"Captain! What kind of devilry shakes the ground itself like this?" Chaiphus demanded.
Armas' steeled expression melted just slightly with his response. "I do not know, though I do fear we are not long 'til we find out."
The guardsmen standing nearby looked back and forth, exchanging glances and listening desperately for ghosts upon the cold wind. Their decorum and courage had begun to fade in the light of the unknown evils waiting past the gate.
"Lieutenant," Armas addressed them. "Send a second contingent of archers to take a watch on the wall, there atop the battlements. You, guardsmen, see that the Chancellor's belongings are taken care of." He pointed just beyond the two barracks that housed the guardsmen stationed here in the North.
"Perhaps I should accompany my belongings to the barracks. I have many correspondences that need my attention before I tour your defenses," Chaiphus reasoned with a discomforted expression.
"Nonsense," Armas responded. "We will prepare the best room that the tavern has to offer! My Lord Chancellor will not be housed in the barracks like a common guardsman. But first, sir, you must come to the wall, and see why both urgency and necessity have driven us here." The captain extended his hand towards the stairs in front of them
GAROOM! GAROOM!
The Chancellor eyed Armas but did not move towards the wall. "Tell me what that is!"
Armas turned and began walking confidently up the steps. "It is much easier to show you, Lord Chancellor," he called back.
"Do you even know what it is?" Marcum spoke quietly to Armas as he followed him up the steps.
"I have my suspicions ... but I cannot say for certain," Armas replied.
"Tell me your suspicions then, at least, for I have never before felt terror such as this. I have ridden down hordes of violent outliers, and I have stood my ground in the face of rioting citizens, but never once did my heart abandon its courage until I came to aid you here on the wall," Marcum said to his friend. "So I must insist, Captain, that you tell me what in the damnable dark is out there."
Armas looked at the lieutenant and took a deep, calculated breath. "I spoke with Hollis, chieftain of the woodcutters, not long before the colony set sail. He told me—no—he begged me to heed his warning."
"What warning?" Marcum pressed.
"That whatever this green-eyed evil was that hunted his men with raven-fletched arrows and moved only in the shadows ... that it was not natural."
"Raven-fletched arrows?" Marcum spoke with an all-too-familiar understanding.
"Aye," Armas confirmed. "The same."
"I assumed those belonged to the outlier hordes," Marcum reasoned.
"Is that all this is?" Chaiphus blurted out. "Just another outlying horde with impoverished anger and crude defenses? Is that why you risked the abandonment of our Citadel by the troops sworn to protect it? Is that why you-"
"Take a look over that wall, Lord Chancellor, and you tell me if that looks like a band of outliers," Armas said, cutting short Chaiphus' outrage.
Chaiphus just stood there atop the battlements of the North Gate, staring with eyes wide and mouth agape at the countless torches and braziers that burned their sickly green flames just beyond the reach of the light of the dying tree.
"Who is this, Captain?" Chaiphus swallowed hard in confusion.
"Who? I cannot say who it is at all." Armas rubbed his tired eyes with his thumb and forefingers. "It is not who that is really of much importance now, is it? Rather it is what that is most pressing."
"Do not mince words with me, Armas," the Chancellor growled.
Marcum's face lit with understanding of what it was that Armas was trying to convey. "What, then? What in the damnable darkness is it that shakes the very ground beneath our boots?"
Armas, unflinching, looked his lieutenant directly in his tired eyes, holding the silent, nervous gaze for a long moment before he turned his attention to the frightened stare of the pious lord.
"Dragons," the captain spoke aloud, his eyes locked with the Chancellor's.
"Do not play me for the fool, Captain!" Chaiphus shouted angrily. His rage, though, was not accompanied by surprise at the mention of the fabled beasts, for this was not the first time that the ears of the Citadel had heard the ridiculous notion.
"I suspect that whoever it is that lies in wait out there ... commands the earth-shaking power of dragons," Armas went on.
Marcum's eyes went wide in the shock of the moment. If it had been any other man who had said these words, or if it had been any other place than this one here in the cold twilight of Piney Creek, he would have arrested him on the spot for lunacy and blasphemy. But Marcum had felt the fear course through his stalwart heart at the rumbling of the quaking earth, and he knew that Armas' suspicions could not be far from the truth of the matter.
"Does the Citadel know?" Marcum asked the Chancellor.
"Does the Citadel know what?" he said indignantly. "I am the Citadel, I am the right hand to the Priest King, and neither his Brightness nor myself are ever taken by surprise!"
"Hollis tried to warn us, and you wanted to throw him in irons for it," Armas replied.
"What proof? What evidence do you have, Captain, to support your outlandish—no, your blasphemous—claims?" Chaiphus spun towards the North in a whirl of pious anger "I do not know who nor what that is out there," he said as he pointed his fat, old fingers beyond the wall. "But conjuring up tales of dragons shows me the irrational state of your weakened mind, and I ... I should have you thrown into the prison holds for this treacherous fear-mongering!"
"So … no," Armas said to his lieutenant, disregarding the judgment passed from the Chancellor. "The Citadel does not know because they choose to bury their heads in the sand. Even though they have been warned—even though they come to observe the enemy themselves—they refuse to give credence to the word of the woodcutters, and even to the word of their captain." He turned to Chaiphus with a disappointed gaze. "And by the time they realize the gravity of their mistake, there will be nothing more that can be done."
Marcum stood there with a frustrated scowl, then ran his hand through his long, dark hair. "How can this be possible?" he said in an almost prayer-like fashion.
"It is not possible!" Chaiphus argued, though the conviction of his own words seemed to waver as he stared at the glowing green fires on the far side of the wall. "It cannot be possible!"
"Some evils grow bolder in the dark, waiting for their chance to strike. I believe this enemy intends to strike at the light dwellers with an ancient hatred." Armas looked southward towards the last remaining burning branch of the great tree. "It has been His light that has kept them at bay, relegated to the shadows of this world. And now that the light is all but gone, they sit and wait, like serpents waiting for the right moment to strike and to kill."
"Are you saying that this is all because of the tree?" Marcum asked as he exhaustedly ran his hands through his hair.
"I have heard quite enough of this blasphemy for one day," the unnerved Chancellor announced. "You will cease this conversation at once!"
"My Lord Chancellor, I must respectfully disagree with you!" Armas said, doing his best to keep his composure. "You can accuse me of fear-mongering or blasphemy or treachery all you like, but I think you forget the truth of the matter. I have not shared my fears and beliefs with my men. I have not spread them through the borough and I have not given anyone cause to panic or to abandon their post." Armas took a deep breath so as to steady the pounding of his heart. "Not even my lieutenant has been privy to my assessment of the situation until just this moment. I have maintained order and I have not let fear take over our defense or our resolve. We are ready to fight this enemy ... 'til the death if we must." He stood tall and looked Chaiphus right in the eye. "Is it more treacherous to speak truth in the face of accusation or to evade truth for the sake of comfort and willful ignorance? You may name me what you like, Chancellor, but my allegiance will always be to the defense of Haven. Where is yours?"
Marcum looked at his ranking commander, a bit nervous for him in the wake of his forthrightness.
Chaiphus glared at the insolent captain, and the moment turned long and tense—a battle of wills there atop the Northern Wall.
"We cannot know for certain yet if it is the tree that holds back our enemy," Armas said as he broke the tension, "but I would suspect that when the last branch falls," he looked back to his friend, "this war begins."
"Then we must be ready ... or as ready as one can be," Marcum replied, his words directed at the Chancellor.
"Come," Armas said. "Come, Chancellor, and see for yourself what it is that we defend against." Armas led him up even further along the stone stairs onto the highest battlements of the Northern Wall. He handed the Chancellor his spyglass, and what Chaiphus beheld made his blood run colder than the icy winds that whipped through the air.
"There must be-" Chaiphus began to count the sickly green torches, but Armas cut him off before he could finish.
"Sixty. There are sixty of those battalion torches." Armas finished for him. "One for each company of theirs, or at least that is the way it seems to me."
"For days now, Lord Chancellor, we have counted their number," Marcum replied.
"And for days now ... we have watched it grow," Armas said.
"Captain Armas," Chaiphus said as he tore the spyglass away from his aged eye, swallowing hard at the bile that had begun to rise in his throat. "Perhaps we could spare a few more men."
GAROOM! The crashing sound came again as two of the largest green orbs rose and fell in the distance. Marcum looked at his captain, and then nervously behind him to the dying tree. "We are going to need more than men, I fear."
"A miracle is more like it," Armas said in a moment of transparency. The three of them stared, fixated at the green horizon. Then, an unexpected and unwelcome sound met their ears. The faint, earthen call of the woodcutter's horn echoed off the wall, carried by the chill of the cold, northern winds.
"Captain!" shouted the marshal as he ran toward the stone stairway. "What was that?" he asked from the floor below. "Was that-"
"Call the men. Now," Armas interrupted with a quiet but direct order.
The marshal gave a rushed salute, then signaled the assembly with five syncopated bursts of his horn. Men began to pour into the square below. Officers formed companies of spearmen, cavalry, and archers alike. The gathered army of Haven assembled to face their commander atop the barbican of the North Gate.
Chaiphus and Marcum stood next to Armas, unsure just what this captain of theirs could say in a moment like this one. "Guardsmen of the Citadel, defenders of Haven! Our great and shining city is besieged by this enemy that you have all seen and heard and felt these last days. Nothing in my bones leads me to believe that it is peace or parley that they are after." He spoke with a dignified boldness to his men, his words weighted with a paradoxical combination of certainty and dread here in the midst of the looming unknown. The guardsmen stood resolute and unflinching, the banners of their city waving as their captain spoke. "The horns of the woodcutters have sounded their alarm upon this cold, north wind, and whatever it was they found out there in these besieged outlands," he paused, his mind wandering among all the horrific possibilities that his imagination conjured for him. "We must prepare for the worst, before it rains in upon us." He gulped. "A dark storm is brewing, men, let us make sure that we are not taken unawares by it."
"What are your orders, Captain?" Marcum asked.
"Yes, tell us what you intend to do?" Chaiphus interrupted.
"We will need every able-bodied man and woman who can shoot a bow or wield a blade to prepare themselves to join in our defense."
"Townsfolk?" Chaiphus blurted out in disbelief. "What good will untrained commoners and peasants—"
Armas cut him off before he could say another word. "Corporal Johnrey has been drilling a militia in the stable yard for days. Mind that you do not take the green and silver uniform as the sole sign of bravery; these townsfolk will fight just as fiercely alongside us if it means saving their homes and their families." The captain addressed his men once again. "Go now. Make yourselves ready. Only the THREE who is SEVEN knows how much time there is before first blood is spilled, and you had best pray that you are rested and prepared enough to see to it that it is not your own."
Chapter Seven
HOLLIS AND HIS MEN KNEW what it was that they must do if they ever hoped to see the city of their birth spared from the forces that had come to destroy it. The black fog had remained in between the cutter camp and the North Road to Haven, and it had become quite clear that there was only one thing left to do.
Hollis was going to fight.
He had sent scouts for days now, but most of them had not returned. The few that did had nothing to report, save the approximate whereabouts of the fog-shrouded enemy. So Hollis had positioned his men within striking distance of this army of the un-light, and he had prepared them, charging their hearts to fight courageously for the sake of their once-bright city.
Brádách had seen to the sharpening of axes, imploring all of his comrades to hone the bite of their blades until they came to a merciless edge. Silvus, a warrior of the forests, had taken command of Yasen's riders. He was a competent rider and obedient to a fault, and he loved Hollis like an attention-starved child—deliberately and as loudly as possible. The cutter camp held no more than one hundred and fifty able-bodied woodcutters, a handful of healers, and a rather offended Priest. Hollis assembled all of his men daily to prepare both their hearts and their minds for the task that had fallen to them.
Today, their task had come.
Or at least that is what Hollis told himself.
The men sat around smoldering watch fires fueled with scrub brushes and dried dung, listening to their great chieftain give them their last orders. "When the amber fire fades to silver, we move," Hollis said gravely as he looked his faithful comrades in the eye. The furs of his white lion emboldened him with a resolute courage to face whatever evil waited for them in the heart of that black fog. "We will strike this army of the raven-fletched arrows from two positions. Silvus and his riders will charge in from the east, drawing their attention away from our position as we come in from the west." Silvus nodded his understanding to his chief, then eyed the two score of riders who would make the desperate assault with him and pounded his chest in a show of valor.
"As for the rest of you, you will follow me to the western flank. Once Silvus has drawn the enemy out and gained their full attention, then we will strike swift and hard." Hollis ran his hand through his long, greying beard, surveying the men who had served with him. Some had been in his company for decades now, some were older than him in years, and some were not much more than blunt-bladed greenhorns. "Whatever aid we can provide, whatever help or distraction or victory we can offer Captain Armas and his men over there on the other side of the wall ... well, we shall offer it with reckless abandon, lads."
"There will be a fierce battle, of that you can be certain boys," Brádách said to his brothers. "But you have been prepared. Your axes are sharp and your arms are strong. Whatever that monster is out there, my guess is that it will bleed and break just like any scrub oak or young pine."
The woodcutters kissed their flints and whispered among each other, all while keeping an eye on their chief.
"Aye, we cannot hold back," Silvus said in agreement. "Not if we hope to live, that is."
"Aye," Hollis said in turn, though his eyes did not reflect much hope of that at all.
"Do you think they know, Chief? Do you think the Citadel knows yet that they are besieged?" Brádách asked in earnest.
Hollis thought about it before he spoke. "I trust Armas more than I do the Citadel, and though he wasn't ready to hear the warnings of this old, mad woodcutter … something tells me that they didn't go completely unheeded. I can't say what the Citadel does or doesn't know. But I'd wager that Armas knows all right. He knows, and is ready be
hind that gate with all the forces of Haven to defend our city."
The woodcutters grunted in agreement.
"Remember lads, we do not know this enemy—this Raven Army. We know neither what they are made of, nor what dark magic it is that drives them, but we have seen the effects of their evil. We have buried our brothers who tasted their arrows, and we have seen the un-light that consumed the very life out of the forest." Hollis reached into his tunic where the flint of his faith had once hung. Now, fastened on a small thong of dark leather, rested the dragon's fang. "And even now I wear the reminder of what great monster it is that we are up against." He fingered the deadly black fang in his rough hands.
"Hollis?" came a thin voice from the edge of the firelight. "This cannot be the will of the THREE who is SEVEN … to risk our lives alone against such a foe?" The Priest walked into the center of the gathered men. His once proud, green robe hung tattered about him, stained and soiled from the last days of pursuing this unknown enemy.
"Whether it is His will or not, we will soon find out," Hollis said gruffly.
"And just how do you," the Priest exaggerated the word with an accusatory tone, "a woodcutter, presume to understand His will?"
"I presume, Priest, that deeds are required of men in moments like this one. And any deed that is meant to protect and preserve life ... how can that not be true to the heart of our God?" Hollis said as he looked out towards his besieged home. "We shall see if the outcome gives us clarity on the will of the great THREE who is SEVEN; but then again, that all depends on whether or not any of us are alive enough to have the chance to ponder the outcome at all." Hollis spoke matter-of-factly before taking a long draught of his warm, spiced mead.
"Fool! You don't even know-"
"Here's what I do know," Hollis interrupted as he wiped the steaming drops from his beard. "I do know that pious words and flintish prayers will not substitute in the end for sacrifice and courage."
"Blasphemy!" the Priest shouted in outrage.
The Ravenous Siege (Epic of Haven Trilogy Book 2) Page 6