The Silver Tower (The Age of Dawn Book 3)

by Everet Martins

  “Through Walter the Death Spawn fall, some even weeping, meeting eternal pain. Through him they enter the Shadow Realm.” -The Diaries of Baylan Spear

  The sun crept along the skyline, almost surprising Walter to see it. He wondered if it too wanted to hide from the horrors that its light would reveal.

  “The evening was uneventful,” a high pitched voice said to another near him, a woman’s voice maybe.

  Walter might have agreed, if not for the thousands being slaughtered beyond the Tower’s bridge. He rubbed the black crust that had formed in the corners of his red-rimmed eyes. Sleep was a distant luxury for him as he listened to the wails of the dying carrying across the river.

  Here they stood in the arms of safety while so many were being slaughtered. They should have done something. Anything but stand here, but you couldn’t change the past and it was already done. Besides, he knew deep down that he would be more useful here than throwing himself into the bear’s den for a quick death. This was one of the many horrors of war he had read about. There would be sacrifices. The deaths of the innocent. The harmless.

  Everywhere behind the wall, now, there was a sort of fear. He could see it in each hard, ghastly face. In their words and movements. It hung in the air like the moments before a storm broke. Like a field of dry elixir plants, ready to sprout fire at the first spark.

  He watched the village burn all night, a blackened wreck of crumbled stone and glowing embers. Smoke tendrils wound into the air like an octopus, dissipating into a black cloud. The horde of Death Spawn lined up along the precipice before the bridge, gibbering, screeching, and occasionally killing each other. Walter thought he could see a pair of them ripping a screaming man apart, tearing his limbs off one by one in sick pleasure. They unceremoniously tossed the defiled body off the cliff, rolling end over end like a doll down to the bottom, its head shattering like a tomato on the jagged rocks.

  “Fuckers!” someone shouted.

  “Why won’t they come?” asked Juzo, leaning against the wall, his bastard sword draped across his back.

  “They’re waiting for something. For what, I cannot answer,” Baylan said, crossing his arms and staring out.

  “What is that?” Nyset asked.

  Someone was working their way towards the bridge, a figure in head to toe armor, waving a white flag. He walked slowly, taking staggering steps, one hand seemed to have been replaced by a curved blade, gleaming in the early light, dragging behind with its weight. The figure’s boots scraped on the blue stone as he drew closer to the gate and Walter could see he had left a trail of blood in his wake, seeming to be dripping from the cracks in its armor.

  “A white flag. They’re giving up now, are they?” Walter said, one corner of his mouth rising, curiosity certainly piqued.

  “An obvious trap,” Juzo said, echoing Walter’s sentiment.

  Bezda strode around the parapet, pacing from side to side as the figure approached, her hand resting on the pommel of her sword. She stood with her back rigid, chin raised high, the very picture of a leader forged in iron. Bows drew back and eyes glowed, leveling on the creature as he came into range.

  “Stop.” Bezda roared over the wall. The creature halted, stumbled into a thick baluster on the bridge, almost tipping over the edge from the weight of its oversized blade on its arm. Blood started pooling around its feet as it righted itself.

  “What are you and what do you want?”

  “I am an emissary. I have come to speak about a peace agreement,” the voice said, harsh like gravel. Some of the guards laughed, but the Arch Wizard wasn’t smiling.

  “Very well, open the gates,” she commanded.

  “She can’t be serious,” Walter said, watching her march down the stairs alongside the wall. Murmurs rolled over the crowd as the massive bar sealing the gate was lifted by six well-muscled armsmen.

  “Maybe she knows something we don’t,” Nyset suggested. Walter was tempted to launch a rebuttal, but since holding his tongue seemed to be working out well for him, he didn’t want to break the trend.

  The gates softly groaned as they were pulled apart by heavy ropes on pulleys, ivory colored steel gaping open in the middle, leaving just enough room for the shambling monster to step through. He lumbered his way in, smearing red on the stark white gate.

  Grimbald, leading the Falcon near the gates surrounded Bezda as she reached the ground level, forming a circle of gleaming blades around her. She waved them away, standing a few paces away from the beast. They shifted back, but not by much.

  “What do you propose then?” she asked, her voice echoing up the walls. All was still, everyone hanging on her words. A man sniffed somewhere and another coughed, retched up some phlegm and spat on the creature. A line of yellowy-green mucus dripped from its pauldron and onto its blade.

  The monster stared around, nothing but balled up flesh under its bleeding face. Its black eyes washed over Walter, briefly meeting his, and his shoulders tightening under its horrific gaze.

  “Alena, the ruler of the south, the one true god Asebor’s right hand, the one who makes men weep in their graves, sent me with this message,” the resurrected body of Darkthorne said.

  Someone growled in the distance, like a wolf pulling flesh from a carcass. Walter realized it was Grimbald, his grip white around Corpsemaker.

  “Open your gates. Drop your weapons. Release the false god’s powers. Surrender and your death will be quick,” Darkthorne said, his voice booming through the walls.

  As he spoke, Bezda’s lips became a lethal smile, her eyes glowering.

  “If you do not,” Darkthorne continued. “You will be flayed, eyes gouged, tongues torn free, cocks ripped off and stuffed into your broken mouths—”

  The Arch Wizard’s sword hissed through the air, a white arc passing through Darkthorne’s neck as if it were but a stalk of wheat. His head rolled across the way, stopped on an Armsman’s spear butt. Blood gurgled from his neck, his body limp and falling onto its knees

  “The Silver Tower! Does! Not! Surrender!” she shrieked, a line of blood spattered across her face and hair. She took a heaving breath, staring down at the beheaded body. Her arms were locked in the position of her follow through, the curving tip of her blade dripping with scarlet.

  Bezda bent over, snatching Darkthorne’s head from the ground, marching to the top of the parapet.

  “She’s amazing!” Nyset whispered into his ear.

  Walter nodded with enthusiastic agreement. “Get ready. I think things are about to get ugly.”

  She passed by the group, mania in her eyes, and thrust the head out towards the Death Spawn army. Her hands burst alight with fire, igniting the head, its flesh sputtering like frying bacon.

  “I’ll give you peace!” she roared. She pushed with both hands and the head vaulted into the air, hissing, and casting a wide arc before exploding in a hail of fire into the Death Spawn. A few danced about, tiny figures burning on the cliff, some tumbling to their deaths.

  A great roar came from the black shapes, like a storm tearing in from the Abyssal Sea and down the Denerian Cliffs. Bezda shrieked back, eyes glowing with Dragon fire. Walter’s chest vibrated with his own screams, resonating with the deafening roars piling in all around. Juzo held his massive blade into the air with one hand. Nyset’s whirling discs sprung to life, shimmering and ready for blood. Baylan raised both of his arms, robes fluttering in the still air. Grimbald beat Corpsemaker on his chest far below, leading his men to do the same.

  The Death Spawn spilled like black slime over the bridge. At the front were two pointed battering rams working their way to the Tower’s gates. Behind those were endless sets of siege ladders being carried along. Out of the black, four Shattered Wings rose, screeching death and weighted down with clinging soldiers.

  “Fire at will!” Bezda shouted. “This is your home! We are the protectors of the realms. We do not die!”

  Fireballs, flaming arrows, and burning spears pelted the air with their red and or
ange trails. The Shattered Wings easily avoided the attacks at this distance, dodging with ear-piercing shrieks. About half way across the bridge and high in the air, they folded their wings against their backs, diving like arrows, their mouths gaping open.

  Something boomed in the distance. Walter saw the arm of a catapult swing up above the fumbling throng. The rock rose, then grew larger and larger, rolling over and seeming to move too slow, as if sinking in honey.

  A faint ringing settled in his ears, a feeling of nightmare made reality. He stared up at the rock, jaw hanging open, same as the other defenders. A feeling of horrible inevitability crept along the parapet. He couldn’t tell where the stone was going to fall, but had enough sense to conjure a Phoenix shield big enough to protect him and his friends. Men scattered, dropping clattering weapons, squawking and yelling. The Shattered Wings were coming in behind the rock, screeching.

  Walter remained, staring up the black shape tumbling through the blue sky. Will it crush me? Thousands of pounds of rock, about to turn his body into soup. It would be a poor way to die. He felt his lips pull into a sadistic smile. There was a deafening boom as the rock crashed into a spire behind him, decapitating an armsman on the way, and tearing a wide hole through the side of the stone column rising into the sky. Splinters and bits of stone rained down, pattering on the wall. The unfortunate headless soldier stumbled forward a step, knees weakening, toppling backwards off the wall.

  “I have the shield, Walter, kill them!” Baylan roared into his ear, overriding the ringing. Walter dropped the Phoenix shield and Baylan conjured his own. Walter nodded to Nyset, who nodded back. Juzo clutched the bastard sword in both hands, mouth snarling, red eye gleaming.

  Nyset thrust her arms forward, discs hissing and crisscrossing mid-flight. They intersected with one of the flying bastards, severing through its opening wings and one of its long arms. It smashed into the gates below, Cerumal tumbling from its body and flailing in the air as they fell into the rushing water.

  Walter reveled in the Dragon’s fury and the calming focus the Phoenix brought, savoring their combined forces. His eyes glowed with red brilliance and surrounded his body in a white glow. A torrent of fire blasted from his fingertips, ten fireballs whizzing towards a Shattered Wing. Three struck true, one blasting a burning hole through the center of its head, another its chest, and a third passing through a wing. The beast did somersaults in the air, limbs and wings opening lifelessly and crashing onto the bridge, then rolling into the water, Cerumal screeching as they plummeted.

  There was another crash, rattling the wall underfoot as another rock struck the parapet at the end. Fragments and stones showered into the air, sending stones the size of heads into the market square and onto the bridge.

  “They’re coming!” Juzo roared at the top of his lungs. Walter looked down, the mass of black wasn’t the typical Death Spawn he was used to seeing. Most of these were skeletons, walking corpses, some with bits of flesh still attached. One had maggots dangling from an eye socket. Another looked like it was recently dead, a water logged corpse.

  The remaining two Shattered Wings swooped overhead, dropping Cerumal, Black Wynches, and Skin Flayers onto the defenders. They screamed as they rose back into the air, impossibly fast, buffeting winds in their wake. A few Cerumal dropped onto the wall, one nearby grabbing a terrified apprentice around the throat and cutting her neck wide open. She gurgled blood and sagged over the wall like her bones had turned to dirt.

  Walter ran to the snarling beast, its face with the nose of a hog and skin white as a corpse. Walter grunted, catching its bloody dagger hand overhead with his forearm, conjuring a dagger of fire in his other, stabbing the knife into the beast’s body. Once, twice, three, four times. Brutal underhanded thrusts that lifted the Cerumal off of its feet, passing through its armor with ease. Blood burned and poured from the holes in its torso, warm and sticky on his hands. Walter grabbed its head in both arms, twisting his body and hauling it over the wall. Something slammed against his leg, filling it with white pain. A block of stone lay beside it, dust filling the air, as his knee snapped off to the side. The healing warmth of the Phoenix filled his leg, righting his bones back into position.

  “Walt, your leg,” Nyset gasped, heaving fire at the airborne attackers.

  “It’s fine,” he groaned.

  A Shattered Wing swept low, snatching an Armsman with its bulky arms and flapping into the air. The beast let him go, screaming with futility, arms and legs flailing, halberd still clutched as he bounced onto the bridge with a clanging of armor on stone. He crawled towards the gate, legs twisted in the wrong direction. The approaching horde enveloped the man, crushing him underfoot.

  “Shit!” Juzo said beside him. “Did you see that?” Juzo drove his bastard sword through a Black Wynch who was carving up an old wizard with its terrible claws. The man cowered against the back wall, his robes shredded and blood leaking through. Juzo lifted the Black Wynch off the cobbles, skewered it like Shroomlings and onions, its talons whipping back. Incredibly, he held the sword with one hand and booted the raging Death Spawn from the end of his blade onto the snarling horde below. Baylan dropped beside the man, casting the old wizard in the healing light of the Phoenix.

  Walter realized that this was the first time most of them had ever seen Death Spawn. It was one thing to see a few of them for your first time, another entirely seeing thousands for your first time.

  “Do not fear! They die just as we do!” he roared. Some of them nodded, seeming to stiffen with resolve.

  Walter limped to the edge of the parapet and peered out. The catapult’s arm roared through the distant charring and smoke. The distance was off, and it flew high overhead. Walter cringed, following the massive rock with his eyes. It blew a great chunk of stone out of the spire leading up to the House of the Phoenix, ringing and shattering stone, fragments raining down into the gardens.

  He looked down at the gate, eyes bulging at the Death Spawn smashing it with battering rams carved out of wide trees.

  “Wizards! Burn them!” roared Bezda from the middle of the wall, her sword raised high. The bottom of the gate erupted with volcanic fire, heat sharp on his face, boiling the shrieking skeletons and gibbering Cerumal. They leaped to their deaths, seeking refuge in the waters. Others filled in around them, picking up the burning rams and working with coordinated effort to smash the Milvorian gates.

  “Baylan, the gates will hold. Impenetrable, right?”

  “Right,” Baylan said over his shoulder, finishing his work on the wounded man.

  “Armsman, fire!” Bezda screamed. There was a rattling of snapping bows and crossbows as they were loosed in a volley. A sheet of arrows and bolts rained pain on Death Spawn unlucky enough to not be carrying shields. The armsmen dropped behind the wall, drawing arrows, reloading crossbows, fumbling arrows and bolts, panting and gasping. The horns blew from the highest spire, louder with pressing urgency.

  Death Spawn fell onto their backs, shrieking and clutching at wounds, bones shattered. They continued on, getting up, driving forward, picking up the rams and hammering on the gates. Bow strings twanged and crossbows clanked and curses were shouted. Nyset joined the other wizards, blasting them with roaring fire, whipping air, and crushing stone. They flew left and right off the bridge, but they were relentless. Their numbers seemed to have no end, a black snake stretched for eternity over the bridge and into the mass of black at the precipice. As long as they didn’t get through the gates, they might have a chance.

  A man fell beside Walter screaming, hands wrapped around a jagged black arrow lodged through his eye. More arrows were hissing from below, clattering against armor and occasionally finding flesh under helmets and in faces.

  “Is it going to be okay? How bad is it?” the man whimpered, his other eye staring up at Walter. He turned to his side, slipped off his helm, the arrow head sticking out the back of his skull.

  “You’re going to be okay,” Walter lied, putting a hand on his chest wh
ile the end came, breaths growing shallow.

  “Juzo!” Walter barked, tracking a Shattered Wing, plucking the legs off an unfortunate wizard in the air before dropping him onto the rocks. “Let’s get these fuckers!”

  Juzo’s mouth spread wide, teeth gleaming murder. “This one’s mine.” He pointed towards the one sweeping in for another defender on the eastern side of the wall.

  Beside Walter, a ruby robed wizard squealed as a shaft stuck into his chest, fireballs hovering in his hands. He twirled around, and the fireballs launched into his neighbor, blowing a charred hole in his side, offal spilling out onto the stone. The two of them fell on top of each other, a pool of blood spreading out under Walter’s boots.

  “Shit!” Walter hissed. That could have been him, guts open to the world.

  Juzo was a flash of white and black sprinting across the wall, sword pressed against his back. The Shattered Wing dropped low and Juzo sprang up, sword raised overhead, clutched in two hands. His blade sunk deep into the Shattered Wing’s back, shrieking and vaulting into the sky, twirling and shaking like a dog, Juzo trailing from its back like a flag. Walter watched in awe as streams of scarlet and chunks of flesh were thrown from its back by Juzo’s hand. He plunged his arm into its back, through a hole he had created and extracted his blade with the other hand, clinging to its innards. He worked the bastard sword like a smith’s hammer, beating in and out of the monster’s back, blood pouring out like a punctured wine skin.

  The Shattered Wing ceased flapping and started dropping like a tossed carcass. Juzo slammed his sword into its back, gripping it with both hands, crashing down towards the monsters clamoring to get out of the way. It boomed onto the bridge and Juzo leaped from its back before it started rolling like a log, blasting Death Spawn from the sides of the bridge.

  Maybe not the best way to kill the beast, but it had worked and his friend was still alive. “Juzo, you crazy bastard,” Walter breathed. There was a sliver of blue stone bridge exposed and Juzo waving his sword to ward off the approaching mass.