Below in the valley, the Timandrians halted. They stared up at the pack. Their skin was the same golden color Okado remembered. Tattoos coiled across the men’s bare chests and arms. Beads and bones filled their beards. Women marched among them, as fierce as their men, shouting like feral beasts, their red hair wild as flame. The true beasts among them, the striped creatures, roared and grunted and clawed the earth. The animals’ whiskered, striped faces appeared on the host’s banners, a thousand streams in the sky.
The Timandrian archers tugged back their bowstrings.
“Chanku!” Okado shouted and waved his sword. “Fire your arrows!”
Bowstrings twanged below. Arrows flew from the Timandrian host, gleaming in the torchlight. Okado crushed his instinct to cower. He sheathed his sword, nocked an arrow, and fired into the sky. Around him, with ten thousand battle cries, his fellow Elorian riders fired their own arrows. The whistling projectiles filled the air.
The enemy arrows rained down.
Okado raised his shield.
Arrowheads slammed into the steel, denting it. One arrowhead pierced the shield, its tip halting only an inch from Okado’s face. Around him, arrows slammed into his fellow riders, clattering against shields and armor. Some punched into wolf flesh, only enraging the beasts.
“Chanku Pack!” Okado cried. “Ride! Ride for Eloria. We are the night!”
He spurred his wolf. Refir burst into a run, racing downhill toward the enemy. Around him, his pack followed, their cries a thunder. In the valley, the soldiers of sunlight fired more arrows. The shards flew through the air and slammed into wolves. One wolf at Okado’s side took an arrow to the throat, stumbled, and spilled its rider onto the hillside. Two more wolves crashed down an instant later.
“Ride, warriors of the pack!” Okado shouted, standing in his stirrups, his sword pointing skyward. “Ride for darkness and fear no light. Ride for the night!”
The wolves raced downhill, the wind in their fur. The demons fired their arrows. More riders crashed down, and Okado rode on. At his side, his mate rode with bared teeth, leaning forward in the saddle, her katana raised. The torchlight blazed below, falling upon them like a shower of red blood.
With screams, lashing claws, and clashing steel, the Chanku Pack slammed into the enemy.
Spears, fire, and fangs filled the night.
Okado fought atop his wolf, swinging his sword, spraying blood. Spears thrust his way, and he knocked them aside with his shield. Two Timandrians tried to climb onto his wolf, their faces painted green, their eyes wild and their beards chinking with beads; Okado’s sword slammed into their flesh, sending them tumbling. Beneath him, his wolf fought in a frenzy, biting men, tearing flesh from bone, lashing his claws at all who approached.
“Tigers!” the enemy cried. “Tigers!”
With roars, countless of the striped beasts ran forward, freed from their leashes. Each stood as large as a nightwolf, and their fur blazed in the torchlight. The tigers—that was the name their masters called them—fell upon the wolves with biting fangs and swiping claws. Blood soaked fur. Wolves and tigers fell alike.
Clouds of dust and blood hid the sky. Torches burned everywhere. The battle became like the dusk, a land between day and night, a place of darkness, light, and death. A tiger leaped at Okado and dug its fangs into his wolf. Okado swung down his sword, tearing the beast off, only for a Timandrian spear to fly his way and slice his arm.
“Suntai, stay near me!” he shouted.
His mate grinned at him, fighting atop her wolf. Blood splashed her face, and scratches ran along her arms. She swung her sword, slew a man who came between them, and laughed.
“Always, my mate! Always we will spill blood together.”
The battle seemed to rage endlessly. Corpses fell everywhere. Severed limbs lay strewn among shattered spears and cloven helmets. Wounds dripped across Refir, and blood poured from many cuts across Okado. A spear knocked off scales from his armor. An axe shattered his shield. And still he fought, blade lashing, cutting into the enemy’s flesh, sending their blood across the land, crushing their corpses.
He was shouting hoarsely, blood in his mouth, when the Timandrians turned to flee.
Okado brandished his sword. Beneath him his wolf howled, blood on his teeth. The demons were running back toward the west, leaving their dead behind, clutching their wounds. Ten thousand had marched against them; barely three thousand remained to flee.
The wolfriders cheered around Okado.
“Ride them down!” shouted one.
“Slay the cowards!” cried another.
Okado wheeled his wolf around toward them.
“No!” he said. “Let the cravens flee in shame. Let them return to their land of sunlight. Let them tell their friends: The night is defended.”
He panted and spat out blood. His chest heaved and his wounds blazed. Pride began to rise within him—he had led his pack to victory!—but when he gazed upon his forces, that fire died.
They had defeated the enemy, but thousands of their own dead covered the valley.
Elorian riders lay slashed with spears, eyes open, hands still clutching their swords. Dead nightwolves lay among them, mounds of bloody fur; some were burning. Their eyes all seemed to stare at Okado—his fallen warriors, the riders and wolves he had led to death and glory.
He lowered his head.
“Farewell, wolves of the pack,” he said. “Your souls now hunt in the great plains beyond the stars.”
Suntai’s wolf mewled, nuzzling her fallen comrades. Upon the beast’s back, Suntai looked around with haunted eyes.
“So many are lost,” she whispered.
Okado grunted. Thousands from his pack lay dead around him, and his eyes burned, and his throat constricted. He clenched his fists. His sword trembled in his grasp.
The pack fears no death, he told himself. The pack feels no grief. We are warriors! I am Alpha. I led the Chanku to glory. I …
The dead sprawled around him. The blood painted the world. Okado bit his lip so hard he tasted blood. He struggled not to gag, not to weep, and instead let out a roar, a hoarse cry of mourning that tore across the land.
“Chanku Pack! Hear me! I promised you a city of lights. I promised you a homeland. That you will still have.” He gestured his sword around at the dead. “The tyrants of Pahmey, usurpers and sorcerers, summoned demons of fire and sunlight, but we slew them. Many of our mighty warriors fell upon the stone. Their souls shine with us. They will not have died in vain. We will bury them. We will sing for their souls. We will tell them: You died so we can live. And we will not turn back.” He pointed his bloody sword northward. “We will rise and take Pahmey!”
Their eyes gleamed, they raised their swords, and they shouted his name.
They sang as they buried their dead.
Their nightwolves howled at the moon.
Their flesh wounded but their eyes bright, they rode on through the dark.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
ON THE WALLS
Koyee stood upon the walls of Pahmey, clutching her sword, and watched thousands of sunlit demons sail toward her city.
“I will fight well, Father,” she whispered, the scent of fire in her nostrils. “I will defend you, Eloria. We are the night.”
The Timandrians covered the Inaro River. A hundred of their warships, each one large as a temple, had smashed the Elorian fleet. Now hundreds of rowboats detached from the larger ships like baby spiders climbing off their mothers’ backs. As Koyee stood upon the walls, she watched the landing craft sail through burning flotsam toward her home.
“Pahmey is now my home,” she whispered as the wind blew her hair. “I will kill for you, towers of my city. I will die for you if I must.”
Her heart thudded. Sweat covered her palms. She was afraid, but she would not run. She stood among soldiers, clad only in her silken dress, but she had a sword and she could fight.
“Here, take this,” said the soldier beside her, the one who had fir
st tried to send her down the wall. He handed her a bow, its metal arch shaped as a dragon, and a quiver of arrows. “These will serve you better here than your sword.”
She took the weapon. “What’s your name, friend?”
“Ashay,” he said and bowed his head.
“I am Koyee.” She met his gaze and placed a hand on his shoulder. “May we fight well, Ashay. May the constellations bless us.”
He reached into his quiver and drew an arrow. Silken fletching rose upon its metal shaft. His bowstring creaked as he pulled it back.
Koyee had shot bows before, hunting upon the plains. This weapon felt familiar and comforting in her hands. She nocked an arrow. She stared down at the encroaching landing craft and the thousands of Timandrians they ferried.
“Aim for their faces, Ashay,” she said softly. “Their breastplates look thick.”
He snorted a laugh. “If you can aim for faces rather than breastplates, you’re a better archer than I am. I’m simply going to fire downward and hope I hit something.”
She glanced at him and though he wore a visor, she could swear he was grinning. She gave him a wry smile. “That works too.”
The first landing craft navigated around flotsam, a sinking junk, and discarded fishing nets to reach the docks. They moored and their soldiers emerged, shouting battle cries. Clad in steel, the demons ran across the docks toward the city gates. Their banners flew high, black and gold, sporting dark birds and yellow sunbursts. Like waves toward a boulder, they rushed toward the gates.
“For Eloria!” cried an Elorian commander upon a turret, waving the moonstar banner of Qaelin. “We are the night!”
“We are the night!” Koyee repeated the cry, and a thousand voices rose with hers.
All across the walls, the soldiers of Pahmey loosed their arrows.
The shards whistled through the night. Arrows slammed into Timandrians below. Dozens of men shouted and fell. Most kept charging, arrows thrusting out of their shields.
“Elorians, fire!” shouted their commander.
Koyee tugged her bowstring back. She closed one eye. She aimed at a charging Timandrian below, a lanky demon in pale steel, the black bird upon his breastplate. Thousands of arrows flew and slammed into the enemy below, most falling harmlessly into the water or embedding into shields.
For my father, Koyee thought and fired.
Her arrow shot down and slammed into her target’s neck.
The man fell dead upon the docks. His comrades raced over his corpse toward the city walls.
As Elorian arrows rained, picking out enemies, the first Timandrians crossed the boardwalk and reached the city gates. Ten men began slamming at the gates with hammers, denting the metal. Elorian soldiers stood upon the gatehouse battlements, firing arrows down. From below, Timandrian archers returned fire, their arrows clattering against the crenellations.
Koyee whipped past Ashay and ran along the wall between soldiers. Arrows whistled around her. One nearly added a scar to her face. She raced, bow clutched in her hand, her sword slung across her back, until she stood above the city gates. Elorians stood all around her, firing downward. Arrows rose from below. One slammed into a soldier only three feet away from Koyee, sending him tumbling into the city below.
She replaced the man between two merlons, pointed her bow downward, and fired.
“Aim for the archers!” Koyee shouted.
The Timandrians below, hammering at the gates, held shields above their heads. The Elorian arrows could not break through. But farther back, closer to the docks, the Timandrian archers stood exposed.
An arrow flew from below and scratched Koyee’s temple. She grunted, nocked her own arrow, and fired. The projectile shot downward, slammed into an enemy archer, and sent him crashing off the docks into the water.
“Make way!” a voice cried behind Koyee. “Make way—oil!”
Koyee turned her head to see Elorian soldiers climbing the wall from the streets below. They carried a cauldron full of bubbling liquid. Below in the street, soldiers were warming a dozen more cauldrons over fires.
Koyee sucked in her breath and stepped aside.
“Men, make room!” she shouted.
She stepped back just as another volley of arrows flew from below. The cauldron reached the battlements, and more arrows flew. Some ricocheted off the cauldron. Another slammed into a soldier’s face, sending him plummeting back down to the street.
Koyee ground her teeth and replaced him, holding onto the cauldron. The dead soldier had worn gloves. Her hands were exposed, and the cauldron seared her flesh. She screamed but shoved, tilting the boiler over the battlements.
The burning oil cascaded down the outer walls, showering onto the Timandrians at the gates.
Steam rolled across the gateway.
The Timandrians screamed.
The oil splashed around their shields and entered their armor. They fell and rolled. Their faces burned.
“Arrows!” Koyee shouted. “Fire arrows while their shields are down!”
She nocked and fired. Around her, a hundred other archers leaned over the battlements and fired too. Their arrows slammed into the enemy below. Some snapped against armor. Other drove through steel into flesh. Blood spilled.
“Make way—oil!” rose more cries behind her.
Koyee’s heart beat madly. She stepped aside and more oil spilled. More Timandrians screamed below and fell, sizzling. More Elorian arrows rained down, tearing into the invaders.
“We will defeat them!” Koyee shouted. “We will drive them back into the light.”
She fired another arrow, slaying another man, and grinned savagely. For so many moons she had lived as a thief, as a busker, and as a yezyana. Here upon the walls, in the heat of battle, she was a huntress again. She was proud and strong and she felt more alive than she had for moons in the dusty streets.
Yet for every man she slew, a hundred more emerged from the landing craft and raced ashore. The small rowboats kept coming, covering the docks like leeches. More of the sunlit demons kept charging ashore. From several boats, men lifted contraptions of metal, each the size of a carriage. They looked like great bows, ten feet long and wheeled.
As the Timandrians began wheeling these contraptions forward, Koyee’s heart sank. She had read of such weapons in ancient scrolls.
“Ballistae,” she whispered, a chill running through her.
Upon the docks, the Timandrians placed great arrows into the ballistae, each one larger than a man and forged of black iron. They began to turn winches, cranking back ropes.
“Slay them!” Koyee shouted. “Aim at the ballistae! Shoot the men dead!”
She fired an arrow. It flew over the Timandrians at the gates, sailed toward the docks, and slammed into one man at a winch. He fell dead, but another replaced him. Five ballistae creaked, turning toward the city.
“Fire!” Koyee shouted and shot another arrow, but it was too late.
The ballistae were loaded. They fired.
Great shards of iron, six feet long, blasted toward the city.
The walls shook.
One projectile slammed into a merlon only feet away from Koyee. The stone shattered, bricks flew, and the wall cracked. The missile kept sailing, a shard of jagged iron, to crash into a building a hundred yards behind the walls. The building collapsed. Four more projectiles slammed into the walls, punching holes into the stone. Bricks tumbled. Koyee clutched the battlements, nearly falling.
When she righted herself and the dust settled, she saw the Timandrians loading more projectiles into the ballistae.
Koyee froze.
“They will tear the walls apart,” she whispered.
The smell of gunpowder rose behind her. She turned to see a dozen Elorian soldiers racing upward, holding bronze cannons, each one five feet long and crackling.
Koyee stepped aside.
The Elorians leaped onto the battlements, aimed the cannons, and iron balls blasted downward with smoke and flame.
Timandrians fell, torn apart.
Koyee cried wordlessly, a cry of battle and fear and mourning, and she fired her arrows. Fire blazed, blood washed the walls, and thousands fell dead.
For moons I fought on the streets of Pahmey, she thought, but this is the fight of my life. This is the fight for the night.
She fired another arrow, breathing heavily through clenched teeth, and slew another man. From below, soldiers kept climbing up with new arrows, replenishing the quivers. Koyee kept shooting, picking out target by target. She had her bowstring pulled back when she saw him below.
Her breath died.
She felt her face pale.
They stood hundreds of yards apart—she upon the wall, he emerging from a landing craft on the docks. And yet she knew it was him. He raised his eyes and met her gaze across the battle, and Koyee’s heart froze.
“The Timandrian from the dusk,” she whispered. “The demon that returned my father’s bones.”
He wore no helmet; perhaps it had fallen off in the battle. Even from this distance, she could see his mismatched eyes, one bright and one dark. She had never forgotten that face; it was seared into her memory.
“You killed my father,” she said and aimed her bow. “You will now die at the walls of my city.”
She loosed her arrow. It sailed through the night. The Timandrian below knelt and raised his shield, and her arrow sank into the wood.
A ballista’s projectile flew and slammed into the wall beside Koyee. She grimaced. Bricks and dust flew. She scurried aside as a merlon collapsed. By the time she peered over the battlements again, a new arrow nocked, he was gone.
Koyee gritted her teeth.
“We will see him again, Eelani,” she swore and spat out dust. “We will slay him. I swear to you. I swear.”
She had no hourglass, but she must have fought for a whole turn, maybe two. The Timandrians never seemed to end. They kept crashing against the walls and gates, hammering, chipping at stone and metal. Their ballistae tore at the walls. Their arrows forever flew at the battlements.
Gods & Dragons: 8 Fantasy Novels Page 27
