Usurper

by David Waine

  “Seven,” replied Gallen, “with ten companies of infantry support if we strip the defence of the inner bailey to its minimum requirement.”

  “How long can we hold it, thus weakened?”

  “Several hours,” replied Treasor, “but then we would require urgent external relief.”

  Rhomic nodded thoughtfully. He had decided. “Then do not strip it to the minimum. I will take two companies of cavalry only. That should disperse an unprepared force and gain you time, Callin. It will then be up to you to deliver the hammer blow with what we have left.”

  “I understand, My Liege,” responded Callin quietly.

  The Archbishop arrived and Callin’s anointing was carried out with a perfunctory lack of ceremony, witnessed by the king, Gallen, Treasor, Ferian and Gledden, the last four of whom swore undying loyalty and obedience to the new king from the moment of his succession.

  Callin now spoke for the first time as a commander, delivering an order to Gallen, a man he had had hitherto held in awe. “Assemble the remaining five companies of cavalry with six companies of infantry support. Everyone else to the walls. We will follow the king out through the gate, but then wheel around the perimeter to take them on their flank. That should mask our numbers from the enemy until we are assembled.”

  Gallen, equally aware of the reversal in their roles, saluted and bowed. “As you command, Your Highness.”

  Callin blinked incredulously. The general had called him, ‘Your Highness’. He was a prince!

  Immediately a deafening clap of thunder resounded over the topmost towers.

  “The storm breaks,” smiled Rhomic grimly.

  *

  The broad portcullis of the western gate ground laboriously upwards as the massed cavalry just behind it tugged at their reins, holding their mounts back as they pawed the ground, impatient to be off.

  Rhomic, now in full armour, with his personal standard bearer at his side, held up his massive arm and cried in a voice that seemed it could carry for leagues.

  “For God, Rhomic, Prince Callin and the Kingdom!”

  The cry was taken up with a roar that resounded throughout the castle, reverberating from massive stone walls, amplified over and over in its passage. Even those surging into the outer bailey paused in their assault and stared round at each other when they heard this new and terrifying sound punctuated with a particularly massive thunderclap and a bolt of brilliant lightning striking the topmost turret and rattling the tiles. The rain began to stream down in an absolute deluge.

  Sword out, banner held high, Rhomic and his detachment surged out of the gate, a wall of swirling blades and hammering hooves, their deadly war cries ringing before them as they charged across the short, grassy plain where so many hunts had begun in the years gone by. At its rear rode a small, ominous detachment dragging an empty litter. Behind them, Callin’s own, much larger force moved out quietly to take up its position.

  The Draals, hitherto complacent in their belief that the trees hid them, were taken off guard. Looking up from their labours, they beheld a roaring swarm of stygian oblivion thundering down on them, lit by crashing flashes of lightning and, at its fore, the Bear King himself!

  Startled out of their wits, their half-formed ranks were wavering and even crumbling before the Kingdom cavalry smashed into them. Hundreds fell before the first blow was struck back, and the Draal lines were broken before they could rally and mount any form of counter-attack.

  The rain was now so heavy that there was no chance of setting their heavy machines ablaze — it would have been folly to do so in the forest anyway — so the riders slashed at their rope bindings as they passed, demolishing the towers before they had been half built. Many, on both sides, were crushed by their collapse.

  Callin watched the rout from his position at the head of his own troops. Gallen sat beside him. Both set their eyes resolutely on the royal banner as it darted left and right through the trees, now disappearing into the pouring gloom, then reappearing elsewhere to deal death on any who stood their ground. As it plunged further beneath the eaves, the intervals between its reappearances became longer and harder to predict. Finally it disappeared altogether. Hearts in their mouths, both men scanned the streaming gloom, casting nervous glances at each other and then scouring the landscape until their eyes ached in their sockets. No sign. Only darkness, shadows and the incessant downpour.

  “There!” Gallen’s finger stabbed forth.

  A small detachment had emerged from the forest as was returning at speed, banner drooped. One horse dragged the litter behind it, and the litter bore a heavy burden.

  Rhomic lay, gasping his last, a bodkin arrow lodged firmly in his breast. He had snapped most of the shaft away before falling from his horse, but the stub remained and a steady trickle of blood dribbled down his breastplate.

  Callin and Gallen both leapt from their steeds and knelt at his side. His old eyes flickered open and Callin felt he saw a small smile there.

  “Now is the moment, young Vorst,” he wheezed. “Take your destiny with both hands and ride to glory.”

  He spoke no more.

  Callin rose, unable for the moment to see or hear anything, so overwhelmed was he. The world blurred, sounds distorted before he realised that Gallen stood before him with the single golden circlet of state in his hands.

  “The king is dead!” cried the general. “Long live the king!”

  Reaching forward he placed the circlet over Callin’s helm. It fitted. It had fitted Rhomic’s bare head. A fanfare broke out from the battlements above. Callin looked up in time to see the Vandamm banner hauled down from the masthead to be replaced by the Vorst, fluttering side by side with the royal banner itself. A cheering burst on his ears.

  *

  Triumphant cheering had broken out in the outer bailey and beyond, where many thousands more were massing to smash down the castle’s defences, when they saw the Vandamm banner hauled down. This was instantly repressed to confused questions, however, when they saw the Vorst break out in its stead immediately. The Bear King might be dead, but who was this who rose to replace him?

  And now he came!

  Looming black out of the darkness, an army materialised on their flank, stamping determinedly through the rain and mud. Their faces were grim and their banners were Kingdom. At their head rode a stranger, his armour washed clean of blood by the streaming rain, glistening in the now continuous blue lightning flashes, the circlet of state about the brow of his helm. As his men hauled their mounts to a standstill atop a hillock overlooking the town, he walked his steed forward slowly, mounting a small knoll alone and surveying the hushed Draal horde before him. Drawing his sword, he raised it to the sky in a single smooth gesture of defiance. A shuddering peal of thunder broke out directly overhead, spitting a spear of lightning straight down into the point. The entire figure lit up an unearthly blue as the grass about his steed’s hooves crackled and sparked. Both sides gasped in horror — and then in wonderment. Instead of being reduced to ashes by such a strike, the man remained erect, unhurt, his armour glowing blue and purple in the dark, his mount unperturbed. Azure sparks crackled and fizzed at the tip of his sword.

  Even Callin was dumbfounded by the event. He should have been shrivelled to dust, but he was unhurt — and why did his armour glow in the dark?

  Immediately the answer came to him and a black cloud of guilt engulfed him.

  “But I rejected you,” he murmured as he heard her far-off laughter again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Kubelik rubbed his eyes in disbelief. His primary sword still streamed with the blood of his Kingdom victims. His spare weapon, as yet unused, was slung across his back, ready for instant action. He had, that day alone, doubled his personal tally of butchered foes and their death cries had sung in his ears like glory. Now a cold hush gripped his forces as the rumour of some dread warrior spread from rank to rank.

  Trulik reined in beside him. Like his prince, he was so coated with gore tha
t the incessant rain had failed to dispel it. For all that, he remained his detached, phlegmatic self. “It seems that the Bear King is dead, My Prince, but who has risen to take his place?”

  Kubelik said nothing. He heard nothing. He could only stare at the glowing figure on the hillock opposite.

  Trulik continued in a monotone. “Well, I suppose you were right. That woman you rutted with must have been the Hag.”

  “It is a trick!” Kubelik’s voice was a hiss.

  “Oh, well in that case, I suggest you reduce him to a mortal corpse very quickly before panic sets in on our army. They need a bit of rallying. Down him and the day is ours. It will have to be you, of course. You are the supreme commander, after all.”

  Kubelik shot him a look of concentrated hatred, then readied his horse and levelled his sword.

  “Amazes me how he managed to survive that lightning bolt, though,” put in the general as the prince spurred his horse.

  Callin saw him coming. He turned to General Gallen at his side. “Hold back,” he said quietly, “we will turn the tide man to man.”

  Gallen was speechless. He, too, was wondering how the new king had survived that lightning bolt and why he now glowed in the dark. He nodded, awestruck.

  Callin rode forward calmly to meet the oncoming Kubelik. Reining in, he watched the charging Draal in silence. Then, to everyone’s astonishment, he dismounted.

  Kubelik roared in triumph. Holding his smoking weapon aloft, the wind and rain streaking its crimson coating, he thundered down on his ultimate victim.

  Callin stood poised, his weight distributed evenly. He gripped his own sword with both hands, held low, ready to meet the coming strike. Kubelik came on. Callin waited. Two armies stood in awe, holding their collective breath.

  At the very last moment, just as Kubelik was about to ride him down, Callin sidestepped and swung his sword with all his might. An almighty flash rocketed to the sky as Kubelik’s sword shattered in his hand and he was hurled from his saddle to land in a heap in the mud.

  Momentarily disorientated, he picked himself up. The silent, glowing king stood fifteen paces distant, shimmering in the pouring rain. Disbelief clouded Kubelik’s face. For the first time in his life he had been disarmed. Never before had he experienced a shock like the one that ran through him when his opponent met his blow. His very best killing stroke had been demolished by a man on foot.

  Without taking his eyes from his adversary, he reached for his spare sword and levelled it, blinking the streaming water from his eyes.

  “Who are you?” he hissed.

  “My name is Callin Vorst,” replied the glowing king calmly, “and I am your doom.”

  The killer of a hundred men in the Draal School of Death, and another hundred that very day, remembered the prophetic words of Rhomic Vandamm.

  You will never reign in the Kingdom. Your squalid, bloody and mercifully short life has almost run its course.

  A new, unfamiliar emotion coursed through his veins. The joy of battle left him. Instead of the conqueror's triumph that had once beckoned, he could now see only death and — and what? For the first, and only, time in his entire life, he knew the acrid taste of fear.

  “Vandamm is dead?”

  Callin nodded slowly. “He is. I am his successor. Strike me down, if you can. Your forces in the forest are no more. Rhomic routed them.” Callin’s voice was cool, far calmer than he felt, but he sensed the burgeoning silent hope from the ranks behind him.

  Summoning a demonic courage from somewhere within the blackness of his soul, Kubelik raised his blade for a final, desperate charge.

  Callin parried the first blow with a clash and deflected the second. The third he parried again and rocked the Draal back on his heels. Kubelik swayed, panting. Never had he felt such strength in an opponent’s arms. Never before had he been beaten back with a simple push. Yet this glowing king was a full head shorter than him and much lighter. Where did he find the strength? And why did he glow in the dark?

  Wiping the streaming water from his eyes, Kubelik charged again, uttering his blood-curdling war cry and slithering on the muddy ground. Again the blow was parried with a clash and shower of sparks and again he was rocked back. Callin simply stood his ground, watching his adversary coldly. Kubelik was now wheezing with the effort. Why did this Vorst not come after him? Why did he not press his advantage? He knew that his strength was beginning to fail now that he was faced with an adversary who did not simply submit and die. If he did not strike this upstart down immediately he would be struck down himself.

  For a third time Kubelik raised his weapon and charged. Again Callin parried the first blow — aimed at his head. Again he deflected the second — aimed at his waist. Kubelik was a true Draal. If it didn’t work first time, do the same thing again and again until it did work. The third blow, a diagonal upwards cut with both hands on the hilt, however, brought a result. The aim was truer — more by luck than anything else — and Callin’s sword was deflected. For an instant, his guard was down and his body open to a scything killing blow.

  Down it came from overhead, sweeping straight for his neck. The Draal prince roared in triumph — and then gaped in disbelief.

  Instead of ripping the glowing king’s head from its shoulders, the sword stopped in mid-flight, a finger’s breadth from its target, and there it stayed, locked rigid. Try as he might, he could not move it.

  The look on his adversary’s face was remorseful. “Take it away,” he murmured, “I rejected you.”

  Kubelik, thinking this was addressed to him, tried to pull his weapon back, but still it would not budge. Horror-struck, he stared into the eyes of his destroyer and saw pity there, if such an emotion could ever be felt for such as him. Sidestepping the sword, Callin ran the man through.

  Kubelik’s death scream rang to the clouds above. He hung limply on the weapon that impaled him, still alive, still aware, and he saw the glowing energy in his foe’s armour slide into his arm and concentrate in his gauntlet. Then it shot through the sword and into his body with a blinding crack. The new king no longer glowed but the Beast Prince burst into flames, a shrieking fireball, arched over backwards, its flaming tongue visible between the charred, burning lips.

  As suddenly as they had erupted, the flames expired and what had been the heir to the throne of Draal crumbled into a pile of ash at Callin’s feet, his sword falling harmlessly to the ground.

  A moment of shocked silence dragged out for both sides. The fighting on the walls had taken pause to witness the duel and now none had the will to recommence it. Sheer horror at what they had just seen began to ripple through the Draal ranks, swelling to outright panic. Their titanic leader was gone, shrivelled to dust before their eyes and a monstrous demon commanded their foes.

  They did not know it, but their foes were as shocked as they were. Was this the Lord’s Anointed or the Devil’s own? Never before had they witnessed a contest won so completely, an adversary destroyed so utterly. Never before had a leader displayed such power. If they could but know it, the same question ran through Callin’s mind.

  A new sound reached their ears: the regular beat of many drums and the shrill cry of clarions, marked by the steady tramp of thousands of booted feet. All eyes turned slowly to meet the new arrival. Friend or foe? They saw it spread out across the valley, black against the grey of the fields, rank upon rank, silent, their banners furled. On they came, regular, remorseless, troop after troop, filling the gaps in their lines and blocking the escape route for both of the rival armies ahead. With a single thudding crash, they stamped to attention and halted. The moment hung on the air, eerily quiet after the roar and crash of battle. Three hosts faced each other. Then a single clear clarion rang out.

  An exultant cheer rose from the throats of the newcomers, as their banners were unfurled. They were Kingdom banners, Vorst banners. At their head rode the splendid Captain Surinak. Dorcan’s final message had got through. Nassinor had come at last!

  Despite sti
ll outnumbering his foes by at least three to one, there was little that Trulik could do. Already panicked by the loss of their terrible prince, the sudden arrival of the Sutherlanders’ reinforcements — the same reinforcements that they had been assured were well bottled up by their comrades elsewhere — their hearts failed them irreversibly and their ranks broke in all directions.

  Hoisting his royal banner, Callin led the charge. Taking his lead from that action, and yet believing it to be led by Rhomic, Surinak sent his own cavalry in. Ballistae spat forth their flaming missiles from the castle and the rout of Draal was under way.

  Surinak and Callin met on the field. The captain had already given a routine salute to the young knight before he realised that he was addressing his new king. A look of cold fury crossed his face when told of the destruction of the Vandamms and of the fate of his old master, Count Dorcan. He swore his allegiance there and then on the field of battle.

  “Did Baroness Dumarrick and The Lady Xunin reach safety in Nassinor?” shouted Callin over the din.

  “They did, sire,” yelled Surinak in response. “Barely an hour before we marched. Both are well.”

  The pair were separated immediately, Callin to ride down the most determined resistance he could find, while Surinak despatched his reserve into hounding down the scattering Draals and cutting to pieces any who did not throw their weapons down forthwith.

  Relatively few suffered that fate. Their hearts gone, the bulk of Trulik’s forces surrendered where they stood. Those who stood their ground were hacked down without mercy. Only his elite guard, some seven thousand cavalry, escaped. They rallied round their surviving commander, providing him with a shield from the oncoming Sutherlanders. Time was running out for them, however. If they stood their ground, they would be surrounded and slaughtered to a man. Seizing the only opportunity still available to him, Trulik attacked Surinak’s left wing and his men succeeded in cutting their way through before the Nassinor commander could wheel his centre to block their advance.