“I will be back, Rhywder. Stay alive.”
“Aye.”
Rhywder drew a breath and stepped into the light. He turned and quickly brought the shield upward. An arrow thunked into the wood of the shield’s face. Satrina gasped.
“Picked a good spot,” Rhywder shouted upward at the rock face of Hericlon. “I cannot see you at all. Hidden yourself well, have you not? Care to introduce yourself?” Rhywder lowered the shield, taunting him. The arrow came out of the black rock itself, from shadows. Rhywder spun sideways, angling the shield, making it appear as though he were catching arrow for sport.
“Take mark, lads,” he said, watching the rock. “Watch for his next dart—then make your guess and stagger your shots, keep your fire steady from wherever you see his arrow fly.”
No sooner had he spoken than another bolt skittered past his leg. The young archers turned, crouched, still keeping close to the battlements, and began to fire upward.
“Now, Satrina! Run!”
Rhywder then threw open both arms, baring himself, and started dancing backward across the causeway.
“Right here, you eagle-eyed son of a whore! Here I be!”
An arrow whispered death past his ear. Rhywder kept dancing backward, as though there might be music. He even started to sing.
“Oh, my mother were a tavern wench, and my father were a bastard’s son!” An arrow kissed the skin of his thigh as it passed. “His thirst one night he came to quench and I was made ‘fore the day was done!”
The youth’s arrows were dissolving everywhere into the rock above. “Run, Satrina! Run!”
An arrow came whispering straight and true, and Rhywder spun to catch it in the face of the shield. Its tip wedged through, intent on reaching his head. This time, Rhywder had seen the path.
“He is left of the sun!” Rhywder cried. “The high ledge a degree left of the sun almost exactly midway up! You can see the darkness he crouches in, a cavern!”
Another arrow flew, but this was not aimed for Rhywder. It angled against the side in a steep shot for Satrina, who had now reached the stairway and leapt down it, hair flying.
“Hey!” Rhywder shouted, throwing aside the shield. “Forget the girl! Here! I am naked! Prime meat! Take me out, you suckile frog!” Rhywder couldn’t dodge the next shot. He hit the stone rolling, but the arrow still caught his side. The shaft snapped in him as he rolled over it.
“Bitch,” he hissed, backing into the cover of the causeway edge. He scrambled to squat and quickly ripped the broken tip free. Flinging it, he scanned the wound. It was a lucky graze. It would burn, but it wasn’t deep enough to cause much trouble. “Any more holes in me,” he said to a youth nearby, “I will soon leak like a badly sown Galaglean mead skin.” He used his short sword to cut away a strip from his horsehair tunic. “You get a hole in your leathers, last person you want stitching it would be a Galaglean. But if the bastard ever offers to cook you up a pig, do not turn down the offer. They make good pig.” Rhywder cinched the tie about his wound.
The boy said quietly, “We are not to be leaving this causeway this day, are we, Captain?”
“Never toss the first stone on your grave, boy. Leave that for the ravens.”
Rhywder checked the angle of the sun. Daylight was closing. In the narrow passage, it would come early. If the Unchurians were going to make a move, it had to be soon. “Can you hear me, boys?”
Most shouted back.
“I want each of you, for this moment, to think on your mothers. Boys like you, coming here—taking this stand. By Elyon’s grace, that kind of mettle … your mothers gave you that. Courage.”
Rhywder stepped from the edge, circling to grab the shield, and then came to a crouch behind it.
An arrow sang past him, angled over the causeway of the gate.
“It is fathers give us grit and anger, but it is our mothers give us courage,” he shouted, dodging another. “We suck it down in our blood from the womb. Without our mothers, we’d all wet ourselves and run like gutter rats right now. You boys be proud.”
Another one crossed the causeway in a slant. It was a screamer—the arrow’s tip had been borne out, and air whistling shrilly just for its effect on the nerves. Rhywder glanced over the port. Satrina was running for the horses, and the screamer seemed to be searching her by scent—but she was too far now, the shot dropped short.
Rhywder threw the sword aside, quickly brought a bow up, aimed, then fired.
He was not sure if he took mark, but no more arrows came.
Rhywder heard the hoofbeats of Satrina’s horse from below as she was clearing the edge of the garrison passage. But there was another sound now, deeper, a rumble.
He turned to the south passage, looking over the causeway. He had seen many things in his time, but this still made him shiver. For a moment he just stared. “What is it, my lord?” asked one of the lads. Rhywder glanced at the boy.
“Against the battlements!” Rhywder screamed. He leapt toward the causeway’s ports. The young Kerrigans also scrambled to crouch tightly against the gray stone of the ports. They had been well trained. The rumble from the passage grew steadily. Something so heavy they could feel it through the rock of Hericlon’s passage. There was a sharp, high-pitched whining, a sound Rhywder could not place, but that made him think of a cat being skinned still alive.
“There is some company on approach, boys.” Rhywder shoved proper weapons through his belt. “We have any supper to offer? They have surely been marching all day. Probably be coming hungry.”
He paused, catching several of their eyes.
“Well?”
“Aye,” answered one. He pulled a silver arrow to a stiff-gut bowstring. “Our mothers would not have us here without sending the Unchurians their supper.” Rhywder let himself laugh aloud.
“Hear that,” he screamed, throwing his head back, the muscles in his neck stretched. “You hear that, you mutant bastards! We got supper waiting! Hot and dipped in your favorite sauce!” He spit on the tip of his own first arrow.
There was light, nervous chuckling among the youth.
Rhywder then swallowed against the fear in his gut, and quickly stepped into an archer’s port.
Machinery was coming up the passage, into the clearing of the gateway. They were tall towers, so high they were wobbly, with huge wooden wheels cut of massive trees. With the eastern sun going down behind them, they were left high, leaning silhouettes of assault towers, looking any moment as if they might topple, but with so many tiers, they would be able to breach even the gate of Hericlon.
There was a heavy thud against the causeway face. Pebbles bounced, spilling over the ports. A catapult had just sent a heavy rock against the wall, striking it so hard, bits of it were flung over the causeway in a spray of shrapnel.
“We will know Elyon this day, boys. You remember that,” he said. Monsters. Everywhere, on the towers. He could see them massed in the upper tiers, miscreants, Failures being sent in as fodder. If only the Unchurians knew there were but thirty lads manning the ports and causeway of Hericlon.
“Make yourselves ready,” Rhywder screamed. He pulled the bow taut while there was distance and took out a huge lump of flesh that made no sense, human or animal. It dropped over the edge of the tower, tumbling through the air, just a mass of flesh, here and there an arm or two.
Aedan had inched his way up the rock, using what notches he could find—but now he froze, looking below. In the canyon were towers, siege craft, and massive giants, misshapen beasts of all kinds, except they all bore human skin and faces, some with arms and legs, others grown in ways he had never imagined. Aedan looked away. He knew there was movement up just below in the crevice he had managed to climb above. The man who called himself the Little Fox had injured the archer, but there was still movement from the narrow crevice, he could still fire down on the causeway, so at least Aedan assured himself his climb had not been for nothing. He drew his dagger, and clamped it in his teeth. He saw the tip of an
arrow, angled for the causeway—so close he could almost grab it.
The singing below came up the wall of the canyon like a festival. The human beasts were hollering in a strange song, being led on by drum keepers, so eerie and inhuman it left chills through him. It was as though he were no longer on Earth, but some other planet, some dark and terrible dream.
Aedan moved—he stopped thinking and twisted, spinning full around to drop onto the edge of the crevice, his blade now between his fingers, barely crouched on the crevice edge. His mind only comprehended what happened afterward. The Unchurian was wounded, barely drawing the arrow taut, but he had been trying to hit the captain. Aedan threw his knife, but the Unchurian was quick. The arrow this close just went through Aedan, he hardly felt it, a tug, no more. He caught the edge just before he fell; clinging, he crawled up and over the side, then eased back against the rock. Sitting across from him as though they were pals was the Unchurian with Aedan’s knife hilt through his forehead. He looked down at himself. There was a small round hole through his side, leaking blood slowly.
“Ready?” Rhywder shouted.
He glanced down the row of them. Some were speaking their last prayers. Others were weeping outright, but all clutched their weapons, ready.
Rhywder noticed there had been elephants down, driven by winged minions, mounted in great wooden chairs. He had never seen that before. It was a circus coming. There were singers, women dancing naked before the towers, as they slowly rumbled up the canyon, and all of them were singing, the miscreants and mutants hopelessly off-key and mutilating the words, but singing along with the others. The tall towers weaved like drunken sentinels. The Failures were too stupid to even know why they had been lined in rows at the fronts of the towers.
“Man the ports!” Rhywder cried. “Ready your bows! We will fire on them with all we have. Give their number no mind, it matters not, what matters is that we fight for our kindred this day!”
The youths drew their arrows, ready.
“Fire, let them have it!” cried Rhywder.
The Little Fox and the line of youth all fired arrow after arrow as the big towers closed on them. Their quivers at their sides, they fed their bows quickly.
Things were dropping from the towers—ill-formed giants, Failures, the last generation of Azazel’s children.
“Look for the humans,” he shouted, “the human-looking ones. Kill them if you see any!”
And Rhywder did. It reminded him of a Daath, the way he moved, turned to aim a catapult. With Rhywder’s arrow through his forehead, the Unchurian dropped back and from his catapult seat, arms dangling.
The towers were about to breach.
“Shields!” Rhywder cried, taking one himself, crouching. Many of the Failures were armed with bows. Arrows honed in like insects, quick, spraying everywhere, without aim. One boy cried out, then staggered, screaming. Arrows wrenched him off the stone and literally flung him into the air above the garrison.
“Crossbows!” Rhywder cried.
They quickly lifted loaded crossbows.
“Fire into their faces!”
It was no less than a few feet now. Soon they would be within range to drop the ramps. Rhywder put the bolt through the head of a horseman. The hinges were being dropped away from the gangplanks. He saw one of the Failures howling to the sky, circling a war hammer over his head.
“Behind your shields,” Rhywder cried. He took a breath, ignoring the madness in his head from what he had just seen.
“Take up swords!”
He glanced down the line of them, either direction, in the moments that were left.
“They will breach at the ports!” Rhywder shouted over the rumble and drums and singing.
The causeway shook again, hammered by a series of powerful catapult blows. He watched as a gray, square catapult stone sailed overhead, missing the wall. It seemed to tumble slowly though the air as if for a moment time had slowed. There came times to die, and this was one of them.
“We will see the face of Elyon this day, lads, for all of you, all of us, we die valiant. When you reach home, welcome the light! That is what I intend, to kiss the light!”
Another catapult slammed, this one rocking them all. Rhywder angled his sword, crouched. “On my word—”
The gangplanks fell, slamming onto the ports. “Attack!”
Rhywder charged the gangplank. He slew. His sword and shield were a blur and when one sword lodged, he drew another. Then an axe. Then a long dagger, and finally the short sword he had been given by Argolis when first he joined the Daath. It was like no other, fashioned after the hilt of Uriel’s sword, black ivory laced with silver serpents entwining the cross guards.
The youth were simply slaughtered. He saw one being eaten, lifted, arms and legs dangling as a giant mutation gnawed into his neck and shoulder.
For a time the Little Fox of the Lochlain held them on the gangplank, killed them, slew them like a working day, bodies falling to either side, some monstrous, some not. Finally, when he began to tire, when Rhywder knew it was almost ended, he pulled in the last of his life’s energy and screamed, a warrior’s cry, a death cry, and slit one final throat.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Galagleans
The Falcon rode at the head of his armies in a chariot pulled by four dark horses. The rich, blue mantle of the Galagleans flew high in the wind. His shoulders and neck were wreathed in black horsehair, and his helm bore rams’ horns. They had finally reached the shadow of Hericlon. He had pressed the men to their limit, moving his armies up the valley toward the mountain.
Just behind Quietus were the Champions, mounted veterans scarred of battle, trained in far garrisons, and weaned on the gathering wars. He had always kept the Champions strong. They had never fallen. Quietus did not consider the final surrender of Galaglea a failure of warriors; it was his word, to spare lives, to put an end to madness, though in his head the madness still raged. He hated all Daath with a deep vengeful hatred.
“A woman,” one of the Champions shouted, pulling his horse up alongside Quietus’s chariot.
“What!”
The Champion pointed a gloved hand. Quietus was amazed. From the mouth of Hericlon’s canyon came a lone rider—a girl with long reddish hair and naked legs. Her mount was galloping straight for them. Quietus raised his fist. His Captains called a halt. The Falcon watched in stunned silence as the girl rode up to them. The horse reared as she turned it about.
“Are you are the Falcon?” she cried.
“I am!” Quietus shouted back.
“Attack! Hericlon is under siege!”
She then whipped the reins against the horse’s neck, turning back, galloping for the canyon as though she were going to mount the attack without them. Quietus drew his sword.
“Follow that she-bitch!” he cried, launching his chariot horses. The Champions shouted, drawing weapons, spurning their mounts to fan out at the flanks of their king—fifty horses, bearing down upon the canyon in heavy thunder.
As he saw the Falcon and his Champions began to pull away at full gallop, Marcian Antiope drew his sword and held it high. He was captain of the Second Century Calvary, fifty strong. Though they were called centuries to match the divisions of Galaglean foot legions, the horse were ten cohorts, half-centuries actually, but as did the Daath, they were called centuries. Marcian’s column commander circled his mount, waiting to echo his captain’s orders.
“Second Century!” Marcian shouted, lifting his sword for those in the rear to see. “Ahead, full charge!”
He leveled the sword, sinking his heels into the sides of his horse. His command was echoed down the line, and the fifty horsemen of the Galaglean’s second cavalry, with Marcian in the lead, streamed across the Vale of Tears for Hericlon’s passage at full gallop, the formation spreading out to maintain top speed. Marcian could hear something, even beyond the sound of the Champions’ hooves. He could hear rumblings from the canyon. It was as though the mountain itself were murmuring
.
Marcian, with his swiftest horsemen, the first cohort, began to pull away from the main body, closing the gap between himself and the Champions.
Behind them, the two legions of Galaglea pressed forward at doublemarch. Quietus, finding a war to engage, had brought all his troops, every veteran, every elite nobleman, every solider and apprentice, down to cadets in training, all the armies of the second largest of Dannu’s gathered tribes had been gathered by Quietus for the assault on Hericlon.
Marcian knew the king fully intended to take the battle into the southern jungles to avenge the colonies that had been attacked by the heathen Unchurian. The king believed it would be a quick and simple war, over in weeks, but he relished the thought of returning to battle, even a short one. However, Marcian also knew it made no sense. The villages of Unchurian were small. They actually were heathen, without hardly any relation to their homeland of the south. Marcian, however, knew different. There could be no reason for them to scour the Galaglean settlements and attack the gate of Hericlon. This had to do with the angel of the far southern deserts. It was said the numbers of his children had never been counted. No one had said anything of it, but Marcian knew, his wife had warned him, this was to do with prophecy and it balanced on the thin edge of the ending of all things.
Satrina galloped into the canyon. She clutched the mane, leaning forward, close against the neck, when suddenly, with a scream, something tackled her. She heard a flap of leathery wings, but never really saw what had thrown her over the flanks. She hit, rolling along the side of the canyon wall. She struggled to come to her feet, trying to fight it off, and for a moment saw its face, skeletal, the bone arching above the eyes. It reached a claw and then vanished, sucked beneath the hooves of the mounted Champions of Quietus’s cavalry as they swept past. Satrina’s own horse was carried away as the Champions passed, as well, their hooves deafening. Satrina had been forgotten, and she pressed herself against the canyon wall for fear of being trampled. They were truly terrible to behold, large men, heavy armor, weapons bristling, their bred horses like beasts of flight.
Angelslayer: The Winnowing War Page 39
