The Triumphant Return

by N M Zoltack

  Twenty soldiers per, if the intelligence they had learned was accurate. That meant two hundred.

  Versus two dozen.

  This was going to be a massacre.

  Ulric climbed down halfway before jumping. “Every single one of you who can accurately use a bow, grab one. Wait until they’re in range, and then fire when ready. We need to sink as many of their ships as we can.”

  “Sinking won’t kill them,” Gomes whined. “Once they’re in range of the arrows, they’ll be able to swim to shore.”

  “And we’ll be ready for them, won’t we?” Ulric asked haughtily.

  The young peasant’s eyes grew wide, but then he nodded. “Ready. Y-Yes.”

  Ulric secured his bow and held an arrow in his hand. He longed to light it now, to shoot immediately, but the arrow would fall into the Vast Waters. No one could shoot an arrow that far.

  They were perched above River Zim, and if the Vincanans docked here, they would be close to Atlan Castle, far too close. They had to hold them here.

  But the close proximity to Atlan Castle might prove a blessing in disguise.

  “Armel!” Ulric barked.

  The peasant rushed over. “I’m no good with a bow,” he said. I need something with a blade, a pointy end to stick into ‘em.”

  "Your blade, blades, will be wet with blood soon, but first, run to the castle. Get back up."

  “They won’t want to leave the castle,” Armel warned.

  “Would they rather defend the beach and save the castle from afar or risk losing the castle because they were too pigheaded and foolish to leave their posts? I’m not saying every blessed guard and knight has to come, but, by the Fates, man, we need more fighters!”

  Armel nodded several times as he backed up a few paces, and then he turned and raced away.

  A tense half hour passed, during which Ulric raced through creating as many arrows as he could. A few of the others attempted to help him with the task. Not a word was spoken. The silence was so profound that Ulric could hear every beat of his racing heart.

  Finally, it was time. Ulric stood, lit the tip of his arrow, nocked, drew, and loosed.

  The flaming arrow arched through the air, joined by a half dozen more. A few landed in the waves, but most landed on decks, the fires too quickly dampened.

  “Focus on one ship at a time, the nearest one!” Ulric called out.

  Again, more arrows were loosed, repeatedly, continuously. The fire grew, but the ship turned to the side and loosed an attack of its own.

  A cannonball.

  “Look—” Ulric tried to call.

  He jumped to the side, his shoulder and face slamming against the gritty sand. Where had the cannonball landed? Ulric wasn’t certain, but he jumped to his feet, raced back over to the barrel, and continued to rain arrows on the ship. The flames began to lick it, seizing it, but Gomes was right. The Vincanans were jumping overboard and swimming to shore.

  "Focus on that ship," Ulric demanded, pointing with an arrow. This one he did not bother to set ablaze and just shot at the closest Vincanan. The arrow went straight through his forehead.

  Ulric wasn't sure how his supply of arrows never seemed to diminish. Either his band was supplying him with theirs, or else the Fates had deemed this worthy enough of a miracle, but he managed to kill fifteen of the twenty approaching Vincanans.

  Swiftly, he seized as many arrows as he could and climbed the lookout tree. Once he found a sturdy enough branch, he perched himself. By now, many more Vincanans had jumped from the second burning ship, and he set about killing as many as he could before they reached the shore.

  The sound of blades clashing beneath him caused his next arrow to miss its intended target. The Vincanans had breached the shore.

  But that did not mean they had claimed the beach. Not yet at least and, Ulric hoped, not ever. Not while he was still fighting and breathing.

  35

  Sir Edmund Hill

  The knight was out scouring the grasslands near the marketplace with several of his guards, about a dozen of them. Tatum had given Edmund a long list of herbs, their descriptions and locations, and they needed to find them immediately. The attack on the castle should be in a day or two.

  The sound of screaming and then the unmistakable sound of steel on steel had Edmund drawing his blade.

  “Teoma,” he said, his voice tight. “Run to the barracks and fetch any and all guards and knights you can round up.”

  The guard hesitated. “It might only be a skirmish.”

  “Are you daft? They’re attacking the marketplace. They’re killing innocents!”

  Teoma’s face became pale, and he dashed off.

  Edmund only had to look at the other guards for them to fall into rank behind him, and they raced the short distance to the marketplace.

  Sure enough, this was no simple skirmish. The sunlight glittered off the Vincanans’ armor, and Edmund blinked a few times, almost numb to the sound of the battle around him, the din of the clashing blades, the screams of the dying. Then, he shook his head, let out a loud yell, and entered the fray.

  The first Vincanan he faced never saw him as Edmund slid his blade beneath the man’s chest plate in the back. He angled the blade upward as much as he could, and when he yanked the sword back out, he grabbed the man’s pauldron to turn him. Blood bubbled from the man’s mouth, and he slumped down before toppling over.

  One down. Far too many to go.

  A loud bang sounded, glass shattering, shard flying every which way as a merchant's table was overturned. Edmund tried to avoid the rolling fruit and vegetables but was soon engaged by a Vincanan female. Their blades met up and then down, and she jerked forward, intend on stabbing him clear in the stomach. He jumped to the side, cursing himself for only wearing minimal armor that day, but then he hadn't anticipated a battle.

  The Vincanan might be a female, but she was fierce, and she was strong. Not stronger than Edmund but enough so that he could not easily overpower her. Every strike she blocked and countered, and she smiled.

  “Fight as hard as you like,” she said, “but it will make no difference. The Fates are with us.”

  “What makes you so certain?” he grunted.

  “The time for turmoil and tyranny has come to an end.”

  “And time for a new tyrant to rise up in its place? Where is your king?” he asked. “Why isn’t he here, fighting with you?”

  “Why isn’t one or both of your queens here, fighting?” she countered. “Why do you not think females strong enough to fight and defend their homes?”

  She lashed out then, attacking in a furious fury that had Edmund backpedaling. His foot slipped on a piece of foot. Down he went, up went his sword, and he altered the angle just so. Her momentum had her forcing the blade straight through her neck. Blood rained down on Edmund as he grunted and stood. He had to propel and lower the Vincanan onto the ground and step on her chest in order to free the blade.

  He wiped the blood from his forehead, most likely smearing it. The knight could ill afford for droplets to run into his eyes as he dueled his next foe.

  Edmund circled the marketplace. Disgusted, he realized Marcellus was not there. He should have asked the queens if the name meant anything to either of them. It was vaguely familiar. Ah, yes. Marcellus had been one of the two Vincanans to come in peace. His friend had been the one to be murdered. The entire war rested on the shoulders of the killer.

  Or did it? The way these Vincanans had trained all their lives for fighting suggested that the training had never been intended for defense only. These were warriors of the fiercest sort, and Edmund only had to look at the dead—by far peasants, merchants, and Tenoch fighters—to see just how true this notion was.

  Recovered from his ordeal with the female, not wishing to reflect on just why it took him so long to recuperate, Edmund engaged not one but two Vincanans. All around him, it sounded as though the world was being ripped apart. The death shrills were constant, the stench of bloo
d and loosed bowels assaulting his nose. He almost wished someone would strike his head. A dull ringing would be preferable to those shrills, especially since he slew another Vincanan, and once more, the foe ended his life silently.

  They did not scream when they died.

  Every single death shrill was from someone hailing from Tenoch, not Vincanan.

  That realization had Edmund fighting harder than ever before. He sliced the neck of one Vincanan, threw a dagger into the cheek of another, and then chopped off the hand of a third. The gauntlet and sword clattered to the ground, but the Vincanan simply bent down, stump bleeding profusely, and picked up the sword with her left hand.

  Amazed but not impressed enough to stop there, Edmund went to unarm her. Her grip was fierce, though, and she nearly managed to dislodge his sword instead before he hacked off that hand too.

  Ignoring her at least for the moment, Edmund glanced about. The guards, for the most part, were holding their own, and he spied Simba. A wave of relief washed over him. Knights and more guards had arrived. Thank the Fates.

  Next, he spied Jurian Hansen, who was engaging not one, not two, but four Vincanans. He was backed up, in a perilous situation, and Edmund raced over. His sword was slick with blood already, but he gave her more to drink, cutting deeply into the first’s neck and then striking the next in the helmet with the hilt of his blade. Vibrations violently shook his arm from the force of the impact, and the Vincanan was so dazed from the blow that Jurian easily dispatched him.

  “I don’t need your help,” Jurian said.

  “Of course not,” Edmund said as he grabbed his dagger from his boot. With his left hand, he jabbed the third Vincanan in the back of the neck. He, no, she dropped to the ground.

  Jurian handled the fourth, and the two knights stood back-to-back, making a tight circle.

  The Vincanans were either dead or too wounded to attack more.

  Tenoch had won the battle, yes, but the entire area was destroyed. Knights and guards were stamping out the remnants of a fire that had burned half of the location, a fire Edmund had been blinded to.

  He put his dagger away and crouched down, eyes burning from both the smoke and the realization that far too many had lost their lives in the process. They had won, but the cost was far too high. Just how high a price would the war demand of them? Perhaps the Fates cared not which side won, a most frightening proposition.

  36

  Prince Marcellus Gallus

  Why hadn't the Vincanans reached the shore yet? Marcellus was growing impatient. Maybe he was becoming too used to the title he had at first not wished for, but he longed for more of his people to arrive. The constant relocating and hiding was growing old, and he wanted to learn what news the others brought from his father. The prince felt too ignorant yet. Why did it seem as if he knew nothing? Yes, his father trusted him to do whatever was necessary to wage this war and to win, but Marcellus wondered if perhaps they were being foolish by focusing so much on Atlan and the castle. Yes, Atlan was the heart and soul of Tenoch, but his father would not sit there, in that throne. Surely, he would remain in Staston.

  The more Marcellus thought about it, the more he wondered if attacking Maloyan, Cilla, Olac, Etian, and Atlan simultaneously might be the best way to obtain all of Tenoch as quickly as possible. Otherwise, they could secure Atlan first but then be forced to fight the other cities as well. Then again, by now, their castle must have asked for the major cities to send their guards and knights to defend the castle. If they were to go after them now, while the warriors were in transition from one locale to another, those cities would be left nearly defenseless. It would be all too simple to claim them and then more gradually inward, declaring each town and village they came across as their own as well.

  But until and unless he could hear his father’s plan, Marcellus could not be certain if this new one he was devising would prove possible. His father was the king, and his word was law, even above Marcellus’.

  Horatia Ramagi, the head Valkyrie, the fiercest of their fiercest female warriors, harrumphed. “We are wasting time,” she complained.

  “We need the ships to arrive,” Flavius Calvus said. He was the commander of the Vincanan army.

  The two of them never allowed Marcellus a moment to be alone. Considering Marcellus thought the two were denying their feelings for one another, this made for awkwardness more times than not.

  “We should go and see what is causing the delay,” Marcellus urged.

  “If they are still at sea, we do not have a ship here to go out and see,” Horatia pointed out. “Let us, instead—”

  “We will do as the prince commands,” Flavius said.

  The Valkyrie glowered at him. “Do you believe going to the beach is the best option?”

  “I believe it, and so you should too,” Marcellus said. He cut between the pair and headed away from the relative safety of their hiding place within the confines of a small wooded area.

  The others trailed behind him. There were far more in their numbers than just the trio. Other than Horatia and Flavius bickering in hushed tones, all was silent.

  But then, there was the distinctive sound of a cannonball firing.

  “They’re under attack,” Marcellus said grimly. “To arms!”

  He raised his sword and dashed forward. His long legs carried him swifter than any other, and he reached the beach first, although only moments before the others. Down below was a horrific scene. Warriors from Tenoch were engaging Marcellus’ legionaries, but far worse were the still bodies floating in the waters, red staining the surrounding waves.

  Not only had the enemy known about the ships coming, but they had also planned their attack well. From a mast barely bobbing in the Vast Waters, it was clear that at least one ship had been sunk.

  Marcellus merely pointed his blade at the band of enemy warriors, but before they could engage them, knights rushed onto the beach to join the battle.

  This would be evenly matched, at least until the rest of the ships could reach the shore.

  Marcellus engaged a knight, fighting earnestly. He wasn’t about to give up. Not now, not ever, but he hadn’t thought it possible that… those men were not dressed as knights! They had to be peasants! How could they have bested and killed some of Vincanans’ finest warriors?

  The knight fought nobly, but Marcellus stomped on his foot, kicked him in the knee, and shoved his sword up through the underside of the man’s head, up through his mouth and much higher up as well. The knight wore plenty of armor but no helm.

  Yanking his sword free, Marcellus kicked the knight away. Two more rushed him, and he disarmed the one and slew the other. Not bothering to continue going after the first, Marcellus lunged ahead, wishing to reach the despicable fighters on the shore. He would make short work of them, of that he had no doubt.

  He hacked and sliced and blocked and parried, his sword dancing, gliding through the air. The moment he reached the beach, the sand beneath his feet gave away as a ship crashed against the shoreline. Marcellus straightened, ready to attack again, but another ship and another both ran ashore.

  He grinned as the peasants dashed away. Marcellus did notice how one lingered in a tree, firing arrows, even managing to kill another Vincanan.

  The prince started toward that tree, ready to hack it down, but Horatia pulled on his arm and shook her head.

  “They’re fleeing. Let them. We’ll attack and kill them another day. Or do you not want to know your father’s plan after all even though you’ve talked about nothing else the past few days?”

  Marcellus sheathed his sword. “We have dead to attend to first,” he said bitterly.

  “Yes,” was her simple response.

  The prince gnashed his teeth. Why did nothing ever go as planned?

  37

  Garsea

  The amount of worry Garsea felt was enough to cause him to be sick to his stomach. He actually had to drag himself to the lavatory so he could vomit. A good night’s sleep, a p
roper meal… then he could renew his search for Ximeno.

  But Velasco… Garsea still could not believe it. How exactly had Velasco become a wraith? The Keeper had thought the presence of the wraiths meant the dragons were to return soon, but he never expected one of the sacred order would become a wraith!

  Garsea washed up and left the lavatory. Hardly any of the candles were lit, and he couldn’t recall what had happened to the torch. Had he dropped it? He hoped not. If a fire started because of his carelessness…

  The Keeper wandered over to a lit candle and removed it from the sconce of brass wire hanging on the wall. He turned around and gasped.

  It wasn’t until now, with the candle in his hand, that he could see a terrible truth.

  The monastery had been ransacked.

  Forgetting all about going to sleep, once more, Garsea trekked from room to room. Every library, everywhere, were signs of chaos and destruction. It had not been like this when he had first entered the monastery. In the time that he had gone out to find the other Keepers, someone had entered and destroyed the sanctity of this holiest of establishments.

  But why? What had they hoped to gain? And most importantly, had they stolen anything?

  Between his back and his legs, especially his ankle, Garsea wasn’t sure his body was up for the task, but he went through the monastery room by room yet again, this time trying to determine if anything was missing. Not missing. Not misplaced. The correct term would be stolen.

  And after he had been shown so much kindness and compassion of late. Just when he thought the dragons three might be proud of the people. No. Someone had to ruin everything.

  But none could ever be as terrible and wicked and cruel as the Lord of Light and Darkness. He had chosen Darkness, embraced it fully, and acted as if he had been the Fate of Death himself. The lord and his followers had killed the dragons three. It was because of him and his ilk that so much darkness and cruelty existed in the world.