by Rosie Scott
A handful of my friends and soldiers chuckled or relaxed at my spirit, and Calder snorted through his reptilian nostrils with humor. When the noise faded, I heard the last broken echoes of Gwen's instructions to her men.
“...not fear! We will...out necromancy...scourge it is! ...necromancer desires...kill your queen! She is...tyrant and a...! ...rid our home...this filth! ...emerge victorious!”
Gwen's soldiers cheered, and the horses at the forefront snorted and pawed at the grasses with impatient hooves. I wrinkled up my nose and said loudly to Cerin so others could hear, “I have quite the reputation to live up to.” My lover laughed.
The battlefield was deathly quiet. The Chairel Army waited for their last order, and my blood felt electric with excitement for battle. I fueled myself with thoughts of winning this war and pulling Chairel into shambles so I could rebuild it. I thought of Sirius and how long I'd waited to see him dead. The thoughts of vengeance that had always been within reach were stronger than ever, compounding in my head until I wavered in my boots, lusting to be set loose in the ranks of the enemy army while just itching for the bastards to give me a reason.
“CHARGE!” Gwen's scream reverberated against Comercio's eastern wall before it got lost in the cavalry's pounding hooves as they set the horses loose.
Marcus lifted his spiked club in the air and repeated the sentiment, his deep voice rattling through the ground beneath our feet. The giants began their charge, running to meet the Chairel cavalry head-on with absurdly long strides in terrifying, lumbering gaits. Ogres tried to keep pace behind them, wielding all manner of blunt and bludgeoning weapons. The green beasts weren't nearly as fast as the giants, but they didn't lag too far behind.
“WAAARRR!” Rek's scream of bloodlust was so monstrous and deep in scope that it caused me to double-check to make sure the god was still on our side. His god blood was already affecting him, for his voice was the demented mix of an inhuman howl and the grumbling roar of an orc. As we advanced together on the frontlines of our infantry, his golden eyes gained the distant edge of insanity, and his shoulders rose and fell roughly with heavy breaths of adrenaline.
The ground trembled with such pressure as cavalry and giants neared, each vibration spreading through the land as if it were shaking Arrayis until it threatened to crack in half. My feet were numb with the aftershock of the charge. My golden eyes feasted on the center of the battlefield as the fight finally began.
Marcus ran the last few steps toward the onslaught of cavalry with his spiked club at his side, swiping the weapon through the grasses beside his heavily armored legs as multiple horses crashed straight into the limbs of giants. Two horses were caught up on the huge club, one of them getting tossed aside like a rag doll while the other was directly hit in the resulting uppercut. Horse and rider alike flew back in an elongated arc, trailing sprays of blood. Both fell into the charge causing craters of fallen bodies.
“...two arms!” It was a battle cry from our enemies to the cavalry. The charge split into two, looking to break past the giants and ogres and skip them entirely.
“Spread!” Marcus directed in response, just as he kicked a steel boot the size of a dinner table through a handful of cavalry, injuring and scattering them. “Do not let them pass!”
As well-intentioned as Marcus was, there were too many horses for the giants and ogres to combat by themselves. The giants spread into a looser formation to cover more ground, but the cavalry was fast and could outmaneuver them. I expected to have to combat the stragglers soon.
The two arms of cavalry continued to gallop wide, urging their horses past the frontlines in wide arcs. Swipes of weapons or the kicks of boots intercepted some of them. Beyond the horses, they sent the regiments of Chairel mages forth.
BOOM!
Lightning struck out of the forming cloud of the early dawn sky, encapsulating Marcus and rattling him within his heavy armor. As he shook in seizure, he dropped his giant spiked club and it landed in a pile of gory equine mush. When Marcus didn't yet fall, another lightning bolt struck from the sky as the Chairel mages looked to bring down the general.
“The giants need anti-magic shields!” Dax cried.
“Keep your men in line!” Cyrus commanded to his Sentinel.
Calder and his beastmen were in the frontlines before the Vhiri, and though they could not speak, they were well-aware of the orders being yelled behind them. As we neared the giants and ogres, Calder hissed and decided to charge ahead of my army. The beastmen advanced through the center of the field, coming to contend with the two arms of cavalry spreading out around the giants. Jaguars, wolves, boars, ba'als, snakes, crabs, and wyverns intercepted the cavalry. The eight metal dragon-kins soared through the skies above our heads, leaving large portions of our armies in shadow as they descended upon the Chairel regiments. One dragon circled around to glide over the enemy armies from south to north, swooping low and releasing thousands of shards of metal. Unprotected soldiers folded like blades of grass, and orders were screamed to replenish their life magic protections.
Calder threw two death bombs between Marcus's shaking armored legs into the still-advancing cavalry. As he trembled with a new high, he built two reject magic alteration shields in his hands, immediately giving one to Marcus and another to the giant beside him. Other beastmen took notice, and those who were also necromancers and could utilize magic as their blood-kin collected energy to do the same.
Giants and ogres glimmered within the magic of their new shields, and as they continued to crash into the cavalry, the magic thrown against them now sizzled over the barriers harmlessly. They ordered the regiments of archers to shoot the giants instead. Giant armor was intimidating with its thickness, and the leadership of the enemy army looked to take advantage of weak points with arrows rather than risk their soldiers in melee.
Marcus was finally released from the magic of the last lightning bolt, and he fell to one knee, the abrupt weight sending a violent ripple of vibrations into the advancing cavalry that caused some horses to stumble. Enemy soldiers observed him as he heaved with breaths of adrenaline, waiting to see if he would fall. Then, Marcus grabbed the spiked club he'd dropped, and stood once more.
“Real cute, little ones!” Marcus roared, rushing forth with rage induced vigor.
Now that most of Marcus's army and the ogres were shielded, the beastmen were at risk of being collateral damage by being stepped on or backed into by the larger men. Calder pulled his army back to focus on the cavalry, but few horses were left running by the sides of our frontlines. I scanned the battlefield, finding that the remaining cavalry had retreated to the south. Their charge had been so ineffective that they'd called it off to re-evaluate.
Some cavalry were stuck fighting the beastmen and unable to retreat. Calder grasped onto the greave of one of the mounted soldiers as he tried to redirect his mount, sharp talons sinking deep into flesh and leather. The man tried kicking toward Calder's scaled chest, and just as he stabbed a short sword toward the lizard-kin's shoulder, he was jerked straight out of his saddle by the beast's superior strength. The horse trotted away from the scene, seeking the relative calmness of the nearby shores of Tieren Lake. As Calder was busy goring the cavalryman, another galloped toward him intending to save his comrade in a last-minute act of bravado. Calder noticed him approach, but before he could attack, a spray of blood misted the air around the mounted soldier's head. The horse continued galloping past our armies as the cavalryman fell, dead from one black arrow to the eye.
Calder glanced back at my unit in gratitude. Azazel put two fingers to his forehead in a quick salute before he nocked another arrow.
The rest of the cavalry retreated to the south, but unbeknownst to our enemies, that was precisely where I'd asked Marcus and the ogres to divert to. The giants chased the horses south as the enemy generals scrambled to redirect their men. Perhaps they'd wanted to swarm the giants with hordes of infantry while bombarding them with arrows, but the gaps left in the battlefield
by Marcus's migrating unit were filled by our frontlines as we finally caught up to the chaos.
Death bombs shot into the Chairel Army in hundreds of places, releasing pure black life force with which to fuel our soldiers. Cerin and hundreds of others released necromantic energy at their boots, and the battlefield went dark as thousands of black tendrils hissed between our armies, recruiting cooling bodies to our cause. Horses, Chairel soldiers, a handful of beastmen, an ogre and two giants all rose again, refreshing our army's strength and adding to our power.
Rek and his orcs broke out into a run, roaring hoarsely with their demented bladed weapons raised and ready for blood. The green army crashed into the frontlines of Chairel infantry like a wall of muscled battering rams. A Chairel soldier screamed in fear and shouted words about facing more than one god just before his warning was cut short by an ax through the throat.
Rek was at the forefront of his men, wielding both double-bladed axes like it was barely an inconvenience. An enemy soldier who carried his own ax gave a battle cry as he broke out into a run toward the god. The human hacked straight through the side of Rek's thick throat, and the blade got stuck in the first few inches of broken flesh. The human's eyes widened as he realized the hit hadn't killed his foe, and then they sharpened with panic. Rek left the weapon with its handle sticking away from his throat, grabbing the human by a shoulder and holding him still as he swung one of his axes up from the ground and into the man's groin. As the god held the man still, he ripped the ax up vertically through the body and its skull with an absurdly vigorous tug, splitting its skeleton in two at the spine. Rek let the right side of the body fall in a pile of blood and loose organs, but he held the other up for a moment on its one leg, digging a hand into its chest cavity and ripping out the heart. Rek popped the organ into his mouth and broke it down with fanged teeth. He jerked the human's weapon from his wound, trembling as he used his victim's own blood to regenerate his wounds. Much like Malgor and Orzora before him, the wound slowly regenerated from its deepest break until the only signs of it were the smears of blood over his skin.
Even as the god regenerated, he was killing and eating through the masses as the very picture of carnage. Though Rek was so strong he didn't have to rely on his axes to kill, he often preferred spilling blood if he could. He grabbed one soldier with both hands just to snap her spine in half by a raised knee, leaving her dead but unblemished. Otherwise, the battlefield to my right was damp with blood and sprinkled with body parts, and everywhere Rek went, his orcs followed with gusto, riled up by his acts of brutality. The Chairel soldiers were so terrified by the scene I could feel it in the air. The morale of the northern enemy unit was low and falling fast, and the men were fleeing south despite the cries of their generals to stay put. One general released a circle of red magic at her feet, and it gave a handful of her soldiers courage to stay and fight. The magic couldn't reach everyone, however, and groups of our foes were routing in packs. Luckily for me, their flight from Rek's army in the north led them right past my own.
My pace quickened as we finally made it to the fray. I walked ahead of the other Renegades, intent on causing as much damage to Chairel's numbers before our men were intertwined.
Azazel called after me, “Call if you need us!”
Cerin added, “Do what you do best, Kai!”
My shiny black boots squished through the bloody grasses as I stepped over corpses to meet the fleeing army and the unit before us that they clashed with in their flight. I heard the groans of corpses as Cerin raised them behind me, but my focus was on the pandemonium in the enemy ranks. The foes ahead were confused by their comrades who fled south, for they hadn't seen Rek's carnage up close to understand the danger. I took advantage of the disorder, shooting black orbs into the masses until my eyes burned with the power.
Creatius el mude. Brown sludge churned slowly in circles between my hands, equal parts earth and water. I ignored the weapons and magic that clashed into my shields as I thrust the spell toward Comercio's eastern wall. A torrent of mud burst forward like an explosion of thick sewage, knocking down dozens of soldiers with its density and weight. I kept spewing the muck in an arc toward the wall, covering the area between it and my army with mud so thick and inhibiting it refused the northern Chairel soldiers access to the saving grace of the southern battlefield.
Shik! An arrow sliced into the skin just beneath my right eyebrow before bouncing off the brow bone beneath, and my vision reddened as the resulting blood from the wound leaked into my eye. I dispelled the mud and regenerated my life shield. The archer who had hit me was already dead by a familiar black arrow. I healed my wound before using water magic to flush out the affected eye.
The fleeing Chairel soldiers were a sorry sight as mud overtook their boots, halting them in their tracks. The blockade of mud was filled with hundreds, and a few of the soldiers in the sludge were now suffocated by it. Armored arms reaching for oxygen stuck out of the mud in multiple places, and sometimes the mud appeared to mimic human forms still buried under its surface. With nowhere to run and backed up behind their stuck comrades, it forced the northern armies to contend with either the orcs or me.
Erupci a bolta reservur. I hoped Azazel was watching since he'd been so impressed by this spell the first time I used it. Instead of fire, this time a variety of bright, cool colors were cast across my skin as flickers of lightning pleaded for release.
They surrounded me, so I thrust the magic to the ground at my feet. My own boots triggered the magic's eruption. My absorb magic shield vibrated with power as it recycled some energy of the spell even as I was thrown back by it. Bolts of purple, blue, and white electricity were spewing from where I'd been standing like an explosive pillar of lightning, toying with dozens of soldiers in the air as they foamed at the mouths. Veins of energy lashed out and traveled across the moisture of the nearby mud, spreading to the grounded soldiers and rattling them in seizure as they were stuck.
Even as the spell continued pulling soldiers into its grasp in a beautiful show of cool-colored lights, I picked myself up and regenerated my reserves with necromancy. Flashes of purple light blinked across the battlefield as I reached up to the heavens and funneled the power of hundreds into my next spell.
Generat le shouer a friz. The early morning skies disappeared behind a blanket of brooding storm clouds that quickly pulled together to do my bidding. The high-pitched, musical crackling of ice reverberated through the air just before the sky released its burden.
Icicles sharp and thick enough to burst skulls fell from the skies, whistling with their trajectory as the glimmering shards reflected the lightning of my previous spell, leaving the entire northern battlefield flashing with purple lights. The last time I'd used the spell in Eteri it hadn't been this powerful, but I hadn't funneled as much energy into it then. The size of the giant icicles impressed me as hundreds fell from the skies toward the Chairel Army like the heavens themselves were tired of their nonsense.
The icicles landed through the masses in sprays of blood and disappearing shields. Skulls exploded and bodies crumpled in piles of broken bone and still-quivering flesh. Weakened shields broke straight through, leaving soldiers at the mercy of sharp ice. The strongest shields held, but barely. Life and alteration magic alike was fading and flickering throughout the crowds, and the pressure of the hits caused most of the soldiers to fumble and fall to the ground even if they were still protected. An icicle hit one soldier and knocked her back, her shield weakened but not yet broken. Unfortunately for her, an icicle that had already fell lodged in the soil just behind her, and as soon as her shield hit its pointed end, it finally broke. Gravity forced the woman to skewer herself as she fell, and she slowly died from her wounds as blood drained over her body, watered down with melting ice.
Icicles continued shooting out of the skies, and thousands fell at their mercy. One Chairel mage summoned fire, but she hesitated to use it as she looked over the battlefield. I figured she'd meant to cast a meteor spe
ll before realizing it would do nothing but kill her comrades.
The storm clouds releasing my ice spell thickened at their southern end. Since I had summoned nothing else from the skies, I scanned the area for foes. One mage still stuck in the mud of my blockade had both hands raised to the heavens, fatiguing at an accelerated rate as she allowed the spell to take from her own life. She'd known the spell would kill her by calling attention to her, so she'd chosen suicide by giving it everything she had. The mage finally collapsed with death from over-exertion, but her spell was already cast.
The blackish-gray clouds gained a tint of green as they swirled, gathering into a funnel at the center that grew in strength and width as it stretched to the ground below. Nearby, my icicles were still falling from the sky. I understood that the mage had wanted to combat my magic in the only way she knew how, but as the tornado finally touched down, I only had one reaction.
“You idiot.” The words barely left my lips before I turned to Azazel and screamed, “Pull everyone back!”
Azazel heeded my request, yelling orders at the orcs and beastmen to do the same. Many of them didn't follow the order since the orcs were so lost in their bloodlust and the beastmen were amid brawling frenzies. Even if some of them would have heeded the order, they didn't because they couldn't hear it over the roar of the oncoming twister.
The tornado's swirling winds were deafening as the storm carved a path through Chairel corpses toward my army on the edges of my onslaught of icicles. The ice nearest to the twister shattered and dissipated, but the rest of the projectiles were captured and pulled into the storm's exterior winds. Though the mage kept the icicles from continuing to slaughter her comrades from above, they were now swirling through the air as deadly impaling debris.
And impale they did. Beastmen fleeing from the area were shot through the sides with icicles, and as they collapsed with the internal trauma, their dying bodies were lifted by the storm and taken into it. Rek and a few other orcs on the frontlines were picked up by the storm and swirled through the air like spots of bleeding green debris. The remaining Chairel soldiers in the area retreated north to avoid the storm, but some of them were picked up by it regardless.
