by Erik A Otto
Timothur shook his head thoughtfully. “Under other circumstances I would agree, Commander, but the Great Defender is either a traitor or controlled by traitors. In this case we would only lose more good men that might be tortured into revealing intelligence about our defences. I think not.”
“What about sending for help?” Nala asked.
Timothur shook his head again. “Who will help us? I’m sure the Great Defender is sending for his own reinforcements as we speak. He can say, rightly or wrongly, that a host of infidels has taken the Old Keep—that we control heathen beasts—and people will flock to him. But for us, what story do we have that will call people to our aid? Oh, and by the way, the first day of the Internecion and no sign of the Cenarans.” He shook his head in frustration, then looked at Hella and Darian in turn. “I’m beginning to question my decision.”
The general’s discontent cast a lull about the room. Hella looked at Timothur sourly, and Darian continued his disquieting mimicry. Again there was no response to Timothur’s challenge.
Nala asked, “But what about the Pomerians, or the Fringe? Wouldn't they help?”
Timothur’s exhaustion revealed itself as he sat down and closed his eyes momentarily. “The Pomerians are many days’ ride away, and the Fringe won’t help us. Tell her, Commander, Purveyor.”
Aisha replied solemnly, “The general is right, Nala.”
The Purveyor said, “It’s true. We two hundred are perhaps all that remains of Fringe fighting men in all of Belidor. The only help could be found in Spoons, which is at least a dozen days’ ride away.”
There was a brief pause, in which Aisha thought she heard some bluster outside, but she could see through the eyeglass that it was a calm evening. The sound got louder. Then she could tell what it was: heavy breathing coming from the doorway.
Everyone turned to see what it was. Sebastian entered, flushed and gasping ragged breaths.
Timothur stood again and wagged his finger at Sebastian. “Where have you been? The situation is dire here, Sebastian. We need all hands to grapple with it, no exceptions.”
Sebastian was winded, but he still managed to speak. “Come…come with me, all of you. I need to show you something.” And he turned about and left.
Timothur rolled his eyes and threw up his hands. His shoulders slumped, and he stomped toward the door after Sebastian. The others stood up, and each of them followed less energetically.
Aisha sighed. She didn’t have any other option but to do the same.
Of course Sebastian had led them up the stairs to the roof. Aisha gritted her teeth and fell in step. She wasn’t willing to rush, so it took her a long time. She went up, and up, it must have been ten flights. Her care meant she had to endure only a few jolts of pain.
She’d never been on the roof before, and for good reason. Once she made it, she had to admit the vista was beautiful.
The group was all lined up on the far end of the roof. Darkness had mostly fallen, save for a band of yellow descending into the horizon beyond the group. Aisha arrived at the railing to join them. The group was quiet.
“Okay, what are we looking at here?” She couldn’t mask her annoyance at having to walk all the way up the stairs.
Hella answered for them, “Do you see the horizon, to the north?”
“Yes, the sun sets,” Aisha said.
Hella responded, “The sun sets in the west, Sister. We look north.”
“So, what’s that light on the horizon? Could that be caused by Matteo’s moon?” Aisha asked.
“Matteo’s moon is above us, Aisha,” Hella answered. “No, it’s what Sebastian has flown out to see on his gargoyle. There, on the horizon, are many tens of thousands of wyg lamps, on more than a thousand ships that carry more than a hundred thousand men. It’s the armada of the Cenarans on the Great Ocean, Aisha, and they should reach the northern plain tonight.”
Chapter 22
The General
Timothur slept well that night, if only for a few hours. Not because he wasn’t worried; because there was little he could do. The Cenaran horde was arriving, and the Great Defender would have to deal with them. Meanwhile, all they could do was repair the gates and buttress the defenses, which was primarily the domain of the keep garrison and the Fringe.
And perhaps he slept well because there was some part of his conscience that was at peace. He’d made the right choice by backing the infidels. He allowed himself that brief consolation, for he knew any respite would be fleeting in the face of the countless enemies on their doorstep and his responsibility for the lives of thousands protected by the keep.
In the morning, over a bowl of wheat porridge, he made himself sit on the battlements to watch the conflict unfold. He felt odd doing it. Only a demented man would enjoy witnessing the death of so many. He didn’t watch it because he enjoyed it, but because he had to. Even though it sickened him, he had a responsibility to understand his enemy and analyze the outcome.
The Cenarans came over the northern dikes in droves, like a tsunami of ants. They weren’t alone. Groups of horses pulled huge carriages forward. Besides the horses and carriages, packs of ramolons and mosqueros were herded onto the plain and quickly caged into makeshift enclosures. It was difficult to count, but there must have been hundreds of these beasts.
The beasts, though, were but a drop in the ocean. It was the men who worried him. They quickly outnumbered the Great Defender’s force, then doubled it, then tripled it. The masses grew and grew until the entire northern plain seemed to be covered with them. The force was so vast, it took them most of the morning to settle, and for all Timothur knew, there were still twice as many out at sea in the armada. They advanced to just several hundred yards from both the Old Keep and the Great Defender’s camp. There they formed a line so long that Timothur couldn’t see the end of it.
When Timothur saw an envoy from the Great Defender’s camp head toward the Cenarans, he knew it would end quickly. He felt so helpless, sitting on the battlements of the keep, watching the folly of his countrymen. He wanted to send a party to convince them not to go. He wanted to tell the Great Defender to instead send some men and supplies to the keep or even to flee and regroup in some other part of Belidor. Anything but sit there like lambs to the slaughter.
But he couldn’t. They would have to remove the barricade just to send a scout outside the keep, and the Cenarans might attack when they saw the opportunity. The gargoyles could of course fly out to warn them, but it might be best to not reveal the gargoyles to the Cenarans and give up the element of surprise.
No, the Great Defender was on his own.
The Great Defender’s envoys wore bright blue and gold uniforms, discernible against the rippling Cenaran horde of tan and black. The Cenaran rabble absorbed the retinue, and from his vantage, Timothur could see it penetrating deeper into their encampment. A swarm of perhaps a thousand Cenarans surrounded the envoys at all times. They arrived at a more concentrated cluster of tents. The party paused there for a while. Then the horde collapsed in on them. It was difficult to see, but there appeared to be commotion. Almost in an instant, the retinue was gone, like a small blue and gold stain washed out of a patterned bedsheet.
A few moments later, horns blew. Timothur knew Belidoran horns, and these were not them. They were the shrill long horns of the Cenarans. A torrent of cavalry flocked out of the horde in the north, looking to circle the Great Defender’s camp. Then, slowly, the mass of Cenarans moved forward. The Great Defender’s army started to assemble in a pitiful line against them. When the Cenarans were no more than a hundred yards away, a band of twenty mounted ramolons overtook the most advanced Cenarans and hit the Great Defender’s defences first. This drove a substantial wedge into the Great Defender’s army. This wedge grew as men fled or were trampled by ramolons or trailing mosqueros. The Great Defender’s line was compromised by the move, and soon they had no formation at all.
The next hour was a free-for-all as the horde flowed through the Great D
efender’s army and ravaged anyone willing to stand and fight. Then another hour passed as the Cenarans chased down and killed any Belidorans who’d fled to the south, east, and west.
And just like that, the Great Defender’s army had been eradicated.
Many of Timothur’s subordinates had come to watch, and some stayed for the duration. Besides his leftenants and Captain Palantos, Hella was along the wall, as well as Darian, the Purveyor, Aisha, and a few of her officers. Only a few words were exchanged. Everyone was entranced by the action and absorbed by the misfortune they might soon face themselves.
“Let’s have a meeting,” Timothur said morosely. “Purveyor, can you get Sebastian up here at once?”
“He’s with Nala, General.”
“I don’t care,” Timothur said scornfully. “She can come too. They can even fornicate on the battlements for all I care, but I want them here. Now!”
The Purveyor nodded and rushed down the stairs.
“Let’s find some chairs,” Timothur said to no one in particular. “This could be our last meeting, so we might as well be comfortable. And muster the other officers, as many as you can that aren’t already busy with defence preparations.”
A few of his men ran down to the courtyard to gather the chairs and call on the other men.
Eventually they formed a quorum. There was limited room on the battlements, so people were strewn along the gangway, and some even stayed in the courtyard below. Timothur didn’t feel like pacing just then, and besides, there was little room, so he just sat in his chair while holding the top of his head.
All eyes were on him.
He looked up and nodded at the infidels. “Well, you were right, all of you. I’m sorry I didn’t listen sooner.” He put his head back in his hands.
They waited for him patiently. Finally he raised his head again and took a deep breath. “They have too many ramolons. They will break our barricade down easily. Even if they don’t break our pitiful barricade, they might be able to break down the walls. And then, even without the ramolons, they have so many men, they can just pile up their dead and walk over the battlements. You know this. We all know this.”
He stood up and pointed at the ground. “But I won’t tell you that it’s over. I won’t tell you we’re done for. I simply can’t.”
He paused and shook his head. “No, we will fight until the last of us are dead if we have to. We will kill as many Cenarans as we can so that somewhere, in some corner of Belidor, a few of our countrymen can live, even if just for a day longer. We will fight so that someone’s mother, father, or child can live. Maybe if we can kill just a thousand of these savages, it will mean a thousand Belidorans, Thelonians, or Pomerians will be able to flee in time, to get away from this wretched tide before it overwhelms them all.”
He slammed his fist into the Matar bone of the battlement and flashed his eyes back at them. “I’m not a pious man, but if Matteo is here, if he listens, I know he will take us into his embrace, all of us. Heathen or no, infidel or no, we will defend the Old Keep with our lives, and that’s enough, no matter how we pray or to whom. We aren’t traitors, and we aren’t murderers, no matter what the masses think. We are the only ones who stand against the true heathens—those that murder without conscience.”
Then he looked out onto the field of battle, staring into the horde, fists clenched. “I’m ready. Are you?”
There was a smattering of acknowledgments. “Yes, sir,” someone said. “Aye,” said another.
Aisha said, “We stand with you, General.”
“Good,” Timothur said, and he turned back to them. The infidels sat before him; a band of misfits, nodding to themselves, staring fate in the eyes.
All except the Purveyor, who’d wandered down the battlements. He peered out at the northern plain, a silverstone device at his eye, his head pivoting slowly.
“You may go,” Timothur said. They all began vacating along the battlements or down the stairs. Timothur made his way to the Purveyor. He wanted complete alignment here. Their chances of survival were negligible, but if any faction was to break ranks, there would be no chance at all.
“Purveyor, are you with us?” Timothur asked.
The Purveyor turned back and said, “Yes, of course, General, but you need a bigger moat.”
Timothur thought the man said it in jest. He allowed himself a snippet of laughter. “Yes, well, with that army we would need a moat the size of the entire northern plain, wouldn’t we?”
But then he realized the Purveyor had never said anything in jest to him before. The Purveyor looked through his Fringe device a moment longer, then turned his eyes to Timothur. He had a deadly serious look on his face.
“Precisely,” he said.
Chapter 23
The Purveyor
“Tell me again why you think this will work, Purveyor,” Timothur said.
Paulo said, “After the battle with the Great Defender, much of the Cenaran army shifted to the southwest. There still remains a sizeable force in the northeast, but there are avenues for passage that have opened up here and here.” Paulo pointed to the rough map he’d drawn on the table. “This one avenue in particular we could access fairly easily from the promontory. They will never suspect an attack through here because it doesn’t lead to anywhere except the northern end of the plain where we would be cut off by the rest of their army. So we will have a straight shot to the dikes as long as they’re not able to react quickly enough.”
Timothur looked thoughtful, rubbing his chin. “And we are blessed by a cloudy night. Matteo’s moon will not reveal our passage. Surely they will see us leave the keep, though.”
“Yes, that’s why it will be a sprint. They will immediately pursue, but I don’t think their army will be able to collapse on us in time. They look to be recuperating after their journey over the Great Ocean and the battle with the Great Defender’s army. They may be slow to rouse.”
“Perhaps…” Timothur nodded.
“The dikes are strong, General, but the force of these ramolons is remarkable. We will need to blow through the main dike first and this safety dike second, here and here.”
“Why not the safety dike first?” Timothur asked. “It’s closer.”
“It would give the Cenarans time to plug the safety dike holes. The main dike holes are farther from their forces, and will be too hard to plug with water coming through the breach.”
Timothur looked skeptical.
“I’m confident we can do it, given enough time,” Paulo continued. “Since the majority of the plain is below water level, it should inundate almost the entire force of the Cenarans. The attack can be supported from the air by the gargoyles to buy us time. And since there’s no way we could fight our way back through the collapsing army, the gargoyles will be necessary to move the men to safety when they finish the job.” Paulo nodded thoughtfully, and added, “But the ramolons will perish. You would lose them.”
Timothur went from holding his chin to rubbing his head again. Paulo had noticed that the general often came into a room looking relatively well kept but often left with his hair in disarray.
Timothur birthed a question out of his moment of contemplation. “And what of the gargoyles? They have a hundred beasts, so they must have gargoyles as well. They could use them to take down our gargoyles or harrow the ramolons. They move much faster than man or beast on land. How could we possibly succeed against a myriad of these creatures?”
“I don’t think they have any gargoyles, General.”
“That’s a bold statement. How could you possibly know?”
“Well, we haven’t seen any, for one, but that’s not the main reason. It’s because the Cenarans worship the gargoyles as holy creatures. The gargoyles serve a purpose to extract blood and return to the bone mouth chambers. The scars that flare from their temples are the result of bloodletting to invite the gargoyles to take blood from them. This is actually similar to the Belidoran bloodletting ritual, except that at one tim
e in history, the Belidorans decided to shun the gargoyles. Not so the Cenarans. They’ve done this bloodletting for many hundreds of years, and I believe the Belidoran ritual originated for the same purpose. In any case, this process, in their faith, is sacrosanct. They believe that using them for war is unholy. They will use ramolons and mosqueros, but not gargoyles.”
Timothur looked perplexed. He raised an eyebrow and said, “I’ve heard about your theories, Purveyor. I must say they are too outlandish for me. I don’t doubt your intellect, but I cannot put our lives at risk on a hunch of yours.” Timothur’s head turned toward Paulo, and his eyes burned. He seemed to be assessing every nuance of Paulo’s countenance, trying to measure him, trying to judge his words not based on their own merit but based on the speaker.
“It’s not a hunch, General. You know the gargoyles seek blood. You’ve seen it happen with Sebastian in the ruin in Albondo. As for the Cenaran faith, I’ve studied the faiths of all the great nations, and what I’ve told you is true. No one else knows or cares about the faith of the Cenarans because the Cenarans are considered savages.”
Timothur shook his head in disbelief. “It strikes me as odd that a naustic Fringe man would study the faiths of so many. Do you spin a yarn here, Purveyor?”
Paulo smiled, trying to reassure the general. “I’m a scholar, General, and there is much to learn from the faiths of others. I don’t study them to find divinity with Matteo. I study them to understand our common man and their motivations and beliefs. Think on this from the perspective of someone who leads a nation of merchants. A merchant must know his customer to transact on good terms with them. To transact with Cenarans, therefore, one must know their faith to understand how to comport oneself when dealing with them—to know what to say and what not to say.”
Timothur’s eyebrow raised, and he nodded slowly. His skepticism seemed to be waning. “That sounds plausible enough, I suppose.”