Rhywder smiled at those chasing him. “Fare you well, you unholy bastards!” Rhywder screamed, then turned and dove headlong into the surging current.
In his mind’s eye he saw the barrage of stone soar, tumbling, almost in slow motion as it came against the face of the dam.
Most of the Unchurian horsemen stopped and turned to watch. There was nothing more to do now but die.
Rhywder swam hard. His muscles were numbed, he felt as though he were swimming without benefit of legs and arms, but he kept at it, kept lashing the cold waters, using the current to carry him, angling for a shale and sand beach just downstream, where the canyon wall opened into a vale. In seconds the dam would sunder completely.
It seemed almost impossible to make out which direction he was swimming; the waters were muddied; pebbles and stone were hurtling through it. One grazed his side. When his boots took hold of sediment, he burst from the water at a run, sucking air into frozen lungs. His legs were numb, and he ran half-stumbling at first, until he could force rhythm. He heard the dam give way behind him. It had a sound like gods screaming. As the lake broke through, it seemed to lift into the sky in a frenzied wall of crushed limestone and blue ice water.
Rhywder saw it only from the corner of his eye, but it left him breathless—it was a sight, unlike he had known, as if heaven itself were falling. Rhywder ran full-out, sucking hard breaths, his short, muscled legs working as powerful as a horse’s.
He was running for a tree, one he had chosen the night before, a huge, magnificent oak, bowled, with naked limbs and hard, knotted wood.
The roar was deafening. The ground beneath him shook, threatening to spill open. The hair on the back of Rhywder’s neck bristled; he could feel the fore-winds of the oncoming torrent; he could hear the earth ripping apart.
He climbed, then caught a limb and swung himself around it, hugging tight, pressing his cheek against the strong wood, gripping with legs and arms. He closed his eyes against a last vision of terrible white froth a mile high, spreading outward, ripping whole slabs of the cliffs away. Rhywder whispered the true name of God. It was another of those times—a time to die.
At the ridgeline, where Eryian and the Daath still held, the Unchurian high-blood finally shattered through the inner shields of the King’s Guard, taking Eryian by surprise. The demon had sent in his finest; sensing the moment, he had sent in slayers as deadly as any Eryian had ever had to face. They were equally matched, but the inner circle of guards were outnumbered and Eryian guessed, as weak as he still was, he would have to fight.
They were killing Eryian’s prime, fired with blood, frenzied—a wedge of them, boring through to the center, toward Eryian’s white horse and silvered cloak. They were splattered in blood, and continually they dropped, horses crumpling, vanishing beneath those behind—yet more coming, tall, powerful warriors, firstborn prime, fighting with such skill and alacrity that even Eryian could not help but feel impressed.
The Daathan personal guard were fighting back savagely, they had never been bested, never been breached, and their weapons were cutting through plate armor, shearing horseflesh, chests, necks, cleaving limbs, crushing skulls. It was skilled, deft, savage fighting that seemed almost a work of art as it closed on Eryian.
Eryian prepared. He drew the silver sword, tightened his thighs on the horse’s flanks.
Behind Eryian’s guard, the first lines of the second legion were advancing, Daath rested and prepared to slay with fury, but if the guard broke, there would be a moment of thin blood between here and there for Eryian. He did not believe he would fall this way; his faith was firm, but his logic spoke otherwise.
Archers kept a continual rain upon the Unchurians, a steady darkening of the sky that almost seemed like cloud cover, leaving strange shadows, and sounds like insects boring.
Directly before Eryian, the center was finally pierced, and open fighting broke out. Tillantus had backed his horse to block Eryian and was killing from left to right.
“My lord, you must retreat!” Tillantus screamed.
“I stand here!” Eryian screamed, his face red. “Let the sons of demons do their worst. I will not turn away!”
From the rear, Daathan axemen came forward, wading hard into horseflesh, their work quick.
Unchurians were still getting through—only Tillantus was keeping them from engaging the warlord directly. The high captain’s killing was continual, unrelenting, and bodies were all about him, almost forming a wall.
“We will hold here!” Eryian screamed. “This line cannot give way before the waters come!”
An Unchurian seemed to hurl through the air for Eryian, as though launched by a catapult. Eryian used his shield to deflect him, hurling the warrior over his shoulder where he was quickly cut to pieces. Another broke past Tillantus on horseback. Eryian killed him quickly, a flicker thrust through his heart.
Eryian pulled alongside Tillantus and began to slay.
“Back, my lord, you are too weak.”
“Not weak enough,” he said, his sword a blur as each movement, each slice, was a killing thrust. The axemen of the second reached them now. They came with one purpose, to keep the warlord alive, and they hurled themselves into the fury. If their lord chose this moment to die, they would ensure the cost would be great, indeed.
Eryian ignored all pain, all thought. He slew with craft and skill, like a woodworker honing the finest furniture—it was not frenzy or fury that Eryian fought with; it was precision. The attacks seem to come from all directions. The Unchurians had found Eryian, and he was now their single target. Soon Tillantus, Eryian, and a tight core of horsed Shadow Warriors were hacking through a wall of bodies that came at them out of all madness, with screams that echoed through the coming night.
“I fear we are about to be outflanked, my lord!” shouted Tillantus.
“Rhywder will not fail; it is moments away,” answered Eryian, shearing open a neck to a smooth white cut through the spinal cord.
A captain screamed beside him, then it seemed he spat, but it was the splatter of his tongue as an arrow tore out his cheek.
An Unchurian breaking through to Eryian reared his horse and cast a heavy javelin. Eryian dropped low, hugging the horse’s mane as the javelin tore through his cloak and over the flank of his horse, impaling an Daathan shieldbearer.
A second spear sank deep into the shoulder of Eryian’s horse. The beast screamed, thrown sideways. Eryian tried to leap clear, but the ranks were too tight and his horse came down upon him, rolling with a grunt, legs kicking. Eryian felt his thighbone snap with a grinding crack. When the horse rolled clear, he lay for a moment paralyzed in pain, sucking for breath.
The Unchurian hurled themselves for the kill, but with equal fury, the Daath drove them back, clearing ground about their fallen warlord.
Eryian saw the bone of his own leg torn through muscle flesh.
Warriors and captains lifted a wall of shields to protect him. The frenzy that came against them seemed inhumane, an animal fury. But the shadowy shields of the Daath held them back. Tillantus had dropped from his horse and knelt beside his warlord, breathless, his entire body, face, hand, all splattered in blood as if he had been showered in it.
“Bind my leg, Tillantus! Lash it to spear shafts!”
“Aye,” Tillantus hissed and snapped a heavy shaft across his thigh.
One of the high captains set his boot against Eryian’s right thigh, gripped the leg beneath the knee, pulled it straight, then twisted it about until it looked almost normal. Eryian reeled, drunken with pain. Two swords and a broken javelin haft were laid against the skin and quickly lashed with leather strips.
“A horse!” Eryian shouted, and was lifted by his arms onto his feet, then helped into the saddle. Mounted warriors encircled him. Eryian took the reins, then swayed and lunged for the mane. He held it in fists, breathing tightly. “Lash me to the saddle!”
“Why this, my lord?” shouted Tillantus. “My people must know I have not fallen.�
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A captain quickly tossed leather saddle straps over Eryian’s waist, then under the horse’s belly where they were lashed from either side until Eryian straightened in the saddle. He turned. Behind him, a fresh century of Daath were closing to engage. The moment of truth was past—the best and mightiest of the Unchurian had gotten close, but they had failed to take Eryian and his high captains out. The fresh shields from the rear had reached the battered King’s Guard and began to drive the Unchurian back.
Eryian lifted his sword. “Hard to the ridge! Push them against the ridge!”
Eryian heard the waters, even above the roar of battle. He looked west. A mountain of water was breaking through the forest, annihilating everything, uprooting trees, churning boulders. Panic was breaking out below. Seeing what was coming, the Unchurians on the ridge fought to hold their ground, but were being pushed back. The centuries of the second legions had reached them now, fresh, waiting behind the lines for their moment.
Thousands of Unchurians were below, either crossing the river or struggling up the ridge. The waters closing on them was as high as the ridge itself; whole elder oak and tall pine tumbled in the churning currents along with boulders the size of houses.
The foothold the Unchurians had on the ridge was being lost, panic had broken out, and they were falling back, slipping over the edge of the butte.
Below—madness. They had begun to scramble, helpless. The massive wall of water closed on them like a great hand, sucking them up like ants until the river Ithen was dark with skin and purple with blood.
This day, the Daath had survived. How many times their own numbers they had slain were uncounted, but many. They had dispatched an entire kingdom of armies. And yet, Eryian knew there would be even more.
Chapter Fifty-One
Firestorm
Many of the Daath crouched along the edge of the butte, leaning against sword and spear shafts, shields cast aside. Others were dying. Some held slain brothers. Below them, filling the valley from the butte to a south shore of high ground, waters churned, heavy. As it had been in ancient times, the river was once again wide and mighty, the icy waters of the mountain spurs. For a long time the waves were dark and rolling, until there was only purple and white froth, drifting with trees and debris.
There would be time to rest. The waters would be high and strong—impossible to breach without a bridge or crossing.
Eryian rode slowly among his men. The wounded that would live were being lifted onto litters. The dying were slain and laid upon the pyres being built. Eryian was amazed to find a weary, bloodstained Tillantus standing dazed, staring over the waters.
“Look there,” he said, pointing his bloodied axe. Across the river, in the vale, Unchurians were gathered. Fires were being lit, dotting the land like stars, glittering in forest and along far hills.
“If not for you by my side, I would believe myself mad. How many more could there be? We’ve killed a kingdom of warriors this day!”
“It is a calculation the demon has nursed for seven hundred years. He has raised and honed these firstborn—the finest of them—since the oath of Mount Ammon. They have not aged, and they have been trained for centuries.” “Why? For what purpose?” “Our extinction.”
Tillantus glanced at him.
“Those are the Follower’s words. Never guessed you for one of those Enochian tale weavers.”
“I have been one, but now I wonder.”
“Well, I will admit, this particular bastard is as powerful as anyone I have ever faced.”
“More than even I, Tillantus—possibly more cunning, as well. For aeons he has bided his time, chosen his moves, all for a single hour. This hour.”
“Then by logic our extinction is imminent. Our only possible next stand could be the forest of the East of the Land. That will slow them, give us time to reach the walls of Terith-Aire itself. If they catch us before the East of the Land, we will be sword against sword on open ground and we cannot prevail.”
“Hold to Faith’s Light, Captain.”
“Never have known you to be a man of scriptures, my lord.”
“I have not known myself to be one until these last days. Faith’s Light, Tillantus, when next they come, when next we stand sword to sword against ten times our number, find in the center of your heart that place where light still dwells. It is all we have left us.”
Eryian turned the reins and rode through the ranks west, toward the ports of Ishmia. It left Tillantus wondering. Eryian had never been wrong. If there was light of heaven, so be it. Though it was, admittedly, late in life for Tillantus, the aging high captain of the Daath, to be searching for that place in him where it dwelt. If these were the prophecies of Enoch unfolding, the world, in his view, had as little chance as a hare in an open field against a wolf pack. He turned and somberly started after the warlord. Odd, he thought, how the day had no taste left in him, that all the blood and flesh and bone that had been crushed of life held no taste, even little sorrow. No pity of the dead. Perhaps that was how prophecies unfolded. Elyon seemed to bear no sorrow of his loss, so why should those who suffered it? This god was not one for compassion; no one could argue that point. Perhaps He had heaven’s purpose, but of sorrow for the suffering of men—none.
It was night when Eryian reached the port city of Ishmia. The first legion had been hit hard, had lost perhaps a century of men, but they were still strong. The second legion had hardly seen bloodshed. Both armies were abandoning the ridge and would now form a barrier to the rear of the refugees as they fled along the King’s Road for Terith-Aire. It was open ground, no cover, no defense. Eryian thought he had never really fought a war of defense. He had slain, that was all, he had burned and crushed and overwhelmed to achieve the gathering of the tribes, but never had he been on the wrong side of a siege, never had he been in retreat. But an ancient enemy, apparently, had been watching him long, knew his every weakness.
From the second legion, Eryian peeled off two centuries to guard Ishmia. The flood had effectively cut off the south bank, but he no longer trusted logic.
There were no ships in the typically cluttered dock of the city, and the buildings and temples and courts were vacant, empty. The women, the dancers, the noise of the bustling port were all gone. By now, nearly all of the civilians had been evacuated—they held a view of the ridge and the fighting from here. Any who wished to climb to the tops of buildings or hillocks could have watched the carnage. There was little resistance when the Daathan scouting parties came through the city streets ordering the inhabitants to leave their belongings, to take but the clothes they wore, their children, and loved ones, and press hard for the high walls of Terith-Aire. And so they did; they left their taverns, their shops, villages, left even their jewels and fine wares still waiting to be sold. It was a thieves’ paradise, but even thieves had fled. The only tangible occupants left were the shadowy pockets of fear and terror. If any had doubts of what they faced, all they needed was to look upon the blood-darkened waters of the isthmus beyond the wharf, bobbing with the burnt and bloodied corpses of horses and men, like leaves scattered after a hard autumn wind.
Eryian was looking over the strange sight when a boy rode up beside him and bowed in the saddle. “I am the chemist’s assistant,” said the boy, “and you must be Eryian, the warlord.”
Eryian nodded.
From a saddle pouch the boy lifted several small packets, wrapped with thin, green leaves, and offered them. Eryian took them, grateful. “Send your chemist my thanks, boy.”
“Aye, my lord, but it is our thanks to you. If you need more, the chemist shop is opened, unlocked—we are riding north with the others.” Eryian nodded. “Godspeed.”
The boy bowed once more, then turned his horse and set off down the street, weaving between the warriors of the first and second century from the second legion.
Eryian had always ridden out pain, but this, the shattered bone in his leg, for this he gave in, stuffed a wadded leaf packet just inside either
cheek, then put the rest of them in his belt pouch.
He leaned wearily on the horse, still lashed to the saddle.
“My lord,” said a commander, pulling up beside him. “I have escort for you to rest with your wife. Your injuries are severe. We will watch the wharfs, my lord.”
“I will stay for a time, Commander, satisfy myself against surprises in the night.”
“Speak of them,” said Tillantus, who reached his side. He had been riding hard, his horse sweated, and he was even a bit winded. Eryian could not believe there was more danger; at least the night should be sound—they had earned that.
“Elyon’s grace has blessed us further,” Tillantus swore, then grabbed Eryian’s arm hard, nails biting. “Look there!” He pointed across the muddled bay. “Ships! They have a legion of damned fully armed ships!”
Eryian felt a shiver, which was rare for him. He must have kept them to sea or the flood would have destroyed them, and in fact, he noticed a flotilla closing on the southern shore even now from the west. He had outguessed even the flood, Eryian’s last stab. It should have been complete, should have at least broken battle for a day or so, enough time to get civilians and what remained of his legions to the trees of the East of the Land. But now he stared across the darkened water in disbelief. The bay had risen; it had even swamped many of the wharf and docks, leaving it almost an inland sea. Here, on this side, any merchant ships, any galley still left, had been swept away, and some were even thrown up against taverns and shop faces, looking out of place lying on their sides and tops with crushed masts. Yet, on the far side, across the isthmus, untouched ships had gathered in the dark and now were fearless enough to light their stern and aft lamps for boarding. They were ships of all kinds, warships, merchantmen, heavy galleys with angled sails and tiered oars. Eryian felt a revulsion, a powerful hatred; he had been outguessed. No one outguessed the warlord of Argolis, and he imagined, none had outguessed his former flesh, the angel Righel. But this one saw futures so clearly, he had planned for each. Eryian remembered now the seamen’s rumors: that the southern seas past the Daathan coast were cursed; that despite the riches in spices, gold, and slaves to be gained beyond the western seas of the Daathan coast, ships simply vanished; good ships, hardened captains, disappearing without storm or ice or any logic. They simply went south and never came back. Now it was clear why. They had been collected. The angel had looked into the future, he had seen this as possible, his first onslaught against Eryian a failure. If these ships could form a bridge across the isthmus, it would be possible for the Unchurians to catch the remaining legions of the Daath, as well as their protected civilians, in open land, with no defenses. Even after the slaughters of two insane battles, the vale, and the ride—the number of the Unchurian armies would still be an answer to the angel’s prayers. Elyon’s grace. Elyon’s Light. He left His people like sheep before predators; He stole hope; He crushed hearts and trampled strength. Eryian spat to the side. He wanted to swear his anger to heaven. His fury simmered though him and even the words of Cassium, her warnings against hatred, held no boundary. It was not Azazel that now stirred his fury; it was Elyon. It was a God that gave His best and most pure hearts to hopeless futures. Why even fight on? Why not give the civilians a quick and painless death, then drive into this unstoppable wall of warriors, die well, and end the prophecies and all the hope of mankind. They were not human; it was never the Daathans’ fight to begin with—even according to legend the ship named Daathan had left in the day of Yered to answer the blood cries of an Earth they had no place on, and true to form, the Daath had been outcasts for all these centuries. Feared by all. Even Etlantis had been careful to offer no offense. “My lord, are you all right?”
Angelslayer: The Winnowing War Page 62
