Angelslayer: The Winnowing War

by K. Michael Wright

  “Lay back oars! Lift a shield cover!”

  At the command, the entire decking bronzed in a carapace of oblong shields lifted to form a cover, rising to a spine along the center.

  Darke dropped against the prow post. The minions came out of the sky with screams. The oars were folded back, locked beneath the brazen shields. The fiery missiles of the minions began to strike the water about the ship. The creatures were heavy, almost like catapult stones, and though many were grazed off, in places they shattered through the carapace, destroying shield and men, sometimes breaking through the planking. Those that struck the prow were destroyed by the heavy, slicing blade of the ram. Darke’s warship was cutting through the fire blast like riding a storm.

  From a port, Rat watched, trancelike. The skin of his face was blackened and hard, he had no hair, and his eyes were furious amidst the scar. He gasped as a flame creature streaked past his gun port, warded off and ripped open by the prow blade. It plummeted into the cold sea with a spray of steam and a sound of snuffed flame that took Rat’s breath. It was one of the most beautiful sights he had ever witnessed.

  As he galloped about a narrow corner, the hooves of the Galaglean warhorse Lucian had given Rhywder sparked on the stone. Suddenly Rhywder was forced to pull up. The roadway before him was broken wide. Two shelves of stone were balanced narrowly over a gorge, and fire flickered about their edges. It was wide, but there was no way around it.

  Rhywder hesitated, then pulled back on the reins, backing the horse. When he had distance, he hugged tight with his knees and leaned forward. “I know you have no wings,” he whispered to the horse, “but it is has come time to fly!” He slammed his heels into the flanks. The horse bolted, galloping hard, hurtling, then soared. Rhywder felt flames lick his boots. On the other side, the horse landed on one upturned stone, stumbling, nearly going down. The stone started to slide for the crevice, and Rhywder kept his heels dug tight against the ribs. “Come on, boy! You can make it!” They barely leapt the edge to firm ground as the slab of stone dropped soundlessly into the fiery cleft behind them. Rhywder pulled up on the reins, then glanced over his shoulder. The chasm had been wider than he guessed. The slab of stone had been deceiving. This horse was one piece of flesh, that was certain.

  Rhywder turned and rode at a gallop. There were bodies here; crushed beneath rubble that Rhywder steered around. If Eryian’s boy was alive, it was meant to be, for the dead were everywhere. Rhywder rounded a bend, then pulled up. His horse danced. Before him were horsemen—not Daath, not Galaglean—these were minions. Seeing him, once of them let a smile curl.

  Rhywder twisted the horse’s reins, turning him about. He sank his heels in, galloping back toward the chasm. “You made it the last time,” he whispered into the horse’s ear, “and you can do it again, trust me—I never lie to horses.”

  Rhywder kept pressure with his heels, leaning as they rounded the sharp bend. They started down the roadway toward the chasm at a full, furious gallop; the horse was panting, preparing to soar.

  Rhywder dropped tight against the hide of the neck.

  Behind him, he could hear the minions coming, hooves heavy.

  The fires of the crevice blazed even higher now, curling like tendrils. Rhywder glanced over his shoulder.

  One of them was screaming through tight teeth, lifted onto its haunches.

  They were almost to the crevice. Rhywder lifted the crossbow from his shoulder, pulled on his buckler, keeping the reins in his teeth. He drew a tight breath, timing the moment carefully, then wrenched back on the reins. The horse reared, spinning about, screaming. It had understood his every move so far, but this confused even this fine beast. The horse twisted about so hard, he almost went down on his side, sliding backward. Rhywder twisted in the saddle, leveled off the crossbow, and buried the blunt-ended bolt into one of the minion’s chests before they passed him at a gallop. None of them had guessed the move—they had no choice but to keep galloping, and Rhywder’s sudden hesitation had thrown them into confusion; none would reach the other side. He was able to turn in time to watch them drop into the fires of the crevice.

  Rhywder circled the horse, patting the neck. “Sorry about that,” he said sincerely, “but if you were not going to believe we would jump that crevice, neither would they. Come, boy, we are almost there.”

  Rhywder turned and pressed on at a gallop. He rounded a second narrow street. Here the villas were taller and stronger. At the end, near the harbor, Eryian’s villa was still standing, though one side hung off balance, torn away. There was blood in the courtyard of the villa—and bodies, both Unchurians and Shadow Warriors, lay slaughtered. Rhywder guessed assassins had come against the house of Eryian, but on the porch, between columns, bloodied, and still clutching their swords, were four hardened King’s Guard—four of Eryian’s captains.

  Rhywder galloped forward, then clattered onto the porch. One of the guards drew aside, and dropped to one knee, exhausted, leaning into the hilt of his sword, his own blood dripping.

  “My lord,” he said, recognizing the Little Fox.

  “Is the boy alive?” Rhywder cried.

  The guard only motioned to a tall young warrior in a white cloak, holding a silver bow. The last time he had seen Little Eryian, he had been only four, and even then Rhywder had been unnerved by the white eyes. Now a lad of ten and five, he was tall, even formidable.

  Rhywder stretched forth his hand. “You are needed, boy!”

  “Needed where?”

  “At Aeon’s End! The future! Now, come with me.”

  Tillantus fought in the front lines, his axe slaying in steady, powerful hammer blows, his great shield protecting his left.

  The sky itself seemed to boil. From the north, clouds had spilled until a shadow covered the Earth like the hand of Elyon, and on the ground it seemed almost as dark as night, lit only by the fires of the ancient city of Terith-Aire burning, and farther, on higher ground, there were firefly naphtha strikes amid the forest of the East of the Land. It left the sky an eerie, bloodred hue, though the air seemed crisp and cold. The demon had done all he could to create a canvas of terror for his final strike.

  Tillantus had fought for hours, fought until the muscles of his arms coiled in spasm and pain, until he could no longer lift his axe, and then he had no choice but to turn and fall back. A Daathan Shadow Warrior took his place with a fierce war cry, bringing his shield up to block the thrust of a spear. The weary, pummeled first legion of the Daath still held, held where no other army on Earth could have made a stand, held against blood fury unmatched since the angel wars of Dawnshroud so long ago. But the Unchurians had not been able to breach the line, and even though the city was shattered and burning, between its crumbled walls was the prize, the single target, the seventy and seven chosen; and the demon named Azazel, still behind the lines, was unleashing his final furies in order to reach them. They were the key to the future; they were the final warriors that were by myth fabled to stand in the last day against the dark of Etlantis and the mightiest of the fallen angels of Ammon’s Oath. If they could be destroyed now, the futures where mankind survived would be swallowed in a single breath.

  A moment later Tillantus dropped to one knee, lowering his head, completely exhausted. Blood dripped from the inside of his helmet. A slash near the temple had broken through and mangled flesh.

  Seeing his own blood spill down his forearm, Tillantus realized this was the final battle of his generation, for that matter, of the people they once were. This day, the Shadow Warriors of Argolis and Eryian would die. Even if the children got out alive, it was over; it was going to end now, and that seemed to be a sad thing. He even questioned the purpose, but then he thought of the children he had looked over earlier in the plaza, the future, not just of the Daath, but of all the Earth, for if the angels were to prevail, though they knew not, the Earth would be swallowed into the dark of never being, of having never existed in this universe or any other.

  He looked down the line. F
ine men were holding back the impossible, knowing their task, but they were being destroyed. They were going to break, and time was narrow, too narrow to ponder.

  Tillantus took a breath, then pulled himself back onto his feet and mounted. He gazed about, stunned at the madness. Before him, the Unchurian front was a terrible screaming—weapons, men, shields ringing against steel. But while his lines had been fighting without breath to stop, the Unchurians had been rotating, sending fresh warriors to the front.

  He glanced behind. In the valley before the city, the chosen had been divided by a deep cleft in the Earth that looked to have been cut by sword. In that moment hope failed him, and it stabbed like a knife—where were they? Had they reached the city, they would be burning. Had they not, there was only a moment before the Daathan line gave way. Then he spotted them, a small, tight core of the Shadow Warriors of Eryian, the prime of the King’s Guard, still shielding the little ones. They were pressing hard, not for the city, but for the shoreline. He looked farther, out to sea, and almost cried out, overwhelmed. It was impossible, but the ships of the Etlantians were no longer coming. They had been halted, turned into burning husks about to go down off the shore of the Western Sea.

  It would be for nothing. There could be no possible solution, no possible way out of this. He could think of no tactic to save the seventy and seven, and Argolis was dead, and Eryian had perished, and even the young king had vanished. It was on his shoulders that after seven centuries, the Daath would fall. Their enemy had simply been too cunning, too strong. How could Elyon have expected the Daath to have survived? What did heaven ask of them!

  He looked up there, to heaven, his hand in a fist, a tear against his cheek. “What more!” he screamed. “We have done the impossible! What more?”

  Tillantus heard a cry from the forest. The Unchurians finally smashed their way through the Daathan front before him, all of them, the defenders, especially here about the last commander, had been the elite, warriors he believed could never fall no matter the fury of the battle, but they broke, their shields finally dropped, and the Unchurians now began to pour into the gap like water breaking a dam. To the west, toward the sea, the Daath still held. The Unchurians had been after the head of the Daath first. That, at least, was an error. The children were fleeing for the sea, and the edge of the mighty forest called the East of the Land was still held there, a thin line, still struggling, but not yet breaking.

  When the wave of fresh Unchurians reached him, Tillantus slew with tight screams, each blow a terrible swath of flesh and blood flung. Each blow was a death mark, and bodies fell to either side of the mighty veteran. He circled, killed to the side, then reared back, crushing a skull with his buckler, and then turned it, using its sharpened edge to shear open another neck. How many necks had he opened that day? How many had he killed?

  When he turned back for yet another, a sword impaled him, cutting through his chest plate. He sucked for air that didn’t come.

  The hard, sea-worn captain of the Pelegasians seized Darke’s shoulder with a clawed hand. They were the best men he had been able to find, killers of Etlantia, grizzled of the sea for all their lives and fearless as wolves, but they seemed now to be sailing into the throat of a enveloping beast.

  “This is madness!” the captain shouted. They were on the forecastle and just below them, embedded amidships, was the burned-out corpse of a monster, twisted into the decking like a corkscrew. They had put them out. The blackship had taken damage, but the minions had been extinguished and now dotted the decking in disfigured and grotesque corpses.

  “You expect to beach here?” cried the Pelegasian. “You are out of your mind!” He pointed his darkened, long-nailed finger to the edge of the forest. The Daath close to the sea still held, but it was a line about to break, any seasoned warrior could see that—it was a wearied, bloodied, tremulous line of still-furious fighting. Darke knew what the Daath were fighting for, and he knew they would sink even him should they have seen a darkship, a pirate, cutting through the frothing waters of the Western Sea—but he also knew he had guessed right. He was their last hope. Lochlain had done this much for him, and Darke was not a man to leave favors unanswered.

  Beyond the shoreline the battle raged, insane, but the edge of sand was still a tiny, brief safe harbor. It was all they had left, and all around it was a circus of death.

  “We must turn back,” shouted the Pelegasian. “To go in there is suicide!” Darke grabbed the captain by his purple tunic, then slammed him against the bulwark—slammed him hard, knocked the breath from him. “Listen to me!” he screamed at both the captain and crew. Beside Darke, two youths—young Tarshians, not yet twenty—crouched, wielding bows. They were the only Tarshians with him. The crew was entirely Pelegasian.

  “Only I can get you out of here!” Darke screamed at them, holding the captain against the bulwark. “Your captain here could never outguess this storm, and if you turn for deep water now, it will take you because these are not the clouds of a storm you have ever known. Look at them! Look close, any who doubt, and you will see the dark circles, the snakes that swim in and out of each other! Look closer, and you will see the eyes of the demon that has caused the insanity you see raging about you! So look to the sky! And look to the Western Sea whose waves began to build like hills rolling. I know you have followed your captain these years, but right now, in this time, at this moment I am the only one alive to get you out of here with your skin still on your bones! Now do what I say, listen to my words, and we will see another dawn, that is my promise to you. I am Darke, the Emerald King of the Tarshians, and you know me; from word or from fear, you know who I am.”

  “You may be him,” shouted the Pelegasian captain, “but you have tricked us, sailed us down the throat of a sea demon! Bastard! You said the Etlantians were sailing for gold and plunder—you lied!”

  “I did.” He looked in the captain’s eyes; he looked over the crew. “I lied. However, once we have gotten free of this, you will be well paid—I will give you your gold and all that was promised. That is my given word. I may lie on occasion, but I am still a man of my word.” He narrowed his brow and looked deep into the captain’s eyes. “Now,” he said quietly, “you tell your crew to obey me, or I am taking you by the throat and throwing you into the flaming deep you so fear. Your choice; make it quick; I have little time.”

  Darke waited, his eyes firm.

  “I will!” gave in the captain. “All you command, Shadow Hawk, but get us out of here.”

  “I have already told you I would. I do not wish to repeat myself.”

  Darke shoved the captain to the railing of the forecastle where he could look over his crew. The captain straightened his robes, drew himself erect. “We listen to the Tarshian! He is our captain and he will guide us out of this madness. Agreed?”

  They shouted back their approval.

  Darke stepped high, up the edge of prow where all could see him. “Row for the shore!” he shouted. “For those heralds of white flags!”

  His orders were echoed, and as the oarsmen below quickened the beat, the oars shifted, turning the prow for the Daathan shore.

  “Full oar,” shouted Darke. “Every muscle you have into it and then ten times more!”

  The Pelegasian at the helm shouted over the side, “Give way full oar!” The pacekeepers’ drum echoed hollow with the surge of the oars. “Lift the mast!” Darke cried.

  At command the mast lifted into its crutch, the pulleys whining. “Raise the Etlantian sail!”

  The Pelegasian captain stepped forward. “We will be seen for miles!”

  “Which is why we are raising it, Pelegasian. We come to rescue them. If they think we are pirates, why should they trust us? Raise the white sail with the red bull of Etlantis! They need to see us now!”

  One of the Tarshian archers, a boy, laid his weapon aside, leapt over the forecastle railing, then sprinted to the mast to help the Pelegasians play out the white sailing, stained on its foreground with the
image of the crimson bull of Etlantis.

  “Hard into it!” Darke cried. “If you want out of here alive, pour all you have into the stroke! Hard! Harder!” The oarsmen stepped up the pounding heartbeat. The white sail, risen, quickly caught the wind, whipping out taut. The bull’s head of Etlantis, in its glittering oraculum sheath, caught the light of the fires along the shore.

  “Light the throwers, Rat!” Darke shouted.

  From belowdecks, the fire jets roared to life and spilled fire across the waters. Darke’s ship looked to be sailing out of a sea of flame and could now be seen for miles, with its serpent’s prow lifting out of the waters from the speed and boring down upon the white swath of shoreline.

  In the street, Rhywder’s powerful mount staggered, then went down on its front knees. Young Eryian was behind Rhywder, holding tight. Villas were collapsing. An ivory column rolled past them. Rhywder kept a tight rein as the horse quickly regained his feet. When the quake stilled enough to gallop forward, the horse leapt the crumbled side of a villa, then clattered across its wooden floors, over debris, and crashed through the timbers of the back porch, landing on a dock work.

  Rhywder paused, searching. The boy held tight, his head tucked against Rhywder’s side. The docking swayed as a wave slammed into it, washing over. Rhywder looked to sea and gasped. An Etlantian galley was sailing for them—but it was entirely aflame, the oraculum plating the only thing keeping it afloat. The oars were long broken free, the masts had crumpled, not a living being was left in control, but the ship was still gliding heavy and true for the port; the prow cutting white billows of steam to either side was going to crush a hole in it the size of a house. Rhywder looked over his shoulder.

  “Hold on, boy!” he shouted, then slammed his heels against the flanks. The Galaglean horse raced forward. Planks bounced as the hooves clattered. Some broke away, but Rhywder guided the steed along the right edge, near the strongest bracing. As he galloped, wedging nails were being torn loose. Rhywder could hear the ship closing, roaring in flames as if with a hundred screaming voices, and the reflections of it left the waters below the dock bright and swimming.