The Ravenous Siege (Epic of Haven Trilogy Book 2)

by R. G. Triplett

  The six of them didn't give the Arborist any further hesitation. They wove their way in and out of the once expertly manicured hedges and past the glittering granite statues and high archways of the white stone overpasses. The ornate architecture of the Citadel was silent this dark day, without light and bereft of hope, for her broken heart had found solace in the arms of her enemy. The tales of glory formed and chiseled into her stone foundations could not find the strength enough to tell their stories, and so they resigned to sleep in the shadows of the vague, green evil.

  "Nearly there, my boys!" Engelmann encouraged.

  The silent night was interrupted with the guttural, sickening tones of the bellowing horns of the Raven Army. Their bowel-churning music stopped the six in their tracks, demanding them to stop and listen.

  Behold! The twisted unison of the twin serpents' voices met their ears, hissing in a singsong arrogance. People of Haven, see the wisdom of your Priest King! See the vision of his Chancellor! For a new light has come, and no longer are you doomed to be citizens of a dying tree whose light has failed you. No longer are you bound to this great darkness. You are now brothers nocturnal, children of the Raven Queen; you may count yourselves as those who walk the darkness.

  Jhames and Chaiphus stood once again, holding out their hands before their faces and examining themselves for the first time in the light of the nocturnal magic. As they looked up, they beheld all of Haven awash in a green hue, bright and sickly but yet somehow nearly as beautiful as she had once been.

  "It is true!" Jhames yelled with a frenzied exuberance to all within earshot. "Citizens of Haven, hear my voice, for I can see all in the wake of this new light! Our city does not need fall to the innumerable forces of the invading army, for they have brought true deliverance as well as sharpened iron."

  Wisdom, the dragons hissed.

  "Our Queen has come for us," Chaiphus echoed the conviction of the Priest King with his newfound revelation. "And she has brought for us a new life, free from the chains of our flintish bonds!" The Chancellor reached for the elaborately set flint that had hung around his neck for over half a century's worth of time; in one swift and defiant pull, he snapped its gilded chain and held it high before him.

  The dragons smiled a deep and satisfied smile, and then without warning a green torrent of un-lit fire issued forth from behind their rows of razor sharp teeth, consuming the once Priestly relic and instantaneously reducing it to a pile of ash.

  "My lords?" a palsied voice spoke up from behind the gathered ranks. The guardsmen parted as the elder Arborists of Haven, Ispen and Aspen, worked their way to the front of the king's guard. "Your Brightness," said Ispen with a terrified tremor to his words. "What have you done?"

  The twin dragons turned their attention to the aged servants of the dead tree, bringing their maniacal faces uncomfortably close. As the eyes of the dragons narrowed upon the two Arborists, their deep and terrible words spoke nightmarish curses upon the frail minds of these frail men. With little hesitation, the trunk of their resolve snapped and broke, bending their knees to surrender.

  "I was once a slave to the silent, failing ways of a silent and failing deity! My fear of the darkness fueled my impotent fidelity; but now I see. I can see in the dark and so I will fear no God any longer, nor will I toil tirelessly for Him," Chaiphus proclaimed with eyes now aglow in the same sickly green light of the Nocturnal army around him.

  "The THREE who is SEVEN has left us, abandoned and besieged by the suffocating black of night." Jhames' voice echoed in an unnatural clarity off the surrounding walls of the city. "I urge you, my people, to lay down your arms; we shall not defend one who has forsaken us in our greatest hour of need!"

  "Blasphemy!" came an unlooked for voice from above. "Blasphemy! Blasphemy! Blasphemy!"

  "What are you doing?" Michael whispered to the enraged Arborist, but Engelmann would not be deterred. Instead, he left the relative safety of his fleeing companions and walked swiftly, straight towards the danger that awaited him there at the Kings' Bridge.

  "Do not be deceived, citizens of Haven!" Engelmann continued to shout in defiance to the words of the Priest King and his Chancellor.

  "Engelmann! Engelmann, no!" Michael shouted after his friend and teacher, but to no avail.

  "Come on, leave him now; he is gone," Timorets urged the groomsman. "He made his choice, Michael. We have to get to the iron willow before this whole world goes to hell."

  "No, he can't be gone!" Michael struggled to contain his emotions.

  "Hurry now, lad!" Celrod agreed. "The old spruce has already made a way for us. Let's not let his efforts go to waste."

  The Arborist of Haven descended upon the gathered armies at the entrance to the Citadel. "You! All of you who once claimed to know the will of the THREE who is SEVEN—how dare you ascribe such insidious, polluted words to Him now?" Engelmann's eyes caught fire with righteous anger as he sharpened his tongue to do battle over the hearts of those caught in the snare of hopelessness. "Do not give way to such lies, such blasphemies, you mighty citizens of Haven! You do not need to exchange your fear of darkness for this hatred of the light!"

  Abaddon and Angrah seethed in furious loathing of the old Arborist. A thick fog of disgust began to roil and cloud around their massive, inky-scaled bodies; their huge, green-orbed eyes narrowed in bloodlust for one who would dare to resist their plans.

  "Do not heed the words of this traitor!" Chaiphus shouted in reply as he watched the Arborist, whose eyes were ablaze in a wash of blue flame, march into the thick of the frightened battalion of guardsmen and ever closer to the raised portcullis.

  "You DO NOT have to die, nor do you have to lay down your arms! Even if our city is lost to this army of Nocturnals, that does not mean that we are abandoned!" Engelmann pleaded with the soldiers. "We must resist! We must endure ... for HIS light WILL come for us!"

  ROAARR! The angry protests of the twin dragons bathed the black sky in a wash of their fury.

  "Look to the North, and leave this place of dying men and dead convictions. Hope will not leave you blind! It was He who promised to put His light in the hearts of those who will hope! Do not forget the prophecy!"

  "But how will we survive this siege, Arborist?" a young officer asked nervously. "How can we compete with dragons and these hordes of Nocturnals?"

  "What say you about our homes? Our city? Our way of life?" came the voice of another. "Do you expect us to abandon all of this? And for what? The life of a wanderer? Hunted in the darkness by these monsters?"

  As the questions arose from those brave enough to ask them, the air around the gathered guardsmen pulsated beneath the leathery abuse of the twin serpents' wings. They had climbed high above the city, and before anyone knew where they had gone, they crashed down upon the courtyard within the great walls of the Capital.

  The soldiers assembled in the square were sent flying as the sheer force of the beasts impacted the stone pavement. Men catapulted in a rippled wave of forced disturbance, striking a new note of terror in everyone who was far enough away not to be hit by the blast. And yet Engelmann stood alone, unmoved by the bullying force, seemingly planted into the ground by an unseen magic.

  Foolishness, the dragons seethed as they circled, pacing menacingly around the last caretaker of the great tree. And you, Engelmann, are the greatest of fools.

  "Engelmann, no!" Michael shouted again as he and the rest watched from the high vantage of the great garden near the top of Mount Aureole.

  Engelmann spun round to meet the gaze of his pupil, and as he did he mouthed a single word to his friends.

  "Hope."

  The dragons let loose a river of green fire over the old Arborist, but the flames of the un-light did not consume him. "Sorceries and counterfeits are no match for Light, true Light ... HIS Light!" Engelmann shouted against the blaze. The flames came in a searing conflagration, a deluge of green heat so intense that every human fled even further from the heart of the blast.

  As
the men of Haven watched, some began to hope for the very first time. Something lit within them as they saw that the flames of the enemy did not burn the defiant Arborist. They hoped that this was indeed not the end of them, even if it was to be the end of what they had once called home.

  "Michael!" Timorets shouted to his friend in a wave of panic. "It won't open! The door to the iron willow won't open!"

  "What do we do now?" Celrod whimpered. The group was more frightened here than ever before, cornered atop the holy mountain with no foreseeable way of escape.

  "Michael?" Timorets shouted again. "What do we do now, groomsman?"

  Michael just stared in complete horror as his teacher and friend stood strong and insolently resolute against the mighty tempest of the dragons' fury.

  The eyes of the Arborist shone brilliantly, furiously blue amidst the relentless wave of green fire. When the torrent finally ceased, Engelmann addressed the frightened crowd of guardsmen with such conviction and such clarity and such magic that his voice carried far beyond the walls of the Kings' Gate into the outer reaches of the fallen kingdom.

  "For He will place His light in the hearts of those who hope!" the Arborist shouted. "You, remnant of Haven, you must defiantly and deliberately hope! You must choose to pick up your blades and stay your knees from bending to the blasphemies of these winged beasts! Look to the hills, for there is yet still beauty more terrible than these-"

  His words were stolen from his lips as Abaddon bit the head of the Arborist off with a single snap of his massive jaws. The crowd of guardsmen retreated with a horrified gasp as the burning head of Engelmann was sent careening through their ranks like a flaming missile launched from a trebuchet, landing in a dead-eyed roll amongst their feet.

  Engelmann's body stood wavering upon the bridge, still somehow planted to the place where he had made his final stand against the darkness. A bright, leaf-green liquid oozed from the opening atop his neck, and the shock of the moment held everyone who beheld it in a trance of terror.

  Do not test the mercy of Nogcwren, the Raven Queen, for she offers sight only to the wise. To those foolish enough to refuse, their fate will be the same as this dead and disgraced tree tender.

  The dragons spoke with a satisfied smugness of the victory they had claimed. And with those words, the two dragons tore the lifeless body of the dead Arborist limb from limb in a gruesome display of cruelty. Men vomited, and some ran, while most chose to throw down their arms and bend their knees to the power of the Raveness.

  Aius marched through the Kings' Gate as a conquering general; trailing behind him came the green-eyed Priest King and his green-eyed Chancellor. The raven-plumed commander addressed the terrified battalion with emotionless words and a stoic gaze. "Men of Haven, soon the whole of Aiénor will unite under the banner of the Raven Queen, for it is she who will usher in a new way of living, one free of the fickle amusements of forgotten light. It is the traitors and the fools whose blood will water the garden of your dead relic." With that, he nodded to the dragons, commanding them to flight without a single word being spoken. The winged beasts shot into the sky, grasping the ravaged and broken pieces of Engelmann the hopeful in their piercing talons. The gale force of their flight knocked every remaining guardsman to his knees.

  "Run! Hide! Quickly!" Fryon ordered his friends. "They are coming this way!"

  The dragons rose swiftly into the dark sky, their inky, black wings reflecting the green torches and the yellow watch fires of both the fallen city and its invading armies.

  This fool's blood will be the first to soak the deadened ground of your barren god! Their voices boomed, maddeningly loud, inside the minds of all who watched. Michael stood frozen in horror behind the massive, iron statue of a kneeling King Cascarie. Nothing could have prepared him for the pain in his heart as he watched the twin serpents circle overhead, dropping the dismembered parts of his friend upon the once hallowed gardens around him.

  Tears ran down his cheeks as leg and limb, arm and torso rained in lifeless thuds, crashing to the expertly tended landscape in an abominable mockery of a life's work. The dragons swirled in victorious rage, lighting up the black sky with their sickly green flames. Finally, when their desecration was complete, they darted back to the general, crashing to the stone courtyard once again.

  Michael stood to his feet, his hands still shaking from the overwhelming surge of anger and sorrow. "Engelmann! Engelmann, what have you done? Why have you ... what have you ..." Michael could not finish his whispered thoughts when he beheld a glowing finger on the fallen right arm of his teacher.

  "What in the damnable dark?" he murmured to himself.

  "Michael!" Timorets shouted in a whisper to his stunned friend. "Michael, what do we do now? The iron willow will not open, and the rest of-"

  Michael's mind flooded with the memory of the very first time he entered past the iron mother, whose branches guarded the holiest of soil beneath the burning tree itself. He saw the hand of Engelmann the hopeful as it grasped the leaf-shaped knob of the magical door. It had glowed, he remembered, light green and brilliant; quite different from the sickly hue that hunted and haunted the city of his home. No, the radiance of the Arborist had once been evergreen and full of life, and as he recalled the moment, a wash of understanding overcame him.

  "Michael! Groomsman! What do we do now?" Celrod begged worriedly. "None of us have ever been past the portcullis of the Kings' Gate, let alone dreamed of passing through the entrance of the Arborists. Engelmann told us to follow you, boy, so show us how we get in!"

  Michael stood to his feet, his dirt-stained face streaked with tears as he looked to his still hiding friends. No words passed his lips, but they understood by the look on his face that he knew just what to do. He walked towards the dismembered arm of the last true Arborist of Haven and picked it up gently, holding the horrific mess in his hands. "You have always known what it was that you were doing, haven't you?" he said aloud.

  With that, he walked towards the barred entrance of the iron willow and extended the glowing finger to touch the leaf-shaped knob before him. As he did, the leaf began to light in recognition. Without warning, and to the shock of the five who watched, the hand of Engelmann the hopeful reached out on its own strength and grasped the leaf. In a movement steady and practiced, it turned its glowing hold with a final release of magic, giving permission for the iron door to open once again.

  "Thank you, my friend," Michael said to both the hand and the memory of his teacher. "Even in death, you still point the way to hope." He choked back the rush of tears and turned to find the dumbstruck eyes of his still watching companions. "Let us leave this damned and cursed home of ours, and go north, like the old spruce told us to."

  Without a second thought or another word, Celrod, Timorets, Fryon and his younger brother followed Michael. They bowed their tired heads as they passed through the hallowed entrance of the iron guardian and descended its steps, deep into the Hall of the Arborists.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  MARCUM LED THE HOST OF Piney Creek out through the broken Northern Wall just east of the main road. Gone were the landscapes of old, with their towering pines and flowering fields, for the once beautiful northern outlands of Haven were now raped and bloodied, barren of beauty and blackened with the blood of war. The invading army had long since passed by the broken gates, under the terrible wings of the twin serpents, and now the only scenery on the lifeless plains was the wake of their destruction.

  When enough distance was placed between the exiled host and their now-occupied homeland, Marcum ordered the lighting of torches. Upon first gaze, he nearly regretted the order given.

  "Armas was right," the lieutenant said as he raised his hand to fend off the stench of death. "The black fields, the Melania, this place will forever be known to me. So much death, so much destruction."

  The road before them was littered with the broken bodies of both man and beast, with arms and armor. Countless arrows rose up from the ground like
quills on a sea of angered porcupines, embedded in both dirt and flesh.

  "This road seems even more hopelessly long now," a young mother with a nursing babe said as she wiped away the tears from her face.

  "What can we do now, Lieutenant?" said a silver-haired carpenter.

  "The first thing we can do," the curly-haired barmaid offered as she too wiped the sadness from her soiled and weary face, "the first thing we can do is to arm ourselves. We may be three score strong, but only a third of us have any means of defending ourselves. Out here," she looked about the carnage before her, "there are blades and shields aplenty."

  "The lady is right," Johnrey agreed. "But please, be quick about it! I want us to get as far north and as far west as fast as we can."

  The host picked through the scorched and pierced remains of their brothers and countrymen, hoping against all hope that they would not find the faces of their loved ones out here in this dark and death-filled place.

  When all had outfitted themselves, Marcum gave the order to the weary remnant, and they began to move once again upon the North Road.

  "It is too bad we don't have a woodcutter or two in our company," said one of the old men. "Someone who had traveled this road before would sure be a help to us about now. Those cutter carts made many a journey back and forth here with their precious loads of timber."

  "Aye, it's a pity," said the miller's daughter. "It would be nice to know where it is we are traveling to. I wonder," she said thoughtfully as she trudged into the death-soaked darkness, "why none of us ever ventured outside the walls of Haven before now."

  "Things were different in those days, girl," the old man replied. "Back then ... it was fear that kept us home, behind the high, stone walls. And, now it is fear that compels us as far away from those walls as we can get."

  "That doesn't sound so different, with all things considered …" the miller's daughter murmured.

  "My father wasn't afraid!" Keily said indignantly from behind them. "He went out beyond the walls while the rest of you just waited."