Skyclad (Fate's Anvil Book 1)
Page 55
The lion-man stalked forward. One armored foot lashed out, and Millie’s heart stopped as abruptly as that foot did: Jacob’s steel-clad hand had clamped itself around the warrior’s shin, crushing the armor into his leg with a sickening crunch.
There the Battlemaster stood, steady as a mountain in the face of the enemy. “Mister Hett!” he called. “They’ve committed their reserves; the signal, if you would!”
As Hett reached into his coat to withdraw a small rune-covered rod, the Deskren captain roared again, this time in surprise and panic as the Battlemaster heaved , his face twisting as the captain rose into the air, then smashed back to the ground, crushing a Luparan soldier under his weight. Hett pointed the rod to the sky, and with a pulse of magic, a ball of light shot upward, through and past the storm clouds to detonate in a brilliant false dawn, chasing away the shadows, and casting the Battlemaster in terrible relief.
He strode for the front lines where the fighting was the thickest, dragging his impromptu hammer behind him, still protesting his treatment. “Soldiers! ” he roared, and now he did sound angry. Watching from the comparative safety of the wagon, Millie thought it was an even more terrifying prospect than the entire battle up to this point had been.
“I said!” He swung the lion again, in a vicious horizontal arc, sending three Gendarmes tumbling away.
“We hold!” Raising his foe to the sky, the Battlemaster broke the captain’s shoulder against another knot of Deskren.
“This line!”
Thus did the Battlemaster stand among his troops, beating the enemy to death with their own commander.
* * *
Calvin watched through his spyglass, disbelief playing across his face. Captain Golthen had almost closed with the bard on the wagon, only for his entire elite unit save himself to be wiped out—the last falling to the one-armed bard. The thought was barely credible—but not, he forced himself to admit, outside the realm of possibility. His forces had been chasing and harrying the refugee caravan for months, and just as his own army gained levels and experience, it was inevitable that survivors among the enemy would grow stronger, as well.
It wouldn’t be enough, though. Even with the drummer calling thunderbolts from the sky, numbers would drag them down in the end. It would be a costlier battle than even his most pessimistic estimates, but even with his losses, the Gendarmes still outnumbered the defenders over three to one. He nodded to a messenger, and the signal went up to commit the Hoplites, shifting those numbers even more in his favor. He raised the spyglass once again as a bright flare of light lit the battlefield.
The Hoplite reserves charged into the fray. The Gendarmes had pushed up the slope and broken through the defenders’ ranks, and there were now gaps in the enemy lines. Their grim banner still stood, looming ominously over the one-armed form playing the drum from the back of the wagon. Golthen, standing alone after the old man and his mules had savaged his force, rushed the wagon, his furious roar carrying above the din of battle. Calvin swung his spyglass down to observe the Hoplites’ advance before returning his focus to Golthen and the bard.
Where he’d felt disbelief before, now abject shock held him frozen. The enemy commander was no longer on horseback. Instead the man, clad in mismatched heavy armor, stood shrouded in power as he swung Golthen like a sack of potatoes. Holding onto the captain’s leg, the Battlemaster lay about with enraged abandon. Where he struck with his makeshift weapon, Gendarmes were broken and smashed, and his soldiers fought with similar fervor, spurred by their leader’s example.
The thunder seemed to intensify, the bard on the wagon wreathed in more and more dread lightning gifted from the sky itself. Bolts of it began to rain down among his soldiers, and even the iron resolve of the enslaved-from-birth Gendarmes began to waver. It took Calvin several heartbeats to realize not all the thunder came from the storm. His horse stumbled as the ground began to shake.
Earthquake? No, a storm-bard doesn’t have that power…
Then the thunder rose to a roaring crescendo, a continuous rushing sound, and Calvin realized it wasn’t coming from the sky or the ground, but rather from the trees to the north. The bard-summoned storm above made it hard to see, but the flashes of lightning illuminated the swaying of the taller trees just before many of them began to fall.
Calvin Descroix had just enough time to activate his enchanted shield pendant before the wall of water arrived, tumbling boulders, trees, and mud ahead of itself.
* * *
Millie Thatcher leaned against the sideboards of Hett’s wagon, too exhausted to even turn and unstrap her drum and find a place to sit. She looked out over what remained of the battlefield, nose numbed to the stench. Instead of a broad, flattened valley, all she could see below the sloping rise was a frothing, muddy lake. Over ten thousand Deskren had been washed away in one fell swoop, and her faith that the Battlemaster had a plan was vindicated, though she had no words to give voice to that satisfaction. Hett had actually fallen asleep on the front bench of his own wagon after the battle finally ended. A rooster stood beside him, obviously having gotten loose during the battle. It clucked its annoyance at the noise Hett made, and was pecking him, to no avail. Millie giggled at the display, the most sound she was capable of making.
The Battlemaster had allowed the soldiers no rest after the battle ended. The Luparan Gendarmes had stopped fighting once their masters were gone, and simply knelt on the field to await their fate. She found the sight disturbing at first, as troops still caught in the battle fury had kept killing their now-defenseless foes until The General had ordered them to desist. Instead, the surviving Deskren—a few hundred Hoplites and nearly a thousand wolf-men—had been corralled in ranks on the rise some distance apart from the refugee wagons. Disarmed and docile, they awaited the Worldwalker’s judgement.
“Who speaks for you?” he asked from the back of his horse.
Hett sat up, suddenly awake, and answered, “Iffen the overseers were washed away, none do. They’ll sit like that ‘til they die, iffen ye don’t feed ‘em.”
“Overseers?” asked Jacob.
“Hold the leashes. They use the kill command when they’ve lost. Seems they must all be gone now, or these’uns’d all be dead already.” The old man’s drawling accent was difficult for Millie to grasp sometimes, but she understood the gist of it. Without their masters, the Deskren slaves had no idea what to do.
The Battlemaster paced his horse along the line of kneeling Deskren, his face grim and thoughtful. He ordered soldiers through the lines with tools, cutting the black collars from around the prisoners’ necks. Finally, one of the older Luparan mustered enough courage to speak after the collar fell away.
“There is nothing for us now. The Empire holds our kin,” he growled, “and our northern brethren would never take us in. We’ve never known the ways of the Tribes.”
“I cannot promise to free your kin,” he began, as his gaze settled on the self-appointed spokesman, “but if it’s in my power, I will make it happen.”
“All we know is battle,” said another wolfkin, this one with a softer voice. Millie was sure it was a woman, even though her form was every bit as large and muscled as the others. “Kill us or command us, we are as the dead either way.” The voice was bitter and mournful. “Our children are already the same as dead, left in the Empire’s lands.”
“You would serve, even alongside those who were just killing you?” The Battlemaster’s tone held no judgment, only curiosity.
“In peacetime, the emperor pits us against each other in battles to the death as spectacle, even against our own families and children. How would fighting alongside these soldiers be worse?” growled the male again.
Jacob nodded at that remark. “I see. The Empire keeps weighing down the scales of judgment with every fact I learn about them.” His horse pranced in place with a snort. “I’ll force no one to swear to the banner. I’m marching these civilian refugees to Possibility to take shelter in the City of Prophets. Then I
intend to destroy your old empire. If you march with me, you may die.” He let his mount pace slowly in front of the line of kneeling soldiers.
“All I can promise is, if you die under my banner, it will be to accomplish the mission, and not on the whims of some worthless crown.” He stopped to let his gaze pass across the entire line. “Those who don’t swear to the banner? I won’t kill you, but you’ll be left here without weapons, and we’re taking the food. The choice is yours.”
There was no hesitation, merely the span of a single heartbeat for the wolfmen to understand what the Worldwalker offered. One howl ripped forth from nearly a thousand throats, and in it, Millie heard the death of an empire.
Chapter 37: Reunions
Morgan Mackenzie found herself in a dream. She knew it was a dream. She stood at the entrance to Dina’s Diner, the same tiny shop where her parents had taken her to lunch every Sunday through her entire childhood, the same place where her father had continued to take her to lunch every week after her mother had finally succumbed to the ravages of a cancer the doctors couldn’t save her from.
The creaky sign hanging below the awning, swaying in a late-morning breeze; the faded paint and antique windows which characterized the building’s facade; the familiar smells of carefully-prepared food; they all soothed her, and she knew they couldn’t exist on Anfealt, but they weren’t what told her she was dreaming.
She knew it had to be a dream because she was wearing clothes, and her tattoos no longer stood out on what skin was still exposed. Her reflection in the diner’s glass door was missing the enchantment across her eyes, and her hands and arms, as she reached toward the door, were once more bare and pale. After so many months au naturel, the experience was jarring, every bit of fabric against her skin an uncomfortable irritant she couldn’t ignore. From the socks squeezing her feet, to the pants and the blouse settled on her like a pall, the clothes made for a numbing barrier between her skin and the sky. It was like suddenly being in a cage, and the underwear was the worst—not that the sensation was unbearable, she simply couldn’t help but be aware of it.
She hastily peeled the blouse over her head and let it drop to the ground, then stood there in shock as it vanished from the space between her hand and the steps in front of the diner, only to instantly reappear on her body. She spent nearly a full minute futilely struggling to remove the offending garments. No sooner did a shoe, blouse, or bra leave her hands than it flickered back to its original place. Finally, lightly panting with exertion, she resigned herself to her discomfort, stepping forward and crossing the diner’s threshold.
The familiar jingle of the bell was as soothing as the scents coming from the open kitchen, where a sturdily-built, matronly woman with an apron stood before a griddle, while deftly using the tools of her trade to flip pancakes and tend to skillets sizzling with sausages and eggs. Morgan turned to the far corner of the diner, approaching the figure she’d somehow known would be there.
She felt small again, and safe, gazing across the restaurant at the man sitting in the back corner booth. There was more grey at his temples than she was used to, but otherwise this could have come from any scene in her memory: he sat, as always, with his back to the corner, affording him clear sight to every exit and window. He was dressed in the same work boots, jeans, and flannel shirt she always remembered, and the set of his body was identical: ramrod-straight, shoulders back, the gun just barely peeking out of the old leather jacket keeping him just off the back cushion. The weapon had been in his family for two generations before him, and she’d never seen him without it.
As Morgan approached, Max turned his attention to the familiar spread of food, setting down his coffee. As it had always been, it consisted of bacon, eggs, biscuits and gravy, with a side of hominy grits. A waitress dressed in a nondescript uniform with features Morgan somehow couldn’t focus on slipped around her and approached the table, the dream seeming to snap into greater focus as she set down her burden across from the man: one egg, sunny side up, on its own platter, next to a plate with a single biscuit, opened in halves and slathered in country gravy. Three pieces of crispy bacon and one piece of wheat toast finished the ensemble, together with a small glass of orange juice: the same meal she’d eaten every Sunday since she’d grown enough to place her own order.
She sat, suddenly nervous. A dozen questions tried to make their way out of her mouth, but her father simply pointed at her food.
“Eat first. Then talk. We don’t have long, but it should be enough.”
Morgan didn’t argue the point. The food smelled delicious, like memories of a happier, safer time in her life, and the comforts of bygone days. The fork and knife didn’t fall from her fingers, and the glass of juice was perfectly cold in her hand. She wasted no time, enjoying the luxury of actually eating and drinking like a normal person for the first time since she fell through the portal.
It had always been this way, as far back as she could remember. Every Sunday, the family would go to the diner for a family meal, followed by a trip into the city to do the weekly shopping and other errands, before piling back into the old, but well-maintained pickup truck to return along the winding roads to the Mackenzie homestead. The ride had grown crowded as her older brothers had grown, then was very suddenly not crowded enough following her mother’s death. The void left by her passing had left the cab of the truck empty, and had very nearly put an end to the tradition.
Max Mackenzie had insisted the tradition continue, however, and stood fast, an immovable foundation through the grief, as his children had grown. Morgan’s brothers had graduated from school and enlisted, but she’d continued meeting her father every single Sunday, even after she’d moved into the city and started classes at the university. They’d never missed a single week, until she’d found herself in another world. As always, the Mackenzie patriarch allowed no conversation until the meal was properly done. He tucked into his own food as she devoured hers, flagging down the waitress for a refill of his coffee to wash it down. They ate in silence, focused on the meal before them. It wasn’t until the plates were stacked at the end of the table for the waitress to reclaim when she brought them another refill that Max finally spoke.
“You first,” he said warmly. “I’ll tell you my side after.”
“I—” she stammered. “I’m not sure where to even begin…”
“Start from the beginning, of course. I knew something was wrong when you didn’t show up on Sunday.”
She took a deep breath to steady her whirling thoughts. “Well, I had a horrible day at work. Stuck with a double shift, then caught my boyfriend cheating on me—” She paused as his expression went momentarily blank, then flickered with amusement, before returning to his normal attentive gaze. “I’d decided to go out and have some fun to get over it all, went to take a bath, and the bathtub fell through a hole in the world.”
As if finally saying it opened a floodgate, she told him everything. How she’d landed in the tree, how she’d made mistakes with her first few levels and nearly starved to death in a matter of minutes. She spoke of how she’d eaten the fruit, and how delicious it had been. He nodded at that, and then slid more napkins across the table to her as she recounted burning alive. She hadn’t even realized the tears were running down her face. He waited for her to compose herself before prodding her to continue the tale.
He smiled along with her when she recounted her triumphs and achievements, both against monsters and when she’d learned magic. He waited patiently as she struggled to recount her mistakes and heartaches. As she told her Story, the sleeves of her blouse began to fray and disappear, heralding the slow return of the tattoos along her hands and arms. The runic patterns slowly etched themselves back onto her skin, the dream-place giving way to the reality of how she now perceived herself. By the time she’d finished, she was bare once more. Thankfully, the dream did allow her to drink from her glass with her own hands, a much-needed point of comfort as she told her tale.
“And t
hen that asshole put that thing around my neck.” She seethed, her expression twisting angrily. “I’m gonna finish killing him when I wake up, for that, and for that nice mage, too.”
Max smiled, a feral grin that showed no disapproval for his daughter’s newfound tendencies toward violence. “Your puffball friends already saw to that. The little necromancer lost his lunch, but I thought it was one of the more entertaining things I’ve seen in my life.”
“Pffff—!” She almost managed to keep from snorting orange juice across the table. “Exfoliation? Lulu’s vicious when she needs to be!” she exclaimed with a grin.
“Not your Lulu, the little necro’s green one. Wuffle, I think he called it.”
“It must be a species trait,” she said, still grinning. “I feel so much better. But now you. How? You know what I mean…” She trailed off, making a waving gesture with her hand at the dreamworld diner.
“Well, when you didn’t show up that Sunday, I was concerned.”
“Hah! Typical ‘Gunny Mack’ understatement. You don’t have to say it nicely for my sake, Dad.”
“Wasn’t going to.” He nodded as he continued, “I checked your apartment first, then went asking around. I started with your boss, then I worked over your boyfriend real good. What clued me in that something wasn’t normal was the tub.”
“The giant clawfoot? That was the entire reason I rented that apartment,” she replied, sipping her juice.
He nodded. “I remember. The landlord had remodeled the apartment, and the antique tub was too big to take out through the door after that. But it was gone. So I went back to the apartment. I was a mite upset by then, and apparently that was enough for the Le Fay blood to do what it does.”