by K L Reinhart
Is that because you are in league with the Hexan? Terak narrowed his eyes. Was this a willful ignorance on the part of the Fourth Family? There are too many possibilities here, Terak considered. It was impossible for him to get at the truth and to determine the right path to take without knowing what side any of these people were on.
“But, I can promise you this, on my name as a lord of my people and on our kinship: I will press for the Araxians and my Fourth Family to continue our coalition after the War Burg has been defeated and to lead our forces northwards, to the Kingdom of Brecha and the Everdell Forest.” The lord of the elves was silent for a moment, and when his voice returned it came back grave and serious. “We cannot fight the Ungol with the orcs at our backs. We must cut the head off of one snake in order to face the other.”
That makes sense, Terak gritted his teeth. But perhaps that means that if I stay here to fight, I might have a better chance at discovering the High Chancellor’s secrets . . .
Terak nodded. “Of course, my lord. I was not expecting to travel into the middle of a battle. Now that I am here, I cannot return your message to the Second Family before I help defend my kin,” he said.
Yuliel nodded deeply at this apparently noble gesture. “Spoken with all the passion of your family, Terak Var. Perhaps you are well-named indeed! I will find a place for you with my forces, where you may fight elf beside elf, as it used to be many centuries ago.”
Terak nodded, starting to feel that perhaps this was an elf that he could indeed trust, as Yuliel started making arrangements.
And in the meantime, I will have to do my best to get closer to the High Chancellor, Terak plotted.
8
Squire of the Fourth
Terak stood on the battlements of the Palace of Araxia and looked out at a city in flames. The Palace itself was built like a narrow ziggurat in order to span the estuary river. Thus, there were flat terraces of battlements like steps rising to the top towers, each one clustered with long orange pennants, and crossbowmen.
The city ahead was marred by plumes of rising smoke. In two places, Terak could see lines of people using wagons to pump water on the flames threatening to overtake the warehouse districts. The day was growing old, and still the War Burg hung ahead of the city, waiting.
“They fight better in the dark,” murmured the taller elf at Terak’s side, a sword-elf with long blonde hair in a braid down his back. He wore the same armor that had been given to Terak: a breastplate of bronze with matching greaves over green robes. Terak still had Vorg’s dagger at his belt, but he had also been equipped with a longsword like the others, although Terak would have preferred to have his knives.
The sword-elves of the Fourth were held back to protect their lord here at the Palace, whilst the bow-elves had already been dispatched to the distant city walls. Terak wondered if even their longbows could reach the orcs in the War Burg.
Terak felt his jaw tighten with expectation and frustration. He had not been raised to be held in reserve, and there was something in his nature—perhaps it was the Path of Pain, or the darker teachings of the Enclave-External—that forged in Terak a desire to fight. To resolve the problem ahead of him.
To make a business out of pain.
But at least I can keep an eye on my target. Terak half turned to squint at the smaller party of people atop the higher terrace. Lord Yuliel was up there, with his orange robes catching the fading light of the sun and making it appear as though he were the one on fire.
Beside him stood the other leading members of the city, and around them all was a box of gold-clad, feather-helmeted Palace Guards. Terak saw a balding human, shorter than those around him, in purple and white whom everyone appeared to defer to. King Serretti of Ara, Terak devised.
More human counsellors, men and women in rich robes, stood nervously as they surveyed the fate of the city. A man in heavy plate stood near the front, which Terak assumed must be the chief general or similar.
And there, beside the king—the High Chancellor.
Terak watched the man as closely as he could from this distance, cursing the fact that he had no way of overhearing them.
But the body tells the stories that the mind does not, Terak thought, using the Enclave-External’s techniques to watch how this group moved and parted.
The obvious center of attention was the King, around which the other counsellors and attendants would flutter toward and away. Like moths guiding by lantern light, Terak thought.
But only after a few heartbeats of observing, he saw that there was another pole of influence in that circle. The High Chancellor. He did not move toward and away from the King, but stood where he was. He waited for the King to finish talking to this counsellor or encouraging that guard, before turning his attention to the High Chancellor.
What would Father Jacques see? Terak attempted to emulate the only man who had seemed to care about him in the Enclave. Who had vouched for him when the Chief Arcanum had wanted the null to be . . . “removed.”
The High Chancellor feels himself important enough not to vie for the King’s favor, Terak thought shrewdly. And he wasn’t attempting to console or encourage the others around him.
It didn’t count as proof that the High Chancellor was anything other than a very cold and arrogant individual, but the elf stored the information away, just the same.
“It’s starting,” the elf beside Terak said, as he straightened up quickly where he stood to see what he had missed. The War Burg had changed. Its white, tooth-like cliffs gleamed horribly in the dying light and were now starting to run with color.
“What is going on?” Terak watched as small rivers of red started to run down the sides of the cliff, like an invisible hand was drawing lines.
“Orcish war sacrifices,” the elf beside him muttered with clear distaste. “When they have driven themselves half-mad with blood, then they will attack.”
As it happened, it didn’t seem to take a lot to drive an orc into a murderous rage, as there was a sudden blare of discordant horns. The sunset was an ominous red, and the orcish war horns sounded like a call to the end of the world.
And then, small dark shapes burst from the dark holes riddling up and down the red-smeared cliffs. The shapes were winged, and as soon as they burst from their caves, they gave voice to reptilian, hissing shrieks.
“Wyverns! The orcs have released wyvern-riders!” the sword-elf beside Terak announced. Terak raised his eyes to watch the swooping, cawing things as they rushed over the walls like a dark cloud. The bow-elves and the Araxian crossbowmen lifted their weapons to send up volleys to greet them.
But Terak could see that one group of the bat-like, almost dragonlike things were rising high above the walls and the city. They appeared to be flying in an arc that would take them straight to the heart of Araxia.
To the Palace itself.
“Fourth Family! Ready yourselves!” the blond elvish captain beside Terak, an elf named Olandier, roared. There were still many terraces ahead of where the Fourth Family stood, filled with the crossbowmen of the Palace guard, but Terak found his hand tightening around the sword hilt at his belt and hissing savagely.
Ahead of them, a group of twenty or so of the reptilian winged creatures flew erratically toward them. As they drew closer, Terak could see more and more details about these creatures that he had never seen before.
The wyverns flapped unevenly, like bats, but their heads were reptilian, with long necks. Their wings were large and leathery and a tan brown color. They cracked and snapped the air as they flew. They apparently only had two legs, tucked underneath them, and long, serpentine tails that slashed through the air, ending in cruel barbs.
And riding each one was an orc, barely clinging to a harness and bridle of thick leather, whooping and brandishing a variety of heavy-bladed weapons.
“Draw swords!” Captain Olandier called out. As one, the fifteen sword-elves of Lord Yuliel’s personal guard swept their long swords in a shimmering wave of
steel.
Where is the High Chancellor!? Terak risked turning his head to catch a glimpse of the purple-clad human on the utmost terrace. He still stood with the others but had moved nearer the back—a little distant, a little apart. Nothing unusual about that . . . Terak narrowed his eyes. Maybe the High Chancellor was scared?
But Terak was starting to not like this whole situation at all. I don’t trust him, some half-recognizable instinct voiced inside Terak’s heart.
“Eyes forward!” Captain Olandier snapped, and Terak turned back, aware of the blond captain and his quick eyes beside him. Ixcht! He gritted his teeth. How am I going to keep an eye on the High Chancellor like this?
The wyvern-riding orcs approaching them weren’t slowing or diverting from their course, Terak saw. If anything, they were speeding faster and with even more ferocity toward them in the dying reds of sunset.
Are they trying to take out the King? Terak thought. But there were only twenty of them.
“First volley!” one of the human captains shouted, and the lowest terrace released a cloud of crossbow bolts into the air at the approaching wyverns—
But, with the grunted roars of their orcish riders, the wyverns broke apart in their strange, darting, and erratic flights. Their group could disperse and coalesce in a heartbeat and appeared to fly without any thought for personal risk or safety. As it was, the crossbow bolts found two of the wyverns with pained shrieks where they tore through leather wings—but no single beast was felled.
“Second volley!” the next Araxian captain, on the second story of terraces shouted, as the first reloaded. The wyverns were coming in fast—they would be upon them in moments.
With a hiss like angered hornets, the next volley of bolts swept upwards through the air at the approaching horde. At this near distance, the wyverns and their riders had less time to react. Three of the creatures suddenly came crashing down to the first and second stories as their wyverns were either killed or seriously impaired.
“Ready!” Captain Olandier shouted, just as the wyvern riders were becoming large, snarling shapes in the air ahead of them. There was no time for the third volley. They were too close—
“Grargh!” And suddenly, one of the orcs leaped from the back of his beast, his gray-skinned legs scissoring in the air, and a huge, double-handed cleaver in his hands as he crashed into the front line of the sword elves.
Ixcht! Terak had a moment’s thought. It was like being hit by a cannon, but a living, snarling, grunting, and flailing one. Two of the sword-elves went down immediately in the crashing sweep, as the other defenders of the Fourth Family closed around the intruder.
“Scrargh!” But Terak was spinning back on his heel to see that the orc’s wyvern had slammed to the battlements, directly ahead of him.
9
Beast-killer
The wyvern’s head was a snub of scales and rows of foul-smelling fangs as it darted forward toward the null. Terak ducked, rolling to one side as he dodged the snap of the thing’s jaws. He slashed out with his borrowed longsword.
“Scrargh!” The elf felt his sword bite reptilian flesh. There was an accompanying scream of lizard rage and a spurt of green ichor over the paving slabs of the battlements.
But the wyvern was nowhere near dead. Suddenly, Terak’s sight was eclipsed by the shadow of the wyvern’s wing as it thumped down against the elf.
“Ach!” The strike was forceful, but it wasn’t enough to injure Terak, just knock him to the ground. Now he was covered with the heavy canvas of the creature’s wing. Terak stabbed upward, felt a tearing sound, and heard more grunts and clashes as more of the wyvern riders fell amongst the warriors of the Fourth Family.
He heard the scrape of the beast’s claws as it moved. Terak slashed again, seeing daylight through a rip in the leather of the thing’s wing.
And then the wing was gone, raised back as Terak pushed himself upright—
Smack! For the barbed end of the wyvern’s tail to slam into his breastplate, sending him flying backwards to skid and roll across the third terrace. This was how the wyvern disorientated its foe, Terak realized as soon as he had stopped his fall. Distract, smother, and set up an attack. The elf’s chest ached and throbbed in pain. His breastplate was buckled, but after a clearing breath, as the Enclave had taught the novitiate to do, Terak realized that nothing was broken. The breastplate must have saved his life.
Another shriek erupted as the wyvern, spilling green blood from the side of its head where Terak’s previous blow had struck it, darted toward the over-exposed leg of a sword-elf. The beast clamped the limb between its jaws. Even though its head was comparatively small against the rest of its body, Terak saw it twist its neck savagely, eliciting a sickening crack of elvish bone.
“Aii!” A scream as the sword-elf fell to the floor, one leg still in the wyvern’s mouth. The beast flared its wings and drew back its neck. It clearly intended to smash the poor elf against the paving stones, using every muscle from jaw to tail to do so.
Terak leapt to his feet, vaulting onto the crenelated battlements. He only had a second, and the furious beating of the creature’s wings was keeping back the two other sword-elves who were trying to get to their injured comrade. On the far side of their battle, Terak could see that more of the wyverns and their orcs had landed across the terraces, creating havoc all around them.
Terak jumped to the next outcropping of battlement. He tightened his back and thighs before releasing, using his momentum and height to leap into the air, over the down-sweep of the creature’s wings.
The sword-elves were well trained, but they had been trained to fight regiment and skirmish-style. They hadn’t been taught by the Chief Martial of the human Enclave, where every training was one-on-one and designed to force the student to break through the pain and to find a new solution to their opponent.
Terak’s new solution saw him land on the back of the wyvern, his boots hitting the scales and leather straps that its once-rider had used to hang onto the beast. The wyvern flinched with the sudden imposition of the weight of the elf, coughing unexpectedly and dropping the mangled calf of the pained—but presumably relieved—sword-elf.
Terak felt the tide of the creature’s back muscles ripple as it attempted to buck. He saw the thing’s head turn toward him as he pushed himself in another leap, two hands on the borrowed longsword.
The novitiate of the Enclave cleared the wyvern’s shoulder, falling through the air as he dragged his blade down.
The wyvern was already half turned toward him, but it was still too late for the creature to whip out of the way, or to buck and dodge the attack as Terak’s blade hit the horrible gash of fractured scales where he had hit before—
And severed the head of the beast.
“Ugh!” Terak’s boots hit the ground as he rolled, before once again being hit by one of the creature’s flailing wings as it, grotesquely, attempted to still fight even after losing its head.
The null threw himself over the wounded sword-elf’s body as the tail whipped inches past his head. Then the wyvern’s bulk slapped to the floor, sending a tremor through the flagstones.
“Ugh,” the wounded sword-elf said underneath him. Terak was already rolling off of him as another of the Fourth Company seized their ally by the shoulders and hauled him backwards from the fray.
Suddenly, Terak saw that he was in a brief oasis of calm in the middle of the battle. He had a chance to crouch, looking all around him as he surveyed the battle-scene.
It was chaos. The sword-elves of the Fourth Family weren’t used to fighting such an erratic and chaotic foe. Even though the orcish were far fewer in number, when separated from their steeds they had effectively doubled their fighting force. The wyverns were so large that they could dominate half a terrace with their sweeping tails and snapping heads. On the level below, Terak saw that the same picture was playing out with the human defenders—but at least the Araxians had discarded their crossbows and taken up pikes instead. This ga
ve them a means to hem and fence the attacking orcs. More human Palace Guards were running up the steps as Terak watched, carrying their own pikes and spears to add to the fight.
Our side will win. Terak analyzed the situation, but it would come at a heavy cost.
But why did the orcs think that they could overwhelm the Palace of Araxia with just a dozen or so orcish wyvern-riders? Terak thought. He had fought orcs before. Yes, they were savage and brutal and cruel, but were they also strategic idiots?
The air fizzed with the crackle of battle magic as Captain Olandier threw a blue-and-white spear of force against a leaping orc, catching it under the chin and flinging it back over the battlements to the river below. The magic of the defenders was matched in turn by guttural grunts and hisses from the few orcs who also had their own form of battle-magic—a giant red fist forming out of solid air to slam into an Araxian, pummelling him to the floor.
But still, even with their battle-magic and their monstrous wyverns, it was a foolish mission to try and sack the Palace with so few. The rest of the city was still under siege by the aerial bombardment, Terak saw. More flames leapt up into the fast-approaching night and over at the city gates. He watched the dive and swoop of other wyverns and their riders as they engaged with the wall guards.
The novitiate’s eyes moved to the top terrace, the one where the King, his courtiers, Lord Yuliel, and the High Chancellor stood.
“Protect the King!” Only one of the wyvern riders had managed to get to the top terrace. The elite Palace Guards had crowded around both the wyvern and the dismounted orc fiercely, as other guards hurried to surround the king.
