Standing just a few feet from me, Sully activates his remote detonators, igniting strategically placed explosives in the area just beyond the moat. Thunderous explosions rock the ground beneath me with deep bass reverberations and a flash of light temporarily blinds me. I squeeze my eyes shut for a split-second then open them to see rocks, dirt and clumps of grass kick up along with dust, residual material from the explosives and Uganna body parts. Arms, legs and various other appendages—both identifiable and unidentifiable—careen through the air in a macabre display. Sully repeats the process, handling dozens of detonators and killing hundreds or possibly thousands of Uganna as he does. Seeing them explode, seeing pieces of our enemy scatter, Sully pumps his fist and cheers. I can’t help but feel as he does, feel the bubbling of excitement effervesce in my belly, but my exuberance is short-lived. The Uganna, undaunted and undeterred, roll toward us ceaselessly like a dark and mighty wave. Their sheer numbers are staggering. More and more reach the wall, and while we continue to mow them down with our bullets and arrows, for every two that fall, four take their place.
“It’s like they’re never-ending!” Sully’s shouts to be heard over the spray of gunfire and the guttural grunts and moans of battle.
“We’re going to run out of ammo!” June’s voice is shrill as she calls out to me.
Nodding, I acknowledge her worry. I am panicking about that as well. Running out of arrows and bullets means surrendering the wall. And surrendering the wall grants our enemy access to our city, which is exactly how Galway fell. “Just keep shooting until there’s nothing left,” is all I can say. I don’t have anything else to offer, no other plan. So much time was wasted journeying to Agroth, time that could’ve been spent plotting and planning, perhaps even carving arrows from wood. But we’ll never know what could’ve been accomplished during the full-day trip we took. That time has been lost, squandered begging the leader of a species that despises us for help.
Asking for help had been easy. Being denied help was what hurt, especially when that denial was ultimately a death sentence for humanity. That rejection plagues my brain as I squeeze the trigger of my rifle again and again, blasting Uganna to bits as I do. Despite my effort and the efforts of others, however, beasts make it to the top of the wall. Screams and cries ring out. Curse words are hurled. They are met by sword-wielding members of Cassowary, Listowel and Remi and promptly struck down.
Fighting continues for what feel like eternity. Arms shaking from exertion and muscles heavy from exhaustion, the last bullet is fired from the chamber of my weapon. Throwing it, I glimpse the sky. Darkened by night, it’s cloudless, unfurling like a swath of ebony velvet dappled with glittering jewels. It seems absurd for the night sky to be so lovely. It will be a sight I take with me from this life to the next, it and the faces of the two people I love most on this planet: June and Sully. My spent rifle lands with a clatter upon the rocky ground below. I pull my sword from my sheath at my back and move to the first Uganna I see placing a leg over the lip of the wall. Slashing the air with speed and backing it with every ounce of my weight, my strike severs the leg high. Blood spurts from the wound in a river of garnet, the hit lethal as it notches an artery. Its body, limp after bleeding out, hurtles to the earth below, knocking two others off the wall in the process.
As I look down at the heap of bodies, I spot the Uganna that walks on two legs. Towering in stature and with a face as cold and hard as the face of a cliff, he urges the others on, barking commands in a gruff, rasping voice. As if sensing my eyes upon him, he looks up, his eyes scaling the wall until they land on me. He levels me with a glacial stare and I swear a small, cruel smile tugs either side of his mouth. A shiver of dread slinks up my spine.
Shaking off the fright and anxiety as best I can, I move to where Uganna are reaching the top of the wall, to where they are climbing over the ledge. Our men clash with them and I join in the conflict. The small space allows little room for movement and chaos erupts as bodies collide. Archers are pulled off the wall, screaming as they try to fight off their attackers only to fall to their deaths and likely be devoured. Their cries will haunt my days and nights should I live to enjoy more.
Not wanting to watch another of my people plunge to their demise, I shout, “Down to the courtyard! Everyone, let’s go!” I wave them on and call out until my voice fails. June and Sully rush down the winding staircase ahead of me, a fact I’m grateful for, and then little by little, the remaining men and women who survive funnel down the steps. We’ve lost the wall. Our only hope now lies in the courtyard where the rest of the combined armies wait. With no other way to access the space, the Uganna will file down the staircase, no more than a few at a time. And we’ll be able to kill them in small droves.
“All right everyone, this is it!” I scream once the square is full.
Sully shoulders his way through the crowd until he is by my side. “Only so many of them can come down the stairs at once.” He echoes my thoughts as he reiterates the plan we prepared for in the event that the wall was lost. “We’ll cut them down as they come down one or two at a time.”
A wave of rallying cries ripples through the group. But the cries are silenced by the appearance of a beast propelling himself toward us, knuckles on the ground and legs launching forward. We form a semicircle around the arched stairwell entrance, killing the Uganna before his feet touch the ground. One after another, we slice and move, taking down one Uganna after another. The stench of blood hangs in the air like a mist, coating my tongue and making me want to gag. My muscles tremble and ache and my head throbs in time with my hammering heart but I do not lower my weapon and I do not slow, not even to catch my breath. Crimson smears paint the exposed skin on my arms, but in spite of the exhaustion claiming my body and the lifeblood covering me, the fleeting sense that we can stave them off begins to take hold. The momentum has shifted. I know I’m not the only one who feels it. All around me, swords and fists are swung with something other than desperation and fear. They’re brandished with optimism, with hope.
Hope, the single element we’ve been deprived of since learning that legions of Uganna plowed through our city like an unstoppable force, killing everyone in their wake, is motivating every human being around me. That hope is dashed, however, as soon as I see ladders and grapples line the inside of the wall. Climbing down those ladders and the ropes attached to the grapples are Uganna.
“Oh no. Oh my gosh,” I breathe as the hideous beasts begin filling the quadrant, stalking toward us with the practiced ease of trained assassins. From the corner of my eye, I watch as one pounces, unhinging its jaw and sinking its teeth into the throat of a man. It whips its head from side to side, clamping down hard so that the sick crunch and tear of flesh and bone yielding can be heard. More lunge, attacking one by one. Human cries ring out, as does the rip and slash of skin rending.
Scarlet puddles pool and run in thin rivers through the cobbled streets of the city that once kept us safe. Sickened, I swing my sword with angry vengeance. But it’s not enough. The Uganna seize the guards who man the wheel that open the gate. They immediately begin twisting it. Metal creaks and grinds as hinges protest the weight of the wrought iron. My stomach crashes to my feet as the gates slowly part. I tide of Uganna sweeps in, flooding the paved paths and grass. June is carried away on the current, no longer visible to me. “June!” I scream but my cries are swallowed by the roar of battle. Panic settles deep in my marrow. My sister is out of reach, her life in the gravest of jeopardy, and the potential for annihilation becomes a near certainty. Madness has crashed through our front door like a tidal wave. Pushing forward, I rush to the gate and am followed by any men and women who’ve survived the first wave of attack. Swinging my blade at any beast that scuttles on all fours, I kill each Uganna that crosses my path as I make my way toward the vicinity in which June stood just moments ago. I have to find her. I have to see her one last time before we fall to the enemy.
As I slash and slice fiend after fiend, I feel a
gaze boring into my skull. Lifting my eyes for a split second, a pair of eyes, as dark and hard as volcanic glass, drills straight through me. The eyes, the penetrating gaze, belong to the Uganna leader, the one who walks on two legs. “You.” The word rumbles in his chest as a growl just before he descends on me, closing the distance between us and swatting at me with razor-sharp claws. I dodge the swipe, catching just the pointed tips of his talons as they drag down my forearm. The sting of skin breaking burns but not enough for me to lose focus and lower my weapon. Hoisting my sword high and swinging it in a wide arc, dragging the tip of my blade across his midsection. It traces a crimson line that widens, growing as blood seeps from the wound I’ve opened. The Uganna howls out in pain then launches his large, booted foot forward. His foot connects with my stomach, knocking the wind from my lungs and sending me tumbling backward. I crash to the ground hard, hitting my head so that it ricochets with a thud. Throbbing explodes sending trembling veins of pain snaking through every part of my body. A scattering of black dots crowds my field of vision. I blind several times and try in vain to clear it. The flash of knees lifting and a foot rapidly approaching my face forces back the darkness teasing at the edges of my vision. Dizziness unlike any I’ve ever experienced weights my limbs with leaden heaviness. I try to roll, but uncooperative limbs refuse to obey my brain’s command.
As I’m about to succumb my sluggish body and the whirling sensation lulling me to oblivion, I catch sight of someone leaping onto the giant Uganna’s back. The metallic glint of a blade gleams in the light of the moon, and for a moment, what I’m seeing doesn’t quite register. The blade is pulled across the Uganna’s throat and dark blood spills from it. The behemoth beast’s eyes widen and his small mouth rounds. Falling to his knees with a soundless scream, I recognize the man who leaped onto the Uganna’s back and slit his throat. Sully, bathed in silvery shafts of light, looks like an ethereal being sent from a dream. “Avery!” he screams and rushes to my side. “Are you okay?”
“Where’s June?” I mumble.
“June?” Worry pleats his brow, but he refocuses on me. “Can you stand?”
Nodding and willing the spinning to stop, I allow him to take my hand and pull me upright. “You saved me. You found me and saved me.” My words are jumbled and sound as if their echoing through a long tube. “I love you,” I whisper.
“And I love you.” Sully brushes my cheek with the back of his hand. “I never took my eyes off you.”
The interaction has a fuzzy, dreamlike quality to it. We are standing amid a battlefield. All around us, our people are falling, completely overwhelmed by Uganna. At any given second, we could be taken down by more than one beast, all but guaranteeing our deaths, yet we exchange tender words, declare our love for each other.
My vision rights as the reality of our predicament comes into razor-sharp focus. Bodies of men and women—my friends—slain and mangled, litter the courtyard. Uganna rip the flesh from their bones in a gruesome display of barbarism. Any and all hope of surviving this attack bleeds from me as readily as the lifeblood of my people. Tears weep from my eyes, the ache of my sister enduring the same fate as those around me too awful to bear. I hoist my sword, preparing to fight until I draw my last breath, until I at least find June. Spent muscles tremble. My vision is blurred. I scan the quadrant a final time before I’ll rejoin the fray, and when I do, I see ranks of Uganna set to push through the gate being slain from behind.
“Sully, what is that? Do you see it?” My finger follows the trajectory of my eyes as I point in the distance. I’m loath to tear Sully’s attention from the onslaught of bloodthirsty beasts, but I want to be sure my eyes aren’t deceiving me, that the blow to my head is not inducing a hallucination that includes watching row after row of the Uganna offensive be struck down.
Squinting and straining to see in the firelight of torches and the light of the moon, Sully peers, his lips parting in astonishment. He immediately reaches for his binoculars. Lifting them to his eyes, he says, “Urthmen.”
“What?” I ask and am certain I head him incorrectly.
“The Urthmen army is here. They’re here to help us.” Shock and awe touch his tone. And even though Sully is seeing it with his own eyes, I have trouble believing it.
“Let me see.” I reach out a hand and wait until the cool plastic of the binoculars touches my hand. I raise them to my face and stare through them. The sight before me astounds me. Urthmen dressed in full battle gear, pour through the gate and swing clubs, blades and axes, hammering away at the Uganna with ease by virtue of their numbers.
The fighting in the quad halts briefly as the roar and clatter of bodies colliding erupts with a sonic boom. Humans and Uganna alike freeze at the sudden appearance of the Urthmen. But the halt is brief for a fiend descends on me, knocking the binoculars from my hand as it blasts into my shoulder with its own. Staggering backward, my sword falls to the ground with a loud rattle. Massive paw like fists, balled and callused, are immediately on my chest and a jaw unhinges, dripping foul saliva on my neck. I muster every ounce of strength I have and try to force the Uganna off me, but it’s no use. It simply overpowers me. All I’m able to do is hold it at arm’s length. “No!” I scream stridently as teeth nip dangerously close to my chin. My wrists shake. It lowers closer, hovering, gleaning my strength and sneering with a predatory glint in its eyes.
In the seconds that it takes Sully to react, the world around me slows dramatically. The beast’s face lowers with infinitesimal deliberateness. Bodies tumble to the ground in slow motion. And Sully’s form, diving through the air, is graceful as it leisurely carves the air. But as soon as his body collides with the Uganna, the speed of life returns to normal and explodes deafeningly. I feel a gush of warmth saturate the front of my shirt. I look up and find the Uganna’s eyes wide, the vicious sneer gone, and the tip of a blade protruding from the upper left portion of its chest. Sully yanks it back so that it falls away from me then wrenches his weapons from its corpse. “Are you hurt?” he shouts as his eyes frantically travel my body, searching for injuries.
“No, no, I’m okay,” I say in a voice that quivers. He helps me to my feet and I double over for a split second, trying to catch my breath and ease the racing of my pulse and the lightheadedness that’s lay claim to balance. When I look up, a sight catches the air in my chest. “June,” I whisper.
Across the way and not far from where I stand, I see June. With her bowstring pulled, she fires an arrow directly at the heart of a Uganna, killing it instantly. Moonlight washes over the top of her hair, bathing golden ringlets in a scattering of silver and highlighting the toned definition of her arms, back and shoulders. Her gaze flickers my way. She sees me and lowers her weapon, running at me full speed. I open my arms and as soon as she is close, envelop her. “I thought I lost you,” I breathe as I plant kisses on the top of her head.
“I know, I know,” she murmurs against my chest. “I thought you were—” she chokes on the last word but I know what it is. She thought I was dead, that we’d all die. Thanks to the Urthmen, we’re still alive.
“We’re okay, June. We’re okay,” I say as I clutch her tightly. I feel soft sobs racking her body, but our emotional reunion is interrupted by clashes all around us. Jumping, I release June. I turn and watch as more and more Uganna fall at both human and Urthman swords, and the battle lessens in intensity. Sully fights, slashing and kicking at a pair of Uganna but is quickly assisted by an Urthman who plunges his blade deep into one of the Uganna’s backs. Sully kills the other. June takes out the eye of a beast with an arrow, launching her attack as it charges toward her. An injured Uganna scuttles toward me. Eyes wild and mouth open wide, it changes. Planting my feet, I square my shoulders and grip my blade in two hands. I time its stride and step aside just as it is upon me, beheading it. Its head lands upon the hard earth with a thump before its body collapses in a heap. Heaving deep breaths, I turn and see Dhaval approaching. Covered in blood, he no longer bears the regal air he wore b
efore. Now he resembles a solider, the fiercest of warriors. “Azlyn,” he says in greeting and dips his head deferentially. “Glad to see you in one piece.”
Unexpected laughter slips from my lips. “Thanks to you, of course.” I shake my head, marveling at the fact that we’re standing as we are, surrounded by Uganna carcasses, and making light of his arrival. Swallowing hard, I resist the urge to gag from the iron-rich stench of blood and the fetid odor of burning flesh infusing the air. “What made you change your mind?” I ask.
“We did this for us, not you.” Dhaval smiles wryly. “I guess if we have to choose who we’d rather share the planet with, humans are better than Uganna.”
“Huh,” is all I say as he and I silently survey the battlefield.
Looking around I see that the human losses are great. Many have perished. We will honor their lives by holding funerals for each. Though the casualties are great, the majority have survived. And though I suffer the pain of mourning, I force myself to remember that my friends died defending a noble cause: our right to live. As a result, the human race has not been destroyed. The battle has been won. The fate of our species has been preserved.
Glancing at Dhaval in my periphery, I am struck by a second epiphany. The rise of the Uganna has birthed the advent of a new chapter in the history of our planet. Urthmen and humans have forged an alliance, and while I fear that alliance is tentative, the tenets of peace have already been established, the foundation for coexistence laid.
I’m aware that the days of Urthmen and humans interacting amicably are far in the future, but the possibility exists. Hope exists. Hope for a future of harmony. Hope for a future of reconciliation. Just days ago, I never dreamed such a phenomenon possible. Now, it is probable.
Planet Urth: The Fate of Urth (Book 5) Page 19
