Shadow of the Ghost Bear (The Tale of Azaran Book 2)

by Arbela, Zackery

  He raised his right hand, holding high a red banner on a long pole, waving it back back and forth three times. Horns sounded on the Eburrean side, echoed moments later on the Cavaragi side. Both armies slowed to a halt, separated by two hundred yards of open field that at this moment belonged to no one. Long moments passed as the armies stared each other down.

  A man rode out from the Eburrean side, crossing the field until he reached the halfway point. He came to a halt and stood tall in his stirrups, looking across the Cavaragi lines with contempt. He took a deep breath and opened his mouth.

  "Hear me, O men of Cavarag!" he bellowed in their own tongue. "Here my words, for they are the words of a man greater than I, a man greater than all those who stand in your army combined. Tremble, for you stand in the presence of the great warlord, who makes the earth shake with each step! Who commands the sun to rise, who knows the secrets of the Mansion and those of all the souls of men! Bow your heads, for you stand before Ganascorec, King of the Eburreans and soon King of all Aelen's Folk! And yet you stand against him in battle, you wretches of the north! Here now the command of the great Ganascorec! Throw down your weapons! Lower your banners! Let your chieftains come on foot before his glory, fall to their knees and bow their heads to the earth, to swear loyalty eternal to his house..."

  Any words after disappeared beneath the torrent of abuse that flew from the Cavaragi lines, curses called down on the heralds head mingled with obscene comments about the personal habits of Eburreans. Added to this were insults hurled directly at Ganscorec himself.

  "Come down here and say that yourself, you son of a bitch!"

  "The gods rain piss on your head, Ganacorec!"

  "The day I kneel," bellowed Nollardiac, the chieftain leading the Cavaragi side, "is the day the sky falls on our heads! Take your words and shove them up your arse! I'll shove my spear in after, you bastard!"

  One of the archers atop a Cavaragi mastaerca loosed a shaft at the herald. He stood his ground, watching it fall, then ducked aside at the last moment. The arrow missed it, instead whisking just past one of the horse's ears. The animal neighed in shock, rearing up its hind legs and tossing the herald from the saddle. He fell to the ground with a curse, tried to stand then slipped and fell back. The horse galloped away, followed by a roar of laughter from the Cavaragi.

  Ganascorec raised an arm high, then dropped it down like an ax falling on the neck of the condemned. The banner waved again, but there was no need. The ranks of infantry began rumbling forward; nobles in the front, levies behind. Arrows and sling stones filled the air, clattering off shields and helmets, men occasionally dropping with cracked skulls and shafts in eyes or throats. The Cavaragi held their cavalry back, along with their maestarca's, while the Eburreans plunged forward on both counts. Horsemen galloped out from the flanks, the riders grasping long spears or curved swords. Eburrean chieftains led their mastaercas through the ranks of their men, pathways opening before them, the beasts picking up speed. Archers clinging to their backs loosed shafts at the packed ranks of Cavaragi, the added height giving them greater range. Yet in most respect their presence was an afterthought - the true threat of the mastaercas came when they made contact with the enemy, whose swords bounced off the heavy armor protected their body, whose bodies were crushed beneath those massive feet or sliced to bits by the razor-sharp spikes on their tusks. Such was the terror of the beasts, and reason enough for the enormous expense laid out in capturing the beasts from the frozen northern wilderness where they roamed, growing more scarce every year. In feeding them, training them...all for this moment, when they trampled a path through the ranks of the enemy, opening gaps for the rest of of the army to follow.

  Only another mastaerca could truly counter such power, yet the Cavaragi chieftains remained where they were, holding their ground. That alone caused many on the Eburrean side to realize that something wasn't right. That maybe, just maybe, they were headed into a trap....

  Horns sounded on the Cavragi side, sending out a specific order, three long blasts repeated again and again. The infantry halted in its tracks. Orders were shouted and the Cavaragi clans pushed in, opening paths through their ranks. Whips cracks in the rear, followed in turn by loud shrieks and screams filled with rage, a sound that carried over the din and dust of the battlefield, touching against ancient primal fears for all who heard them.

  The beasts that raved out the gaps and tore into the Eburrean ranks were large in their own right, each standing tall as a man at the shoulder. Muscles rippled beneath their striped four, their four legs bounded across the ground at speeds fast as the swiftest horse. Feline faces snarled, dominated by a pair of long curving fangs jutting down from the top of their mouths. semalons, they were called, the deadliest predator the world had every known, the most brutal and sublime of killers. The bane of shepherds, the terror of the cattle in their fold and the elk in his forest. Even the mighty mastaercas feared them, for those great fangs were among the few things in nature that might cause them harm.

  Yet the Cavaragi had learned the secret of taming the terrible beasts, of bending them to the will of a human master and gaining their unshakable loyalty. The fangs and ferocity that might be turned against their flocks instead was used against their enemies. Coats of mail and studded leather were wrapped about their torso's, iron caps strapped to their heads, iron greaves fixed to their limbs, the beasts hardly noticing the weight as they raced across the field in three great packs. The first tore into the ranks of the Eburrean footmen, claws and fangs ripping through men, the beasts driven into a blood frenzy, to the point of not bothering to notice wounds inflicting on their own bodies. The second met the Eburrean cavalry head on. Riders were pulled from their saddles by sharp claws, their mounts ripped open, yet the true damage was the panic they inflicted in the horses. The air was thick with the smell of their hides and blood-stained breath and the horses responded accordingly, fleeing back the way they came, immune to the will of their riders.

  The third pack followed closely on the heels of the first, hurling itself at the mastaercas of the Eburrean chiefs. They clawed their way up the sides of the beasts, shrugging aside the arrows and sword thrusts of men above and below, driven by instinct and training to kill the mastaerca, to find the vulnerable spot just behind the skull where it met the neck and sink their teeth in deep, severing the spine and killing the beast.

  Two of the mastaercas carrying the Eburrean chieftains collapsed as the semalons following instinct to its ultimate end, killing their prey even as the men on its back killed them. Others were knocked off, but not before inflicting damage on men and beast alike, forcing them to turn away. Chaos spread through the ranks. The Eburrean advance faltered and slowed.

  The Cavaragi roared, even as horns and banners signal them to attack. They marched across the field, their chieftains taking the lead, a line of mastaercas followed by a mass of men and horse, ready to drive them invaders from their land, to send this Ganascorec back south with his tail between his legs, a living rebuke to those who let pride turn to hubris.

  But Ganascorec himself did not seem afraid. He still said atop his mastaerca, long spear in hand, one of his men knocking a dying semalon off its back. He watched the approach of the Cavaragi, raised his hand high, then clenched his fist.

  The air before the Cavaragi chiefs suddenly shimmered. Red smoke came from nowhere, spreading out rapidly in ropey coils, like silk let loose on the wind. A line of women appeared, floating in the air, ghostly and weirdly transparent, wearing blood-red kirtles, their hair flowing free in an unfelt breeze. An unearthly keening filled the air, a sound that grated on the ear and crawled up the spine. The charging beasts slowed, unnerved by the sight.

  Each women raised a hand to her lips and blew across the palm. A cloud of red dust flew out from each, wafting into the the eyes of each mastaerca. The keening rose to a high shriek, and then the women disappeared in another explosion of red smoke.

  The mastaercas came to a halt, ignoring the cr
ies and curses of the men atop their backs. Their eyes reddened. Rage mingled with fear filled their minds and filled them with the same urge; flee.

  First one beast turned around, then another, then all of them, headed back towards the Cavaragi lines in pachydermic panic. A bedlam of shouts and cries rose up as they charged through the Cavaragi times, trampling men underfoot, swinging their spiked tusks back and forth to clear a path and leave a trail of blood and broken bodies in their wake. The chieftains on the backs tried and failed to control their mounts, their commands going unheeded. In desperation they turned to the final resort in times like this, pulling out long spikes and driving them deep into the backs of the mastaercas skulls, deep into their panic-fogged brains.

  The beasts groaned, a loud, melancholy sound that echoed across the field. Their legs collapsed and the beasts fell, spilling the men on their backs and crushing more than few below who were not able to get way in time. One by one they fell, transformed from unstoppable forces of war to mountains of dead flesh, hillocks in a sea of confused men. Disorder spread, the Cavaragi advance slowed. Men lost heart at the sight and some began to flee.

  Ganascorec stood high on the back of his mastaerca, grabbing the signal flag from his minion. He raised it high, the tip pointed to the Mansion, then snapped it down with a flourish. "Men of Eburrea!" he bellowed. "Attack!"

  "ATTACK!" The Eburreans echoed the command, surging across the field in a wave of steel and muscle, driven by the prospect of victory and with a strength in that moment to overrun the entire world should their King demand it.

  Dusk approached. The horizon was red, a fitting sign for the events of this day. The dead lay scattered across the field, cut down like wheat before the scythe. The Cavaragi chieftains barely had time to restore order before the Eburreans were on them. Hundreds died where they stood, cut down before they had a chance to resist. Others held their ground for a while, until they were overwhelmed. Many fled west, but found their path blocked by the lake. Some chose to make their stand there. Others waded into the water, driven beyond reason by fear. Those who did not drown were shot with arrows, and now the waters of Talaar were stained red and bobbing with corpses.

  No songs of valor would be made of this day. Generations to come would remember only a day of slaughter.

  And the killing still continued. Lines of Cavaragi prisoners sat in a open space before a hastily erected altar and blood pit. Ghelenai in their red kirtles - now sodden with gore and clinging to their bodies, barked orders to stone-faced warriors, who hauled men men five at a time, beating those who resisted, bending them back over the altars, averting their eyes as knives of some strange black metal sliced through flesh as though it were air, cutting open the captives as easily as they might a fish, tearing free the still-beating hearts and hurling them into the pits, where they flashed into flame even as they tumbled through the air.

  "Goddess Three!" they screeched with the sacrifice. "Take the souls of these men, our gift, our offering, our tribute!"

  With each kill, it seemed that the witches were surrounded by a dark flickering flame, outlining their bodies, causing to twist and shimmer in the eyes of those who watched, making them standing taller, their eyes burning with power that grew with each kill, each silenced voice. No man could look on such terrible forms for long without terror eating him from the inside. Against such power there could be no resistance,

  One group of men sat off to the side, forced to their knees by the line of warriors standing behind. They alone were not afraid. They watched each killing without comment or expression, the only reaction to each howling proclamation a look of sadness, as if they mourned what the Ghelenai had become as much as the men who died beneath their knives. They were the Rhennari of Cavarag, come with the army to avenge their brothers slain in Eburrea. Now they would soon join them in death.

  "Look," one of them whispered. "The wrists."

  The others watched the Ghelenai. Around the wrists of each was a slender bracelet that seemed to flare with power each time the knives took a life. Through the eyes of the Rhennari they saw more; the thin skeins of power radiating from each, surrounding the witches and giving them strength.

  But it was the bracelets that were the source of this power. It did not come from the Ghelenai themselves.

  "Now I understand," said one of the Cavaragi Rhennari.

  "How sad," said another.

  "They dishonor themselves for nothing."

  "Get up!" One of the Ghelenai pointed her blood-slicked blade at the Rhennari. "Bring them here."

  The Eburrean warriors obeyed, pulling the men to their feet. "Holy sir," one of them whispered, "forgive us, for we have no choice."

  "Saerec guide you, warrior," said the Rhennari in accented Eburrean. Showing no fear, they were led to the waiting Ghelenai who looked on their approach with a hunger that bordered on madness.

  "Rhennari!" one of them hissed. "Fool! Liars! Hear us, Goddess Three! We send to you these low servants, the minions of the false god! Hear us, accept our offering..."

  "They do not hear you," said a Rhennari.

  "...our gift..."

  "They turn their eyes from you," said another.

  "...our tribute! Their souls..."

  "Fear for your own souls," said a third. "You have sold them for trinkets."

  "SILENCE!" screamed the Ghelenai. She strode forward, driven to a frenzy, falling on the last Rhennari to speak and stabbing down again and again until the rage was spent and the blood soaked the ground. She turned to the others, panting heavily, her hair hanging in blood-caked strands around her face.

  "Fools," she gasped. "For his impudence, you die slowly!"

  The Rhennari were not daunted. One of them looked up and began to sing a hymn to Saerec, a low, rumbling tune that reached down into the depths of all who heard it, asking the same question to all. Are you worthy? Do you walk the righteous path?

  The others began to sing as well, their voices drowning out if only for a moment the screams of the dying, the crackling of the flames. The black fire that surrounded them seemed to dim for a moment.

  The witches screamed in rage and fell on the Rhennari, black knives slashing. One by one the voices fell silent, the last cut off in in mid-word.

  Some time passed as the mutilated bodies were dragged away. More captives arrived, these wearing the armbands and fine cloaks of the nobility, now torn and filth stained. The sons of the chieftains, forced to their knees. Many of them still bled from wounds gained in battle. They looked on the Ghelenai with eyes dulled by fear and hate.

  A woman emerged from the gathering. She wore the red kirtle of the Ghelenai, but no blood clung to her the way it did the others. The black knife hanging from her belt was unstained. She appeared to be young, barely emerged from girlhood in fact, her body slender, her face smooth and unlined, her blond hair lustrous and free of any hint of gray. Only her eyes spoke of her true age, filled with years that by any standard were eventful...and completely lacking in mercy. Placed on her her head was a diadem that glistened diamond-like with each movement. About her neck was a necklace with three shining jewels that shimmered with a strange light. Hanging from the belt cinched about her waist was a slender wand of ivory, the handle covered with runes. On her left had was gauntlet made of silver, running up her forearms to just below the elbow. Long twisting designs were engraved in the surface, glowing with a red fire.

  Her name was Brannegaia, the wife of Ganascorec and by any measure she was beautiful, a rose among weeds, a shining jewel among rough pebbles. Every eye was drawn to her, every man looking on with a desire that would never be satisfied, every woman with the sure knowledge that nothing she did in this life would ever come close to matching this goddess made flesh.

  Yet if she was a goddess, it was a goddess of death on this night. She approached the kneeling chieftains sons, walking down the line, looking at the one by one. "So," she said in a lilting, musical voice that sent thrills up their spines. "Who will it be? Who w
ill it be? Who among you shall die this night..." She stopped, raising her right hand and pointing at one fellow, slumped down and pale from blood loss. A bloody bandage was wrapped about his leg.

  "Him," she commanded.

  The young man was grabbed and hauled to the altar. The Ghelenai closed in, their knives flashing. He cried out once, before a black blade sliced through his neck. The severed head fell to the ground, followed by a gush of blood.

  Brannegaia walked over, kneeling down and picking up the head by the hair with her right hand. She raised it high, making sure the drops of blood fell well away from her dress. "What a shame," she said. "He was such a pretty boy."

  The sons of the Cavaragi chiefs saw this and were outraged. One of them suddenly rose, knocked down his guards and reaching into his shirt, pulling a knife that had been kept hidden. "Die!" he howled, charging towards her, raising the dagger high for a desperate strike.

  Brannegaia pointed the gauntlet at a torch held by one of the Eburreans. The small guttering flame suddenly flared, causing the holder to drop it and jump back with a curse. The torch flame rushed out, growing in size, forming itself into the shape of a man, blocking the path of the young man. He stumbles to a halt, eyes wide with fear at this fiery demon summoned form nowhere.

  The lines of the gauntlet flared with red light. Brannegaia kept her hand raised, two fingers pointed at the living flame, growing until it towered over the cowering man. "You are not so pretty," she said with a girlish laugh. "Die now."

  The two fingers turned downwards. The flame rushed forward, enveloping the chieftains son before he had time to scream. The fire turned almost white from the intense heat and all who saw had to avert their eyes.

  Then then flame vanished. Charred bones fell to the ground, the skull burned almost black, the eye sockets smoking. Every scrape of flesh was seared away. A few yards away the torch crumbled to ash.