Only momentum would save them now. That and the good will of a few thousand ancestor spirits that hopefully were listening to his prayers.
Dalibor rode at the tip of his own well disciplined cavalry assault. He had his knights arranged in a very narrow column so as to disrupt his foot soldiers—undead and living alike—as little as possible. He didn’t care if he trampled five hundred undead getting to the Varrlander’s attack if it meant he got there in time to break their charge, but if his necromancers could herd the undead out of his way, all the better.
“Split their line in two!” The gray haired general screamed beneath his steel mask, waving his massive sword in a flourish above his head. His knights rallied at his back with various noises of approval and thrill. Screams and hollers from the living warriors, moans of cracked, dry lungs from the dead.
The sound of war made his heart thump hard, and Dalibor thought with relish of the days to come when he would love forever, without the beat of a fragile heart in his breast.
Calamity’s speed waned and Marcus felt the sweat well on his brow. She had taken a score of cuts and slashes to her thick, wooly pelt as the undead surrounded them thicker and thicker, and her blood now ran down her stormy coat. She could sustain far more damage and stay upright and dangerous, but each nick, each cut and bruise would slow her down, and her speed would be what saved them both.
“Go, girl. Run,” Marcus said to her. She listened, and her urgency returned. Her broad, powerful shoulders bowled over a dozen more undead and they surged ahead, stomping the undead bodies to ragged, broken piles.
“Sir,” one of the soldiers just to Marcus’ shoulder hollered. “To the east!”
The Knight Major turned to his left and looked into the sun. He maintained a slashing figure-eight with his blade as his eyes adjusted to the yellow orb that overwhelmed the horizon. Something helped his eyes adjust. A rising cloud of dust. Marcus saw the glint of the same sun rising off purple armor like shards from a broken stained glass window. He saw the massive form of their commander riding a Gvorn even larger than Calamity, though this approaching beast had no flesh on its body: it was of bone only.
Marcus turned away. He couldn’t stop their charge. It made no sense to worry about it. It also made no sense to him that the dream that came to him the other night was flooding back into his mind, showing him images of that very man on that dead Gvorn killing him on the field they both shared at that very moment.
It made no sense at all.
Dalibor’s fragile heart pounded harder and harder beneath his heavy plate as his undead mount spurred forward faster, bidden by the desire to kill and maim. The wet, sweaty flesh of the charging knights was only yards ahead, and it begged to be split wide open by his sword so its bloody red interior could be shown the sun.
“Break them!” he screamed as his mount launched into the air, aiming its massive ram-horns directly at the broad midside of a Varrlander’s horse just below the saddle. Right where his fleshy leg was. Dalibor gripped tight with his thighs and a mailed fist on the reins.
The dead beast collided with its target like a runaway freight train, impaling the mount and crushing the leg of its rider. When the monster landed on its front hooves, its momentum braked, and the dead mount it just killed and the maimed rider both fell to the ground where the undead foot soldiers piled in on them like blood-streaked water funneling down a drain.
He willed his mount to leap over the fallen horse and its soldier, and all the chaos around them. His will came in the nick of time for the rest of the Varrland column stampeded directly at his side, and their swinging blades almost ended his victory before it began. They charged past him as he rounded in the mass of his army and as the rest of his knight smashed into the sides of other Varrlanders. A necromancer ten paces away moved the sea so it parted in his path, giving him room to maneuver and rejoin the battle. The general noted the mage’s service and spurred his mount to charge back into the fray once again.
He grinned as blood sprayed in the air and splashed on the ground. Blood from the living. The blood of his enemies.
He had broken the Varrlander charge.
Marcus and his mount broke through the massive spread of undead and brought his speed down. He looked over his shoulder, twisting in his saddle to see where all his men were.
He had started his assault with forty soldiers, forty friends. On his tail exiting the scattered and smashed army of the dead he quickly counted each living soul. He had Twenty-Nine bodies, and Twenty-Eight horses.
He looked deep into the mire of the battle and saw his soldiers fighting. Most were still atop their mounts. That was good. Some had been taken down and were out of view. He couldn’t leave them behind. Not against the Empire.
“Reform! On me!” Marcus shouted, and the Twenty-Nine warriors escaped around to form on his tail. Another charge would happen, must happen, and it would be horrible.
But he could not leave his men behind. Marcus put his heels into Calamity when his soldiers were ready. She smashed into the first undead who had wandered out of the masses with her horns, and the second great charge of Ockham’s Fringe was underway.
The battlefield was complete and utter chaos from above. Aubrey Leaf, elite archer of the Ghost Makers looked down as often as she could to fire an arrow into the throngs of undead who now pressed at the thick wooden wall of logs just thirty feet below her. She wasted no arrows on the reanimated corpses of the Empire. She sought only to punish the wearers of purple, and the living officers who tried to wrangle and herd their subjects, living and dead alike.
When the Knight Major took his gambit and smashed his cavalry through the heart of their forces, she stood tall and fired over and over into the crowd, trying to thread a needle past the shields that protected the necromancers, trying to make his charge more successful. She was unsure she killed anyone that mattered, but with so many enemies below, even a miss killed or maimed something dangerous to her and her friends. Marcus made his way through to the south side of the battle where the plains opened up again, but his line was split by the Empire’s counter charge. Aubrey had to duck back down into her tower when their archers fired a dozen arrows into her placement. She longed to help, but needed to wait.
She couldn’t wait long. The surprisingly quiet battle burst forth back into thunderous noise as horses began again.
She popped up long enough to see that Marcus had turned his remaining half of the charge to return. The tail of his men and women had been cut off by the Empire knights, and he returned to rescue them. But this would be different than his first blast through their rank and file. He intended to rush to the center, and stay there until each of his men and women could leave with him. It was the desperate act of a loyal and brave man, followed by the same. She had to help, damn the danger.
Aubrey stood, uncaring of the danger to herself. She looked into the center of the battle where the separated Varrlanders fought tooth and nail to survive, and searched for the spark of violet buried in the smudge of brown, gray and red. A necromancer. A purple armored knight. Anything important she could kill. She pulled her string tight and sent an arrow into one of the living Gvorn ridden by one of the flowered purple knights. The massive beast took the arrow in the shoulder, just ahead of the saddle, and it staggered. Before it righted itself fully she already had another arrow soaring, and that one struck in its neck. The plunging shaft pierced something vital, and the Gvorn reared up like a crashing wave, throwing its rider off and into the crowds of undead. The monster staggered into more of the shambling masses, and collapsed, crushing many. In her peripheral vision she saw writhing undead bodies attempting to escape from underneath the Gvorn as she sent more arrows into purple clad warriors.
She reached down to a spare quiver to reload, just in time to avoid an arrow that flew so fast it was invisible. It pierced the air where her chest had just been. She laughed, and shuffled down the wall to a spot several feet away. Multiple arrows sank into the thick wooden wall of
the tower. She gave it a few seconds as she got several arrows into her hand, and then she stood and began firing.
As her second arrow sped down into the shoulder joint of a purple knight’s armor she finally caught sight of Marcus’ position. His new charge had driven another wedge into the middle of the battle and killed hundreds more of the corpse legion, but it had put him directly in the space of the Empire knights. The vaunted and feared Order of the Purple Flower. The elite legion of the Queen, and the worst of the worst.
Marcus was off his horse and a large space had cleared in the center of the fray. He stood face to face with a giant man wearing head to toe plate the color of a healing bruise. He had several inches on Marcus and his two handed sword reached a foot further out. For some reason the Empire had pulled the undead away to give the two warriors a chance at a duel.
It was a shame Varrlanders fought to win, and not for glory.
Aubrey drew her bow and sent an arrow at the Empire General.
Marcus’ dream was coming true.
The massive General of the Empire stood in the clearing across from him after unseating him from Calamity. Marcus didn’t know if his Gvorn was dead or not. He couldn’t afford to look away from the knight who sought to battle him. In the din of the battle as a whole, he couldn’t hear her whimper, and that crushed him.
“You are Marcus Gray,” the armor covered man said after taking his helm off and tossing it aside. He had a dark face cut with scars and pocked from years of hard life. Gray hair crowned his dark skull and cascaded down like gossamer cobwebs. He was sweaty, and strands of the hair clung to his skin.
“I am. Knight Major of the Ghost Makers,” Marcus said defiantly in the face of thousands of ravenous undead. “How do you know my name?”
The grizzled man of evil laughed and looked to Marcus as if he should already know the answer. “Not all of your people are your people, warrior. Sheath your sword. Join the Empire. A man of your character and bravery serving at the foot of the Queen would live forever in high station. You could serve forever. Gain glory and wealth.”
Marcus shook his head. “I serve at no one’s foot. I serve at the side of those who are mine own. My warriors are my family, not my servants or subjects. I thank you for your offer, however. It is noted.”
The giant general leaned over and picked up a dropped spear. He spun it with practiced ease and pointed it at the Knight Major. Marcus’ prophetic dream grew more accurate. “We will kill you all, and either in life or in death you will wind up serving the Purple Throne. Choose to serve without pain, Marcus Gray. Pain is an experience no one needs to suffer.”
“What is your name?” Marcus asked him.
The knight straightened proudly. “I am General Dalibor Hubik of The Order of the Purple Flower. I have been tasked with the taking of Varrland and this speck on the rail is my first plucked fruit of that delicious tree.”
“Dalibor. A good name. General, I accept nothing of the Empire. Not your Queen, nor your gifts. If I die this day know my soul serves no one, though my body might in death.”
Dalibor grunted in anger, and hefted the spear for a lightning fast throw. As he stepped into the launch, and as Marcus dropped down to the earth, taking cover behind his shield, Dalibor made a strange noise, and failed to execute the throw. Marcus peered over the top edge of his worn shield and saw the feathered shaft of an arrow protruding upwards like an unwelcome spine where his neck met his shoulder. Marcus watched as Dalibor dropped the spear and gingerly touched the arrow.
“That was bound to happen. I brought an awful lot of archers with me,” Marcus laughed and stood just as one of his riders burst through the circle of undead surrounding him and Dalibor.
“Get on,” the rider said, extending a hand down to his leader. Marcus looked to the wounded general and then back to the extended hand. If he escaped with his life, it meant leaving the general alive. He put his blade away and took the hand. He pulled himself atop the back of the horse, and his rider bolted.
They got ten feet before the horse came crashing down, throwing the rider into the mass of undead, and corkscrewing Marcus in the beaten field of the opening. As he plummeted and smashed into the earth, the edge of his shield caught in the turf, twisting the curved steel and his wrist that was strapped to it.
Icicles of searing pain lanced through his hand and forearm as bones broke in a myriad of places. He grunted and groaned from the agony as it spider webbed up his arm to his shoulder. His fingers were numb, and the whole arm useless. He got to his feet, his shield arm hanging at his side limp and his body wracked with soreness from his immolation at Peiron’s hands earlier in the day, and now from getting thrown from a horse. Pain truly was an experience best left unsuffered.
Dalibor had regained his strength, and no longer had his spear. A quick look back at the downed horse showed two feet of the spear’s shaft disappeared into the animal’s flesh near its heart. It whined and shook, paralyzed with pain and fear as its blood pumped out into the field.
“No you don’t,” Dalibor said with gnashing teeth. “You owe me a death.”
Marcus drew his sword with the one remaining arm. “I owe you defeat.” But with one arm, giving his enemy that gift would be impossible.
The two men charged each other, and then a great shadow cast over them. The two men stopped their charge to look above but were interrupted.
As if the burning sun sitting atop the eastern horizon fell to the ground and caught the plains of Varrland afire, everything erupted around them.
Fire and lightning took the fields of the undead in a great storm.
—Chapter Twenty-Four—
A SHADOW IN THE SKY
Marcus did what his mother taught him to do if there was ever a fire in the home: drop. His shield arm exploded in pain as he hit the ground under the shadow of whatever was above. His vision danced until it became blurry from the pain, but he shook it off and stayed focused.
Columns of fire lanced down out of the sky like javelins thrown by mountain sized giants. Marcus had heard in the far southern kingdom of Oakdale there were mountains that spat out of their peaks fire and rock so hot it became liquid, and he wondered through the pain in his left arm if one of those mountains had grown where Ockham’s Fringe had been.
The fire was caustic and sticky: it clung to everything it touched and ignited it regardless of moisture. The fire burned fast and deep, melting flesh like wax and searing bones like wood. Hundreds of undead were immolated in the first few seconds of the fire. Bolts of static lightning were falling from the sky and spreading out amongst their number like slithering snakes. They crackled and snapped with earsplitting loudness, jumping from body to body, exploding limbs and heads, and scorching what the fire failed to reach. It was as if the entire battlefield had been transposed inside a storm head that had been doused in lamp oil and set afire.
Somehow that fire avoided Marcus.
Dalibor had disappeared. He no longer shared the clearing in the center of the storm with Marcus. As the eruptions of flame abated, slashing gouts of purple and green liquid fell from the sky, spraying the fields in a wider and wider pattern like a farmer with a water pot in his garden. The green and purple fluid raining down did not give life, it gave wounds. Wherever it fell hissing and spitting followed, and it ate into the flesh of more and more undead. Two nearby necromancers who had their wooden shields blasted apart by one of the lances of flame were hit by the ropes of alien fluid and their violet robes disintegrated wherever it hit, exposing bare flesh, or armor made of bone. Their skin and muscle followed suit whether they were armored or not, and Marcus cringed as they screamed and cried in unabated childlike pain.
One of them dropped to the ground as he did and swatted at the smears of thick gel on his body. The flesh on his fingers tore, melted and slipped off the bone, clinging to his arm where he’d tried to alleviate his pain. He held up a bony hand and looked it as he slid into shock. Another jet of the fluid hit him in the forehead, throwin
g back his hood and eating away at the flesh covering his face. His nose slipped off to the ground and he dropped to his knees beside it. Marcus fell onto his back and looked to the sky, unable to watch the foreign mage die such a death and needing to see what cast the shadow that was causing such destruction amongst his enemies.
In the sky he saw an illusion.
Floating at a height that would skim the tree tops in the thick forests of southern Varrland, Marcus saw what he believed to be the bottom of a boat. A very large boat. A ship really, one big enough to carry a hunded men and women, complete with masts and sails, yet it didn’t float on water. This boat floated on the air, buoyed by insanity. Or perhaps The Way.
Coming over the railing one after another in salvos of terrifying destruction were spells cast by some form of magically skilled people. Fire and lightning, bile and thunder. Judging by the destructive force brought to bear against the army surrounding him, these were no novices with The Way.
“Who?” one of Marcus’ men asked him half in a panic.
Marcus looked in the clearing—now surrounded with piles of burning and melting undead—and saw most of his cavalry soldiers had made it to the center of the space in the battle, below where the ship somehow hung in the sky. The man who spoke looked upwards at the bottom of the ship and the rain of death it dropped on their foes. “I don’t know, but if I judge them by their aim, they are here to help. Gather our survivors. We must try and escape back inside the village walls while whoever this is does... whatever it is they are doing.”
The rider didn’t respond, he jumped up and began to organize the wounded and shocked as the world continued to explode in every direction.
Against all the pain racing up his arm from his destroyed hand and wrist Marcus had to smile. Between the cacophonous explosions he could hear whoever was the on the floating boat cheer.
The Echoes of Sin (The Kinless Trilogy Book 3) Page 31
