by Mario Routi
Princess Felicia,
I can estimate the damage that our Sphinx caused before her death. We have cut off your water supply and it will be tough for you to repair the damage, whatever plans you dream up. We have strong forces stationed there, so an attack is bound to fail.
I suggest we come to an agreement at last - that we share the Flame and put an end to our fighting. This time, we have taken an oath: Victory or Death! There’s no other solution. Our chances of losing are negligible, but even if it came to that, your losses would be crippling and Utopia would be left a wasteland.
I have been planning this war for a long time. You will discover that our preparations cannot fail.
Try to understand the extent of the anger we have been suppressing for thousands of years. We feel like outcasts, like third-class citizens.
Pinning the name ‘Evil’ on the people of Beast, while awarding yourselves the title ‘Good,’ is unfair and a perversion of your values. It makes them hollow - as riddled with holes as a sieve.
Our land is like a wallowing ship with oarsmen so drunk that half of them row forwards and the other half backwards. All that effort, sweat and blood for nothing. The ship doesn’t budge an inch and sometimes just goes round and round in the same place, spinning like a top.
It’s time to face facts, use common sense, and avail ourselves of the only possible and honourable solution. We won’t be going against the decrees of the Gods because, in their laziness, they gave only the kind of superficial instructions a child might give - lacking detail or depth of insight. They never show the slightest interest in the effects of their decisions. They are completely unmoved by the dispute between us over who has the right to the Flame and prefer to remain uninvolved. So it’s up to us and we should behave like brothers, not street gangs.
We should be strolling through life, arm in arm. This war-making isn’t second nature to us. You know that the only reason for these bloody and debilitating wars is our desire to gain access to the powers of the Flame. You lavish those powers on Orizons and deny us even the tiniest drop.
You show it off as if you have exclusive rights to it - as if it were yours to own - while we gaze at it with our mouths watering, like starving animals.
The cracks in your display of kindness showed up as soon as you talked the Gods into giving you the Flame. You keep the harvest for yourselves and get drunk on the precious nectar. You project yourself as a good shepherdess taking care of her flock, while we are depicted as evil, rapacious wolves driven by subhuman greed, and as sheep-stealers.
I have no desire to wear the people of Utopia down with thirst and then slaughter them like cattle. I want us to shake hands and to live in peace and love together, as we did in the past. Trivial disputes and whining complaints are no reason for our separation into the forces of Good and Evil, which only fosters hatred. The division between us today is due to human imperfections that are inherent in all of us, whether we have the Flame or not.
We need only restore concord between our peoples; we can then combine our forces and help humans to implement attractive and honest programmes on Earth that will reactivate their inner alarm clocks and wake them from their lethargy - change them from dunces into achievers, help them to eradicate the constant violence, to throw out the junk, smother corruption and deceit, get rid of warped and rotten politicians, and curb everything that leads to the planet’s destruction. The Earth will not be saved by half-measures, but by bold, decisive, revolutionary initiatives. We’ll put a straightforward moral code into practice and, with good leadership, we’ll clean the filth from society.
We’ll have no more of the cunning opportunists, smooth talkers and rapacious sharks who plunder the world. We’ll get rid of crooks, cannibals, liars, snitches, thugs and immoral, thieving con artists. It goes without saying that we’ll deny power to the incompetent, good-for-nothing idiots whose only effect is to blight people’s lives. We won’t give them a moment’s peace. Above all, we’ll hang all those who cause bloody wars upside down with their accomplices, but only after we’ve cut out their tongues. They will choke to death, they and their vile supporters, and we’ll have extinguished their dark powers. Then, we’ll crush the hands of those who destroy the planet. We’ll douse with petrol and set alight all those who make their hateful profits from this lethal liquid and bleed the little people dry. Finally, we will stuff cocaine into the mouths of the drug dealers and the losers who protect them and pierce them with a thousand injections of heroin. They are the worst criminals and we’ll make them pay with the same coin, once we’ve snatched up sticks and thrashed them within an inch of their lives.
Once we’ve achieved all this and tamed the decadent debauchery of the rich, we’ll implement the programmes that have proven successful here in our land, which will contribute enormously to the spiritual and mental regeneration of the inhabitants of Earth and to the reformation of their lives so that, in the future, everything will be great for them.
I will wait apprehensively for twenty-four hours for your decision and I propose a truce until then. If I haven’t heard from you by the end of twenty-four hours, I will attack. I have no desire to see you suffer from the lack of water - for the children and then the adults to become victims of thirst. It’s better for us to fight and make an end of it.
I have cut off your water supply to shake you up - to force you to come to your senses, even at the last moment. Straight talking is what we need, with no hidden agendas or feigned innocence.
Turgoth
Bull smashed his fist on the table in frustration.
“How dare he threaten us?” he roared.
“Well, he’s right about some things, Bull,” Felicia sighed. “But the point is that whatever he thinks about the Flame, or whatever he wants, one thing is certain: The Gods gave us the Flame to protect it and I will die doing so!”
“We won’t let twenty-four hours pass by,” Lord Life said quietly. “We attack at dawn.” The others nodded their agreement.
34
Outside the Fortress, the sun rose to reveal hundreds of armed Centaurs and Orizon horsemen marching quietly forward in formation, ready to charge.
Behind them stood the Amazons, in reserve formation, also ready to charge once the enemy lines had been breached. Hunter’s Centaurs marched as one square, their broad crystal shields held up to protect their whole length. Their spears were upright and the shields interlocked so that not even an arrow could penetrate them.
Inside the square was Foster’s fearsome blue-and-white-uniformed Orizon cavalry, their swords drawn in preparation for battle.
Alerted and thirsty for bloodshed, the Sharkan forces were amassing on the horizon and also marching steadily closer. The two sides of their mighty force fanned out as they drew nearer and aligned themselves for the attack.
The Centaurs waited patiently, observing the opening moves of the approaching battle and biding their time.
Suddenly, hundreds of Roman-style chariots emerged at full gallop from the Sharkan battle lines, each one with a long, solid shaft extending about twenty feet in front of the horses.
The chariots rushed at the Centaurs, the shafts shattering the crystal formation, allowing the screaming Sharkans to break through the wall and fall upon them.
The Centaurs who had not been crushed by the spikes, recovered and fought ferociously to push back the thousands of black-clad Sharkans on horseback, who were now flooding through the gaps in their armour, forcing their way into the centre of the square.
The shocked Utopians found themselves surrounded and fighting desperately for survival. Their losses were piling up around them. Field Marshal Foster led the way, fighting like a lion, but the Sharkans outnumbered his forces five to one and obviously had the upper hand after the surprise attack.
Foster’s face was grim as he assessed the carnage and made a decision. “Fall back,” he shouted. “Fal
l back. It’s the only way - back!”
“Retreat!” bellowed Hunter.
Upon hearing the command, the soldiers of Utopia lowered their weapons and the forces of Beast immediately stopped fighting. Foster’s eyes were narrowed and wary, but he seemed relieved.
“At least Turgoth is complying with the rules of retreat,” he muttered to Hunter.
As the dead and wounded were being loaded onto carriages, Foster led the limping army back through the shattered fortress gate, beneath the disbelieving gaze of all those standing on the watchtower and the battlements. The Centaurs in front of the gate parted respectfully to allow the defeated army to enter.
“Field Marshal!” the voice of an Orizon soldier rose from the ranks. “With all due respect, Sir, you should have let us die out there!”
“Live today to fight another day! A dead hero is no help to anyone,” Foster shouted back. “For as long as I live,” he thought, “I will never waste a single life - much less a battalion - unless it is for a really good reason and a greater cause.” He had in mind the sacrifice of King Leonidas and his three hundred Spartan warriors.
Foster and Hunter joined Felicia at the hospital, moving among the dying and the wounded, comforting and encouraging them as they walked and talked.
“Never before have I come across such strength, training and determination,” Hunter said. “Our losses are unprecedented.”
“I just can’t believe it! It’s as if...” Foster started saying, but before he could finish, the trumpets sounded again, sending them all running back out of the hospital and to the gate.
A terrifying line of chariots was now charging the Centaurs who guarded the main entrance, battering their way through and obliterating all opposition. Their crystal shields were useless against the force and speed of the shafts. On the battlements, the Amazon archers were unable to isolate their targets in the melee.
“Bring up two hundred Orizon horsemen,” Foster ordered. “Immediately reinforce the Centaurs!”
Moments later, the Orizon horsemen clattered into the fray and the enemy moved back a few yards as the ferocious fighting continued to rage.
Felicia surveyed the horror of the battleground. Her soldiers were dying, their efforts at resistance apparently futile. She signalled the trumpeters, who again sounded the retreat.
In the lull that followed, they worked hard to block the gate with a rough barricade of wooden beams, broken chariots and sacks filled with stones - anything that would slow down the speed of the next attack.
Felicia surveyed the situation with Lord Life, Hunter and Foster. Claudia, Leiko and Bull joined them as the trumpets sounded once more. A large unit of Porth and Cyclopes, protected by big, specially designed shields, were advancing upon them.
“I want a thousand soldiers to take their positions just inside the gate,” Felicia ordered.
As the soldiers took their places, the enemy reached the gate and pounded the makeshift barricades with gigantic tree trunks.
“When the enemy breaks through, pull the barricades back quickly,” Felicia said, “allowing them to believe they have broken through. Once the invaders are trapped inside the fortress we will then pour boiling oil on them.”
Nearby and ready, the disciplined young Orizons stood waiting for instructions. As Foster, Claudia and Hunter left the scene, Lord Life turned to Bull.
“Let the trainees fight off the Cyclopes. Get them ready for battle. Leiko will join them soon.”
“Children,” Bull boomed, “come, follow me!”
As the willing and obedient trainees followed Bull, Leiko took up his club and his sword in preparation. Felicia kissed him.
“Please, my love,” she whispered, “be careful.”
“Fear not,” he said bravely. “I love you.”
By the time Felicia and Leiko reached the gate, the defence troops had already been redeployed. Felicia spoke to the Orizons manning the blockade.
“Remember - make the breach of the gate look as though it’s not planned! Ready? Now!”
The Orizons let the blockade collapse and a few hundred Porth and Cyclopes charged inside. Arrows and javelins showered from the battlements. Boiling oil and torches poured down in rivers of agony as the enemy found themselves trapped inside the blockade. The attackers had turned into easy targets as the highly trained Amazons and Centaurs unleashed a hail of arrows. The air was filled with screams of pain as the invaders were annihilated.
There was no cover and no protection for them. The incursion ground to a halt beneath the boiling oil ignited by burning brands. Porth were set on fire like live torches. Cyclopes collapsed and writhed on the ground in flames. The entire area became an inferno - a pit in hell!
The battlements contained two groups of soldiers - one group shooting the attackers outside the walls and the other shooting those trapped inside.
“All soldiers concentrate only on the enemy outside!” Foster ordered.
Felicia, Leiko and Hunter joined him, watching Porth and Cyclopes being mowed down as if by an invisible scythe of death.
Outside, Princess Felicia fought ferociously, sowing fear, panic and death around her. Foster and Hunter fought like demigods and Leiko’s club cracked open Cyclopes skulls left and right. It was like a hurricane spreading annihilation through the enemy ranks. Within minutes, more than five hundred Cyclopes and Porth lay slaughtered from the terrible counter-attack.
As Foster heard the lead Porth sound the retreat, he raised his hand to halt the carnage, leaving a sudden stillness in the air, broken only by the cries and groans of those still dying and those in need of help.
***
Later that night, the enemy trumpets warned of yet another attack. Lord Life, Felicia, Leiko and the Generals ran to the battlements and were struck dumb as they looked out.
Over a hundred monstrous wooden siege engines, each drawn by a team of six horses, surrounded the Fortress just beyond the range of the archers on the battlements. Behind each siege engine were about fifty Sharkans, a few Porth and some Cyclopes. The defenders stared in horror.
The machines were slightly higher than the battlements and their tops were like wooden boxes, built to protect those inside. At the back of each machine, there was a ladder that enemy troops could use. Crystal shields protruded on both sides of the machines, making fire-arrows and javelins useless.
“It’s pointless to fight on the battlements,” Felicia said. “We won’t be able to stop them. Let the enemy think there’s no resistance. We’ll strike when we have them trapped between our fighters and the wall.” She quickly led the way from the battlements.
Once on the fortress wall, the black-clad Sharkans lined up and looked down at an apparently undefended space below. In their hidden positions, the Utopians stood ready.
The Sharkans descended from the battlements with whoops of triumph, but the moment their boots reached the ground they were trapped between the walls and the defenders’ zone.
Arrows and spears rained mercilessly down, killing all the front ranks. The Sharkans behind them regrouped and counter-attacked the Orizon positions at close range and a violent sword battle ensued.
Felicia rode along the wall shouting encouragement - spreading fear in the hearts of the enemy and courage to those who rallied at her cries. A messenger struggled through the chaos to get to her in the heat of battle. Her face grew furious as she listened to him and, without a word, she turned her horse and galloped off.
Bull had the trainees mounted up and ready for battle in the hospital courtyard when he saw Felicia coming and galloped over to meet her.
“What is it, Bull? Why did you call me away from the battle?”
“General Foster is dead!” Bull said. “And Turgoth, himself, has entered the Fortress - he’s headed for the theatre with a group of Sharkans, as we speak.”
Felicia looked over at the young trainees.
“Are you ready to defend our Flame?” she cried. “The Sharkans intend to steal it. We must crush them, along with their leader! Follow me - we have to fight our way through!”
They all followed as she galloped out of the courtyard. Felicia spurred her horse forward into the heart of the battle, while the trainees stood back with Bull, watching as her sword flashed faster than their eyes could follow. She was everywhere at once. Rebecca was transfixed by the sight.
The enemy couldn’t get close enough to impede her. She attacked tirelessly, sowing panic and dread around her. Every time her sword flashed, another enemy fell dead.
The participation of the Princess left the morale of the enemy in tatters and a way through the battle became clear. Felicia withdrew a little and called to Bull and the children.
“To the amphitheatre!”
35
The young Orizons raced into the amphitheatre and then stopped dead in their tracks. To the right and left were about one hundred mounted Sharkans. Between them walked Turgoth and General Claudia, carrying the large plate upon which the Flame rested. When they saw Felicia, they set the Flame down on the ground.
Felicia and Bull approached and dismounted, while Rebecca and the rest of the Orizons remained mounted.
Turgoth drew out his sword while Claudia took her bow from her quiver, plucked an arrow and notched it, a sardonic smile spreading across her beautiful face.
“You’ve lost, Felicia! Turgoth and I shall marry and rule the Land of the White Sun together. That imbecile Foster didn’t want me. For so long, I made no secret of my love for him, but he spurned me. When I killed Foster today, he looked straight at me, his eyes bulging in astonishment, and his last words were, ‘You? You!’ ... ‘Yes! Me!’ I answered.” She laughed at the memory. “And now, dear Princess, it’s your turn to die!”
With the unique speed of an Amazon, she drew back the bowstring and let the arrow fly, sending it straight through Felicia’s neck!
