Zahariel found Nemiel in the crush of bodies of the Order’s knights and smiled to see his cousin alive and well.
‘You made it!’ he said.
‘First across the breach,’ cried Nemiel, ‘before even Sar Luther! I’ll get my own banner for this.’
‘Trust you to think of glory,’ said Zahariel, forming up with the survivors of Sar Hadariel’s sword line.
‘Well someone’s got to,’ shot back Nemiel. ‘Can’t all be about duty can it?’
Only three other knights had survived to make it this far, and Zahariel was thankful that Attias and Eliath had not yet been elevated to knighthood and had been spared the horror of the breach. Sar Hadariel nodded as though in approval when Zahariel and Nemiel formed up with him.
‘Good work in staying alive, brothers,’ said the hoary veteran. ‘Now let’s get this finished.’
The great banner that had climbed the breach finally reached them, its fabric even more damaged in the fighting, yet strangely undiminished, as though the scars earned in its passage across the walls imparted some even greater gravitas to it. Zahariel had never fought beneath a banner, but the idea of fighting with the noble banner of the Order flying overhead gave him a sense of fierce pride that he had not felt before.
The banner wasn’t just a flag or identifying marker, it was a symbol of everything the Order stood for: courage, honour, nobility and justice. To bear such a symbol was a great honour, but to fight beneath it was something special, something Zahariel understood was of supreme significance.
‘Right!’ shouted Luther, pointing at the captured outer walls. ‘Be ready, we go soon!’
Zahariel followed Luther’s gesture and saw that the Order’s siege masters had turned the cannons, which had previously been killing their fellows, upon the inner walls to face the gates of the inner keep.
Luther’s hand swept down and the cannons fired in a rippling series of staccato explosions. The rampart was obscured in stinking clouds of smoke, and the air was filled with screaming iron and fire.
Fire and smoke erupted from the inner gateways, and huge chunks of rock and timber were hurled skywards.
‘Go!’ shouted Luther, and the knights of the Order set off once more.
An armoured tide of bodies charged towards the shattered ruin of the inner walls, smoke wreathing the destruction wrought by the captured cannons. More gunfire spat from the inner walls, but it seemed as though the majority of the enemy guns had been mounted on the outer walls, for the fire was sporadic and uncoordinated.
Some knights fell, but after the nightmare charge towards and up the breach, Zahariel felt as though this charge was almost easy. The noise was still incredible: pounding feet, cheering knights, booms of cannon fire and the snap and crack of pistol fire. Rubble crashed, and the cries of the wounded mingled, until all Zahariel could hear was one long, continuous roar of battle, a sound he would forever think of as the music of war.
Drifting smoke from the smashed walls enveloped them, and once again, Zahariel found he was charging in muffled isolation. The sulphurous taste of the gun-smoke caught in the back of his mouth, and his eyes streamed acrid tears.
Fires burned ahead, and he saw that the gates of the inner wall had been more comprehensively destroyed than he could have imagined. Nothing remained of the timbers, simply a ragged hole in the wall with splintered remains sagging from pulverised iron hinges.
‘For the Lion and the Order!’ shouted Luther as he leapt the heaps of rubble that had fallen from the torn edges of the gateway.
Zahariel and Nemiel followed, vaulting tumbled debris and burning timber as they charged through the shattered gateways. Beyond the smashed walls, the fortress’s inner precincts were so unlike anything he had ever seen before that Zahariel had trouble reconciling what he saw with anything resembling military architecture.
Rows upon rows of cages were arranged around the tall, turreted fastness of the inner keep, each one large enough to hold an entire sword line’s steeds.
A complex series of rails, chains and gears were laid on the ground of the courtyard, running between the cages towards a raised platform before the gates of the keep.
Some of the cages were occupied, most were not, but it was what the cages held that repulsed Zahariel beyond words. Though his vision was blurred with smoke-born tears, he could see that many of the cages held a multitude of grotesque beasts: winged reptiles similar to the one he had first fought, chimerical monsters of tentacle and claw, howling monstrosities with multiple heads, spines and frilled crests.
A menagerie of beasts filled the courtyard, each one a unique specimen of its kind, kept alive for who knew what reason. The beasts thrashed at the bars of their cages, screaming, howling, roaring and bellowing at the noise of battle.
Perhaps a hundred or so warriors in grey armour, wearing the familiar wolf pelt cloaks of the Knights of Lupus, stood in a long battle line before the walls of the keep, swords and pistols bared. Lord Sartana stood upon the raised platform at the centre of the battle line, his helmet carried by a knight beside him.
The charge of the Order’s knights slowed at the sight of such a collection of beasts, horrified beyond words that anyone, let alone an order of knights would dare, or desire, to keep such a monstrous collection of abominable creatures.
Lord Sartana spoke, and it seemed to Zahariel that the sounds of battle diminished, though whether it was the drama of the moment or that the overall level of noise was lowering, he wasn’t sure.
‘Warriors of the Order,’ said Sartana, ‘these are our lands and this is our fortress. You are not welcome here. You were never welcome here. What might once have preserved our world is at an end.’
The Master of the Knights of Lupus reached for a long iron lever attached to a complex series of gears and counterweights that ran through the floor of the platform and connected with the rails and chains that ran throughout the courtyard.
‘For that you will die,’ finished Sartana, hauling on the lever.
Even before the lever had completed its journey, Zahariel knew what would happen.
With a squeal of metal, gears meshed, slave levers slid from locks and the gates to the beasts’ cages opened.
FREE AT LAST, the beasts roared from their imprisonment with furious bellows of rage, their varied limbs powering them into the open with prodigious strength. Who could know how long they had been caged, but whether that had any bearing on their ferocity would forever be unknown.
Zahariel found himself in a life or death straggle with a monstrous, bear-like creature with a thick coat of spines and a head of wicked horns and snapping jaws. Nemiel fought beside him, along with the remnants of Sar Hadariel’s sword line.
A dozen more beasts slammed into the Knights of the Order, tossing bodies into the air with the horror of their charge. The courtyard echoed to the sounds of battle, but this was no battle of honour, fought with blades and pistols in the manner deemed appropriate by centuries of tradition and custom. This was brutal, bloody and desperate combat fought for no noble ideal, but simply for survival. Though the beasts were greatly outnumbered, they cared not for the fact that they would eventually be destroyed. The chance had come to strike back at humans, and whether they were the ones that had imprisoned them mattered not at all.
The bear creature roared and slammed one massive fist into Sar Hadariel’s breastplate, sending him flying through the air, his armour torn from his body like paper. Nemiel darted in and slashed his sword across the beast’s midsection, no doubt hoping for an eviscerating stroke.
The beast’s spines robbed the blow of its strength, and his cousin’s sword did little but cut through a number of the spines. Pistol bullets dug wet craters in its chest, but like all the beasts Zahariel had fought, it appeared to care little for pain.
Zahariel edged around the beast’s flank as it turned its piggy eyes on Nemiel.
It swiped with another massive paw, but his cousin was quicker than Sar Hadariel and rolled beneath
the blow, firing his pistol as he went. Zahariel leapt forward and swung his sword two-handed at the back of the beast’s legs, making his best guess at where its hamstrings might be.
His sword easily parted the beast’s armoured spines and sliced deep into the meat of its leg. The monster howled and dropped to one knee, black blood jetting from the wound on the back of its leg. It threw back its head and howled in pain, waving its powerfully muscled arms as it fought for balance.
‘Now!’ shouted Zahariel, dodging further around the beast and stabbing his sword into its ribs. His sword sank hilt-deep into the monster, and as it shuddered in pain, the weapon was torn from his hand.
Its talons slashed for him, catching him a glancing blow, and hurling him back against the bars of its cage. Pistols boomed, and swords cut the beast. Slowly but surely, Zahariel’s brothers were winning the fight with the monster.
Its leg cut and useless, the knights could easily keep out of reach of the beast, evading its blows, and firing shot after shot into its body and head. Its roars grew feeble, and at last it pitched forward with a final roar, great gouts of blood erupting from its fanged maw.
Zahariel moved away from the cage and took stock of the battles raging around the courtyard. Dozens of knights were down, torn apart or bludgeoned to death by the beasts, half a dozen of which still fought. The sounds of battle echoed from the walls, and Zahariel could hear triumphant war shouts of the Order coming from all around him, drifting from all the compass points, telling him that the battle was won. Whether the assault on the south wall had been the main thrust or not, it seemed as though the attacks on every face of the fortress had been successful.
Zahariel ran to retrieve his sword from the beast he and his fellow sword brothers had slain, the blade buried deep in its chest. He braced his foot against the beast’s flank and slowly slid the sword from its prison of flesh.
‘That was a tough one, eh, cousin?’ said Nemiel, planting his foot on the beast’s body.
‘Indeed,’ replied Zahariel, wiping the blade on the creature’s rough fur.
‘Why do you suppose they were keeping them here?’
‘I have no idea,’ said Zahariel, ‘though it explains why they didn’t want us to move into the Northwilds.’
‘How so?’
‘This fortress would have been a staging post for any warriors venturing into the deep woods,’ said Zahariel. They couldn’t very well have let other knights in and kept these beasts here.’
‘You think that’s why Lord Sartana wanted nothing to do with Lord Jonson’s quest to destroy the great beasts?’
‘Probably, though I can’t imagine why you’d ever want to keep beasts.’
‘No, nor I,’ said Nemiel, ‘but come on, there’re more to kill before we can move on.’
Zahariel nodded and turned back to the battles being fought around them.
TWELVE
HALF A DOZEN beasts still fought, though many were clearly on their last legs, the Order’s knights darting in with long spears and pistols to administer the coup de grace to twisted freaks of mutant evolution. The Knights of Lupus had retreated within their keep, content to leave the beasts to do their work for them, and Zahariel felt a twist of hatred for the knights who had fallen so far from the ideals of honour and virtue that they would stoop to such a base tactic.
However, not all the beasts were struggling against the tide of knights. In the centre of the courtyard, a monstrous lizard-like creature at least three metres long and half again as wide stampeded through the knights like an unstoppable juggernaut. Its huge head was filled with grotesque, warped fangs that prevented its mouth from closing, and its eyes were horrific, distended orbs of milky blue that wept filmy mucus.
Its limbs were bulging with muscle, and its long tail was scabbed with growths, and ended in vicious spines that were covered in the blood of fallen knights.
Warriors with spears surrounded it, but its hide appeared to be proof against such weapons, the steel tips bouncing from its thick skin. Sar Luther fought to get close enough to reach its underbelly, but despite its massive size, the beast was agile and able to use its low centre of gravity to face any threat with unnatural swiftness.
‘Think we can lend a hand?’ asked Nemiel, hefting his sword over his shoulder.
‘I think we have to,’ said Zahariel. ‘We can’t get any further until it’s dead.’
Zahariel turned to the rest of their sword line and pointed to one of the warriors. ‘Go check on Sar Hadariel, make sure he’s alive. The rest of you, with me.’
As one knight went to check on their leader, Zahariel led the rest towards the rampaging beast. As he watched, a knight rashly attempted to get beneath its snapping, twisted fangs to stab at its throat and was snatched up and bitten clean in two.
The beast swallowed one half with a quick gulp and tossed away the knight’s lower body. Zahariel was horrified by the casual swiftness of the knight’s death, and his grip on his sword tightened.
Another knight fell, bludgeoned from his feet by the monster’s tail, and yet another was crushed beneath a stomping foot. More knights rushed over to fight the last beast, but Zahariel could see they were throwing lives away in fighting this monster, for surely nothing born of Caliban could defeat such a terrible creature.
No sooner had he formed the thought than he saw the Lion lead a host of bloodied knights into the central ring courtyard of the keep.
The Lion had been a magnificent warrior, resplendent in his armour and glorious in his martial bearing, but the times Zahariel had seen him, he had been at peace.
Never before had he seen the Grand Master of the Order roused to war.
Zahariel had always known the Lion was taller than any other warrior of Caliban, such was the first thing anyone noticed about him, but to see him now, sword bloodied, hair unbound and the light of combat in his eyes, he realised that the Lion was larger than any man could ever, or would ever, be. His immensity was not just physical, but in his presence and sheer weight in the world.
No man, no matter how mighty, could match the terrible glory of the Lion.
With the fires of war at his back, the Lion was the most wonderful and terrible thing Zahariel had ever seen.
The Lion led his warriors towards the beast without pause, and his warriors followed without a moment’s hesitation or apparent fear. As if sensing that a worthy enemy had finally presented itself, the beast turned its horrific, lopsided head towards the Grand Master of the Order.
As it did so, Sar Luther snatched a long pole-arm from one of his warriors and dived forward, rolling beneath its snapping jaws and thrusting with the spear.
At the same time, the Lion leapt towards the beast, his sword slashing for one of its eyes. The beast’s head snapped to the side, deflecting the Lion’s blow as Luther’s spear thrust plunged into the soft flesh of its throat.
The beast screeched with a nerve shredding shrillness that stunned every knight in the courtyard. The knights dropped to their knees and clutched their hands to their helmets as the agonising scream penetrated their skulls with its force. Even Luther, wedged beneath the beast, was laid low by the shrieking vibrations, though he kept one hand on his spear. Blood poured from the beast’s neck, arterially powerful, drenching the Lion’s second-in-command in gore.
Zahariel felt trickles of blood ran from his ears as the beast’s cry ripped through the matter of his brain. His vision blurred and tears of agony squeezed from his eyes, but he fought to keep them open, for he was seeing something extraordinary.
Though the knights of the Order writhed in agony at the beast’s scream, the Lion seemed unmoved. Perhaps his senses were more refined than those of his warriors, or perhaps his heightened resilience allowed him to resist its effects, but whatever the cause, it was clear that he remained unaffected.
The Lion leapt upon the beast’s back, using the unnatural growths scattered around its body as hand and foot holds. The monster thrashed in pain, dragging Luther around
beneath it as he held onto the spear haft for his very life.
Even as he wept in agony, Zahariel realised that watching his two brothers slay the beast was an honour. The Lion finally hauled himself atop the beast, and Zahariel saw a flash of silver steel as he raised his sword, point downwards, and thrust it into the beast’s skull.
None but the Lion could possibly have had the strength for such a feat.
The blade slammed down into the beast, the quillons of the Lion’s blade slamming into the reptilian surface of the beast’s hide. The monster’s struggles ceased abruptly, and the ear-splitting shriek that had so incapacitated the knights was cut off.
The beast reared up onto its hind legs with a sudden spasm, and the Lion was flung from his perch on its back. The spear haft was torn from Luther’s hand, and he scrambled back from the creature, his armour glistening with blood.
The sudden silence that followed the beast’s demise was strange and unnerving, the sudden absence of sound like the sudden and unexpected end of a storm that blows itself out in one apocalyptic thunderclap.
The knights began to pick themselves up from the bloody stones of the courtyard, incredulous at the scale of the battle they had just witnessed. The beast’s body heaved with one last reflexive breath and then was silent.
Lion El’Jonson came into view from behind the beast and the knights began to cheer at the sight of their heroic leader.
‘Jonson! Jonson! Jonson!’
As Zahariel watched the Lion receive their plaudits, Luther dragged himself to his feet from the lake of the beast’s spilled blood. Somewhere in the fighting, Luther had lost his helmet, and his face was the one portion of his flesh untainted by bloodstains.
The cheers for the Lion went on undiminished, and Zahariel saw a fleeting look of jealousy flash across Luther’s face. It was gone so quickly, Zahariel wasn’t even sure he had seen it, but the power of the emotion he had seen on Luther’s face was unmistakable.
Descent of Angels Page 17
