by Jack Conner
“The wall,” he said. “It’s breached.”
The Baron turned to him with eyes dull and glazed, the eyes of a dead man. “And so ends Hielsly.”
Giorn and Lord Hysthir summoned soldiers from their respective companies and raced to meet again at the breach. The great Serpent lay stunned from the impact, and already its head bristled with spears flung by Hielsly troops. Blood ran in foul-smelling seas down its glistening scales, and its movements were sluggish and moribund.
The Borchstogs took no heed. Howling, they surged around the massive body of the leviathan and poured through the breach.
Mounting his horse, Giorn noticed the Borchstog standard bearer bore a lance with a human arm impaled on its tip; it was covered in tar. Surely not, Giorn thought. Surely that can’t be the Baron’s arm. It must have rotted long ago, he told himself. Had the Borchstogs’ arts truly kept it from decay just so that they could torment Lord Hysthir with it? It would be like them.
Giorn massed his riders and led them in a charge that broke the Borchstog advance. He cut a bloody swath through their ranks, riding them down and spearing them with his lance. When that snapped off, he beat them with it, then drew his sword and hacked off their heads and arms. Black blood spewed in gory fountains. Borchstog bodies twitched on the ground.
There were too many. They pulled his men from their steeds, gutted their horses, slit the men’s throats or kept them for torture. They pressed in from all sides like ants overwhelming grasshoppers, and at last Giorn led his riders back through the breach. Calling for blood, the Borchstogs pursued them, only to be met by Baron Hysthir’s layered wall of shields and spears. The wall opened to admit Giorn and his band but closed immediately after.
“I have something for you,” Giorn called to the Baron as he rode near.
Hysthir arched his wooly eyebrows, and, smiling despite himself, Giorn lifted his grisly prize.
The Baron’s eyes widened. “My arm!”
Giorn flung it to him. “May it bring us luck!”
It didn’t. The Borchstogs broke on the wall of shields like black waves on rocks. Still they came, dogged and relentless, uncaring of whether they lived or died. They existed only to serve the Great One and they would gladly perish in His service. Constantly their cries of “Roschk Gilgaroth!” and “Un crostrig na-Vrulug!” pierced the air.
While the greater portion of Giorn’s and Hysthir’s men gathered to repel those Borchstogs that flooded in through the breach, still more of the hellspawn stormed the walls and engaged the soldiers there. Alarm bells rang throughout the city and all able-bodied men—and even women and children, Giorn was dismayed to see—rushed to reinforce the troops.
“We’ve never had to repel such a concerted effort,” Baron Hysthir confided to Giorn breathlessly when they had a moment to speak. Bloods, black and red, drenched his thick armor and tangled his bristly beard. His severed arm was strapped to his back. “It makes no sense! Why waste so many troops on Hielsly? The only thing we have of value is—”
Giorn saw it, too. “The Moonstone.”
“Yes.”
“We must safeguard the Temple.”
The Baron looked around in despair. Giorn felt it, too. Even then, Borchstogs were pouring over the walls and setting fire to the buildings of the city to incite chaos and fear. The screams of women and children rose to a continuous wail. Giorn held no illusions about what the Borchstogs were doing to the women – and men, too, for that matter. And boys and girls.
“I’ll see to the Stone,” he told the Baron. “You hold the demons back here.”
“Illiana be with you.”
“And you.”
Giorn took a thousand riders and raced through the tight cobbled streets of Hielsly, having to navigate around swarms of fleeing townspeople and thread through burning buildings. He passed the great, tiered fountain he had admired before. Now corpses of soldiers and townspeople glutted the tiered, spring-fed basins, and the hot crystal-clear water ran red. Steam rose from butchered bodies. Giorn finally reached the grand courtyard before the impressive edifice of the Temple of Illiana, with its elaborate bas-reliefs of angels and brides and the Stewardesses of the Moon. Already a score of priestesses stood on the steps leading up to the main Temple doors, and they looked relieved on seeing Giorn and his men.
The High Priestess stepped forward. In her middle years, she still had hair like gold and the body of an athlete. The work of the Moonstone, Giorn thought.
“Lord Wesrain,” she said. “It’s well you’ve come. I fear the reason for the attack—”
“Is to get the Moonstone. Yes, I think you may be right—though what they want it for is anybody’s guess. It’s a thing of the light. What use can it hold for them?”
She blinked. Evidently something in his response had surprised her. Hurriedly, she nodded. “Yes, lord, I had wondered the same—”
A rush of Borchstogs burst from an alleyway and fell on Giorn’s men. With the wide open space of the courtyard, the geography favored Giorn’s riders, and he gladly led them against the Borchstogs. Wave after wave of the creatures poured from the alleys and thoroughfares, however, more than he could counter, and everywhere buildings burned and smoke choked the air.
Borchstogs like a congealing sea lapped against his riders, pulling them down and ripping them apart with their bare hands. Howling, blood-covered demons drove Giorn back toward the stairs of the temple, where the priestesses drew on the power of the Stone and hurled down shafts of light. The smell of roasting Borchstog flesh filled the air. Giorn hacked into the enemy even as it surged around him, but at last a pair of black hands dragged him off his steed.
He chopped the hands off. The Borchstog fell back, screaming, blood pumping from the stumps.
Giorn wheeled, thrust his blade through the next howling demonic face that rushed at him. The blade wedged in the creature’s skull, and he could not retrieve it in time. Two more Borchstogs were converging on him.
He yanked out his long hunting knife, ducked the sweep of a Borchstog sword, plunged his blade through the sword-wielder’s leather armor into its chest. He kicked out, knocking the second one away. As soon as they were gone, five more took their places. All around him horses screamed as Borchstogs gutted them or chopped through their legs, and riders spilled to the flagstones.
“To me!” Giorn shouted. “To me!”
His men, most afoot now, massed to him, and he led them in a fallback to the temple stairs, where the priestesses were still using their powers to drive the Borchstogs back, but Giorn noticed that they did not glow as brightly now. They were fading, their powers nearly spent. The Stone was strong, but not infinitely so, it seemed.
Before him Giorn saw an endless sea of Borchstogs—and behind them the flaming ruins of Hielsly. We’re lost. Still, he did not slacken his pace. He led his men backward, and the priestesses went with them. They retreated within the high temple doors, and the priestesses flung the doors shut in the Borchstogs’ faces, then shoved the bolts home, sealing the doors.
“That should hold them for a moment,” Giorn told the High Priestess. “But not for long.”
She nodded sadly. “We must take the Stone and leave the Temple.”
“What could they want it for?”
She looked as perplexed as he felt. “I cannot fathom. It’s the Last Gift—a great weapon of the light, forged by Illiana Herself. We’ve used it for thousands of years to hold back Vrulug’s hordes. Perhaps he merely means to destroy it, to weaken us. I don’t know. But if he wants it this desperately, obviously we must keep it from him.”
“Is there a back way?”
“Yes, but the Borchstogs will be there, too. However, long ago we dug a tunnel that leads to the sewers for just such a contingency. It will not be pleasant, but we can use that to get outside of town.”
Giorn stared. “I cannot abandon Hielsly! Have you forgotten your liege? And most of my men—”
“Are dead, just like everyone else.” Her face was
grave. “Hielsly is lost, Lord Wesrain, and everyone in it. We must safeguard the Moonstone. We need all the weapons we can get, especially now, when the Enemy has chosen to make His move.”
“This is madness!” His men were looking at him strangely. He wondered if they agreed with him or the priestess.
“It is the only way, captain,” she said. “We must prevent Vrulug from taking the Stone.”
“At the expense of the city?”
Something heavy pounded on the doors. They buckled but held. BOOM! They buckled again.
“They have a ram!” a soldier cried.
Flaming debris shattered the windows, and Borchstogs poured in through the broken glass. Giorn’s men repelled them, and blood ran across the temple floor.
“So be it,” he told the priestess. “We can do no more here. I told the Baron I would safeguard the Stone, and so I will. But may the Omkar have mercy on my soul.”
Stinking of filth and shame, Giorn looked down from the mountain’s crest on the flaming city of Hielsly. Just hours ago he had stood in that same spot, admiring the old metropolis and vowing to save it. Now he watched as it withered and blackened, and the screams of its people rose into the night.
“Come,” said Ystrissa, the High Priestess of Feslan. “We must go. It will not be long before they realize the Stone is missing.”
Giorn nodded dully. “Is it true what you said—that it’s the Last Gift? I’ve heard the legends, but . . .”
She smiled faintly. “It is, my lord. All the other Omkar turned their backs on Man when we fell from grace, tempted by the Dark One out of the light, but not Illiana. She alone maintained her faith in us. Yet she was forced to leave, to go and tend to the Dreamer. Before she left she forged the Moonstone, so that we would have a light even in the darkness of our Fall. Some in my order believe that is because of this gift that Man was finally able to rally and break away from Him. From Gilgaroth.”
Giorn made a sign to ward off evil. “You’re saying this thing was the salvation of Man.”
“Yes. Some of us, at least. Orin Feldred, your ancestor, was one of our early leaders, one of those who heard the call of the Stone. Some in my order even say that he was its possessor, its keeper for a time, and that before he was captured he hid it, even from Saria, and that to find it is why Vrulug tortured him so cruelly. But he did not betray its location.
“In any case, many Men still serve the Dark One, of course, but, because of the Stone, many oppose Him, as well. But it is more than a rallying cry, my lord. You have seen yourself, it is an effective weapon.”
“Quite.” He sighed. “Come. We must make haste.”
He turned and led the exodus, all afoot now, through the dripping forest that hugged the northern face of the mountain. Down he marched, and the night grew cold and dark, yet he dared light no flame to guide them lest Oslogon eyes spy it. He led his company through the highlands for five days. They slept in the forests, sometimes in the trees, and always he posted many sentries. Several times Borchstog bands moved past them in the darkness, and once Giorn’s men were able to come on a band during daytime; the Borchstogs were in their tents, resting, hiding from the sun, and Giorn brought his men into their camp and slit the creature’ throats while they slept. Afterwards he freed the captives the Borchstogs had taken in raids on Feslan settlements, and these, mostly young women, joined his band.
They had no choice, Giorn learned; they had no home to return to. The Borchstogs were burning and razing everything in Feslan. It was a rocky, mountainous country, and its men were hardy and tough, but the Borchstogs were too many and too well prepared. What was more, they seemed to have spies and agents everywhere. One of the young women Giorn had rescued reported that her village had been overrun in the middle of the night, and that the Borchstogs had not even had to assault the walls to conquer it. Someone had opened the gates for them.
The implications of that were dire. Vrulug must have been honeycombing Feslan with his agents for years, all in preparation for this assault. Giorn feared the worst. He feared that this might be the first battle of the final war, the war to usher in the End Times. The Age of Grandeur. Legend said that at a time of the Dark One’s choosing, He would send his hosts north to obliterate the Crescent and then to sweep northward, to swallow the world. Giorn feared that that dreaded war might finally be upon them. Why else would Vrulug have triggered his hidden agents? Why else would the wolf-lord commit his full forces to this assault, as well as the reinforcements Giorn suspected his master had sent him from Oslog?
Thoughts of Hielsly haunted Giorn. He did not manage to rest often, but when he did he saw the ancient city flaming and heard the screams, and in his mind’s eye he saw Baron Hysthir tied to a pole in the courtyard before his own castle, being tortured by the ‘stogs for days even as he was made to watch them occupy the ruins of his city and rape and devour his people.
Giorn vowed to bring the Moonstone to Niara. Perhaps then the Baron’s death and torment—Giorn was certain it was happening—and the fall of his city would not have completely been in vain. Giorn’s greatest fear was that Borchstogs would get ahead of him and block off his access to Eresine Bridge. It was the only way in or out of Feslan without going hundreds of miles around through treacherous mountains. And the Borchstogs had mounts, while he and his men were afoot.
It was worse than he’d imagined.
After eight days he led his band to a certain outcropping and, as he spied the great bridge that spanned the Pit of Eresine, the canyon that divided Feslan from Fiarth, he saw that all his hopes were shattered.
The bridge was in flames.
“The Omkar be damned,” Giorn said. At his blasphemy, Ystrissa gasped.
Smoke rose into the blue sky. The bridge blackened and crumbled, and as Giorn watched a portion of it broke off and fell the mile and half to the rushing water below. Soon the rest of the bridge would follow.
Borchstogs had set up a bonfire before the bridge and were having a feast of what was likely human flesh on the rocky ground of its southern end. Another, quite large, company of the fell things could be seen in the distance, on the opposite side. In Fiarth.
Seeing it, Giorn grew cold. His men swore.
“What do we do now, my lord?” one asked. “We’re trapped.”
He opened his mouth to speak, not knowing what would come out, but just then a Borchstog horn sounded near the bridge. Then another.
“Hells,” Giorn said. “We’ve been spotted.”
Chapter 5
Reclining beside the long Pool in the great hall of the Temple of Illiana in Thiersgald, with the sunlight streaming down through overhead windows and the Pool making dream-waves upon the pillars and walls, Niara wept.
She could not believe that Giorn was dead, yet word had spread rapidly of the terrible events in Feslan. Borchstogs had razed Hielsly and many other towns. None had survived, except to be used as slaves and sport, and she knew Giorn would never allow himself to be taken for such. And if there were any survivors, there would not soon be, for the demons had burned the bridge over the Pit of Eresine, trapping all Feslan forces south of the gorge—but not before sending a company north. In the last few days, reports had begun circulating of Borchstogs harassing the southern villages of Fiarth; Meril had just returned from dealing with them.
Beams of light shone down through the skylights in the grand dome overhead, making the long Pool seem to glow with gold, but Niara could not appreciate its beauty, nor its purpose—to purify brides before their wedding, as well as to heal. All she could think of was Giorn, noble Giorn, apparently lost like so many others against the dark hordes of Gilgaroth.
She tried to summon the light within her, to feel its reassuring warmth, but such was her despair that she could not find it. It was only a faint flicker at most times, and when her mind was in turmoil she could not even manage that.
She felt that to deny her grief was to deny her love for Giorn, and that she could not do. She had denied their love in
life; she would not deny it in death. So she wept, letting her tears fall into the cleansing waters of the Pool. Even this was in keeping with her duties as High Priestess, for her tears would increase the potency of the waters.
Niara looked up as a priestess approached: Hiatha, Niara’s close friend and one of her inner circle. The young woman looked nervous and ill at ease, obviously unsure how to approach the High Priestess in her distress.
Niara smiled, trying to appear stronger than she felt. I’m High Mother, she reminded herself. “It’s all right, Hia,” she said. “What news have you?”
Hiatha tried to smile, but it came out sickly. “Lord Meril is here, High Mother.”
“Oh?”
Hiatha knelt down beside her. She was a pretty girl, with honey-blond hair and green eyes. “He would like to see you, privately.” In a whisper, she added, “He looks in a bad way, Mother.”
Niara wiped the tears from her face. “Tell him to meet me in the solar.”
Hiatha nodded, but she did not move off. In a hushed, serious voice, she asked, “Has there been any word of . . . of it, Mother? Any word of the Stone?”
Niara sobered. “No. It did not cross the Eresine before the Bridge was fired, and I would have felt it if it had crossed since. It’s trapped in Feslan.”
Hiatha grimaced. “What will we do, Mother? The Stone is our best chance of fighting Vrulug. If he should destroy it—”
“He hasn’t. I would have felt that. No, someone has it. Someone has the Gift and is keeping it from him.” Could it be . . . ? She couldn’t allow herself to hope for it. In any case, she didn’t see how whoever had the Stone could keep it for long. Vrulug had completely overrun the south and blocked off any escape to the north. But she did not say this. It was her responsibility to encourage others, not depress them. “We can hope that the Stone stays out of Vrulug’s hands. If its holders are resourceful enough to keep it from him this long, perhaps they can keep it from him longer still.”
