Red Axe, Black Sun

by Michael Karner

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ASSAULT

  THE DAY LOOKED NOTHING like a day of murder. The sun was shining on a yellow sky with a blanket of gray clouds in the distance. Yet there was a snowstorm. It was a rare sight indeed.

  Dryston had observed the stars the night before, wondering if with the constellation anything would change. He saw nothing an unschooled eye would be able to see, just northern lights and the stars like they ever were before.

  He hadn’t eaten or drunk since, and his throat felt dry. Dryston stood at the circumvallation of Skybridge and examined the city. Again, there was something he wanted badly behind those walls. But his last detour had only been the prelude to this. He had meddled with the criminals running the underground of the city and felt their revenge.

  They had killed him and left him with no chance to tell the person he loved what she meant to him. He hadn’t used the opportunity to give all when he still had the chance. The realization struck him now that he saw their huge domain. He hoped to find a needle in a haystack. They had killed him, and he was already dead. Only finding the antidote from a man called Argis Cairn-Breaker, who he didn’t know existed, would change that.

  Missiles set the buildings aflame everywhere, but they were drops in the ocean. The hard part would be cracking the shell and still being able to overwhelm the defenders inside.

  Skybridge was not only a city but a whole protectorate that was lying before him: a city with districts, outskirts, manors, farms, the lake, dike, bridges, a crypt, cemetery, cathedral, temples, shrines, mines, subterranean routes, mountain paths, a port. The surrounding area was one of the most beautiful landscapes he had ever seen, with ancient lore and also a residence for the wealthy and noble. He knew the city was built on the foundations of a non-human city. It housed the templequarter with a cloister and order and the hospital; Old town, a ghetto for non-humans and probably now also for criminals; Trade quarter with marketplace, bank and townhall. Other locations he had heard of were the sewers, arena, gardens, slums, quarantine zone, inns and famous taverns. It also housed several guilds.

  Throughout the protectorate he saw ancient mounds, shipwrecks, standing stones, lighthouses and docks.

  Jarnsaxa Ornsdottir had command over the task at hand. She led the combined army of her war host and elements of Tancred’s forces in a speartip formation, archers spread out at the front and ready to withdraw quickly, followed by walls of pole weapons and shields.

  “LINE FORMATION, ON ME!”

  Asukara Uryah started into a slack jog, his group spread out in a line. He was one of the first to cross the border stone. He had that disturbing feeling that he was now in range, even though he couldn’t see a single enemy with his one good eye.

  “What are they waiting for?”

  The consecutive bombardment held the defenders’ heads down. The reassuring voices of a whole army came behind him. One army in his back, another ahead, unseen.

  “Maybe they don’t want to fight. Maybe they surrender.”

  After a few heartbeats of silence, his curiosity disappeared. They greeted him with a black cloud of arrows that rose like a flock of crows. The bright sky darkened. It made him blink.

  “Oh, shit!”

  A shadow passed over his face, and it felt cold the moment a hail of iron tips, shafts and feathers filled the air.

  “Take cover!”

  Tyrfing was pierced from above through the cranium and dead before he hit the ground. A bodkin-tipped arrow glanced off Katla’s thigh and broke her hip. Another went through Maven’s hand and tore out most of her palm.

  “Bastards!”

  Fenrig was hit through the eye, freezing in motion while still clutching the missile. Vala lost her throat through a ricocheting arrow from her neighbor’s helmet, gurgling thick blood. Those were only the exceptions. Most were hit in the torso, breasts, stomachs or legs. Men were swept from their feet and thrown to the ground from the impact of incoming projectiles. The sound of arrows bouncing against shields echoed through the lines.

  “We’re going to die here!”

  Asukara made it through the first volley. Without shield, just faith in his armor and pure luck, he stayed unscathed. He jumped over a falling comrade, weapon at the ready.

  “Don’t leave me! No!”

  “I’m sorry.”

  He now saw the enemy for the first time, their outlines on the battlements. He aimed and took a shot. Thwack.

  Thwack-thwack.

  “But this is for you.”

  He sidestepped and ran a few meters. Shoot and move, rinse and repeat.

  “Repay them!”

  Thunk! An arrow hit his shoulder plate and nearly dislocated his arm.

  “Holy-!”

  He realigned and threw back some bolts. Thwack… thwack.

  “Die! Die!”

  Shades disappeared behind the battlements. If nothing else, he had forced them back into cover. The magazine of his crossbow was empty. He had to reload.

  “I’m out! Cover me!”

  He got on a knee and hit home a fresh set of bolts. His fingers fumbled and took longer than normal in the safety of the practice yard. Exposed and with nothing to shoot back, he hoped the army behind him would provide enough of a distraction.

  ARCHERS WERE NOT the biggest threat to the wall. The battering ram was. Joric cursed it while he pushed the damn thing, but he got what he asked for.

  “Forward! Push! Push!”

  He wanted his comrades from the night watch silenced; he was getting what he demanded by placing them in the line of fire. He hadn’t thought that he would accompany them, though.

  They pushed for the scorched gate of Skybridge that bore its mark from the artillery pounding that was now realigning away to the towers, from where the defenders tried to enfilade them.

  “Shoot them! Shoot them down!”

  Joric pressed the crude wooden handle of the ram forward with both hands, his face clenched. He had weals on his palms. But what disturbed him most were the arrows coming from the flank tower. He tugged his head in under the covering ceiling of lining and his own shield.

  “I will rip the faces off of those cowards!”

  Joric’s foot slipped in the mud.

  “Damn bastards!”

  They had prepared for this. They had drenched the ground to slow the wheeled siege engines. An arrow hit Joric in the foot and splintered his shinbone. He clenched onto the handle to prevent falling down and be rolled over. The man in front of him, Ivar, wasn’t so lucky and literally got nailed on his place and dragged along.

  “Avenge me!”

  Menja took over from him.

  “Ech!”

  She glanced at Joric scornfully.

  “For Vanik!”

  They were close to the gate. Maybe they would make it. Now was Joric’s only chance. A knife in the back, or Menja tripping over his leg and landing under the wheels, and he could settle this once and for all.

  He let go of the handle and grabbed Menja firmly on her shoulder. Her features showed a look of astonishment. Joric’s eyes were fixed on the battlements of the gatehouse. She followed him and saw what had made him freeze.

  “Tar,” he uttered.

  “URYAH!”

  Menja’s shriek made Asukara jump. He aimed at the gatehouse and toppled a kettle-bearer with his bolts. The huge bowl clanked on the floor and spilled boiling tar at the feet of the defenders. There was short mayhem under their enemies. A second tar-kettle was lifted over the battlements, then a third, and emptied over the heads of the attackers.

  “Boil those dogs alive!”

  The two most forward wielders of the ram were showered with boiling fluid. Menja and Joric abandoned their posts and threw themselves flat on the floor. Their clothes were drenched in tar. Menja burned her hand in the boiling, rising puddle and rolled over to get her face away.

  There was a spark on top of the tower, accompanied by the suckling sound of streaming fluid pumped through pipes. It stank
of pine resin, naphtha, quicklime and sulphur.

  “Back to hell, scum!”

  The air above Menja and Joric was set aflame and rained down on them in a gushing torrent of fire. Everything around them ignited in blisters and melted.

  “Shower them!”

  This was something they hadn’t seen before. No one had told them that the enemy would have the power of such technology. No one knew they had a flamethrower.

  The spilt tar set on fire. The inferno devoured everything it touched. Wood, pelts, flesh. The battering ram had turned into a pyre.

  “Burn! Burn!”

  Ash and snow rained.

  “GOOD GOD, HELP! Cleric! Help!”

  Soma Ice-Veins started to get up behind the soldier that shielded her and sprint over to the casualties. He relentlessly held the cleric back. The air was too hot on her face the moment she left the slipstream of the warrior’s shield. Sweat gathered on their chins while they sat out the inferno. Every time an arrow knocked against the shield, it made her blink. She heard her profession called out multiple times. The worst was when they screamed her name.

  “Soma! Help me!”

  “They are beyond help!” the soldier told her. “Wait till the fire dies down! It can’t go on forever like this.”

  At least it was what they all hoped.

  A BALL OF FLAME blinded Thora Merigoi’s eyes and sent the shield wall to its knees. A wide semicircular no-man’s land had formed around the gate, in which no one dared to set foot.

  “Stay back! This is madness!”

  She felt the will of the comrades around her and her own will shaken. Her own was the reason that angered her the most. She would not allow this. She was standard-bearer of the warband. She would not give a foot back.

  “Not one step back!”

  Thora shoved through the two shields in front of her, leaving the hiding men staring in disbelief as she stepped into the kill-zone.

  “Oppose them!”

  The banner waved above her.

  “This is suicide.”

  It didn’t matter if someone followed her. She felt alone, charging.

  “This is death!”

  But her action was an icon. The first row of the shield wall opened and separated like cuttings drawn to a magnet.

  “To the attack!”

  They followed the banner and her courage and fury.

  “Now is the time,” the warrior beside Soma said and broke into a run. “Now is the time to get in!”

  Soma got up and followed the onslaught.

  “Loose!”

  Arrows rained in. Men were cut down. Running targets were more difficult to hit, but the charge came at the cost of the shield defense. Soma didn’t come far before she found the first casualty. She had her kit with bandages, scalpels and potions. She bent down to attend the first and most gravely injured. She couldn’t contribute to taking the gate. Others had to do that. She had to rely on them doing their job, while she did hers. Her fight against death was here with the wounded.

  “Goddesses watch over you!”

  Menja looked up to her with a sad expression. Her features were distorted beyond recognition, her body a mess of tarred flesh and trampled down by the ones who passed her. She wanted to say something.

  Soma bent down to her with her ear above Menja’s mouth.

  “Joric,” Menja whispered.

  Soma nodded. “I’ll see what I can do for him.”

  Menja closed her eyes, tired. “No,” she started to say but the effort was too much.

  “Allfather’s guidance and the wisdom of the norns…”

  She heard Soma preach the cleric’s blessing, ever fainting.

  “…may live forever.”

  Her body convulsed in a flash of pain when Soma granted her the Allfather’s mercy.

  “Rest in peace, sister.”

  Soma got up, the tools of her trade drenched in blood. She hurtled over to Joric, taking cover behind the blazing ram. Thora and the others were pushing the smoldering behemoth with their shields forward.

  “Push! To the world’s ending!”

  Embers fell to the ground and sparks flew heavily.

  The flame-thrower spat liquid fire into their ranks.

  “Annihilate them!”

  A blob trickled from its muzzle onto the tar-soaked battlements. The place ignited in a gust of flames and a zinging noise of sucked in air. Men, weapons, crates were hurled over the battlements.

  Asukara had his one good eye wide open.

  “Impossible!”

  It had been one of his bolts that had toppled a kettle-bearer who had drowned the hellish machine in its own poison.

  Thora and her group crashed the ram into the gates and left it there for good measure. Sappers tried to tie explosives onto the iron bars.

  “Hurry up! Move, move!”

  One of the terracotta kegs filled with naptha took a hit and exploded prematurely, showering its neighbors with a hail of bone splinters. The detonation shook Soma to the marrow. It left a vacuum in her hearing, followed by a monotonous buzz.

  Joric was still alive somehow, even though he shouldn’t have been. She placed her healing ring over his temple and got to work again.

  The smell of ozone infested her nostrils and made her nauseous. Something had broken the barricade to reality.

  “Grant us the blisterous touch! The power of the sun!”

  Two magi pestered the gate with a disintegrating beam of energy behind her. They were bonded together by a heat-shackle, relaying one’s energy to the next. Their beam heated gas around them and elevated its particles into a fourth state of matter. The magi had burn marks on their skin from their excessive use of plasma and their wrong application of charcoal poultice on their wounds.

  “One last time before we die!”

  They wouldn’t be able to drain energy from their bodies much longer. But their dedication had already borne fruit. The iron bars began to glow and melt. Detonations of the explosives had deformed and broken their frame. The wooden gate behind was on fire and beginning to fall apart.

  “Defend the portal! Bring bars and water!”

  VIPIR THE UNSEEN’S PACK had been underneath the surface since dusk. They had been tunneling all night, leading the unseen war hours before the actual battle had begun. Progress was good during the first half of the night, but the closer they came to the foundations of the city, the harder it got.

  “Shhh!”

  Whichever civilization of non-humans had laid the groundwork of those ruins knew what they were doing. But so did Godfrey’s men. Vipir had already lost three men from when they found a junction close to the city’s sewers.

  “Sh! I heard something!”

  “Just some rats.”

  “No! They are inside the walls!”

  They were impaled by spears in the claustrophobic tunnel. Godfrey’s men were anticipating them. They were listening. Counter-digging. Trying to smoke them out like vermin. If there was one thing Vipir had learned from his former life as a miner, it was to never underestimate the possibilities of tunneling. It was a suicide mission. High risk, high gain. Like he used to play his cards. But if they found a way in or collapsed a wall, it would turn the battle. He had put on his lucky ring for this.

  “All right men. Now we make it.”

  Hands in the dirt, with bad light and rats and worms brushing against the cold sweat on his neck, he stared into the blackness. He tried to block out his lively fantasy that was from the stuff nightmares were made of and listened. The earth tasted stale and moist. The booming battle went on overhead. Screams were muffled, but the trample of a thousand feet let the earth vibrate. The tunnel shook and let dust trickle from the walls when an artillery round went short. He listened for the cues beneath the surface, to what his counterparts were up to. The men who got his friends might have lost him. He had changed direction after their encounter and reached the sewers’ stonework twice after that. Now, the third time, he would dare the breakthrough.
Vipir swallowed and kissed his ring when he found a suitable spot.

  “Now or never.”

  It was better not to be superstitious in situations like this, but his lucky ring had never let him down. He fumbled for his pickaxe and cautiously felt his way. His pulse increased. He could see faint light through the masonry in front of him and went on.

  “Now!”

  The sudden weight on his back caught him completely off guard when the tunnel collapsed and crushed him beneath tons of earth.

  “FASTER!”

  Ysara Horne saw the wall towering above her. She was at the head of one of the ladders, carrying it to the wall’s footing at a smart pace. She would only have one chance to make this work. It was a stunt that could only be pulled off in light armor and with enough momentum. She had trained for it, but if she got hit or stumbled it would be over.

  “Let’s do this!”

  Nearly a dozen members of her outfit pushed the ladder forward and sped her up. She propped herself against the ladder and ran up the wall, getting pushed further and further. She felt the tension shaking her from effort, felt the grip of her soles yield. But suddenly, she was up. She was up the wall, on the battlements, among the enemy.

  “They are coming up the wall! Brace!”

  It took her enemies more by surprise than herself. They hadn’t drawn their melee weapons yet and were busy shooting their bows.

  “Bring her down!”

  Ysara was into them before they took aim at her. A turn here, a twist there, and she seized the nearest archer, using him as a human shield.

  “Please, don’t shoot!”

  They didn’t shoot at her as long as she kept her victim alive. Their mistake. She reached back with her chain and drove it through the feet of the defenders, toppling one or two and sending another down the wall.

  “That bitch!”

  “Incoming!”

  Coralaev and Ravage touched down on the battlements a few strides beside her.

  The orc used a smoke powder that he smashed on the floor to amplify their entrance. They were both swallowed by a cloud of concealing fume. Coralaev’s hurl-bat, a small elven throwing axe, appeared out of the cloud and impaled a defender right under the mask, in the throat. The elf followed up with his bush-hook unbuckled from his back, swinging and cleaving through the defenders manning the wall.