by James Wisher
“Tahlia has no peers in this world.”
“I found something.” Michael waved them over by the door saving Col from the uncomfortable conversation. “A faint trail leads down the hall. It isn’t much, but it’s definitely a trace of Dark power.”
“Lead the way.”
Michael set a painfully slow pace, studying the floor every inch of the way. Col wanted to shout at him to hurry, but restrained himself with great effort. They passed through the servants’ quarters, drawing more than a few curious looks. They reached a staircase and followed it down to the storage area where they kept perishables. He tried his best not to think about the implications.
Michael stopped in front of a blank wall. “The trail stops here.”
Col studied the wall and soon spotted the telltale glow of something hidden. He placed his hand on the wall and willed his ring to shatter the illusion. The blank section of wall shimmered and vanished revealing a door. Unable to restrain himself Col kicked it open.
Tahlia hung suspended in a web of Dark energy, her body surrounded by a cocoon of Light energy. She looked unharmed through the cocoon, but the energy barrier distorted the image. “How do we get her down?”
“Together.” Michael put his hand on Col’s back and Light energy poured into him, down his arm and into the sword. “Now cut the strands.”
“She’ll fall.”
“The cocoon will protect her, do it.”
Col slashed at the Dark strands and they parted before his sword just like a real spider web would. It took three swipes, but the cocoon finally dropped to the floor. He sheathed his sword and knelt beside her. “Come on, Tahlia, wake up.”
Her eyes fluttered and the cocoon vanished. She groaned, rolled on her side, and pushed herself up. Col put his arm behind her shoulders to help hold her up. “Easy, you’re safe now.”
“So tired,” she whispered.
“Maintaining a protective barrier like that drained most of her strength,” Michael said. “We should get her to bed.”
Col scooped her up like she weighed nothing and carried her upstairs.
Chapter Thirty-Six
“The wards are failing,” Michael said.
A week had passed since the demon appeared in the throne room. Not long after they freed Tahlia from the web, the familiar vibration that signaled another sword’s destruction ran through Col’s blade. Now only Rain’s and King Jarod’s swords remained. Col blinked the sleep from his eyes and tried to focus. He had gotten little sleep the last few days; he mostly sat beside Tahlia wishing she’d wake up.
“How long do we have?” one general asked.
Michael shook his head. “Impossible to say for certain. If Zarrin makes a push against them with his full power he could bring them down any time. Otherwise I’d say a week at best.”
Mutters ran around the table. “That isn’t enough time,” a different general said.
Michael held out his hands. “This is the reality of our situation. I can’t change it just because you don’t like what I tell you.”
“How fares the king?” the captain of the royal guard asked.
Everyone fell silent to listen. Their reaction told Col everything he needed to know. Despite their skill and experience these people needed a single strong personality to lead them. Without that they flailed around without focus. He glanced at Rain and found her staring at him. She looked away as soon as he caught her eye. They hadn’t talked since she found out he loved Tahlia.
Michael looked to the palace healer who said, “His majesty is healing and in time will make a full recovery, but that’s months not days away.”
Everyone fell to arguing again. Col got up and moved around to sit by Rain. “You will have to take charge.”
“Me!” The hysterical edge to her voice did nothing to reassure Col. “What about your precious Tahlia?”
He clenched his jaw to hold in the retort that came to mind. “She hasn’t woken up even for a moment and I have no idea how long it will take for her to come around. The king isn’t in any better shape.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “These are good men, but they’re used to having a leader to direct them. That has to be you.”
“I don’t have any experience at this sort of thing. How can I lead them?”
“All you need to do is make some decisions so they’ll stop arguing. Give them each a task to focus them and they’ll do the rest. You’re the only person still conscious with royal blood. There’s no one else that can do this.” He squeezed her shoulder. “I’ll help you, I promise.”
“What do you want me to do?”
* * *
Rain took a breath to slow her racing heart. Col wanted her to take charge and trembling hands wouldn’t do much to help with that. When he finished explaining what he wanted her to do she realized he was right. The generals would never stop bickering unless someone accepted responsibility for any potential failures and took them off the hook. That was her basic function in this mess: scapegoat. She smiled when she remembered what Col told her when she complained about everyone blaming her if the defenses failed. ‘Don’t worry about it. If the defenses fail we’ll all be dead anyway.’ He still had a lot to learn about offering reassurances.
Her heart rate under control, Rain got to her feet. She frowned when everyone ignored her and slammed a fist on the table. Every eye in the war room turned her way and somehow she managed not to flinch. “Enough arguing! If an attack comes it will most likely be from the west and north. Station the bulk of our forces on those lines with lightcasters to support them. The border forts in the south will hold up any advance from that direction so be sure they’re fully manned and have all the supplies they’ll need. The capital will be their ultimate target so we need to prepare our defenses here and bring in any noncombatants in the area. Everyone get to work.”
The change to the room stunned her. With orders to follow the generals fell to work making plans with no sign of the previous disagreements. An hour later they had all left to set operations in motion leaving Col, Rain, and Michael alone in the war room. Rain slumped in her chair, emotionally exhausted.
“That was well done,” Michael said.
Rain offered a wan smile and jerked a thumb toward Col. “I just repeated what he told me.”
“It was less what you said than how you said it.” Michael smiled. “You spoke with authority, like a queen. It’s what they needed to hear. I don’t know what will happen, but now we might have a chance.”
Michael bowed to her and left the war room to make preparations of his own. Rain turned to Col who was watching with a faint smile. “What?”
He shook his head. “Just thinking how much the spoiled princess I left Corinthia with months ago has grown. You’ll make a fine queen, Rain.”
Her cheeks warmed at his praise which only annoyed her. “What do we do now?”
“Now we do the hardest part of any commander’s job, we wait.”
“It seems like I spend a lot of time waiting.” She chewed her lip for a moment. “So how did you and Tahlia get together?”
Col smiled and the warmth in it made her jealous. “The day we arrived, after you went off with Callion, she found me fuming in one of the gardens. We talked for a while and it turned out we had some things in common. I don’t know. When I’m with her everything just seems right, like fate I guess. We find what time we can when we can. I just hope she wakes up so we can spend a little more time together before the world goes to hell.”
Rain couldn’t believe it. She’d sent him away, he ended up in Tahlia’s lap and she ended up almost getting murdered. It wasn’t fair. She sighed. One look at him showed how much he loved Tahlia. After everything he’d done for her Rain couldn’t begrudge him the happiness he’d found.
The war room door opened and a lightcaster poked her head in. Col leapt to his feet. His reaction startled her then she recognized the woman. It was Tahlia’s attendant. “Is she all right?” Col asked.
The lightcas
ter nodded. “She’s awake and wants to see you.”
* * *
A blast of adrenaline shot through Col when the lightcaster said Tahlia had woken up. Maybe she’d be okay now. He looked down at Rain. “I’ve got to go.”
She nodded. “I’m glad she’s awake.”
Her reply lacked any real enthusiasm, but he appreciated the sentiment. Col forced himself not to run across the war room, and followed the lightcaster to Tahlia’s bedroom. They’d put her in the royal suite since her private room wasn’t in livable condition. The two of them paused in front of oak double doors heavy enough to stop a battering ram and carved with the royal crest.
“I’ll wait out here,” his guide said, pushing the door open for him.
Col hesitated a moment and felt stupid for doing it. She was awake, nothing else mattered. He stepped through the doors and shut them behind him. The royal suite looked more like a display than somewhere people spent time together. Given Tahlia’s relationship with the king perhaps that wasn’t surprising. His steps made no sound as he crossed the thick carpet.
Tahlia sat up in the middle of the huge canopied bed, surrounded by a mountain of pillows. She smiled as he approached and patted the edge of the bed. He sat beside her and took her hand. “How are you?”
“Better. My strength is returning fast, but the wards are dying, Jarod and I drew too much of their strength to heal ourselves.”
“Don’t worry about that. The generals have prepared for an invasion. Everything we can do we’ll do. You just concentrate on recovering.”
“How did you get them to stop arguing?”
Col explained what he had Rain do. “She seemed like the best person for the job and she did great.”
“You made the right choice. In a couple days I should be strong enough to get up and lend a hand. How’s Jarod?”
“Healing. Slowly, but the lightcasters say he’ll be fine, assuming we all live through the next few weeks.”
“That’s good.” The dispassionate way she said it spoke volumes about their relationship. “Our daughter would be devastated if anything happened to him.”
“Daughter?” Col had seen no sign of the girl and hoped she was somewhere safe.
Tahlia nodded. “Jenna, my reason for coming to this world. Don’t worry; she’s far away from the Lake Kingdoms with her grandparents.”
“Can you read minds now as well?”
Tahlia patted his cheek. “Only yours. I understand you killed the creature that left me in this sorry state.”
“It was a team effort. I wish I’d figured out what it was before it killed Adam and hurt your husband. I only knew it wasn’t you when it lied to me. You’d never lie to me, would you?”
Tahlia just smiled without answering, which told Col everything he needed to know. If the situation demanded it she would certainly lie to him and he didn’t blame her. Sometimes hard choices needed to be made. If she did lie to him he’d know it at once so that would defeat the purpose, but he didn’t point that out.
* * *
Col stood a couple hundred yards from the western border at the top of a grassy hill. All around him soldiers of Celestia clutched weapons and shields, their breath steaming in the cold fall air. None of them had much experience; hell, they put him in charge of the unlucky thousand so the generals had to be desperate. The wards had protected the country for so long no one had had to fight a major battle in centuries. They would all get an education today. At least they’d left him a pair of lightcasters.
Below them thousands of beastmen snarled and milled around in the woods across the brook that marked the border between Celestia and the wild lands. They were either working themselves up to attack or waiting for a signal to attack. The leaves had all fallen, so he had no trouble seeing what the stupid brutes were doing; understanding presented a whole other problem.
Col rolled his shoulders, trying to adjust his borrowed mail. They’d offered him a horse too, but he figured he’d be more apt to fall off it than ride it to victory. He sighed. Why didn’t they just get on with it?
“Sir?” His second in command, a Lieutenant Dane twenty years his senior who nonetheless had never swung his sword in anger and appeared happy not to be in charge, approached. “Master Jimison says the wards just failed.”
Six days—Michael hadn’t been far off in his estimate. “Get the archers ready, Dane. Volley fire when they clear the tree line. Spearmen form a double line in the front, swordsmen to the flanks. Two companies with me in the center.”
“Yes, sir. Sir, what’s keeping them from just running around the hill and ignoring us?”
“Not a thing, Dane. If we’re lucky maybe they’ll do just that and we can hit them from behind. Unfortunately, I’ve never seen a beastman willing to run around an enemy standing in front of him. I’ll wager you a barrel of ale when they attack they swarm up the hill with no formation and attempt to overrun us with ferocity and superior numbers.”
“No bet, sir. Still, how can you be so sure?”
“I’ve been killing beastmen for the better part of a year and that’s the only strategy I’ve seen them use. Let’s hope they don’t suddenly get creative on us.”
“I second that, sir.”
Dane went to spread the word to the platoon sergeants who soon had the men moving into their assigned positions. After much shuffling and jingling of mail his formation took shape. Col looked to the sky, gray and forbidding; if the beastmen didn’t attack soon they might be fighting in the snow. Time to see if the years of study and training amounted to anything, right sir? He sent the thought to his dead mentor along with a silent wish that he not fail his memory and these men.
A long, echoing howl sent a chill up his spine. How many times had that sound rang out before some horrible monsters tried to kill him? He’d lost track, but if he never heard it again that would suit him fine.
“Here they come,” one of the spearmen in the front rank shouted.
Col peeked around men’s heads and sure enough a wave of beastmen, mostly wolves he thought, charged across the brook toward them, sod ripping beneath their feet and slobber flying. “Archers, loose at will.”
The thrum of a hundred long bows made beautiful music in Col’s ears, almost as beautiful as the pained snarls from the beastmen. Through the gaps in his front line he saw scores of beastmen fall, many pierced three or four times. If the deaths of their comrades unsettled the rest they gave no sign, trampling their dead under clawed feet.
The archers did their best, but before long the beastmen reached the foot of the hill. “Close ranks!”
The front rows locked shields, each man protecting the soldier to his left. Spears protruded from small gaps, ready to stab anything that got close. The swordsmen on the flanks had their weapons ready as well, in case the brutes tried to get around the edge. Col held his breath. The snarling grew ever louder as the beastmen clawed their way up the slope, soon now. “Hold the line!”
The first muzzle broke over the crest. Several men flinched forward then remembered their training and settled back into formation. Hundreds of beastmen hammered into the front line, buckling but not breaking it. The second rank put their shields into the backs of the men in front and held them in place. The initial rush broke. “Attack!” Col shouted.
Spears thrust into the front row of beastmen from above and below. Dozens of the monsters fell, their howls muffled by the layers of corpses above them. They didn’t die alone; the screams of men soon joined the symphony of death.
Col watched it all, constantly scanning for any sign of weakness in his line. The spearmen were holding better than he’d had any right to hope and the swordsmen killed the few enemies that tried to move around the front line. He’d begun to think they might survive the initial rush when a deep rumble, more felt in his chest than heard, reached him.
“What the hell is that?” He couldn’t see anything over the chaos of the battle.
The answer came all too soon when the head of a
boarman every bit as big as the one he fought for the soul box came lumbering up the hill. If it hit his line his men wouldn’t stand a chance. Col turned to his lightcasters. “Kill that thing.”
Both men gave him wide-eyed looks of stark terror, but to their credit they raised their hands and called for beams of Light. Power lanced out and struck the boarman in the chest. The stench of burning hair reached Col, followed quickly by a pained squeal. Instead of dying it got mad and charged faster, raising a club Col doubted he could lift with both hands.
The giant brute reached the rear of his own line and sent beastmen flying in his haste to reach Col’s men. It didn’t take the beastmen long to stop fighting and make an aisle for the giant. That was his chance. Col yanked the royal sword out of his sheath. “Make an opening!”
The spearmen opened a gap and Col lunged through it. He had to reach the boarman before it could bring its club to bear.
The giant saw him coming and swung at his head. He slid under the blow and popped up without breaking stride.
Before it could recover from its attack he slashed the brute’s knee, severing tendons and sending it partway to the ground. It squealed and swung back at him again.
This time Col leapt over the club, and it passed so close it grazed the bottom of his boot. As he came down he used his momentum to add power to an overhead slash that severed his opponent’s right arm at the elbow.
Blood gushed and Col grinned; he loved his new sword. He thrust it into the boarman’s chest up to the hilt then ripped the blade to the side, opening a two-foot gash in its chest. The giant toppled and the beastmen around him stared. This was their chance.
“Charge!” Col shouted.
The men thundered down the slope toward the shocked beastmen. Their momentum drove the monsters back. Col swung left and right, every blow seeming to kill or maim. In seconds the beastmen broke and fled back toward their side of the brook. His men pursued and that wouldn’t do. “Hold! Hold!”
