by Garon Whited
I shelved it. Now is not the time for introspection.
The vanguard, led by an elf I didn’t recognize, signaled a halt. The column clanked to a stop, or mostly; a squad or two kept going, circling around the mountain at a jog. The rear of the column took the opportunity to do some catching up. They were still strung out almost all the way back to the Eastrange, but now they were gathering together. Most of them looked tired; at a guess, they came a long way very quickly. Three days isn’t much time to throw together several thousand troops and march them anywhere. I was impressed at their speed and organization.
The elf in command—or just the unlucky guy who had to do the talking—urged his horse forward at a walk. The rest of the elf commanders closed in on the front of the army and formed a line behind him—quite a bit behind him. I noticed Salishar among them. The leader came to a stop at the foot of the bridge, twenty or thirty feet away, because his horse refused to go any farther. He struggled with it for a moment before deciding that maybe it had a point, and this was close enough.
Bronze looked at it; she was not in a domesticated mood. The horse really didn’t like that. It kept shifting and trying to back away. The elf had to work to keep it in place. Unable to approach and unwilling to dismount, the elf raised his voice.
“Are you the one called Halar, King of Karvalen, once the Lord of Vathula?”
Oh, this is going to be interesting.
“Who are you? —your short name, if you please.”
“I am called Zaraneth.”
“A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Zaraneth. I am Halar,” I admitted. “I am King of Karvalen. I was not aware that I was no longer lord of Vathula, however. Who claims lordship of that city?”
While I spoke, I looked past him at the soldiers. The orku elite troops in the vanguard carried magical objects. Mostly the size of golf balls, the things had spells I didn’t recognize. Magical missile weapons, probably. Grenades? Bombs? Whatever they were, the orku loaded slings with them and held them ready—not actually swinging them, but loaded. I could see more than a little fear in their spirits.
Good.
The elven commanders carried enchanted weapons and wore enchanted armor. Typical. Elves don’t really do spells, but they are masters of craft. They build or make things that contain power; it’s their talent. Magical swords, glowing amulets, sparkly wands—the elves are the ones who mastered the art of making material objects magical, or making magic into material objects. If the elves are Auguste Rodin, humans are still making messes with modeling clay.
What I found more disturbing was the distortion effect of scrying points. A dozen or more people were watching and probably listening, but their points of view were scattered all over the place, most back behind the line of elves. That wasn’t a safe distance for them, but they obviously didn’t know that. Besides, shattering their spells would probably precipitate open hostilities…
Who are these observers, anyway? I wondered. I would have thought everyone knew my feelings on this sort of thing by now. Or are they just counting on using the army as cover?
“The Queen of Vathula,” Zaraneth replied, “holds dominion over all the mountains and all that lies beneath them. Including this one,” he gestured toward my mountain. “It was stolen from the range and moved here.”
“Oh, is that all?” I asked. “I presume she wants it back?” Zaraneth blinked at me, surprised.
“She does. Do you intend to return it?”
“Hell, no. I’m just more used to people trying to kill me because they think I’m a blood-drinking, soul-sucking, unholy fiend of darkness. A simple political conflict is refreshing, in its way. Annoying, but refreshing. I’m pretty certain I feel ambivalent about that, but I haven’t made up my mind.”
Zaraneth looked troubled. Obviously, he wasn’t going to the effort of keeping his expression under rigid control.
“I ask you directly: Will you surrender the mountain to the Queen of Vathula?”
“That depends. Who is she?”
“I do not understand.”
“What’s her name? Is she an elf? Is she human? Where does she come from? That sort of thing. Sure, she’s usurped my throne in Vathula and become a queen; I get that. But who is she?”
“She is Queen Keria, the Undying. She was once a magician of Arondael. Now she rules Vathula and all its attendant lands.”
“Ah. I remember her. Technically, she does die, repeatedly…” I shrugged. “Nevermind. Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Thank you for answering my question. That was polite of you. I appreciate it.”
“Will you now surrender the mountain to us?”
“What happens if I refuse?” I asked. His jaw tightened.
“We will take it,” he said. I rubbed my chin with my left hand and looked thoughtfully at the army behind him. I momentarily considered asking, “You and whose army?” but I restrained myself. The answer was obvious and he wouldn’t get the joke.
“No,” I said, pretending to a calm I didn’t actually have. “You didn’t bring enough troops. But I tell you what. I will offer you terms, if you are prepared to hear them.”
He paused, as though in thought. He seemed to be listening. Watching closely, I thought I could detect a faint shimmer in the air behind him as his horse kept moving around. A scrying sensor? Possibly.
“I am empowered to hear your terms,” he stated.
All right, let’s see just what you’re really after—is the mountain your real goal, or is it just a pretext to come after me?
“All or nothing,” I told him. “Your Queen will forsake all claim on this mountain and swear an oath to me that she will lay no claim on any lands outside the Eastrange, nor restrict me or mine from moving along the surface of it. In return, I will release my claim on Vathula and the Eastrange and all the attendant lands directly beneath it.
“If she does not accept these terms, then I will destroy her,” I added. “Those are my terms. What says your Queen?”
There was a long pause. Maybe he was thinking, or maybe someone behind him was thinking.
Truthfully, I was bluffing, but I wasn’t about to tell them that. I wanted to see how determined they were to invade. This was a good offer, a very good offer, one that should be tempting, no matter what their ultimate objective. Especially when they added in the possibility that a legendary figure might take an active hand in hunting down the supposed queen.
He raised his fist and finally allowed his horse to back away. Behind him, about a hundred pieces of ugly began whirling magical rocks. The dozen or so elves produced elaborate recurve bows and nocked arrows. More troops started hustling to the right, headed toward the mountain, presumably to go around it.
I wondered if Zaraneth was going to say anything else. Maybe a concise, “No,” or even a more lengthy, “Your offer is rejected.” Maybe a remark about how it was my last chance to surrender, or something. Anything. Instead, his raised hand moved, opening with a blade-like gesture. This must have signaled the archers; they raised bows and shot me.
Items for future reference. First, elves are good archers. Second, they’re clever bastards.
The arrows were not high on my list of concerns. My deflection spell was a monster, capable of deflecting bullets, to say nothing of something as slow and cumbersome as three feet of wooden shaft. Even if a several hundred arrows saturated and overwhelmed my deflection spell, I was in full armor, and both slings and arrows seldom do more than attract my attention. Admittedly, magical arrows might be a real problem if they hit me, depending on how they were magic; but under normal circumstances, my real concern is reserved for people who can cause me structural damage. Axes, swords, and similar implements can remove body parts or sever the connections I need to move around. A rain of arrows is about as bothersome, therefore, as actual rain.
I was somewhat surprised when most of the arrows punched right through my deflection spell. Sparks leaped and scattered as the first two or three met my
deflection spell and disintegrated, shedding bright discharges in all directions. The spells on those arrows disrupted my deflection spell and expended the power from it to the point of complete collapse. When it failed, the rest of the swarm—inches, at most, behind the lead arrows—came right through. Most of them rang off my helmet, gorget, or shoulder armor; I took four of them in the upper neck and mouth. Only by great good luck did they all miss my eyes.
With an arrow through my windpipe, I found myself hindered in my ability to say something profane, obscene, and mixed of equal parts vulgar and heartfelt. Possibly with a hefty dash of blasphemy and scatology.
Even before I got past the thought of swearing, Zaraneth completed his gesture, bringing his arm down in a slashing motion toward me. The orku behind him launched their sling missiles in a massive volley.
The world slowed down as I went into hyperdrive.
Bronze started moving sideways, a very un-horse-like maneuver, especially at that sort of speed. We needed to get out of the line of the incoming attack, and leaving the bridge backward would keep us in the footprint of the incoming missiles. So, sideways, toward the mountain, and into the canal.
But first, slingers.
The arrows were magical and designed, apparently, to take down a deflection spell. Knowing that, I figured that someone had planned this out. Therefore, whatever the spells on these sling stones, someone thought they would be useful against a nightlord. I didn’t really want to test it.
No, let me rephrase that: I really didn’t want to test it.
I gestured with my left hand, a sharp thrust to my right and up, across the descending mass of missiles, extending a thick cluster of dark tendrils. A quick burst outward, an expanding a net of tendrils, flickering black in the night air. A sharp sweep from right to left.
I wasn’t sure if the missiles would be defended against this sort of thing, but it was worth a try. Turns out, it worked; tendrils brushed missiles aside like a broom sweeping aside gravel. This diverted a lot of them, probably even most of them, but the simple mass of the flung avalanche was too great to wholly sweep aside. Of those that were still about to intercept me, I slapped several aside with the flat of my sword; they didn’t seem to have any effect on the blade. Several also clanged off Bronze, harmlessly.
But my reflexes betrayed me. With my left hand, I slapped one aside as it headed for my face.
And, of course, I was wearing a defensive spell that disrupted other spells. Which, of course, had been completely unaffected by the arrows; they only took out my deflection spell. So, when the iron ball I slapped aside was hit, the magic in it came undone. Turns out, the magic was acting as some sort of containment for something; with the magical containment disrupted, the ball exploded.
Oh, yes; someone had planned this out in detail.
It’s hard to render a nightlord unconscious, but it can be done. All it takes is catastrophic harm and maybe a little bit of brain damage. This qualified.
The next thing I knew, I was in the water with a massive clamp affixed to my right shoulder. I was in front of some sort of ram as it shot through the water. The rushing of the water held me pinned to the front of it…
Right. Got it.
Bronze and I were in the canal. She had my shoulder in her mouth, keeping me stable against her chest as she ran through the water. I didn’t have my sword, but that was a minor problem. I still had pieces of arrows in my face—another minor problem. My armor all along the front was battered enough for Thor to have used it as a target for the hammer throw; so what?
I was also missing my left hand almost to the elbow. That annoyed me. It would grow back, yes, but it was going to take time and a lot of blood, neither of which I felt I could afford just at the moment. I also couldn’t see to the left. Judging by the feeling of pain and movement, my regeneration was trying to spit a piece of shrapnel out of my left eye. Various other locations, scattered all along my front and left, were also in the process of forcing bits of metal back out the way they came in.
We were almost to the end of the canal. Bronze tossed her head and flung me up and over the canal lip on the right; that hurt a lot, but she knew I didn’t mind a bit. I landed, rolled to my feet, and was instantly astride when she leaped out of the water. I also got a good look at her.
I found myself suddenly less annoyed and much, much more angry. Bronze’s neck and upper shoulders were scarred and marred by the explosion and shrapnel. It didn’t bother her in the slightest, but I felt an instant, overpowering anger. I could barely put the thought into words about how much someone was going to pay for that.
Bronze, on the other hand, was dismissive of the minor scratches and just pounded for the bridge at full gallop. I got a grip on myself and took the opportunity to look around.
Behind us, the mounted elves were giving chase, but they were barely past the canal bridge and the troops were slowly following. Had I only been out for… what? Five seconds, maybe? It seemed so.
Other squads of troops were making directly for the lake-moat. I didn’t see any rafts, but I saw rope and grapnels. So it was a race between Bronze making a circuit of the city to the gate and a bunch of guys on foot climbing the walls to run through the streets. I knew where I was putting my money.
While Bronze did the running, I did the spellcasting. I don’t like being blown up, much less being blown up by a weapon that uses my own spells against me. Since we were rapidly opening the range, I didn’t worry about a deflection spell. Instead, I tried a variation on my spell-disruption defense. Instead of using it as a sort of form-fitting armor, I cast one as a fan.
Wrapped about with dark tendrils, I held it with my mind. I turned in the saddle to look at the army and direct my spell. I swept it through the pursuing elven horsemen, but nothing exploded. Then I waved it through the infantry following them.
Yes, the enchantments holding all that force were deliberately fragile. Of course; the elves wanted the spell to fail when it encountered a disruption shield. Soldiers suddenly discovered that carrying grenades can backfire. A rapid-fire series of explosions stuttered through the ranks of the elite orku slingers, sending body parts in different directions and shrapnel through everything else.
I kept juicing the disruption spell and waving it through the ranks even after the explosions stopped. There was no harm—to me—in robbing them of any other magical gadgetry fragile enough to be broken. Bronze crossed the bridge and I felt her preparing to leap. I held on.
The gravity-bending spell was still working, and Bronze is one hell of a jumper. With gravity distortion to help, she an clear an immense distance in the broad jump, but a vertical jump is still tricky. A ten-foot wall was nothing; a twenty-foot wall we could have cleared. But thirty feet… We hit the wall high up, almost at the top, and if I’d cared to jump for it, I could have made it.
I didn’t.
We fell with a horrendous shrieking of metal hooves on stone all the way down. We clanged abominably when we hit, but Bronze stayed upright. I don’t think I broke anything in the landing and I held on somehow. She was already powering forward as soon as her hooves touched, maybe a hair sooner.
I dismissed her gravity-bending spell; we might need the traction. I kept mine going, since I wasn’t doing any of the running.
There was no pursuit in sight when I glanced behind. I would have been quite surprised to see anything keeping up with us. Ahead, there was only the curve of the road. I also remembered to look up. No, nothing was flying overhead, either. We were going to make the gate, head up through the city, and get inside the mountain. That was all that mattered. That was the key to the plan. As badly wrong as things had gone, the plan could still work…
I plucked bits out of my face. A jagged bit of iron from my eye socket, splinters in my cheeks, a few arrowheads… being dead makes surgery of that sort possible even on the back of a horse at an insane gallop. My morale was much improved by the time we came into sight of the city gate. I still couldn’t see out of m
y left eye, but I could talk without spitting or slurring.
We were first to the gate, as I expected, but a contingent of haggard, panting orku were knee-deep out there in the lake-moat. They weren’t moving out to swim the moat; they were standing on the floor of the lake to get as close as possible while still using slings. They weren’t aiming at us, though. They were launching all their missiles at the massive city gate. The pivot-gate was easily ten feet thick and more than fifty feet long. It would take rams or explosives to destroy it, and I expected the slingers to be launching the latter.
Nothing happened. They had been launching missiles at it for two or three volleys already. The road had dozens of small, cubical missiles littering it, but the gate was, at worst, possibly scratched. I didn’t think the mountain was even aware it was being attacked.
I was more concerned with the missiles. In the dark, I have no color vision; I don’t know what they were made of. They were definitely enchanted, though, and I thought it was with some type of force spell, kin to the one that put shrapnel through my favorite skin.
Landmines, I thought.
As though we shared that thought—and we might—Bronze immediately planted all four hooves on the stone and leaned backward. She skidded, hooves screaming and raising sparks like a rooster-tail of blue-green lightning. I risked my seat by holding on with my legs and gesturing with both arms. My shortened arm directed tendrils like fingers to slap my spell-disruption fan down in front of her. With my right hand, I gestured hard to sweep things out of her path.
It would have worked. I know it would have. It did work. I just didn’t account for the fact that mines were still falling from the sky; the mine-laying bastards could use them as bombs, too.
One of the flying missiles hit Bronze in her right foreleg, just above the fetlock, right in the feathering. There was a thunderous sort of whump noise, a terrible, screaming sound of rending metal, and we were tumbling. Bronze flipped toward her front right, skidding and rolling. I bounced clear in my lowered gravity and managed to not go over the tall curb between the road and the lake.
