The Amazon's Pledge- Ultimate Edition

by Sarah Hawke

  “We really need to work on your endurance,” Valuri’s voice said from somewhere behind me. “That’s not something I ever thought I’d say about you.”

  I groaned and leaned up as my vision cleared. I was pressed up against the wall not far from where I had collapsed, and Val was crouched down next to me. The flames in the courtyard had been extinguished, mercifully, though the sheer number of corpses littering the area made my stomach turn. The scent of blood and ash burned my nose, and I had to clamp a hand over my face just to breathe.

  “Red is up on the wall coordinating the survivors with General Serrane,” Val said, squeezing my arm and pointing back to the battlements. “We haven’t spotted any more wyverns, and the catapults stopped firing a while ago. Hopefully they’re done for the night.”

  I grit my teeth and forced myself to turn away from the carnage. “Why would they let up now?”

  “I’m not sure. They might not have enough ammunition to actually punch through the wall, or they may have more crates and wyverns on the way.” She shrugged. “Serrane thinks this was just an opening volley to see how much damage they could inflict. Since they couldn’t open the gate, they’ll just pound the drums and try to terrify the survivors for a while.”

  “Like you said, it’s working,” I muttered.

  “Yeah, and it’s only going to get worse.” Val sighed and gestured to the bodies. “At first count, there are at least a hundred dead and twice that many too wounded to fight, including many of the Guild wizards. Without more reinforcements, this place is doomed.”

  I swore under my breath. “What are the odds that Highlord Kastrius will call for a retreat?”

  “Low,” Valuri said gravely. “He’s dead.”

  My breath caught in my throat, and I studied her face to make sure she wasn’t cracking one of her ill-timed dark jokes. But the solemn look in her eyes confirmed she was telling the truth.

  “Escar’s mercy,” I breathed

  “A few of the Roskarim broke through the rearguard and charged into the barracks,” Valuri said. “Kastrius and Sir Derec followed them to try and defend the servants and wounded who were hiding inside. Stupid paladins…”

  I swore again. “Derec didn’t make it either?”

  “He did, actually. He said the Highlord saved his life.” Val shook her head and sighed again. “Morale is going to crumble whether Serrane wants to admit it or not. She strikes me as the type of woman who would rather die than surrender, especially now.”

  “She knows that if the fortress falls, every village from here to Highwind is as good as dead,” I said. “You can’t blame her for that.”

  “I wasn’t,” Valuri whispered. “But you and I both know we can’t afford to stick around here much longer. If Red wants to warn her people about Ayrael’s plans, we have to get back to Highwind. It’s the only way.”

  I knew she was right. I had known she was right from the very beginning, actually, but that didn’t make this any easier. As bad as things were right now, they would have been even worse if we hadn’t been here. Icewatch probably would have fallen, and Highwind might have lost their Highlord and their Ranger-General in a single attack.

  Perhaps we had just delayed the inevitable. Perhaps ten thousand barbarians would throw themselves at the wall in a few hours, and everything we had done would have been pointless. There was no way to know.

  “For now, we should get back up on the wall,” I said, stretching out my arms and grimacing at the strange juxtaposition of numbness and pain. “Tomorrow isn’t here just yet.”

  4

  “Forget learning ancient moshalim channeling techniques,” I grumbled. “If we survive this, Zalheer is going to teach us how to channel a silence spell.”

  When the Roskarim drums continued pounding for the second consecutive hour following the wyvern attack, I genuinely started to question the limits of my own sanity. Every echoing beat felt like a miniature earthquake in my skull, and I was half tempted to take the girls and charge straight into their lines just to get this over with. Hell couldn’t possibly be this annoying.

  “She’s here,” Kaseya whispered. She was crouched down next to the battlements again, her forehead creased in concentration.

  “What?” I asked. “Who?”

  “Ayrael. I can sense her presence amongst the army.”

  “Well, that’s just wonderful,” Valuri muttered. “You two better have enough energy left to fight her when she personally leads their next charge.”

  The words had barely escaped her lips when the war drums abruptly changed their rhythm. On cue, the distant wall of torches began crawling forward like a giant, undulating mass of flame and flesh. The Roskarim gradually picked up speed as they drew closer, the moonlight glinting off their sharp axes.

  “Archers: to the wall!” General Serrane’s voice rang out across the fortress. The Icewatch defenders and her surviving rangers lined up along the battlements, and Kaseya and Valuri followed suit.

  “It’s been a while since I used one of these,” Val said as she lifted the bow she’d been given.

  “If you fire in their general direction I’m sure you’ll hit something,” I replied, grimacing. I had mostly recovered from overchanneling earlier, but my arms and fingers were still tingling. I honestly wasn’t sure how long I would be able to keep this up…

  “Archers: nock!” Serrane shouted. “Draw!”

  I held my breath and watched as the barbarians charged closer and closer. They weren’t riding wolves or hiding behind a wall of shields; they were just running forward and screaming like a horde of bloodthirsty orcs. I wondered distantly if Ayrael had tried to teach them better tactics or if she simply didn’t care how many of them died.

  “Fire!”

  A volley of arrows streaked through the night sky and rained down upon the charging Roskarim, maiming or outright killing dozens of their warriors. But the dead were swiftly trampled into the dirt by the living, and the screams of the wounded were completely drowned out by a new wave of battle cries.

  “Nock! Draw! Fire!”

  The defenders unleashed another salvo, but no matter how many barbarians died it didn’t seem to thin their numbers in the slightest. Still, the more we killed here the fewer we would have to deal with when—

  “Get down!”

  I glanced up just in time to watch the distant catapults fire another salvo of flaming boulders. The surviving wizards conjured a barrier, but there weren’t enough of them to cover all the gaps. I reached out to the Aether to try and help…

  But it was already too late. The boulders crashed into the fortress, showering the battlements in even more oily, flaming debris. Most of the archers in the group next to us were crushed outright, and I completely lost sight of the Ranger-General amidst the smoke and chaos.

  “Watch the ladders!” Kaseya cried out, dropping her bow and drawing her sword. “Hold the line!”

  I brushed enough soot from my eyes to watch as the barbarians began erecting siege ladders to climb the walls. Apparently they hadn’t needed shields after all—they had simply allowed their catapults to cover for them.

  “Fuck this,” Valuri snarled, casting aside her bow and drawing her crossbows instead. She leaned over the crenellations and began shooting the barbarians while they tried to climb. “Do something, Jorem!”

  I dashed next to her and peered down the wall. The barbarians were swarming over the ladders, and I doubted I would ever have a better opportunity to inflict this much damage. Taking a deep breath, I reached out to the Aether and conjured a flaming sphere in my palm, then leaned forward and hurled it at the base of the ladder. In theory, the explosion would kill dozens of Roskarim and destroy their only means of ascending the walls.

  In practice, the fireball was snuffed out before it ever came close to its target.

  “What the hell…?” I breathed.

  I leaned back as an arrow whistled past my head, and I belatedly sensed the presence of several Roskarim channelers amid
st the throng of warriors. Now I understood why their shaman hadn’t been blasting our archers—they had seen me kill their wyverns, and now they were holding back their power to counterspell me before I could inflict any more damage.

  “You’ve never been impotent before,” Valuri hissed, leaning back over and firing two more shots after her crossbows reloaded. “What the hell is going on?”

  “Their shamans are countering me,” I said. “I can’t—”

  I didn’t have time to finish the sentence before the first wave of brutes vaulted over the wall. Kaseya met them head on, decapitating one with her sword and bashing another with her shield. But as the smoke from the boulders slowly cleared, I realized there were far more ladders than I’d feared. The Silver Fist knights rushed up to defend the archers and wizards, but I knew they wouldn’t be able to hold out for long.

  Gritting my teeth, I dove away from the wall to give me some space, then reached out through the Aether and focused on empowering the girls instead. Kaseya was already holding her own, but with my help she became a whirling dervish of destruction, scything down barbarian warriors twice her size one after another. I gave Valuri a quick boost as well—a single spark of energy from my fingertips gave her all the power she needed to rampage across the battlements like a tiny, green-eyed demoness.

  The deadly grace and skill of my companions was as horrifying (and weirdly arousing) as normal, but even as the corpses piled up on the wall I knew we were still losing ground. A quick glance to my right confirmed that the defenders on the eastern wall had already been overwhelmed, and General Serrane was struggling to hold back the tide in the center. Her enchanted bow conjured shimmering arrow after shimmering arrow at the slightest touch of her fingers to the string, but even unlimited ammunition couldn’t overwhelm unlimited targets.

  It was at that exact moment, when I truly felt the cold fingers of death clasping at my throat, that the fortress’s main gate exploded inwards.

  A roar of triumph shuddered up from below, and I turned just in time to watch the barbarians ooze around the edges of their battering ram and pour into the courtyard. The Silver Fist knights roared back and charged, and the two forces collided in a blur of steel, blood, and screams.

  “Damn it,” I hissed, glancing back over my shoulder to the girls. They were still battling atop the ladder and more or less holding their own, but if the men in the courtyard were overwhelmed this would all be for nothing. Still, I did have an opening I didn’t have before. As long as the shaman couldn’t see me, they couldn’t counterspell me. This might have been my last chance to make a difference.

  Reaching back out to the Aether, I conjured another fireball in my hand and chucked it at the battering ram. The wooden frame exploded in a shower of flaming splinters, crushing the barbarians as they tried to squeeze through and effectively blocking off their reinforcements—at least for a few moments. I shifted my attention back to the ongoing melee and tried to pick any clear targets I could. It wasn’t as difficult as it could have been—the knights were already staring down three-to-one odds, and despite their skill and magic they were slowing falling back. I detonated a fireball in one cluster of Roskarim, then unleashed a bolt of lightning at another…

  Jorem !

  I felt Kaseya’s pained cry through the Aether, and I turned just in time to watch a pair of barbarians tackle her to the ground. I blasted one off and then another, but even when she wriggled free of their seared bodies even more took their place. It was like we were trying to hold off a swarm of locusts.

  The amazon eventually recovered and leapt back to her feet, but I knew it was already too late. The dam had broken and the tide had turned. Serrane had lost control of the wall’s center, and the barbarians were pushing through the flaming wreckage to storm the courtyard in overwhelming numbers. Barring a miracle, we were mere moments from death.

  This is all your fault. You could have left days ago. You could have argued harder for Kaseya to leave Zalheer behind. You are her Maskari; she would have obeyed you even if she disagreed. Her disappointment would be a small price to pay compared to getting her killed out here in this frozen shithole a thousand miles from home…

  She cried out again when a spear pierced her leg, and I looked up just in time to watch a Roskarim swing his axe for her neck—

  And then the entire fortress rumbled as a dozen strokes of lightning crashed down from the sky and burned the Roskarim to cinders.

  The initial flash was so bright the afterimage nearly blinded me, but I wasn’t alone. Every barbarian on the battlements cried out and clutched at their faces—the ones that were still alive, anyway. A storm of death and lightning scoured the walls clean and flooded my nostrils with the horrid scent of burned flesh. I craned me neck over my shoulder, fully expecting to see the god of storms himself floating above the courtyard.

  Instead, I saw Zalheer. The old moshalim was indeed floating above the ground, and his hands and eyes crackled with all the might and fury of a thunderstorm. I thought I had seen the full scope of his power back in the mountains. I had obviously been mistaken.

  For the Vael Tal’Shira ! he called out, his voice bellowing through the Aether itself. For Nol Krovos!

  Another blast scorched down from the heavens, even stronger than the last. By the time I finally blinked the afterimage from my vision the walls were little more than a smoldering graveyard. The Roskarim ladders had been charred to cinders, and I didn’t see any more men pouring in through the main gate. The knights were still locked in tight with the stragglers, but they fought with renewed vigor. Man for man—woman for woman—they hacked down the attackers with the fury of Escar himself. I risked a quick glance over the wall while I crawled towards Kaseya, and I was rewarded with the most beautiful sight I could imagine.

  The barbarians were retreating.

  “I’ll be damned,” Valuri rasped, slumping down against the wall next to me and panting for breath. “The old man did it.”

  I nodded absently. At least two thirds of the Roskarim were still alive, but their spirit was broken. I didn’t blame them—if I had just watched the sky rain death upon my friends, I would have turned the hell around too.

  “Where’s Ayrael?” I asked, belatedly realizing that we hadn’t actually seen her.

  “Already gone,” Kaseya whispered. “She rides south for Vorsalos.”

  “Either she’s scared to face us again or she doesn’t care whether or not the Roskarim win,” Valuri said. “I’ll guess the latter. The Highlord is dead, and this place is a disaster. The Inquisitrix already got the chaos she wanted.”

  I pursed my lips as I channeled healing magic into Kaseya’s leg to close the wound. I didn’t even want to think about the long-term implications of what had just happened. We were alive, and for now that was the only thing that mattered. I just didn’t understand how it was possible for one man to cause so much devastation, especially with the enemy channelers actively countering his spells…

  “He is dying, Jorem,” Kaseya said.

  I blinked and shook my head. “What?”

  “Zalheer,” she murmured, pointing across the courtyard. The moshalim was no longer levitating through the air. He was slumped against a broken barricade in the courtyard, his old body struggling for breath.

  I raced down off the wall to reach him, leaping over the countless corpses and pushing through the noxious clouds of smoke. I feared that his wounds from earlier had reopened, but when I drew close I realized the problem was much, much worse.

  “Find the Fount of Velhari,” Zalheer rasped. “Stop the Corruptor.”

  I opened my mouth to reply but realized I had nothing to say. He already looked like a corpse. His thick veins were visibly pulsating beneath his pale flesh, and his eyes were bloodshot and distant. He hadn’t been struck down by a Roskarim spear or axe—he had been struck down by the Aether itself.

  I swore under my breath. I had never actually seen a sorcerer overchannel himself to death before. The price of po
wer was pain and death, the old saying went. Mortal bodies were never meant to serve as a direct conduit for the Aether, and every spell took its toll on us in one way or another.

  Yet Zalheer had somehow lived a long and full life anyway for reasons I still didn’t understand. It was only now, at the end, that the Aether finally claimed its prize.

  “Serve and protect the Vaer Tal’Shira ,” the old man told me. “Respect her pledge. Honor her sacrifice. Love her from now until the end.”

  His hand touched mine, and I felt him slip something into my palm. I glanced down to see a slender, faintly glowing stone brimming with Aetheric energy.

  “Marcella…” he breathed.

  And then he was gone.

  ***

  Every story I’d ever heard about glorious battles as a child, whether over a campfire or in the pages of an old book, described the victory celebrations as much or more than the actual carnage. The drinking, the laughing, the fucking—the stories all made it sound like the revelry started the instant the last body hit the ground. And naturally, they never spent more than a few sentences talking about the dead aside from how their companions would honor them with food and song.

  The reality, unsurprisingly, was a hell of a lot more depressing.

  The girls spent the next few hours helping with the cleanup while I joined the fortress’s healers in the triage tents. We saved as many lives as we could, and by mid-day I had finally recovered from the shock of everything that had happened. Unfortunately, I suspected that the nightmares would last for many years to come.

  “They’ll be rifling through the bodies for days,” I said from our perch on the battlements overlooking the courtyard. “The knights will want a ceremony to honor their dead.”

  “As well they should,” Kaseya said.

  I nodded in silent agreement. Dawn had finally cracked over the horizon a few minutes ago, and the surviving defenders had already started the grim work of separating dead friends and foes. A corpse pyre was already burning on the eastern side of the bailey.