sleep slowly taking him again he struggled to listen, curious to know to whom she was speaking too. Then his lips moved to speak and a harsh whisper issued from his mouth.
‘I understand the consequences,’ said the Blacksword, ‘and the trials that must be faced.’
‘I can end the fight, you know. I have power over the dead, but to give life once it is taken...’ she paused and shook her head, ‘that is not within my power, though I can possess the body of the one Havoc loves when she dies,’ she smiled coyly at the king’s sleeping form. ‘It would not be a chore, he is quite handsome.’
‘Leave her and my brother alone, he will have suffered enough in the end,’ snapped the Blacksword.
The Nicbetha bowed. ‘As you wish.’
Who is it they are talking about, was it Bleudwed? Was she ordained to die? Havoc tried to lift himself from sleep, but his body felt numb, the Blacksword had taken control while he slumbered.
‘And so the ultimate sacrifice shall be the victory in the end?’ she asked.
‘Yes, such a small thing for the Earth Mother’s continuance. The Dark Force of the Earth shall not prevail.’
‘Ah, so you accept your fate as the Old God’s Demigod here on Earth?’
‘If I must! The truth be told, I have known of the knowledge of my existence for some time now. My purpose is obvious!’
Havoc grunted and his eyes flickered.
‘He wakes!’ said the spirit with a gasp. ‘I must go, look for me on the field of the dead.’ Then she disappeared and so too did the blue glow as it returned to the crystal within the talisman.
The warm darkness of deep sleep pulled him down once again. He heard the Blacksword speak to him.
‘Sleep eavesdropper, tomorrow will be a long day.’
Nine days after the Battle at Cromme Castle, another battle was about to start.
A cascade of sunlight sprayed the staccato buildings of the south east sector of the Citadel of Dulan-Tiss. On the eastern peninsula, that hooked out to the east and was affectionately called The Spur, the scattering of buildings was overshadowed by the Val-Larntenium, the Stone Lantern, a two hundred and fifty foot high lighthouse usually referred to as just the Lantern. It was the tallest of the six Watchtowers that ran along the Dulan coast. Light that issued from the dimpled glass of the Lantern was part of a fused crystal structure hundreds of years old with an even older Fire Orrinn at its centre. The myriad of colours it produced shone brightly every night, and had done so for over a thousand years. A large collection of cogwheels, connected to two counterweights, one full of Dutrisi Granite and the other topped up to the marker with dense Brim Oil extracted from the heads of Junker Whales, moved in a clockwise direction around the inside of the Lanterns walls. After twelve hours, the opposite counterweight took over the equilibrium and it then moved anti-clockwise. The twelve hourly rotations of the Lantern’s light were so accurate that citizens of Dulan-Tiss set their clockwork timepieces by it.
A wide circular platform, two thirds of the way up, gave the duty Watchmen an ideal view of the shore and the citadel. A Sub-Sergeant and a young Lance Constable took it in turns to walk around the Lantern’s white walls. Down below them was the Spur Harbour with its many war galleys moored to the gangways and merchant wharfs. Over to the north sat the second and third smaller watchtowers looking over the Tellurium Quarter and the Meat House District. Over to the west the sprawl of the citadel stretched away to the Criab Arena, the market and the plain beyond.
The cool breeze barely rippled the water as it gently lapped against the many rock stacks and coves that filled this coastline. The large expanse of water that was the Mariners Sea sparkled in the evening sunshine. Far off in the distance, however, there hung a dark band of clouds, which rimmed the horizon promising bad weather to come.
It was then that the young guard, as he made another repetitive pass on his platform, happened to glance out to sea. He noticed something moving over the canvas of storm clouds. Dozens of dark shapes glided towards the shore, getting bigger all the time. Only when the sun caught the white flapping sails did he know what he was looking at. He rang the alarm bell, which later brought the grumpy old Sub-Sergeant puffing and panting up the stairwell.
‘What in the name of the My’thos is going?’ he bellowed at his junior.
The nervous boy pointed out towards the east. ‘Sky Ships, Sarge, dozens of them.’
The sergeant grunted, and then pulled out a small watch-issue spyglass, looked into the eyepiece while he muttered to himself and then went silent. As he looked the ships that were ahead of all the rest, veered to port and took a bearing straight for the Lantern. In his spyglass, the detail of the large hulls was clear as they drew closer at tremendous speed. There were pennants flying on the masts that were unfamiliar to him. About ten red balls of light issued from the three closest Sky Ships, they formed a horizontal line of glinting pulsing light that grew bigger as they neared. After a few seconds, the sound of a thunderous clap, several of them in a row, reached his ears.
‘Arcun!’ was all he had time to say as the burning cannonballs ploughed through the walls of the Lantern and smashed the glowing crystal to smithereens.
The dragons came on silent wings.
Jericho’s forward scouts saw them first. They quickly rode back to warn the main host and Mad-gellan ordered every man with horses to ride with all speed to the safety of the Temple Woods.
The Nithi and Alniani army had made good progress on their three-week long march. They had met no resistance as they moved with speed and efficiency through the Gazzen-Sel villages, which were empty of people, mainly due to the land and villages being stripped of warriors to make up the Brethac and Unduli armies.
Mad-gellan knew that this free autonomy within enemy territory would not last and this proved to be the correct assumption when they crossed to the north side of the Tarridun Ridge and proceeded along the foothills until they neared the Temple Woods.
The iridescent blue dragon called Amphorae arrived first as the host gingerly crossed the open ground of the Wyani grasslands to reach the woods. She swooped down over the high mountains behind them, her black shadow skimming over the trees and rocks of the lower slopes. She flapped her wings lazily, adjusting her flight unti
l she was in line with the host and dropped lower so her pale blue underbelly was only fifty feet over the ground. As she drew closer Jericho could see the horn knots and sharp ridgelines of spurs rippling along her long neck as her head swayed from side to side. She was small but nimble in flight, her hard skin sparkled with a rich blue that seemed to emanate from her flesh and dance in the sunlight. A wide frill fanned up at the back of her head and arched upwards as she roared giving her the look of an angry queen. Her rider, clad in a shining cage of silver armour, sat on a grey high-backed saddle and held thick leather reins attached to two horns on her head.
The equally terrible, and just as beautiful, Basilica gracefully came down from the sky pulling up from a dive in the opposite direction from Amphorae, he levelled at the last minute narrowly scraping the grass with his large body. The black dragon had a white hooked nose and mottled underbelly, large white eyes with red irises and a domed skullcap that gave him a permanent frown. Mad-gellan and Jericho both noticed that the dragon also had a rider sitting astride a leather saddle at the base of the neck who wore dull grey armour and carried a spear and shield.
As the dragons approached both commanders shouted orders for their men to form into a single massed circle and cover up with the large dragon shields. They had practised this manoeuvre repeatedly on their march north and the men did so with speed and discipline. Soon a covering of the shed dragon skin linked together so no gaps were apparent, which was just as well, because the flame from the two attackers struck the shields as they passed overhead. The shields burnt red hot on the surface as the flame licked around the dome, but underneath the host felt no heat.
