The Arcanist

by Greg Curtis

  Trolls!

  The war band burst through the huge gates as they opened, and his blood chilled. They were every bit as horrible as he'd imagined. And even from seven hundred yards they looked massive. More than just the eight feet of savagery they were claimed to be.

  What was worse they weren't a war band or a hunting party as he'd read of. They were a horde. The gate was only open a crack, but through that crack they just kept coming, flowing out like a river released from a dam. A river of greasy, filthy savages with tusks in their mouths and claws on their fingers, waving immense pieces of rusty iron and wood in their hands.

  Some of the soldiers started firing sporadically. There was no point, they were simply too far away, but they couldn't help themselves. But Marcus was suddenly there, riding up and down the lines in front of the men, yelling at them to form up and stop wasting shots. He was listened to and not just because of his rank. Because he was someone who seemed to know what to do. He had been made captain of the royal guard on merit, not bloodlines.

  Edouard wasn't so limited in his range and he swiftly started dropping his fire balls among them as did the others. It seemed to help. Covered in greasy rags and fur the trolls quickly caught fire, and the trolls liked that no more than anyone else. They started running off course, scattering, some of them running without any sense of direction. But the ones behind them still kept coming. They simply pushed their way through the rest, knocking aside those who got in their way, and charging for their lines.

  Lightning danced through their numbers, striking them at random, sending many more to their graves. And every so often there was another burst of intense white light that seemed to stop them in their tracks. That was Myan's magic at work. They might not be creatures of the depths but even trolls stopped running when they were blinded. But always the ones behind them kept coming.

  Then the cannon spoke as the nearest of them reached the half way point, and they had more effect. The men had reloaded them with shot and it tore straight through the trolls. Suddenly there were tolls down everywhere. There were fountains of blood spraying in all directions. Body parts too. It was a massacre. But still, while the front few hundred trolls went down, the ones behind them kept on coming. It was a deluge pouring out of the gate. They just would not be stopped.

  Edouard kept hurling his fireballs at them, wishing that he were a flame instead of just a spark. Wishing that he could throw whole sheets of fire at them instead of just balls. But he wasn't. All he could do was keep doing what he was and hope it was enough. Pray that it was enough. But as the smoke from the cannon floated gently across the battlefield he knew it wouldn't be. This was a trap within a trap. They had come thinking to lay a city to siege. But the rock gnomes had decided instead that this would be a perfect opportunity to overrun them and the portal gave them that chance.

  When they were within three hundred yards Marcus gave the order and finally the muskets opened up. Hundreds more of the trolls fell and more were injured, slowing their mad charge. But hundreds, maybe thousands more were behind them. Worse still, the soldiers had to reload and that took time. Nearly a minute in fact.

  Marcus though had managed to form the men into lines as they'd drilled. One to fire, two behind them to reload. And as the first line went down on one knee to reload as they'd been trained the next line took aim and waited for the command. How many volleys they would get off Edouard didn't know. But he knew they needed to get as many in as they could. Already the nearest trolls were taking the places of those who had just fallen and were charging hard, while behind them there was a continuous stream running all the way back to the gate.

  A second volley a few seconds later eased his worries for a moment as another two hundred or so of the nearest trolls fell. But still there were too many of them and they were too close. The smoke was also becoming a problem as it was no longer just a few clouds floating across the battlefield. It was becoming a cloying mist that was settling; stinging the eyes and obscuring his vision.

  The trolls were slowing as they ran – perhaps the gun smoke was upsetting them as well – but Edouard knew they would be at the lines before too many more volleys were fired. Once that happened it would be down to melee weapons. In hand to hand combat the trolls easily had the advantage. And though their numbers were being thinned all the time, he feared they might still have that numerical advantage too.

  Edouard redoubled his efforts, launching more and more fireballs at the back of the horde, trying to staunch the flow, but he just couldn't. Scores were blazing as they ran out of the gate but hundreds more were rushing past them. And it was the same for everyone else. The lightning crashed down everywhere, blasting trolls in all directions. The cannon roared and tore the horde to shred. But all the time they kept coming. And the front runners grew ever closer.

  By the third musket volley they were within a hundred yards, a distance that seemed even shorter because of the troll's size. Every stride they ran devoured the ground between them. Edouard could see the fury in their black eyes. He could see the sunlight glistening off their tusks. And he felt the nausea rising in the pit of his stomach.

  The next volley took most of them down, but the fastest of them still reached their fortifications. The barbed wire fence that was barely erected. And though they collapsed on to it Edouard could already see it failing. The ones behind them would just run over the top of the fallen and the barbs wouldn't trouble them.

  It was about numbers, and the trolls had them.

  They got two more musket volleys off before the first of the trolls broke through their lines and after that everything fell apart. The cannon still fired. The muskets too. But there were now men screaming and swords flying. Trolls were rampaging through the middle of their lines and killing at will. Though they were falling just as quickly.

  But there was finally some hope on the horizon. Not much, but a little. Even as the trolls were unleashing their version of havoc he could see that their numbers at the back of the flow had become a trickle. It was difficult to be certain as the smoke lay like a thick blanket between them and Theria, but he thought they were finally running out of replacements. That gave him a little added strength and he pushed everything he had into his fireballs, trying to thin the remainder of the horde out. But all the while he was uncomfortably aware that the trolls were coming closer and closer to them.

  They were like war machines. Great engines of destruction. Or lions beset by small dogs. Each one was being cut down little by little, but the soldiers were being cut down faster. The air was filled with blood and smoke. So much smoke that forms were indistinct. But as the muskets and the cannon slowly fell silent, the screams of the dying and the savage howls of the trolls only became louder.

  Then the first of the trolls reached where he was standing, a huge beast with a pair of rusty axes in his hands, and Edouard didn't have time to despair. He simply drew his pistol and fired straight at it. He hit it – it was hard to miss such a large target at such close range – and the troll disappeared screaming into the smoke filled distance. Whether it was alive or dead, he didn't know. All he did know as he returned to his fireballs was that it was gone.

  The battle continued like that for what seemed like ages. A chaotic melee with huge indistinct shapes tearing through the soldiers and being cut down. With the air resounding with war cries and the screams of the dying. The battlefield filled with smoke and the smell of burnt gunpowder and burnt flesh tore at his nose. It was like a nightmare from the seven hells.

  But all Edouard could do was keep fighting. Searching for each new break in the thick smoke that showed him a target, and blasting it with fire. That was all any of them could do. And several times when the trolls came close he shot them with his pistol, unbelievably grateful to have it. But once it was empty he knew he didn't have time to reload it. It would only take a minute – but he didn't have a minute. From that point on all he had left was his sword and his magic.

  He battled on, doing his best
to take as many of the foul savages to the hereafter with him as he could and all the time waiting for the one that would kill him. But that one never seemed to come. They came close. Close enough that his sword was in his hand and waiting each time. But each time another soldier brought them down before they reached him. And little by little things began to ease.

  He didn't realise that at first. He didn't know anything but fear and the need to keep firing. But in time he realised that the smoke was thinning and the screams were becoming fewer. The battle was coming to an end. The question was – who had won?

  Edouard didn't actually know. He would have thought that that would be the one thing he would know at the end of a battle. But the simple fact was that there had been so much smoke and noise all around him that he didn't know if they were surrounded by trolls or soldiers.

  Thankfully it turned out to be soldiers, and he gave thanks to the Seven for that when he realised it. But he also knew that the battle had cost them far more than just a few lives. There were bodies everywhere. They littered the ground like leaves in the Fall. And not all of them were intact. Many were just body parts. Blood covered the grass for as far as the eye could see until there was more red than green. Many of the fallen were on fire. In fact they had formed a river of fire running all the way back to the city gate. He couldn't even begin to guess how many dead that was. Seven hundred yards of burning trolls. A river maybe fifty yards wide. It had to be in the thousands. But maybe it was more than that – he couldn't even begin to guess.

  What he could be sure of was that their dead and injured numbered in the thousands as well. This had been an all out attack and they had only just withstood it.

  Marcus was alive, something for which Edouard was infinitely grateful. He could see him in the distance, yelling out orders and mobilising the men. Getting the cannon set up again and rebuilding the defences. But he didn't go to him. His brother was far too busy to worry about him. And top of his list of concerns had to be the worry that the rock gnomes could open up another portal and send through another army.

  They certainly couldn't withstand another attack. That of course was the worry. That the rock gnomes could strike again. But Edouard knew it wouldn't be soon.

  It would take time. Portals like the one they had just opened were major spells and even the machines the rock gnomes used to build them took time. But even more important than that they had to have another army ready to come through the portal. Edouard hoped that they didn't. He hoped that they had counted on the first one being enough.

  Still, hope wasn't enough. For now the portal was closed. He could feel the echoes of it in the land around him. But in time another could be opened, perhaps within a matter of hours.

  They would have a problem doing it though. He realised that when he finally managed to turn his gaze away from the battlefield to the city and realised it was on fire. It wasn't just black smoke that was rising from it, he could see flames. Huge flames leaping for the sky.

  This was the end for Theria Edouard slowly realised. Simon had told them of the city's water supplies having failed and the trouble they'd had with fire control because of it. And that was only when there was just one fire raging at a time. From what he could see the entire city was burning.

  And that was down to him. Not him alone. But as he stood there staring, Edouard knew that he had lit the blaze along with the other sparks.

  How many were going to die in that fire? How many people? He didn't care about the rock gnomes. They could all burn as far as he was concerned. In fact he would prefer it. And if there were any more trolls inside they could burn with them. Even the mercenaries could die. But their best estimate had been that ten thousand people had been locked up in the city with them, and their lives were also in danger.

  He understood that this was war and that there was nothing else he could have done. But still the thought crushed his soul.

  Edouard found himself staring at it for the longest time, unable to tear his eyes away from the sight, until finally his sense of duty returned to him. There were wounded that needed tending to, and while he was no healer, he could at least help transport the hurt and dying to them.

  So that was what he did. For hour after hour he did nothing more than help to stretcher the wounded to where they could be cared for. By the time night was falling he had switched to heating water and applying bandages to the walking wounded.

  In the distance he could see others tending to the more gruesome tasks. Picking up the dead and carrying them away, human and troll both. And often he knew they were picking up just body parts. Edouard was infinitely glad he hadn't been given that duty.

  Meanwhile at the front Marcus was rebuilding their defences as fast as he could. In particular the massive barbed wire fence. His soldiers were unwinding the twisted cylinders of it length by length and hammering the posts into the ground to hold it in place. If the trolls attacked again, they would find a sturdy barrier there to hold them back. Even trolls had to fear barbed wire, surely. And now that their army had been so terribly maimed, they needed all the defences they could get.

  By the time the sky had turned black, Edouard had returned to staring at the burning city. The walls hid so much of what was happening inside, but still the flames behind them leaping for the stars had to be fifty or a hundred feet tall. And there were so many more of them. A small copse had become an entire forest. The entire city had to be burning.

  Because of him.

  Chapter Fifty One

  Edouard sat on one of the earth embankments looking out on the city, chewing on a tough strip of cured meat and every so often taking a bite of stale bread. Salted, dried and tasteless meats and stale bread – that was what provisions had become in the wake of the troll attack. But he didn't particularly mind. As far as he was concerned he was lucky to be alive. To complain about the food would be completely unreasonable. Besides, his attention was mostly focussed on Theria.

  Three days of burning. How could a city burn for so long? That was the question that kept coming back to him. Surely by now it should have run out of wood and other things to burn. But apparently it hadn't. Not yet anyway.

  Still, it was a good thing in a way. No one inside the city had tried to open another portal. Not yet at least. The chances were that they were still so busy dealing with the fires that they simply couldn't. And listening to the thunder of the cannon as they pounded it day and night had to be holding the rock gnomes back as well. Magic, even magic of machines he assumed, needed concentration. And how could people concentrate when they were constantly worried about burning to death, being blown apart or else choking on smoke? Maybe those who had the magic or the amulets or whatever to open the portals had been killed. He could only hope so.

  Edouard was slowly growing convinced that the damage inside the city was worse than they knew. His only evidence for that other than the fire that would not stop burning, was the number of people he saw on the battlements. On the first day he'd seen quite a few heads poking out between the crenelations to stare at them. These days there were far fewer. Whether that was because the people were gone or the ramparts behind the walls had burnt away so that there was nowhere for them to stand he didn't know. But either way it seemed a good thing.

  At the least the fire was buying them time to regroup. They were five thousand strong again. A thousand had been killed and another fifteen hundred soldiers had been injured in the troll attack. But another twelve hundred reinforcements had arrived, marching in from Breakwater the previous morning, and bringing with them yet more cannon. With them and some of the injured recovered enough to resume their duties, they were back to where they had been before the attack. Actually with their fortifications finally built they were in a better position.

  As for the enemy, they weren't so fortunate. The cannon had started pounding them two days ago, and the walls of Theria were crumbling. They were strong but two days of bombardment had taken their toll. A few more days Edouard suspected, would
leave the city wide open. Then he assumed, came the attack. He was not looking forward to that.

  “Edouard!”

  Unexpectedly a woman's voice came from behind him, causing him to jump. And even more unexpectedly he recognised it. It was April's voice.

  She shouldn't be here! That was his thought as he turned around to see her hurrying toward him with a huge smile on her face. This was no place for a woman. A battlefield was dangerous. And it was especially no place for his little sister. But before he could say anything she was on him, holding him tight, and he was being half strangled to death. It was difficult to say anything when she was squeezing him like that. And really, though it was wrong and a failure of his duty as her brother, he was simply too happy to see her to tell her off. At least for a while.

  So instead he simply endured her mauling and listened to her excited chatter as she started telling him about the temple and that she and the others were there bringing supplies. That was good he thought – especially if it included fresh food. But it also meant she would be leaving in time and that mattered more. She should not be here.

  Of course when she finally finished giving him all her news and he got the chance to tell her that she needed to go home, April just laughed at him. She was becoming a strong willed woman he realised. She would decide what was right for her. Not a man. Edouard suspected that some of Kyriel's attitudes had rubbed off on her.