Wrath of the Greimere (Hell Cliffs Book 2)

by Case C. Capehart

  “Vines, huh?” Raegith growled. “but you don’t have the energy to drag me into the ground, do you?”

  “What?” the Mage asked.

  “Vi-Sage Falfa wasn’t with the 9th when I obliterated them at the Citadel. I had hoped to see him here and when I felt the vines. I thought I was finally getting my chance for vengeance. But you’re not Vi-Sage Falfa.”

  “How do you know Falfa?” the Mage asked. “He has not been in the field for a decade.”

  Raegith felt a sword up against his neck and someone was trying to pry the female Mage out of his hands.

  “You’re leading this group of marauders?” the sergeant asked frantically. “You can call them off? Do it or I’ll slit your thr- Lieutenant!”

  The Saban cried out and Raegith looked over to see the Mage gripping his neck as blood gushed between his fingers. The tips of a Naga’s shuriken peaked out against the red. Raegith could not turn his head to see which stealthy Lokai had saved his ass, but he would find out later.

  The Mage pulled his fingers from the dirt and the vines around Raegith unwrapped. The barbs tore at his skin as they retracted, but Raegith still managed to shove the sergeant away before he could slit his throat. Raegith readied himself for the assault from the other Sabans, but suddenly Helkree appeared, covered in blood and blazing with wrath.

  The first soldier turned to see her just as her axe separated his head from his shoulders. The man remained standing when she kicked his headless corpse into the other soldier, knocking him off his feet. The sergeant turned to engage her, swinging his sword for her head. Helkree slipped the swing. He immediately covered with his shield, bracing for the return strike. Helkree did not swing though, but reached out and hooked the outside edge of the man’s shield with her axe head and pulled it forward. Side-stepping, she swung down with her right axe and cleaved the sergeant’s arm off at the elbow.

  The Saban screamed and swung wildly with his sword arm, but his fear only elevated her frenzy. Screeching insults at the man that he could not possibly have understood, she blocked his sword and took his other arm off. Then she head-butted him in the face and turned to engage the other soldier coming at her back.

  Before he could finish his swing, she hooked the soldier’s wrist with the underside of her axe and spun under his arm, twisting it out and away. She came out of the spin at his side and sunk her other axe into his collar. She pulled her axe out of the young Saban so hard that it tore his chest-protector away. Her bone-chilling roar at the remaining three forced froze them with fear.

  A second later three black-clad Naga closed in behind them, slitting Saban throats before they could recover their nerve.

  “Hel, you’re alive!” Raegith yelled. “Freya?”

  “Here.”

  The dark-haired Urufen girl limped forward. The arrow protruded from her hip and she winced with every step. She looked at Fenra and nodded. Kimura and her Naga emerged from the shadows and spread out in a perimeter.

  Raegith looked over the Mages. Even if any of them could manage to summon magic, with so many vicious enemies just feet away from them, they did not move. To the south, the Rellizbix cavalry had disappeared in the cavernous gully the Greimere had dug and concealed in the open field. The infantry had surged forward to assist the downed horsemen instead of retreating. One foolish group had already charged ahead and reached the prison only to find dead Sabans among the wreckage.

  To the North, Raegith could already see the wave of his raiders breaking through the last of the defenders. Over a dozen Reapers carved their way through the middle of the formation. At the lead, in her black robe and face paint, Yumiko lifted her scythe and sent superstitious Sabans fleeing before her.

  Though the men of Rellizbix had the numbers and the experience, they were clearly overwhelmed by the attack. Even the veterans who were used to fighting Rathgar only on foot scattered at the sight of dark-skinned, dark-eyed spearmen riding giant wolves, the personification of Death reaping them like wheat. Raegith could see their broken lines. To each side, he watched as Reapers chased down those who tried to flee. Raegith and the others looked to the center of the fight as one of the soldiers was lifted off his feet and over the head of Brimgor. The Agillean’s laughter could be heard from across the field as he launched the squirming soldier into the air and on top of an unsuspecting group to his left.

  “Where is she?” Kimura asked. “The main force will know their rear is under attack.”

  “Relax.” Izanami appeared out of nowhere with two Witches holding each of her hands. “I had to know that the area was secure before jumping in. Why are you all just standing here? Get these odd-looking creatures off their beds and lined up!”

  “Alright, attention noble Mages! I need all of you to your posts. Let’s get these cannons up and running,” Raegith yelled, digging a line out in the grass with his boot.

  “We are too weak,” the female Mage that he had threatened to kill earlier replied. “And we would sooner die than follow the orders of a traitor!”

  “I had a feeling you might say that,” Raegith replied. “That’s why in ten seconds, anyone still laying around and not clawing their way up to this line is going to be stripped down. Then, we’re going to scalp you… just shave the totems right off your head, skin and all. Last, we’re going to gouge your eyeballs right out of the socket and replace them with rocks so that when you finally succumb to your grievous injuries and go before the Elementals, they will have no idea which one you belong to. But with no robe, no totem, and stones for eyes, will any of them accept you? Or will you be cast down with all the other Stone Seers?”

  “That’s… that’s not how it works!” the Faeir woman cried.

  “Well, I’m not a Faeir, and I don’t really give a shit how it works. I can’t promise you that the Elementals will mistake your mangled corpses for the Stone Seers, but I can definitely guarantee you pain… starting with you.”

  Raegith pointed at the woman and Helkree lunged forward, grabbing her and dragging her by the hair up to Raegith.

  “Do you own any Stone Seers, Mage?” Raegith asked, grabbing her face and pointing it at the frightened group of gray-robed Faeir who had not moved a step during the battle. “Point them out to me.”

  The Mage screamed and tried to escape but Raegith held her fast and turned her face to his.

  “Any of them look you in the eye, the way I’m looking you in the eyes right now? Of course they don’t; such is your control over them.” Raegith reached up and pryed her eyelids open. “Silver eyes… so beautiful. How does it feel to know those gorgeous eyes are about to be plucked from your face in a moment and you are powerless to stop it? Do you feel like a Stone Seer?”

  “They’re moving,” Izanami said.

  Raegith looked up and saw that almost all the Faeir were struggling to get to their feet and line up in front of Raegith.

  “Just stop!” one of them yelled. “We’ll do as you ask. Spare us… spare the remainder of our men out there and we will do whatever you ask.”

  “Don’t do this, Lacetus!” the female Faeir cried. “Be strong!”

  “A strong Faeir?” Raegith laughed. “Please. The lot of you would kneel before me and gape your mouths in anticipation to keep from harm. Just the threat of pain got you all off your asses.”

  “Not all of them,” Helkree replied, nodding to three who remained still and a few who hesitated upon the female’s words.

  “It’s been ten seconds. They had their chance.” Raegith turned and grinned at the female Mage. “Fenra!”

  Raegith held the woman’s face and kept eye contact through the screams of the resistant Mages as Fenra and two Naga began scalping them.

  “General Comenius will show you no mercy when he gets here,” she said through bared teeth as tears rolled down her cheeks.

  “Well… if he gets here, I’ll seek him out and see if he is more of a challenge than that crusty old fart, Tiberius.”

  “What in the Elements…? I�
�m on fire!”

  Raegith turned to see one of the Faeir freaking out. Izanami was halfway down the line, forcing drops of her potion down the throats of every Mage with the help of Kimura and the other Naga. Others were beginning to panic and hallucinate.

  “Is it working?” Raegith asked, picking the Faeir woman up and passing her to Helkree.

  “It’s invoking a reaction, just not one that we’ll find very useful,” the Witch replied, looking over at the frantic Mages, scratching and slapping themselves. “With time you could calm them, perhaps. They won’t be commanded in this state.”

  “We don’t have time, Izanami.” Raegith turned back to Helkree. “If she does anything with her hands or you feel so much as a slight breeze, rip her arms off.”

  “A breeze?” she asked, giving him a look. “You’re kidding me, right? Like a magic breeze? That’s what she does?”

  “We lost Enga to one of those magic breezes, remember?” Raegith asked.

  Helkree snarled and squeezed her arms hard enough to elicit a yelp of pain.

  The battle cries of the returning infantry grew close as Raegith stood in front of the near-maniacal Mages.

  “Fuck!” Raegith turned to his warriors. If they flanked and then charged, they might be able to drive the infantry to the trees. He would lose nearly all of his force to accomplish it.

  “What is happening to the masters?”

  Raegith turned to see an abnormally tall Stone Seer with rust-colored hair. His deep voice carried a slight tremble, but he otherwise stood firm.

  Raegith approached the Faeir. “They’re dying, noble Stone Seer. To honor Onyx, if you but give the word, I will allow you to finish the job.”

  “If cries of anguish are what you desire, I beg you to let me take their place,” the Stone Seer replied.

  “Can your people work the cannons?” Raegith glanced nervously at the soldiers who were nearly upon them.

  “We are not allowed.”

  “Understand this,” Raegith growled. “I will draw out their suffering. I will starve them over months and have my Witches drive them to such insanity that they rip out their hair and bash in their own teeth and I will make you watch. Do you wish to save them? Then power the cannon.”

  “No! You cannot do this. Their power is unstable.” The female Mage remained still as she called out to him. “The cannons are not calibrated for their elements.”

  “Or perhaps I’ll give you what I gave them,” Raegith said. “I wonder what kind of damage you all could do once the madness frees your magic.”

  The Stone Seer barked an order to the others and they quickly assembled around one of the cannons. The Stone Seers concentrated and the weapon quickly flared to life, rumbling and shaking as it did.

  “Brick, no. You cannot do this. Those are our men out there.” The Mage pleaded and risked a broken jaw from Helkree as the Stone Seers aimed the cannon at the field and into the oncoming soldiers.

  “Forgive me,” the rust Faeir muttered as he clapped a hand against the cannon.

  For all their eagerness with the devastating weapons, the soldiers appeared completely unprepared for what their prized cannons could do when turned upon ground troops. The cannon screamed with the voice of Death and sent shockwaves into the ground that toppled those around it. A purple beam tore the end off the cannon, carrying molten shrapnel into the field with it. Dozens of men in the path of the energy beam were incinerated instantly. The infantry’s advance ground to a horrified halt and then exploded in chaos.

  The disciplined formations of Sabans and Twileens broke as men scrambled in every direction but north. Some dove to the ground and refused to budge even as their fellow soldiers trampled them. Some bolted westward across the neglected crops surrounding the prison, but most were caught left of the beam and fled for the cover of the forest.

  Raegith pointed at Izanami. “Is Beretta ready?”

  “I don’t know,” she shrugged as Raegith scowled at her. “I forgot to leave an imp with her. What do you want from me?”

  Raegith tried to count how many had survived the blast, but there were too many. Once they regrouped, the next battle would be hell. If Beretta failed to read the battle then he would have to rally his Reapers and ride them all down within the forest.

  Just as the men reached the tree line, the forest vomited a stream of crossbow bolts. Gimlets high in the branches rained wooden death down on the frantic soldiers. Beretta had consolidated way more Gimlets than expected and overdid it with the bolts. Of the hundreds of men who avoided the cannon blast, only a dozen or two pushed through the Gimlet’s barrage and escaped into the woods.

  A moment later, green flames illuminated the forest and died out.

  It was then he heard the screams.

  Raegith’s force had reached him and at first he thought they were cheering, but with a glance, he realized they were all silent. With his Helcats at his side, Raegith walked out past the cannons and the campfires and gazed out upon the battlefield.

  Sabans and Twileens screamed in agony. The beams had obliterated those that were hit directly, but the immense heat had a secondary effect; one they had not seen at the Citadel, where the walls had soaked up most of the energy. The leather armor of the Hunters melted to their charred skin and they writhed in pain, tearing and ripping at the burning hot armor.

  The metal armor of the Saban soldiers was too hardy to melt completely, but instead flash-fused and the men inside roasted alive, locked tight in a rigid death stance.

  Beretta and her Gimlets approached, horrified at the scene.

  “Shall we ready a feast, then?” Izanami asked, completely oblivious to the agony around her. “It would be a shame to waste such wonderful dinner music.”

  Helkree approached Raegith’s side and spoke sidelong to him. “Long ago, right after you lost Kalystra and attacked Hitomi, you asked me to keep you in check; to not let you drift so far into wrath that you lose your honor.”

  “And you think that’s what I’m doing now?” Raegith turned his head to her. “They would have killed all of us and then marched home to take Hitomi’s group by surprise.”

  “You did what you had to. That’s honorable.” Helkree turned back to the field. “Dying like that, though…”

  Raegith called out to his retainer. “Beretta… send your Gimlets out into the field. Tell them to aim for the skulls and quickly move on to the next.”

  “Mercy?” Izanami spat. “You show weakness, Warlord.”

  “Weakness?” Raegith yelled, turning on her. “You want a feast, Witch? Feast your eyes on this field. I have destroyed a force of superior numbers and unholy magical power, twice over. These dying men are of no use to us and I will not drag out their deaths for your pleasure. That is their way… a way we seek to eradicate.”

  Chapter 12

  Raegith sat atop the ruined cannon as the sun crested the horizon. He had slept only a few hours and he still felt a buzz from the wine he had lifted from one of the Faeir carts. Some fires still raged on the battlefield and Magda could be heard barking orders at the men tasked with stripping bodies and sorting the spoils.

  “You promised…” came the soft voice below him. “You promised that if they did what you asked, you would spare their masters. You promised that you would spare the rest of the men on this field.”

  Raegith looked down at the lone, white-haired Faeir Mage. She wore ragged clothes, but her totem and eyes remained intact. She had wept through the night, even though Raegith forbid any of the men and women from touching her.

  “I promised to free the Mages from their torment if the Stone Seers powered the cannon.” Raegith hopped down from the cannon and knelt beside her. “Although, Izanami tells me they would have eventually become mindless slaves. That would have pleased me more.

  “As for the men on the field… I did not know what those weapons would do, but you did. You knew what those beams did to flesh and armor and yet you used them anyway.”

  “All of my co
mrades… all of my fellow Mages…” she continued. “You slaughtered them. And the Stone Seers you are so peculiar with? You forced them to kill their friends and countrymen and I am forced to live with the horrors I’ve witnessed. You are a monster.”

  “A demon,” Raegith corrected. “And you’re correct; you will be forced to live. I need you alive so that you can help me snap these Stone Seers out of whatever hold you have on them.”

  “You are delusional,” she replied. “I am repulsed by this conversation. I request an execution.”

  “You haven’t even told me your name, yet. I can’t grant requests to people I’m unacquainted with.”

  “Ariadne. Major Ariadne,” she answered. “Of the 7th Support Battalion.”

  “You were in a Support Battalion? Were you a healer?”

  “I am a healer.”

  “Well, Major Ariadne, there are only two options for you here, as the lone survivor of the 7th Regiment. You can submit to me; heal my men and teach your skills to those who can learn them, including your former slaves.

  “Or you can follow your pride and continue your valiant resistance. I’ll lop off that totem of yours, march you naked at the front of my caravan during the day and give you to the men at night, to do with you as they please. Notice how neither of these options include death?”

  The woman clenched her jaw and stared forward. After a moment, Raegith knelt down and looked her in the eye.

  “Rellizbix is a land of exclusion. You exclude people from the Capitol; you withhold education from entire races and military service from an entire gender. You live with your boot on the throat of an entire sect of your own people. Greimere is a nation of inclusion; I am proof of that. I spilled blood for this nation, my own and that of others, and proved my allegiance to it. You will have your chance to prove yours, Major. Welcome to the Greimere.”

  Raegith turned and motioned to his Helcats holding the tall Stone Seer. They brought the man forward and buckled his legs to make him kneel before Raegith. The Stone Seer stared at the ground, not daring to meet Raegith’s gaze or look upon his humiliated master.