by Remi Michaud
He almost wished he had not split his force in half, but Mikal knew what he was doing. He had to trust in that.
A young captain joined him as he squinted at the horde.
“In range?” Jurel grunted—somewhere in his mind he tried to recall the young man's name.
“No, Milord. Perhaps fifty paces out of range even with the priests's help, and a hundred from the first of our surprises.”
“As soon as they're in range, open fire.”
“Of course, Milord.”
This too was planned of course. Once his archers began raining death upon the oncoming horde, the Soldiers of God would certainly not tarry. They would make for the walls with all haste. Right into the traps. That was the plan, anyway, or at least a part of it. The first half of Mikal's plans revolved around decimating as many of the enemy troops as possible before directly engaging them in order to even the odds. Seeing the horde, Jurel knew it would take a lot more than some catapults and a few holes in the ground to even begin making a noticeable dent in their numbers.
Above him, a nearly blinding blue-white glow erupted, and a low humming began. It grated at him, that humming, seemed to vibrate in his back teeth and in the base of his skull. Chill shivers scuttled up his backbone, the hair on his arms and the back of his neck stood up. The Gaorlan priests had joined the fray.
The horde crept slowly forward, each rank and row delineated into highly structured, highly disciplined lines. Jurel could almost hear his officers counting the distance. His catapults continued to hurl as quickly as they could be wound. Still mostly fist sized stones, he had seen the occasional heavy boulder sail high overhead. Where the small stones pelted the approaching army, men cried out, collapsing in heaps of shuddering torn flesh and jagged, shattered bone. Jurel was surprised (and somewhat surprised at being surprised) that small stones or not, hurled at that speed, they were most definitely lethal. Even as Jurel watched, he saw a Soldier stiffen and collapse, helmet skittering crazily along the ground, the top half of his head disintegrated in a fine red mist.
Where the heavy boulders landed, still shy of the enemy catapults, no one cried out, though the crushed armor and wet bits that smeared the ground were indication enough that they too were having an effect.
Still the enemy crept forward. They tried their own luck with buckets full of stones; every once in a while, the forcefield above crackled.
Like that dried popping corn Daved used to make on occasion, thought Jurel.
He glanced down and saw that more priests had joined the defensive circle. Their faces were ashen, taut like drums. Sweat beaded on their foreheads and soaked their robes at neck and armpit. They had been joined by yet more priests; there were now several circles scattered across the courtyard, each a dozen and a half strong. That infernal humming continued to slide into the very marrow of his bones.
“Milord,” the young captain, whose name he could still not quite bring to mind, called. “They're within range in ten paces.”
Jurel nodded, and raised his sword high over his head. He watched, with captive eyes, the slow forward crawl. They narrowed the space. Eight paces, seven. A boulder thundered off the ghostly dome overhead. Five paces. His sword quivered in anticipation. Somewhere to the northwest a horn blatted. Three, two.
The front ranks of the horde broke into a trot.
“Archers engage!” Jurel's sword dropped.
Calls of “Fire!” raced up the lines. As one, a thousand bowstrings hummed and a hail of death darkened the sky, arching high and long, carried by arcane winds into the enemy. Long before the first volley landed, the second and third volleys were in the air.
Catapults fired again, but this time, their payload hissed through the sky; pots of pitch and naphtha struck the ground and shattered spraying bright burning agony in all directions. The front two ranks of the approaching horde essentially evaporated under the massive aerial assault.
A hearty cheer broke out all along the battlement and even Jurel was not immune. A thrill of vicious glee caused him to clench a fist even though the heavy losses suffered still barely made a dent in the overall horde that faced them.
But still that terrible humming grew stronger until it seemed to wedge between his joints, as though trying to separate fingers and knees and hips until...
The blaze of light that knocked him from his feet was more than blinding. It was a thousand lightning bolts ripping apart the darkest night. It was a thousand suns dropping from the sky. He cried out and rubbed his watering eyes. He blinked, looked up. And he could not believe what he saw. His tear-blurred eyes saw a jagged luminescent crack like a huge static lightning bolt in the dome. Then, like melting ice sliding from a smooth surface, the western portion of the dome sank from view.
The enemy broke into a charge. Shakily, Jurel rose to his feet. Thankfully his voice responded; he roared, “Resume fire!”
His officers began taking up the shout, and slowly, ragged lines of arrows began raining down on the enemy again. But it was not so easy this time: for every arrow sent out over the walls two homed in, searching for Salosian blood. Some found their marks but most bounced harmlessly from the battlements, causing a steady tick-ticking roar like hail falling interspersed with occasional screams. Jurel glanced to his right where a young woman, no more than twenty years of age fell stiffly gripping the shaft that protruded from her neck. Her mouth hung open but she did not scream.
His catapults were continuing their efforts; smoke hazed the western quarters of the horde on the plain, the underside of which glowed a ruddy orange. Jurel saw an enemy catapult jump and list sideways, the great arm snapping and sending sword length shafts of splintered wood into the surrounding men, but the remaining catapults were still raining heavy missiles on the Abbey. Like a martial drumbeat, the walls began to shudder under the rhythmic booming of heavy stones though so far the arcanely strengthened walls continued to hold.
Peering over the crenelations, Jurel watched, urging his enemy forward, just a few more paces, come on you bastards just a few more paces.
Almost anticlimactically, the ground gave way under units of infantry and again, he felt a thrill of exhilaration. Enemy soldiers fell into the traps, disappearing into the stake lined pits.
These traps had been carefully planned out and laid. Certainly there were paths that led to safety but it was a circuitous maze across perilous ground. Most of the paths between the pits would allow no more than two soldiers abreast to pass. If the enemy troops did not fall into the pits, then they were easy targets for Salosian archers, and even when they passed the gauntlet of booby traps, they faced the moat lined by spikes and protected by the heavy earthen barricade manned by several hundred infantry with long halberds.
More of these traps were being uncovered, some by hapless units of charging infantry who plunged heedlessly to their ripping, tearing, puncturing deaths, or vaporized as a ball of arcane energy erupted, some by more cautious sappers sent forward under hide shields who prodded the earth with pikes. Soon, the charge slowed to a crawl and more pikemen were sent to reveal the traps while the archers on the wall continued to fire. Many more white cloaked figures fell but the surprise was gone and the death rate slowed.
To this point, the enemy horde had lost maybe three thousand men—maybe even as many as four thousand. The beast was barely scratched.
Chapter 50
In the inky blackness, an eerie blue-green light glowed. It flickered and cycled, the scenes that appeared, ones of heartbreak, violence, sorrow. What was visible at the moment was the scene of a battle. Thousands upon thousands of white caped figures attacked a building like storm tossed waves battering relentlessly at a beachhead.
A dry titter came from the darkness only inches from the eerily glowing images. Nothing of the being was revealed as though the light was loathe to touch it. Things were progressing very well. The being watched avidly as massive stones thundered soundlessly against the walls, as ant sized men slammed into each other, their swords
flashing like tarnished silver in the gloomy mist then coming back dripping with new, red jewelry. One in particular drew its attention. A tall, powerfully built young man wearing the light sucking armor that the being had once been so familiar with.
So. The boy had returned.
Yes, everything was progressing very well indeed.
The being wiped what passed for its chin, the slaver hot and sticky on the twisted claw, dripping and hissing quietly in the darkness. It could watch this all day—in fact, it was already aroused from the slashing, the blood, the broken bodies, the rage. But it had other things to check on. With a sigh, it leaned back away from the screen, its flesh sibilant.
The image faltered, flickered. The light dimmed, misty blue-green, replaced by a smoky sepia. Featured now was a woman with long flowing hair the color of night. She leaned over a figure in a bed, her hands outstretched over the linens that a few minutes before had probably been pristine white but now were patched with unspeakable stains that served to arouse the being further. Her brow was furrowed in concentration, her exhausted eyes tight at the corners, and her hands began to glow. The figure on the bed squirmed slightly, the look of pain on his face easing to something more like comfort, though he did not open his eyes.
It growled; the blackness trembled. Damned humans. Always ending the bliss of agony. Forever pissing it off with their incessant need to pretend their compassions. Them and their damned futile desires to be more than the base animals they were. Fucking, lying, pitiful fools. They needed a firm hand to remind them that they were motes of dust, grains of sand to be trodden on, to support the weight of those who mattered. The being decided that it had seen enough. This part of his plan was moving along as well. It did not want its good mood curdled by the filth of what those pathetic bags of blood and flesh called 'good'.
The image flickered again, brightening from sepia to sunny morning. There was a wide road with a broad, forbidding forest flanking it to the west. There was already snow on the ground here though it was still far to the south from where the creature presently was. On the road, another army was marching. Rather quickly, it noted, and south. It giggled like a school boy performing an act of mischief.
It was a little soon for this army to be moving south; it had thought that the foolish superstitions would have kept their little play king closer to the burnt city a while longer. It was no matter. There were still too many miles for him to travel to make any real difference in what was coming.
Fools. Their animal superstitions kept them from broaching the borders of the great forest, kept them also believing that everyone held the same reservations. That was the delicious irony of it, was it not? He giggled. The forest was no more than that. Just a forest. A dense one, certainly, and dangerous if one did not watch one's footing, but after all, it was just trees, and mud, and rocks. Until the very center anyway, but that made no difference. What did make the difference was that their superstitions kept them away from a forest that was essentially harmless. And yet it would be from that forest that the death of the sunlander kingdom would descend. Gixen had performed admirably in that respect.
It seemed that the fool pretend king had figured that out. But too late. Oh, much too late.
Once again, The image flickered and wavered, this time going from the clear daylight yellows and blues to umber. A vision of skeletal trees appeared. Skulking silently between the groaning trunks, were men it knew very well. At the forefront of the small group, its newest pet, Gixen, looked out somewhere seemingly behind the being as it watched. Gixen grinned, his eyes alight with fanatical glee. The small troop disappeared back into the trees.
Once again, the being tittered, happy—in its own twisted way—that this part of its plan was proceeding apace as well. It let the image fade. The light evaporated into the thick, impenetrable blackness whence it came.
All the pieces were in play. The being felt its mouth stretch into an unfamiliar position, rough, sandpaper flesh cracking and pulling painfully. With mild surprise, it realized it was smiling. How long had it been since it had last done that?
And why not, after all? Everything was falling into place. He let the smile spread, tasting the bitterness as something that might have once been blood flowed from the cracks that zagged audibly, like snakes hissing, in the fetid darkness, tasting the cruel, blissful agony.
Chapter 51
The mist and overcast burned off as the morning progressed into afternoon, leaving a world of chaos painted in stark contrast, the smoky haze lending the scene an impression of a painting done by a demented artist with the borders of the dormant forest as the frame. An endless river of white capes flowed, battering themselves against the Abbey walls.
Balls, waves, sparks, discs, a hundred varied shapes of a hundred thousand varied colors flowed electrically from the priests in the field to the priests in the Abbey and back. Massive divots of earth erupted and the ground shook. The air felt charged like a thunderstorm with all the arcane energies flowing.
Scaling ladders rose one after the other, most to be knocked down or burnt to ash before they even touched the crenelations at the top of the wall, some few making the journey and Soldiers of God swarmed up to the ramparts to engage the defenders. Men and women screamed, raged, bled.
Jurel proved to be something of an equalizer for the Salosians. His tactics, which had proven so fatally ineffective a few months ago, now seemed to never be wrong. He always seemed to know exactly where the next hotspot was going to be and he always had reinforcements there before it happened.
And when it did happen, he was ever at the forefront, his sword burning the air as he swung, always with devastating effect. He rejoiced, reveled, every time his sword struck. Because every time his sword found its mark, armor crumpled, bone snapped, blood flowed.
He was War after all.
The first few times he plowed into a knot of Soldiers, he had found himself attacking alone. His sheer ferocity had caused his own men to falter and eye him hesitantly. He did not care. He simply waded in with his burning sword painting bright blue strokes in the air that always transformed to bright red.
Soon, the Salosian forces began to gain confidence that he would not, in fact, cut them down as thoroughly as he did the Soldiers of God and they joined him in attacking the attackers.
To Jurel it was as if a dirty window had been opened and light, sweet and pure, poured in banishing shadows, stripping away the lies and the obscured truths, and revealing what was, what had always been.
He fought, and he rejoiced, his battle cry a greedy call for blood that would not be denied, his paean. All the raging screams shook the air, melding, merging and urging him onward like his own personal hymn, the smell of blood and fire and death, like a powerful narcotic that drove him ever further into a frenzy.
He felt powerful, invincible even.
He leaped, sword held overhead, landing in the middle of three Soldiers of God who fought back to back, his sword hissing forward, cutting a shining arc. Mystic metal met mundane armor, sheared through the helm and deep into the torso of the Soldier in front of him. With a wet gurgle the Soldier slid to the flagstones. Jurel did not take the time to notice. He was already twisting with a broad side sweep, the glowing blade once again disappearing into the armor and viscera of the second Soldier.
By then Gaven and the others had managed to catch up and they were fending off more Soldiers as they swarmed over the wall. The last Soldier facing Jurel barely had the chance to widen his eyes in surprise before Jurel kicked him solidly in the chest, sending him flying back over the wall wailing a strangely childish wail.
His attack run continued; he rushed the flank of those cresting the walls, leaving Gaven and his troop enough space in front to continue their defense while he slammed into the side of the first Soldier in his way. With a broad sweep of his arm, he plowed his hapless opponent over the wall and drove forward with his sword. That Soldier dropped like a bag of stones too.
Gaven and his troop
, meanwhile, made a good account of themselves; the remaining Soldiers in this pocket fell. But Jurel did not even notice. He was already sprinting down the battlements toward the next embattled group where he again waded in, sword singing.
The blood flowed. Screams choked the air. It was as if he had spent all his life only partly awake, a ghost who watched his own reality from outside, able to see everything that happened but unable to do anything to affect the outcome of events. But now, now...
Now he was fully awake. Now he was most definitely no longer a ghost. He laughed long and loud as his sword mowed enemy Soldiers down like a scythe.
Soon, his sword cut deep into one last Soldier who fell back over the wall with a stunned look in his already lifeless eyes and Jurel stood uncontested upon his ramparts flanked by Gaven and a dozen soldiers. He scanned the ramparts quickly and saw only his own forces continuing to pepper the field below with arrows, stones, boiling naphtha and anything else that came to hand. There were no white capes, there were no scaling ladders, Jurel's instincts were not screaming at him to be somewhere right now.
Mystic lights continued to flare malevolently in the air, crackling and snapping. The day, though only mid afternoon and with not a cloud in sight seemed dark, heavy. The sun tried valiantly to break through but in the end it had the appearance of an eye squinted in judgement.
In the field below, the sea of white seemed to have stalled, though Jurel thought they were just regrouping, preparing for another assault. Bitterly, he noted that for all the death he and his forces had inflicted, the sea below did not seem much smaller. From which of the hells were they spewing from?
