Angelslayer: The Winnowing War

by K. Michael Wright

  Using a single vine he was able to reach the base of the capstone. He was high enough that even the treetops now looked far, and he realized he had climbed far more quickly than he could have without help. Perhaps he was not entirely alone; perhaps there was some aid, some pity left for him. He spread his palm along the skin of the star ship and the comforter whispered like a tender touch. Home—it remembered home as if it had left only that morning. The skin of this temple ship was somehow a part of the Blue Stars of heaven, the cluster that men called the Pleiades—fashioned of it, built of it. Where his hand touched, it began to grow warm, soft, and Loch finally let go of the vines. An opening appeared, and Loch was able to kneel onto a ledge of the capstone. It faced the rising sun, and had been the source of the light he had seen below, a small niche in the side of the temple. It seemed to welcome him with a touch that was tender, spoken. He had only felt this touch once before, when he was young. It had once been Asteria’s touch—his mother’s. As Loch lowered to one knee in reverence, the opening closed, swallowing him into the star temple that was Daathan.

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  The Light Whose Name is Splendor

  The alabaster of Terith-Aire’s walls glittered. The survivors of Ishmia and those gathered in the retreat were reaching the gate. Beyond the clearing, the tightened second legion of the Shadow Warriors of the Daath were slowly coming out of the oaken forest that was the East of the Land, and before them, encircled by the King’s Guard, the finest warriors in the world, were the seventy and seven chosen. It was believed by some that once behind the walls of Terith-Aire they would be protected, walls that were built by a race so long ago and so close to Elyon and the light of the mothering star that even the sunblade of a demon could not shatter the spired walls and gates of the city.

  Rhywder pressed his way, with his men, to the center of the chosen, to the children, and among them he found Satrina and the Galaglean, Lucian. He caught up with Satrina, glanced for a moment to the child in her arms.

  “Rhywder!” Satrina exclaimed. “You are back!”

  “Passing through, my love. One more task north of the city—Eryian’s boy, I need to ensure he makes it to safety. It seems odd, this.” “What is odd?”

  “It seems too easy. The gates of Terith-Aire in sight, and from the knoll above, I have seen the masts of ships. They are the Etlantian galleys—seven by my count, just as Loch promised would come.”

  “Then what is odd?”

  “We have been pressed as if by the fury of a woman scorned, but if these children reach the seven ships coming for them—they will fast vanish into the deep waters of the Western Sea, to the islands of the prophet—perhaps even the city of Enoch itself. Where are the fires and the brimstone and the unnumbered Unchurians? What is it he waits for?”

  “Perhaps even this demon you speak of, the one I saw myself, perhaps the burning of Loch’s blade has disrupted his plans, slowed him.”

  “I cannot believe that. He sees futures. The fires of Ishmia were merely more amusement for the bastard. Something is wrong here; this is too quiet. Still, I will put my skepticism aside and take comfort that you should soon be at sea under full sail. Even this one, Azazel, even he cannot follow into the Western Sea of Enoch.”

  “I should be at sea? What about you, Rhywder?”

  “I will be where I will be. Unlike some, I do not plan ahead that often.”

  “Ah—a Rhywder answer.”

  He suddenly looked about, alarmed. “Wait—something, I feel something …” He glanced down. “The Earth! Mother of frogs, you feel that?”

  “What?”

  “The Earth is moving! It is coming, the final blow. He has not been slowed; he comes just as he planned.” “What do you mean?”

  Rhywder grabbed Satrina’s arm. “If anything happens, stay with these men. Stay with the King’s Guard, you understand? They will remain here, in the center with the child.”

  “What is happening? What are you going to do?”

  “Reach Eryian’s son. I have a feeling the future will need him.”

  “Wait!”

  He pushed past her, drew up alongside one of the Galaglean. “Godspeed, boy,” he said, gripping Lucian’s wrist, then pressed forward. He turned in the saddle just before he broke into a gallop and shouted to Satrina, “I will be back, love! Fear not!”

  Satrina watched him go, worried. She noticed a group of axemen make their way through the outer warriors to leave a girl among them—or what looked like a girl. Closer up, Satrina realized she was older, just small, and oddly she was dressed as a seafarer, a pirate, in a dark tunic and cloak, and leathers. Her breasts and hips were riddled with rows of daggers. But she was beautiful for a warrior, her hair twisted in dark braids that fell over her shoulders. She did not look up; she rode quietly, her head down, and Satrina could feel the sadness in her. It made her wonder, someone so beautiful, yet a warrior, and yet so saddened Satrina could sense her broken heart. Satrina that knew somehow this woman was connected to the king that had come to her, to the Daathan king with his handsome face and dark, impenetrable eyes. His. She was his.

  Tillantus had broken off from the second legion and now rode along the front of the first legion, even the first shieldbearers of Shadow Warriors forming a wall beyond the borders of the great forest of the East of the Land. It was a forest thick enough to slow those who came through it, and Tillantus had reinforced the lines thick with archers who were also as deadly with the sword and axe. Once their missiles were out of range, their shields and weapons were as effective as any shieldbearer’s. They were especially trained, even expensively trained, for only the ablest warriors were chosen to make up their ranks.

  What was left of the decimated first legion of the Shadow Warriors were the last of the Daath to emerge from the forest. The second had gone before them, leading in their center the seventy and seven chosen. Tillantus was pacing, looking for any sign. What was different from any other battle he had ever faced was that there was no warlord to follow. Eryian for once was not with them, and beyond even that, no king. This king, this Lochlain, he had turned back into the thick oak and disappeared, leaving only the standing order to hold the line of the forest as long as possible and to protect the inner circle of the chosen at all cost, delivering them to the Etlantian ships that should come before nightfall.

  He wrenched his horse about hard and faced the forest. He could feel them in there, like one might feel bugs crawling beneath a mound of dirt. They were coming all right. And himself, he would stand here. He had sent the last of his men, his closest brothers, the axemen of the King’s Guard with the dark-haired so-called queen. Perhaps she was a queen. She came with Loch, their king, she was obviously his mate, but she seemed an odd queen to lead the Daath.

  This was the rear of the retreat. He expected to engage, but what made his back bristle was that it would come this quickly. The Unchurians were cutting through the center of the legendary oaks of the East of the Land. He had hoped that would slow them, awe of their sacred spirits, but then again, the Unchurians seemed trained and groomed for killing alone. It should have been no surprise they would cut through the center of the most ancient of land, once guarded by the fiery sword of Uriel the archangel himself.

  No matter. The shieldbearers were in order. He could wish for more time. He would like to see the chosen well inside the city and they were now in open ground, halfway across the fields between here and Terith-Aire, but though the first legion had taken hard blows, though their numbers were thinned, they would hold here. Hold here until winter froze the passes and left the Western Sea iced, he swore beneath his beard.

  They were quick, these Unchurians; they were unhuman in the way they moved and the way they fought. Why be surprised they had crossed the isthmus, crossed the lands of the villages such as Lucania, cut through the thick, most sacred center of the ancient oak? Why be surprised of anything they managed?

  His first commander, Mannamon, pulled up beside him. “Anythin
g wrong, Captain?”

  “I can smell the bastards,” Tillantus muttered. “This soon.”

  “Damned swift, these bastards. Not only are they without number, they move like wind.”

  “But that is impossible—the fires destroyed all their crossings.”

  “Nothing seems impossible any longer to me—a demon leads these men.”

  Mannamon looked over the forest line. “Are you certain, Captain? I see nothing.”

  Tillantus searched the trees, determined. There were shadows among shadow, and then, everywhere, in all direction, the trees came alive with warriors, blossomed with them, readying for a charge as though the trees themselves were shifting.

  “Where is the king?” Tillantus shouted. “Where is Loch? He has remained in that forest—gone in there to die, that is what, and in doing so leaves us without a warlord and without a king!”

  “He had left us with you, my lord, that is good enough for me, and for the men that form your ranks. Looks time to take the lead, my lord. I see them, as well.”

  “Lock shields!” shouted Tillantus, and his order echoed down the line. “Sound the battle horns, by Elyon’s grace, we are about to engage!”

  The horns sounded all along the Daathan ranks and the armies shifted, turning; shields were lifted, slamming with a unified clank into a solid wall.

  From the trees, the Unchurians came. Most were horsemen to the front, big warriors mounted on powerful chargers, staggered in piercing phalanxes to break the lines. They emerged, but did not attack immediately. It was insane. Tillantus stared in disbelief as the Unchurian horses danced. A highborn rode forward, before his people, and in the space between the two opposing armies, the Unchurian circled about, his eyes trained on Tillantus. He was a firstborn and of them, he was equal in rank to Tillantus.

  “This day!” the Unchurian shouted. “You Daath shall fall by the sword and the arrow and the spear! You, your women, and your children—even your seventy and seven chosen! Behold, you shall fall this day until the Earth is quenched by the last drop of your blood! And in the ages that follow, you shall be no more. You shall be but a shadow of a memory long forgotten.”

  Tillantus drew up in the saddle, lifting his sword, designating himself commander, and shouted a single word in answer: “Pigshit!”

  He drew his sword swiftly downward, a signal that let the arrows fly.

  The last battle of the Daath of Terith-Aire, the final stand of the tribes of the seven valleys of the Dove Cara, began.

  Arrows soared over the locked shields and brought down hundreds, the whole line of warriors that had paused for their speech. Tillantus thought it the simplest damn lunatic tactic he had ever witnessed.

  But even as the front lines of the first Unchurians dropped, an even greater number of horsemen poured from the shadows—these all firstborn, all high warriors. Perhaps the first line had been fodder for the arrows and now a staggering line of powerful chargers and unflinching warriors surged from the trees in staggered lines like sharks’ teeth about to bore into the line of Daathan shields.

  Within ranks, Rainus, the Daathan captain of the Ishmian guard, had been left with the chosen by Rhywder, as their captain, since commanders had dropped on the battle of the ledge. He circled his horse, startled, and looked above to see the horsemen of the Unchurians breaking through the great oaks of the East of the Land. It was not to have been this soon. Even at full gallop, Terith-Aire, though in sight, was too far for comfort. The first legion, all that was left to hold the line against the trees, had been winnowed considerably in the battle of the ridge. They could hold, but for how long? Rainus feared not long enough to get the chosen safely behind the walls of the city.

  Even then, as he saw the onslaught above, he felt a shivering tremble through the ground beneath him, and looking down, saw a wedge in the earth the size of a ditch snaking its way through them as if searching for something. The onslaught from the trees was savage, the screams inhuman. But moments before, when they had been pushing through the tall grass, thinking there had been time, there was silence, only a soft wind, and now madness this quickly was reaching through to them, and it seemed, though Rainus dismissed the thought, that the madness knew where to hunt, that its eye had found them already—the seventy and seven. He could see the expressions on the King’s Guard about him, the deadliest warriors on Earth, and they seemed to be thinking the same.

  “Forget the city!” Rainus screamed.

  “My lord?” questioned one of the guards.

  “We will never reach it if the first legion breaks, and already its front is being shattered. Send a rider and plant white flags on that far sand shore just short of the walls. We might not reach the gates of Terith-Aire, but we can reach the sea. The ships are Etlantian; supposedly they are keen enough and quick enough to understand the signal.”

  “Aye, my lord,” the guard shouted. “Aramour—use cloaks for flags and pike for their pole—erect a signal on the far beachhead below.”

  “Done, Captain,” the guardsman said, galloping forward.

  “Keep the chosen inward, tight about them, and move in formation for the beach. Not double-time, we do not wish to be singled out—but move in a steady, slow gallop!”

  “Slow gallop!” echoed a guardsman, and the surrounding warriors dedicated to keep a hard center about the chosen also spread the command.

  “Follow my lead!” Rainus shouted.

  They turned in the grass and began to head for the shore. What worried Rainus the most was the earth splitting. The angel’s eyes tracked them. It was more his magick that Rainus feared than the fury of battle all along the line of the trees of the East of the Land. Another crack, but again it seemed as if it was searching. He was far, this demon; he was not close enough to sense them with surety, and perhaps riding for the sand of the shore instead of the heavy gates of the city would not be a move he would quickly guess, though Rainus wished it was Rhywder here with them instead of him.

  “Keep your head,” Rhywder had told him last. “Ignore fear, ignore magick, use your instinct. It is why I have chosen you.”

  Hyacinth kept a tight grip of the flanks, realizing they were suddenly turning, no longer making the run for the city, though the streams of civilian refugees of Ishmia and many of the warriors leading them were doing just that, breaking into a pressed run for the gates of Terith-Aire.

  If not for the child in her, Hyacinth would never have come this for, let alone any farther with them, not for a shore where no ships were in sight. But she could not deny that she carried. Only days old, there was a powerful being within her; she felt its light. That was the new knowing Loch had pressed through her from the sword. All her magicks were gone. She could not even skin walk now—it was all something else, a knowing of stars and futures and an understanding of light. She much preferred her old magicks, but they had been cleansed. What was she now? An Enochian? The thought chilled her. She had cherished the books and the teachings, she had never doubted them, but to follow the light of their word—it seemed something she would never had tasted in her own lifetime, and indeed, this lifetime was not her own. It had been stolen from time.

  As to her path, she was given no choice. Hemmed in on all sides, these children, as beautiful as any she had ever seen, children like a gathering of soft light, might just as well have been surrounded by solid plate armor. They moved where the horsemen of the King’s Guard and the outer shell of the second legion’s First Century of Shieldbearers willed them to move—and their will was suddenly to separate from the others and abandon flight to the city. She noticed one woman, clutching a child wrapped in a blue blanket, and this knowing left in Hyacinth, this gift of the Angelslayer’s sword, whispered to her that there, in that woman’s arms—that child was the scion of the Daath. The child of Loch, just as the one inside her. And she remembered Loch’s words, that they were connected. They moved at a quick trot, almost a gallop.

  Hyacinth then gasped, seeing the sky. Beyond the mighty trees of th
e East of the Land, quickly sweeping what was a blue sky, coming from the south, were clouds that broiled, spun about one another—like dark snakes circling in and out of each other. It was the same sky they had seen over Satariel, only this one was much more sinister, not as loud or as showy—but moving deft and with purpose. She knew what was within the circling snakes—the angel’s eyes. She knew it was the anger, the ethos, the searching mind of the one named Azazel. He would assimilate knowledge from the weak, and she was certain, already, that this storm was looking for them, only for them, this small pocket of young ones. This was his target. Azazel cared nothing of the legions of the Daath, cared nothing of Terith-Aire; he had come from his shadows of the far south where he had ruled for centuries to find them this day and this hour. They were the promise of Enoch; they were the ones that would behold the terror and glory of Aeon’s End, and Azazel intended to end it here, to destroy the scions of prophecy on this ground. She tingled at the thought, but now Loch had made her a part of it all, as if he had written her into the books of the angels. He named her as bearer of this child she now carried, and she steeled herself with the thought. If nothing else, her knives, her poisons, would protect this child in her, for now that she had accepted it, she would protect it with all the fury of a cornered lion.

  Rhywder glanced behind him. It was impossible—the Unchurians had broken through the trees of the East of the Land—already. However they had managed to cross the isthmus, they had also crossed the open ground between here and the scar of earth below Terith-Aire, the Dove Cara, in a wink, in a blur, faster than horses could move, faster than armed men could possibly have traveled. She should have had a day or more at least, but then, they faced no ordinary army; in truth they faced but one being. The demon. If any of the angels had fallen to the dark star, it was this one, Azazel, and he had fallen so far, so quickly, that the dark was his light; the dark was his teacher, and he had become more powerful perhaps than any of the others who struggled to hold to their fading star knowledge. He had given over his soul without question. Perhaps that is why he had shed his own holy flesh for a spirit able to take any flesh he wished, the strongest, the quickest. No human nor breed could possibly resist him. In the back of his mind, the thought had troubled Rhywder since the Vale of Tears where he watched the muscles and veins of a man’s head form from the demon’s barren shoulders.