Guardians Watch

by Eric T Knight

  The pressure from the flames built; Nalene could feel it on her eardrums, as if she were deep underwater. Even through the barrier the heat was incredible. Several of the Tenders cried out. Under the onslaught, the barrier began to fray rapidly, tiny holes appearing in it. Gray flames leapt up on Nalene’s sleeve and she slapped at them, further loosening her control. In seconds the barrier would collapse completely.

  Then, all at once, the flames passed.

  “Stop,” Nalene gasped. The Song coming from Mulin and Perast stopped. Nalene released the barrier, straightened and looked around. The gray wall was now behind them. On all sides enemy soldiers were surging over the wall, butchering everyone they could reach.

  The enemy soldiers who had been held back by the barrier charged at the Tenders. Most of the archers who’d been firing at them had fled.

  A huge man with a mace ran at Nalene. The weapon came crashing down at her head…

  If she’d hesitated for even a heartbeat, she would have been killed.

  She threw up one hand. A Song bolt exploded out of it, hitting the man in the face. Blood and fragments of bone sprayed everywhere. He was knocked backward.

  Around her Song bolts exploded on all sides, tearing into the soldiers bearing down on them. One Tender was too slow and she screamed as a sword chopped away most of her arm. She went down and the Song built up inside her exploded outwards in every direction, knocking several other Tenders down.

  Utter chaos reigned, as Tenders were forced back as far as they could go, firing wildly into the mass of soldiers the whole time. Some went to their knees, firing blindly.

  Nalene hit another man with a bolt in the hip. A fist-sized chunk of flesh was torn away and the impact spun him halfway around, but he didn’t drop and somehow continued forward, half-falling against her so that she staggered back and almost fell off the wall.

  Near panicking, Nalene grabbed flows with each hand, paying no attention to whose they were, and began to spray stolen Song indiscriminately in front of her. It came out as a narrow band of pure energy and she scythed it side to side. A woman with a short sword was cut in half. Another man lost both legs in a spray of blood.

  A moment later Nalene realized there was a gap in the enemy in front of her. She had breathing room.

  Panting, she looked around. The carnage was unbelievable. Corpses lay everywhere on the wall around them and piled up at the base of it. More were already coming, but they still had to climb the wall. That gave them a few precious seconds and she knew she had to take advantage of it.

  Ignoring the oncoming soldiers, she turned to Mulin and Perast.

  “Target the robed ones!” Nalene shouted to them. “You too!” she said to Bronwyn.

  Then she once again grabbed onto two flows, bleeding the Song off them greedily. Fear had turned to rage and all she wanted in the world right then was to see the robed ones dead.

  It was the worst defeat Rome had ever witnessed. His army was in complete rout. But what else could they do? How could a soldier fight a flaming wall? Horrified by the men they saw burning, and infected by the panic of those who fled the wall, the soldiers held in reserve behind the wall simply turned and scattered, many of them throwing down their weapons as they ran.

  “What’s that?” Tairus said, pointing.

  Rome looked up from the devastation and felt a glimmer of hope. Around the Tenders was a bubble of flickering golden light. He held his breath as the wall of flames struck the bubble—would it hold?—then pumped his fist in the air as the flames parted around it.

  The gray flames passed over the Tenders and as it did he could see that the Tenders were still alive. A moment later the bubble flickered and disappeared.

  The enemy soldiers who had been held back by the barrier charged forward and Rome held his breath as they struck the Tenders’ fragile line. To survive the flames only to perish like that…

  But somehow, in the midst of the chaos, Song bolts continued to flash out from the Tenders, just barely keeping the enemy back. Still, he didn’t see how they could survive long when suddenly from the FirstMother came a bolt of glowing power that didn’t flash and disappear like the rest. Instead it held steady and as the FirstMother swept it back and forth it caused terrible destruction to the enemy, so much that an opening ten or fifteen feet wide appeared front of her.

  “Hit the ones in robes,” Rome urged her. “Come on.”

  As if she heard him, the steady bolt went out. She turned to the Tenders on either side of her and shouted something.

  Moments later the FirstMother fired, the bolt larger than any Rome had yet seen. It struck the robed figure in the middle with such force that he practically disintegrated. One moment there was a person there, hands held out, a line of gray flame running from him to the wall of flames…

  And the next he was a spray of bloody flesh.

  The whole middle section of the wall of flames flickered and went out.

  A heartbeat later bolts struck three more of the robed figures and all three were killed. One more bolt from the FirstMother and all the blinded ones were dead. The wall of flames collapsed completely.

  The wall of gray flames was gone, but most of Qarath’s forces didn’t know it and continued to flee. The mounted soldiers, positioned further back, fought to hold their formations but the flood of fleeing soldiers was too great. Making it worse was the fact that their horses could sense the chaotic energies seething nearby and many reared and snorted with fear. Some bucked their riders off and fled as well, trampling men as they went.

  Rome stared down at the chaos, his fists clenched. There was nothing he could do from here. The army he had worked so hard to build, that he had marched so far, was dissolving before his eyes. Even if Kasai’s soldiers could somehow be driven back—and the Tenders were once again busy cutting down large numbers of them in the area around them—soon his men would be so scattered it would be impossible to reassemble the army.

  Then he noticed something. Dargent and the other mounted soldiers with him—a force consisting of noblemen’s sons hoping for glory and hired guards—were not caught in the rush of fleeing men. They had been stationed on higher ground on the left wing and so were out of the path of the stampede.

  As Kasai’s soldiers passed below Dargent and his men, Dargent raised his sword, shouted, and plunged down the hillside into the flank of the enemy, all his men following. There were no more than a hundred of them, but they cut deep into the enemy’s flank, slashing through them and cutting them down like wheat.

  Caught off guard, Kasai’s soldiers offered almost no resistance to the mounted and armored men who hacked at them mercilessly. The enemy’s charge faltered and for a moment all hung in balance. They had Dargent’s force vastly outnumbered and if they’d had a true leader to rally them, they could have quickly surrounded them and crushed them, but they were largely untrained conscripts, farmers and townsfolk forced to fight by fear, while Dargent’s force were, one and all, well-trained and well-equipped. As nobility they had benefitted from the best training since boyhood and the hired guards were the best money could buy, the horses all well-trained as well.

  Dargent’s men cut them down furiously and suddenly the whole flow of the battle changed. Like a fear-maddened animal, Kasai’s forces turned and ran back the way they had come.

  Hearing the shouts behind them change, Qarath’s fleeing forces turned, saw what was happening, and joined in, falling on and slaughtering those too slow to make it back through the pass in time.

  Now a different danger loomed. In their battle madness and lust for revenge, Qarath’s forces chased the enemy back through the pass and would have pursued them down the far side as well, into the trees. But Rome could see what they could not: those that fled were only a small part of Kasai’s army. The bulk of it was still down there, moving forward. If they continued their pursuit, they would run into the rest of that army. Disorganized as they were now, they would be mauled.

  Tairus and Quyloc realized
the danger at the same time and all of them began shouting orders. Horns were blown, calling the soldiers to return to their lines.

  It was close, and a few hundred men—mostly levies from the conquered cities who were not as well-trained—continued on down the hill, but the rest slowed, then stopped and returned to their places.

  Fifty-three

  Rome wiped the sweat from his forehead and turned to Tairus and Quyloc.

  “That was way too close.”

  “I thought we were done for,” Tairus said. “If the Tenders hadn’t done…whatever it is they did, we’d all be running for Qarath right now.”

  Rome clapped Tairus on the back. “And if it wasn’t for your brilliance, posting Dargent and his men in that spot…”

  Tairus’ bearded face split in a grin. “Brilliance?” he snorted. “I just wanted to keep them out of the way. I figured they were useless.”

  Rome turned to Nicandro. “Get me Dargent up here. I want to talk to him.” Nicandro saluted and ran off.

  Rome turned to Quyloc. “Did you know the Tenders could do that?”

  Quyloc shook his head. “I have read that they were once able to, but I had no idea they could do it now. My guess is they didn’t know they could do it either, until just now.”

  “I think we’re going to have to be nicer to the FirstMother from now on, don’t you?” Rome walked over to the edge of the stone and looked down to the west. Dust hung in the air from those elements of Kasai’s army that were yet to make it to the pass. He looked at the sun. It was still almost two hours until sunset.

  “Do you think they’ll attack again today?”

  Tairus shrugged. Quyloc said, “I think it is clear that the enemy we are facing will not respond in the ways we expect. We need to remember that they are led by a creature that is millennia old, who thinks nothing like we do, and has no qualms about wasting however many men it takes to achieve its goals.”

  “So you think they’ll attack.”

  “I think no possibility should be discarded.”

  “I sure hope they don’t attack. The men are exhausted.”

  The Qarathian army resumed its positions. Dargent climbed the ladder and walked over to them. There was blood on his armor and something different in his manner that Rome noticed right away. He’d seen it before in men who survived their first battle. It wasn’t something you ever got completely over.

  Rome stuck out his hand. “Congratulations, Dargent. You and your men came through when we needed it most.”

  For a moment Dargent looked at his hand and Rome thought his habitual sneer would return to his face, but then he reached out and took it. “Thank you.”

  “In recognition of your efforts, I am giving you a battlefield commission, Colonel Dargent, and naming you commander of your men. We’ll discuss the permanence of your rank later, but for now you are in charge of them.”

  Dargent nodded, looked like he was about to say something, then just turned and walked away.

  “Maybe some of them aren’t so bad,” Tairus said as Dargent climbed back down the ladder.

  “We just have to break some of their bad habits,” Rome said. “But there’s hope.”

  The three men stood there watching and waiting, then, as the sun moved toward the horizon and Kasai’s army reformed down the slope, just out of bowshot.

  “It feels to me like they’re waiting for something,” Tairus said.

  “And there it is,” Quyloc replied, pointing.

  The ranks parted as a small group of people came forward through Kasai’s army. There were no more than a score of them and they did not look dangerous. They bore no weapons, wore no armor. They were a mixed group, males and females, some looking to be as young as ten, others clearly well into old age. Despite the growing chill, they were barefoot, dressed in ragged clothing. Some of the men were shirtless. Their skin was very pale and on their foreheads the black marks stood out starkly.

  “What’s this all about?” Rome wondered.

  “There’s something wrong with them,” Quyloc muttered. He had the spear bare in his hand and his eyes had a distant, unfocused look in them. “I don’t know what it is, but I can feel it.”

  “Pass the word to the archers,” Rome said to Nicandro. “I don’t want them getting any closer.”

  Before Nicandro could respond, the Tenders did. They reached out and began to bleed off Song, readying for a new attack.

  “No!” Quyloc suddenly yelled. “Don’t do it! Hold off!”

  But it was too late.

  Song bolts lanced out from the Tenders, striking the ragged band. They fell quickly, just a handful of dead bodies on a slope covered with them.

  “Whatever Kasai had planned there, it didn’t work,” Tairus observed.

  Quyloc groaned. “But it did. It worked exactly as Kasai planned. Look.”

  There was something wrong with the Tenders. They were staggering about, bumping into each other. Several of them fell down. Two began to vomit uncontrollably. Even the FirstMother was bent over. In less than a minute all the Tenders were down. The soldiers on either side of them drew back in alarm.

  “What just happened?” Rome asked.

  “I don’t know for sure,” Quyloc replied. “But if we don’t find some way to help them, we just lost our best defense.”

  “Let’s get those women back to their camp!” Rome yelled to the soldiers who were nearest the Tenders, while heading for the ladder.

  When some of them hesitated, Quyloc yelled, “They’re not contagious.” He was right behind Rome and they were quickly down off the stone and making their way through the mass of soldiers toward the far end of the wall.

  When they got there, men were carrying the unconscious women and helping the others off the wall. Except for the FirstMother, who was climbing down off the wall on her own.

  “Let me help you,” Rome said, trying to take her arm.

  She pushed him away. “I don’t need help.”

  “What happened?”

  “I don’t know. They were poisoned somehow. The poison fed back up through the Song bolts.” She didn’t look good. She was swaying. Her skin was very red and blisters were already forming. Her sulbit looked worse. It was shivering uncontrollably and there was foam coming out of its mouth. Its skin had turned a jaundiced yellow.

  The Tenders were camped on the army’s right flank, amidst the debris from the crushed fortress, up against the huge block of stone from which Rome had watched the first battle. The camp was partially screened from the rest of the army by a line of bushes. In a few minutes all the Tenders were in their camp, stretched out on their blankets. The FirstMother was sitting on hers, cradling her sulbit in her lap.

  “Hold on,” Rome told her. “We have a healer coming.”

  “He won’t be able to help.” She seemed to gag on something, then began coughing and spat on the ground. “We need Lowellin.”

  “I’ll see if T’sim can find him,” Rome said.

  But there was no need. Out of nowhere, Lowellin was there. He stood over the FirstMother and looked down on her. She seemed unaware of his presence, she was so sick. Her eyes were closed and she was shaking. Her blisters were visibly worse.

  “How do we heal them?” Quyloc asked Lowellin.

  “The only thing that might work is clean Song. Lots of it. It might flush the poison out of them.”

  “I don’t understand—” Rome began, but Quyloc got it instantly. He turned to Rome.

  “We have to let the sulbits feed on the men. That’s the only way we can get enough Song to do this.”

  “No,” Rome said, automatically repulsed by the thought. “I can’t order them to do that.”

  “Then they’ll die and so will your only hope of beating Kasai,” Lowellin said coldly.

  “There has to be another way.”

  “I know how you feel,” Quyloc said. “I don’t like it either.”

  “I’ve seen those things feed. Without the women to control them, they’ll
feed until death.”

  “Without these women, many of your men would already be dead,” Lowellin said ruthlessly. “You know this to be true.”

  “But this is suicide.”

  “I don’t like agreeing with him,” Quyloc said. “But he’s right. We have to have those women. They’re the only reason we’re still in this fight.” When Rome still hesitated, he added, “At least ask them. Give them a chance to volunteer.”

  Rome thought about it, looking around at the other Tenders. They didn’t look like they had long. On some the blisters were the size of a fist and a few had burst and were leaking yellowish fluid. Over half were unconscious. Their sulbits crawled over them, making painful mewling sounds. As he watched, one went into convulsions.

  “Okay,” he said. “I’ll ask them.” As he started to walk away, Lowellin did as well. “Where are you going?” he asked him. “Aren’t you going to stay and help?”

  “I’ve already risked too much by coming here. Kasai may have sensed my presence already.”

  “Are you that afraid of him?”

  “You’re an idiot. Haven’t you ever heard of the element of surprise? Do you want Kasai to report to Melekath that I am helping you? Do you think that will make it easier to defeat him?” He stalked off before Rome could reply.

  Rome hurried to the wall and climbed up on it. “The Tenders are sick,” he called out, loud enough that the soldiers on the wall and those waiting in reserve behind the wall could hear him. “I think they’re dying.”

  A numbed silence spread over the soldiers at his words.

  “We might be able to save them though. It’s not for sure, but it’s a chance.” He took a deep breath. “They need clean Song to wash out the poison. The short of it is this: their sulbits need men to feed on.”

  He barely had the words out of his mouth before dozens of men were putting up their hands and stepping forward.

  “I have to warn you, you may die.”

  “I’d be dead already if it wasn’t for them,” said Felint, who’d pushed his way to the front. Others voices echoed his sentiment.