Rythe Falls

by Craig R. Saunders

  The Elethyn were fast learners.

  Ruins, barely recognisable for the townships that they had once been, followed in their wake. Fire and fury hit town after town, while the Sun Destroyers grew stronger on the pain and destruction.

  Soon, they would be strong enough to attack the suns themselves...to bleed them of their power and take it as their own.

  Then, as one, they felt something...familiar.

  One of the Elethyn nodded to others. Its face was shrouded in the helm of the sentinel armour it wore, but it needed to words or expression to be understood. Of the thousands upon thousands of Elethyn that left the last world a dead and frozen rock behind them, maybe five thousand had survived the transformation to this lesser form.

  At the creature's simple gesture, a thousand of his brothers and sisters turned from the feast of fire and with no more effort than taking a breath, they landed hard enough to crack the glass lake underfoot...back where they began. Caeus' trail still flamed and smoked across the deep blue sky. As one, the Elethyn followed.

  *

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  'Sun's going down,' said Bourninund, leaning easily on Naeth's outer wall.

  'Yes. Then it will become dark.'

  'Could do with a drink.'

  Wen, too, felt he might be somewhat happier facing this with a gut full of ale.

  'Think whatever that...hole is...makes men mad?'

  An arrow flew maybe three feet short of the first attacker. The second shaft hit the charging Drayman hard, travelling down from wherever the Sturman archers made their stand - on roofs, or atop carts or astride walls, over maybe five hundred yards. The arrow took him somewhere near his hip, and the man, all roars and thumping feet, tangled, yelling, bouncing across the dirt.

  'They're mad, for sure.'

  It took three arrows before a fourth hit the next charging man, two before the next, and the archers found their mark first time, through the neck of the man following on. As each man fell, a cheer went up.

  'Good for morale, anyway.'

  'Ours, not theirs,' said Bourninund.

  It seemed the most pointless charge in the history of warfare, to Bourninund. The hole in the landscape was wide; giant, even. Wide enough for maybe a thousand men, side-by-side, to come at once. But for some reason only one man emerged at a time, and as each warrior sprang from the blackness, he or she hit the ground running. Only to run straight into Sturman arrows. It wasn't especially difficult to pick them out, there on the dirt and grass that ran to the west wall.

  'This is so ridiculous,' said Bourninund. 'We're not even going to get to draw our bloody swords. Sorriest bunch of bastards I ever saw. The Draymen I fought were a damn sight cannier than this lot.'

  Wen Gossar nodded, just a simple once-down, then back up motion of his large, round head. He was perplexed, too. But he wasn't complaining - he was watching. The soldiers and guard watched the runners. The archers, too. But Wen watched that great hole that sat there, right across the land, high into the sky.

  Bourninund was right, maybe. It was far too easy for the defenders...all the archers had to do was pick out their man and put him down...and if they missed, what did it matter? There were hundreds of soldiers stationed in Naeth. More soldiers coming from surrounding Thanedoms, soon, when the riders and birds they'd sent reached their destinations. Men-at-arms would be hiking north to the capital to join the battle in their hundreds. If the more powerful Thanes responded to their plea, then maybe even thousands of Sturman fighters would join this...skirmish?

  Wen frowned at the black spot on the grassland.

  Would a mage create such a thing...for a skirmish?

  And how many days until men found their way north? A rider from the furthest reaches would take a month. A rider from the nearest Thanedom perhaps two or three days, if the weather remained fair.

  If the Draymen send only one man at a time, he'd be cut down in seconds, even should the archers miss such an easy shot. If there were only a thousand Draymen...this would be over in hours at most.

  Another cheer carried around the city at yet another dead Drayman. Maybe twenty or thirty dead warriors now sprawled messily in the field. A few still lived, cried out, or tried to crawl away, but there was no shelter and no succour from the pain of being arrow-shot.

  A swift, yard-long shaft thudded into one unlucky soul, taking him in the groin. It was a crowd pleaser, all right, but while the city folk and the soldiers and the guards and even Bourninund crowed happily at one more dead man in the grass, Wen wondered.

  In the distance, squinting his old eyes nearly shut, Wen noted that this time five men came through that horrible black rent in reality. As soon as their rough-shod feet hit the grass, they ran like fools at the low walls around the western side of the city. Just the same as their brethren and sistren.

  Those five reached as close as maybe five hundred yards from the outer walls, where the first of the corpses lay. When the new warriors were forced to leap over their dead brothers and sisters, Wen looked to the black hole in the landscape again.

  This time he saw maybe thirty Draymar warrior come through...and their mounts...

  Wen sniffed and shrugged his heavy shoulders, like a man getting ready for a tough job. He drew Cruor Bract and held the great sword loosely in one fist.

  No sense in tiring his grip.

  'Getting antsy?' said Bourninund, then cheered as another man went end-over-end.

  Wen noted that three more runners were still closing. Close enough, now, that Wen could see the warrior's weapons. The light, dimming.

  Wen glanced up at the hole again, at the grass between the hole and then back to Bourninund.

  'Bear...last time I looked, around seventy Draymen came through at once. They're coming faster, with mounts, too, now. Light's failing. Soon, we won't be able to tell how many of them there are. We're here, in the light. All they've got to do is hammer at us.'

  'They're tough fighters, but they've never been smart. And they won't fight at night. Never have.'

  Wen shook his head. 'Never needed to, maybe, but what was true once doesn't always stay true. And Bourninund...you fought over the mountains, on their side, right?'

  'Once or twice,' agreed Bourninund, nodding his old head and eyeing Wen suspiciously. Looking, at last, a little concerned, perhaps. 'What are you thinking?'

  'There are a lot of their people, aren't there?'

  'Yeah, but they're tribal, nomads. They don't fight well together.'

  'What if they did?'

  Wen had noted the differences, not so subtle, in the warriors he saw running at the wall. Still, none had beaten the swift arrows, but it wouldn't be long. And now the dead were close enough that Wen could see plenty. Like tribal markings - scarring, or patterned burns, war paint and ink under the skin. Sometimes a way the dead had worn or cropped their hair, or the things they wore at the necks...

  Armour and weapons were piecemeal, yes, but those markings...they weren't individual expressions. They were...like a coat of arms.

  'Then there wouldn't be enough arrows in the world, I think,' said Bourninund.

  'Thought so,' said Wen. 'Archers!' he bellowed. 'Time to pick your shots!'

  'What are you talking about?' Bourninund laid a careful hand on Wen's shoulder. If a man like Wen had a sword in his hand, it was sensible to approach him with care. 'We're hitting 'em all over.'

  'We're hitting them plenty, Bear,' said Wen. 'But wasting plenty, too. Look.'

  Bear looked, this time. Really looked. Saw what Wen meant.

  This wasn't one tribe, or clan.

  'Brindle's balls,' said Bear. He drew both his short swords. 'Wish I'd taken that ale now.'

  At last, the first Drayman in an hour or more reached the wall. He died snarling with a pike to the chest, the second soon after that to an arrow, the third to a sword thrust.

  Bear and Wen stepped to the wall. Draymen were reaching the wall all over, now, their assault no longer at one or two points alon
g the wall, but in ten or more places. Archers were forced to pick out the attackers who charged in behind what was now a ragged front line.

  Yet where there had been one or two, now there were fifty or sixty warriors to choose from, all shifting and milling around. The Draymen fought like demons. Disorganised, yes, and poorly tutored...but behind those fifty or sixty men were more...always more. Draymen on mounts began to let their own arrows fly over the walls and into the city. They didn't need to be the greatest archers. It was enough to become a distraction. Even a blind arrow could hit a man hard enough to kill.

  The day was dimming. Soon, Dow would dip below the horizon and they would fight in the dark.

  Maybe they haven't fought in the dark before, thought Wen. Tonight they will.

  Already Wen could no longer see enough to tell how many Draymen came from the portal. He had no idea, and didn't think anyone would, not until they were through and it was done, and maybe not until the sun came around again.

  If we live to see morning at all.

  Bear took a warrior's hand clean off with a swipe of his short sword. Cruor Bract split another man's skull. No time to mourn or gloat, should either man wish, because the next warrior was there already, and behind him, always more. Could be hundreds or thousands, or it could be every single bastard one of them.

  *

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  The fire-lit city burned well now. No rain this night, the outer city, too, was largely thatch and timber. The fires spread fast.

  A snarling fighter slashed down and cut a woman deeply enough for his sword to stick in her shoulder blade. The woman's blood poured from her, spraying and running over the man's forearm. The grip was slick and his hand lost the blade.

  With an angry grunt he kicked the woman over onto her face and left his sword behind. Now with a dagger he ran into the nearest home he could find. A shoddy, dark thing, no better than the warrior's own tent.

  No one there, he stepped back out into the strange streets of the city and into Cenphalph Cas Diem. The Sard paladin sliced the warrior's hand, so that he dropped the dagger, and on the reverse slashed the man's throat open. Turning, Cenphalph strode forward to the next knot of fighters. So many of the Draymen had breached the outer walls that the retreat had been sounded already. The Sard and a few of the more wily fighters skirmished their way back toward the greater walls around the inner city, where those citizen with money and influence lived.

  The outer city was lost to the Draymen and the fires they were setting in this, the first night.

  Cenphalph's cloak remained, as ever, pristine. A beacon in the now-smoky darkness of the city. Fire danced and shadows seemed to leap forward. Sometimes, nothing, sometimes Draymen, seeking the men with the strange armour for their spoils, perhaps, or perhaps because someone knew who they were.

  Two men charged Cenphalph at once and he swirled, taking them both in a single blow. The second was not dead, and Cenphalph stabbed him in the face to finish it.

  'Getting slow, Cenphalph,' said Typraille, a grin of his face as he stormed past his brother, and was gone, once again into the murk, before Cenphalph could retort.

  Maybe I am, at that, thought Cenphalph. He strode into the dark and smoke to find more work for his blade.

  *

  Drun Sard worked to save the wounded that could make their way to the castle, for no matter how badly he wanted, he could not travels among the people. His heart ached for the dead he would not reach.

  But he could barely stand.

  Lord God Carious, he prayed silently. Give me the strength to help those who suffer. Help me...help me.

  A young girl lay before his bloody hands and he saw the light of life leave her eyes while he took a moment to pray.

  He turned to the next person. A soldier, this one, with a ragged cut in his side. Drun laid his hands against the wound and tried to take the pain from the man.

  Nothing major...a nick in the bowel, though...deeper within. With rest and care it might heal...

  'Stitch this,' he told a woman in long-dresses who had offered her services with a needle. Not a healer, but a seamstress. A damn good one, too.

  Stitch them up like cushions, he thought. He moved to the next patient, and the next, barely realising that for once, his coughing abated.

  But he was left so little strength, and when Drun turned his head, finally, to swill some stale-tasting water, his head became light and he staggered against a wall.

  For a moment he rested. When he pushed away, his hand left a bloody print there. His robes, once white, were bloody, too. His eyes were full of such sadness that the people who aided him almost felt as though he, the priest and healer, should be the one laid out on a stone bed.

  'Priest, will you not rest?' said the seamstress.

  He managed a smile, and she saw that there was blood on his teeth, too, stark within that pale face and his long, white beard.

  'Soon,' he said. 'I promise.'

  *

  'Lost half the bloody city in less than a night,' barked Bourninund. His voice was hoarse from smoke and shouting. A young man, probably no more than fourteen, was handing out water. Bourninund drank a little, and the rest he poured on his face to wash away the grime and some blood.

  Wen shrugged. 'We were never going to last long out there...not against a determined foe. You'll see. The inner wall's defensible for longer.'

  'What, you don't think we'll hold here, either?'

  Wen shook his head. 'Not with the men we've got. With a full contingent of house guards, a few hundred or even a thousand more soldiers, but seasoned men and not idiots...we could last maybe a week. With this lot?' Wen shook his head again.

  'You're a bloody ray of sunshine.'

  'Just realistic. Best we can do is get into the castle, wait on reinforcements. Might hold long enough there...but then, there's no room for the whole city in there...we'd have to give up thousands of men and women to this horde, or face starving, crowding, disease. Should we be lucky enough to stand a siege for a month, we'll be eating each other.'

  Bourninund looked pale under his soot-stained face, the water he'd splashed arund merely spreading soot and blood wider about his features. 'Well, thankfully we'll most likely be dead by then,' he said sarcastically.

  'Most likely,' said Wen, not happily or sadly, just simply replying with his usual honesty.

  'I think I'll go and find someone to fight,' said Bear, and pushed himself up to wander the walls.

  Outside those high walls that encircled the entire inner city, the sound of the portal was fading. The crackle of fire, the roar of the hordes of Draymen, the screams of pain and death, the clamour of steel...those sounds were growing louder, still...and closer.

  *

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  I'm dreaming, thought Bourninund. Got to a be a dream. His back didn't ache. His back always ached, morning 'til the suns went down. It even ached in the pumping heat of battle, only then he tended to forget about it for a little while.

  Doesn't ache right now, though. So, he had to be dreaming, because his spine was an evil thing that ached even in his sleep, and here he was, snug and comfortable as he'd ever been in his life on an immense bed with acres of white, pure cotton sheets. The sheets didn't have blood on them, either, which didn't seem right. No dirt or soot, as though he'd had a bath before climbing in. A man could get tired just looking at a bed like this. He looked with one eye only. Kept the other eye shut. Maybe with only one eye to look, he could sneak up on the dream and make it real.

  It wasn't real, though, because Wen was in bed with him and that didn't sit right with Bear. Nothing against a man's desires, but Wen was an ugly bastard, and he was also jabbing Bear with something beneath the sheets.

  Bear closed both eyes, hoping whatever was jabbing him would wake him up pretty quickly, because the dream wasn't quite as enthralling with Wen there, sticking something in his ribs and saying

  'Wake up, Bear. It's morning. Fighting to be done
.'

  Bourninund cracked one eye open, wondering if he'd see white sheets and Wen's ugly face grinning at him.

  But just Wen Gossar, soot and blood painted like he'd been fighting all night while Bourninund slept off a hangover that had lasted all bloody day.

  'My head hurts,' he said. 'Didn't drink last night, even. It's not right, headache for no reason.'

  'Got a dent in your helm. Might be the reason. Not leaking brains, are you?'

  'Can't say I'd miss 'em. Did we win?'

  'Have a look. I think it might take a bit more winning yet. But we didn't lose, anyway. Not yet.'

  Bourninund didn't like the sound of that. It did not, to his mind, sound nicely optimistic.

  His head hurt like a bastard, and his ribs hurt a little - Wen's toe was sharp and the man had a knack for finding the spot right between the front and rear plates that protected his chest. Groaning, head pounding, he pushed himself up, only moderately relieved to discover that his back still hurt. That was his one constant, his touchstone. If his back still hurt, he must be alive.

  'Need a hand?' said Wen. Bourninund slapped Wen's hand aside and heaved himself the rest of the way up until he stood. The ground seemed to sway for a while, but it settled well enough.

  He and Wen took the wooden staircase leading up to the top of the wall. A short walkway ran around the inner wall, stairs here and there to help a man up. Too high to leap over, even on horseback, but it wouldn't take much to breach. It was more for show than function. Might once have held an invader or two at bay, but it was just a hurdle 'til the castle walls looming behind them.

  As he climbed the stairs he realised he couldn't hear that dreadful wailing any longer, but he could hear the groans and cries of the wounded. Nothing for it but to have a look.