The amorphous, shuddering rumble resolved into racing footsteps. Grael looked over his shoulder at the Pigsknucklers flitting by. He tried to warn them they were running toward an ambush, but none of them noticed his low moan.
A voice called on the stampede to stop. More voices joined its cry, as if the Pig itself was squealing. The running feet stuttered to a halt.
“Get that man up the mountain.” It sounded like Garscap.
Water dribbled into Grael’s mouth. Hands grappled with his body. Something softly prodded the wound in his side. As arms lifted him off the ground, he smiled at the knowledge that he would not die alone.
“Hang on in there, Grael. You’ll be fine,” a familiar voice assured him. It was Maergan.
Grael’s gentle glide up the Crooked Stair was punctuated by awkward lifting and painful manhandling as his bearers negotiated the cliffs. It was a relief when he finally reached the top.
“Place him beside his father,” Maergan said. “How is he?”
“Not good.”
Grael’s heart leapt. Was that Harath’s voice? No, that was impossible. The hope that she was somewhere safe compensated in part for her absence. It was funny how fate kept teasing them with happiness, only to tear them apart.
A blonde woman, wearing Cliffringden’s halo, knelt beside him. Her lined face was spattered with blood. “Grael,” she said as she wiped his face with a wet rag. “You’ll live. The fabric of your tunic staunched the wound in your side. Your father...” She paused. “Your father is dying. He should be dead already, but stubbornness makes him cling to life.”
“Lahan led the charge down the Crooked Stair,” another man murmured. “He did it to find you.”
Grael’s bearers sat him against the rock beside his prostrate father. He fought his dizziness to look down upon Dad’s awkward smile. “You should have not risked your life to save me. I might have been dead,” he said.
“Sounds like something I might say,” his father answered. “All that matters is that you are alive. You must look after your mother and the children.”
“You’ll be fine.”
A sour face briefly interrupted Dad’s smile. “It’s right that a parent dies for his children. They are all that remains of him in this world when he has gone to the next.”
“Don’t talk nonsense,” Grael said, holding back his tears. His father would brook no weeping.
“Parents die a little for their children every day. Sometimes slowly, sometimes fast.” And with that, Dad fell silent.
Grael hugged the corpse and wept.
“Listen, lads,” Garscap said as he led his men back up the Crooked Stair. “I want no more foolery. The only voice I want to hear from our side is mine, and when I give an order, obey it as if your life depends on it. Because it does.”
“We shout to show we are unafraid,” Maergan Erath protested gently.
“They don’t care if you fear them. And your shouts don’t frighten them, either. The only thing that scares them is the dead bodies of their friends strewn down the Crooked Stair.”
He glanced back down the terraces. Legionaries were giving chase. A few had paused to prime crossbows. The Elves realized too late that their foes had avoided their trap. The Pigsknucklers were already pouring onto the top terrace.
Garscap ordered his men back from the ledge to deny the Elfin archers easy targets. He crawled to the edge of the terrace and surveyed the activity below. A new Elfin force was making its way up the Crooked Stair. The foremost legionaries skidded as they tried to pick their way over stone made slick by gore.
He was gleeful as he readied his men. It didn’t matter how many legionaries tramped up the Crooked Stair—they would descend again as corpses. As long as the Pigsknucklers held their nerve, this day was theirs.
As the first legionaries began scrambling over the ledge, the Pigsknucklers pushed forward, their spears skewering some and shoving others back on top of the Elves massed behind them. Behind the spearmen, archers loosed arrows in a high arc to rain random death on their enemies. This time, the Pigsknucklers, disciplined by confidence in themselves and their leader, stood their ground as Garscap commanded. There were grunts of exertion but none of the boisterous shouting on their side. The air was filled instead with the music of the pain and exasperation of their enemies. And an annoying buzzing sound.
It was too soft for a bee, too loud for a blowfly. It was coming from above. Garscap looked up the slope. Thomol was standing, waving one arm, his voice thinned by distance to an incomprehensible whine. What did the old fool want now?
Something swooped across the mountainside. Perhaps it was an eagle. No, it glinted in the sun. The batonaxe struck the ancient, felling him. Garscap followed its course back to its point of origin. At the head of two-dozen legionaries was a warrior clad in the dazzle of the sun. Garscap had never imagined they might scale the cliffs beside the Crooked Stair, but he had not counted on their inhuman agility and their thirst for victory. They must have taken poor Joraem unawares.
As their march quickened to a run, Garscap fought the urge to raise his arms in prayer. He directed his archers at the oncoming warriors. The volley of arrows hit their targets but failed to strike down a single warrior, bouncing off their helmets or breastplates or the locked arm-shields covering their faces.
A second front was needed to face this onrushing menace. “Grab your spears!” he yelled to the archers. Men stared stupidly at him as he peeled them from the back lines at the Crooked Stair and shoved them toward the new battle line. As the legionaries closed, the line that faced them was a paltry, fragile thing.
The Elves leapt into the air, spreading their arms and batonaxes like massive wings. Glinting sunlight fringed their dark outlines as they flew over the awed defenders.
Thunder filled the sky as competing silhouettes crashed into the attackers. Garscap roared and punched the air in triumph, as legionaries and Orstretcherists rained from the sky.
AscendantSun fought his screaming instinct to flail his weapons about him as he sprung to his feet. His batonaxes were as likely to strike friend as foe. He scanned the sprawled warriors struggling to their feet. Most of the legionaries were too stunned by the Orstretcherists’ intervention to put up much of a fight. AscendantSun dashed toward the nearest one, batonaxes at the ready.
“This one is mine,” a warrior in golden armor cried, leaping over the rising legionary. “The Harbinger will consider our lives a small price for the heresiarch’s death.”
This sentinel was a crude caricature borne of the Harbinger’s conceit. This was not Gules, and Aurelian was dead. The golden armor was an encumbrance rather than an advantage. Its weight sapped the wearer’s stamina.
At the same time, the Or was an apparition from a more heroic age, a gleaming panoply bought with eleven lives. Its bearer, a Pugnus, was the scion of the surviving member of Aurelian’s bodyguard. Perhaps, this was the product not of a madman’s caprice, but proof of a bright power rising once more.
“Greetings from your nameless twin,” the sentinel said.
As AscendantSun wrestled to make sense of the sentinel’s words, his opponent linked his batonaxes and whipped the chain at his face. AscendantSun jerked his head clear of the blow, but he failed to hook the sentinel’s weapon with one of his own. Before he had recovered his balance, the sentinel was upon him.
It took AscendantSun’s full concentration to fend off the frenzy of blades and spikes pushing him to ground. He tried to roll free, but the sentinel closed too fast, and AscendantSun was pinned again by the dance of his foe’s batonaxes.
He kicked at the sentinel’s legs. Batonaxes writhed against each other as the sentinel sprawled across him. The sentinel’s perspiration dripped on AscendantSun’s face as his opponent pressed a batonaxe down on his chest. His own weapons forgotten, AscendantSun held the same batonaxe with both hands as he tried to halt its grinding creep up his chest toward his neck.
The thunderous clash above Grael wrenched him
from his grief.
Elves and weapons rained from the sky and smashed against the ground. In front of him, a prostrate legionary snatched a random pair of batonaxes and leapt toward him.
A batonaxe thrust at Grael, but it struck his dead father. Instinct made him seize the head of the weapon. He cringed as he waited for the legionary’s second weapon to smite him, but an Orstretcherist blocked it with one batonaxe and beheaded Grael’s attacker with his second.
Grael crawled as fast as he could to escape the battle raging above him. He was sick and dizzy, every movement hurt, but at any moment, a batonaxe could swoop down on him and finish him.
Ahead of him, on the edge of the melee, a legionary in gold armor had an Orstretcherist pinned to the ground. Grael recognized the symbols on the forehead—AscendantSun. Grael drew his knife. He crawled toward the golden legionary. He was too weak to stand, but he was close enough to strike a blow with his weapon.
The legionary’s greaves didn’t protect the back of his legs. With all his strength, Grael stabbed the nearest exposed calf. The leg shifted as the blade struck, preventing it from boring deep into the flesh, but for an instant, the legionary forgot AscendantSun. He roared and swiped his batonaxe above his head at an imaginary enemy.
AscendantSun threw off his attacker and seized the batonaxes beside him. Two Pigsknucklers attacked the legionary, but with a fluid sweep of his batonaxe, he felled them both. He lunged at AscendantSun, but he had already rolled clear of the legionary’s reach. As the legionary stood, his eyes fixed on Grael lying nearby, the bloody knife in his hand.
Grael, on his back, tried to crawl away on his elbows and heels.
If the legionary had thoughts of revenge, he had no time to act on them. AscendantSun was upon him. The rage on the legionary’s face turned to fear as he retreated before AscendantSun’s onslaught, his single batonaxe struggling to parry two.
AscendantSun drove a spike into the legionary’s shoulder. The armor resisted the blow, snapping off the spike, but its distraction allowed AscendantSun to hack off one head of his opponent’s batonaxe. The legionary swung the remainder of his weapon like an axe, but AscendantSun’s batonaxes yanked it from his hands and forced him to the ground. Blood sprayed AscendantSun’s legs and chest as his blade hacked through the legionary’s throat.
AscendantSun racked his batonaxes, seized Grael’s arms, and pulled him clear of the melee. It was already nearly over. Most of the legionaries lay dead. The remainder were outnumbered, their defeat certain. A few even chose to leap down the cliff rather than die at the hands of Stretchers.
AscendantSun propped Grael against a rock and crouched beside him. “You saved my life. Thank you.”
“I owed you mine,” Grael said.
“I think you’ve repaid that debt in full today.”
“That debt will never be settled,” Grael said firmly.
AscendantSun patted Grael’s shoulder. “Likewise.”
Garscap reviewed the progress of the battle with satisfaction. The surprise attack had been defeated, and the Pigsknucklers’ lines along the terrace were holding. He climbed atop a boulder and peered down at the terraces awash with blood and littered with corpses. At the bottom, another force of warriors had gathered. They were Stretchers.
“Forward!” he cried to the Pigsknucklers.
The legionaries’ ferocity redoubled as they understood what was happening, but they couldn’t resist the relentless push of the Pigsknucklers down the terraces.
Stretchers swarmed up the Crooked Stairs to attack the Elves from the other side. The halos of the new arrivals indicated that they were from the villages of Littleknuckle, Highstep, and Wyrmery. Harath must have delivered her message. They fought with far less discipline than the Pigsknucklers but their number was much greater. Facing enemies on both sides, the legionaries chose to make their last stand against the new arrivals. Their bravery was as desperate as their plight, but in the end, valor and skill couldn’t save them. A roar of murderous triumph shook the mountain as the last of them fell.
Lohor Teevan scrambled up the treacherous rocky steps to where Garscap waited. The startled expression on Lohor’s face amused him.
“How did you do this?” Lohor asked. “How did you defeat such a number? I see so few bodies of your people. I lost many men dealing with your scraps.”
Garscap smirked. “Some hunt wolves. Some hunt gilt spiders.” He noticed AscendantSun was looking up at him with a pained expression. The politician leapt down and shook the Orstretcherist’s hand.
“I didn’t mean you,” Garscap assured AscendantSun. “We owe you our lives.” Lohor was listening to every word. Being overgenerous in his praise might be misinterpreted as weakness, a symptom of dependency. “Let the mountains echo with news of the victory of Pigsknuckle and its allies. For the first time since Alackalas, Stretchers have faced an army of the Fair Folk and triumphed.”
NeverFear murmured something to AscendantSun.
“We request that the wounded legionaries be placed into our custody,” AscendantSun said.
“Are there any? They all must be dead,” Garscap replied.
“There is at least one over there,” NeverFear said as he pointed to where a group of women huddled. When he comprehended what they were doing, he raced at them, shouting and waving his batonaxes, scattering them like flapping vultures from a wounded beast. He examined the legionary.
“They murdered him,” he cried. “They must have been doing this throughout the day, tending their own wounded while murdering their helpless enemies. Is this the behavior of true Stretchers?”
“Their enemies are your enemies also,” Garscap observed.
One of the Cliffringdeners shouted back: “This is the behavior of women when the murderers of their husbands and sons lie at their feet.”
AscendantSun tugged Garscap’s arm to get his attention. “Unless you want our alliance to end here and now, you must promise that the murder of wounded prisoners will be not be tolerated now or in the future.”
Garscap’s nod was grudging. He glanced at Lohor. The Politician of Littleknuckle appeared oblivious to his embarrassment.
“NeverFear, gather a party together and search for survivors,” AscendantSun commanded.
“AscendantSun, please, no,” NeverFear begged. “I might see my face among the dead.”
Garscap pondered what the Orstretcherist meant as AscendantSun cajoled TrueFriend into taking NeverFear’s place.
AscendantSun watched tears wash the bloody spatter from NeverFear’s cheeks.
“I am sorry. I could not do it,” NeverFear said.
“Forget it,” AscendantSun said. “It has been a trying day for all of us.”
“Well, if any doubt remained about which side we are on, we buried it today.” NeverFear cupped his face in his hands and sobbed. “I killed an Or. A Galea, I think. I admire your strength. You slew that sham sentinel, but you maintain your composure in spite of your sorrow.”
AscendantSun stopped himself from saying that his first kill had already drained his tears. The sentinel’s words echoed again in his thoughts. Greetings from your nameless twin.
25
Of those brave heroes of old,
Alackalas, Witchhammer, and Braer,
Many wondrous tales are retold,
But this lay tells of their true heir.
FROM THE FAIR WAR.
Around the blazing campfire, the Orstretcherists gathered for their evening meal. AscendantSun ladled some stew into his bowl and sat down. PureFaith was recounting some humorous misadventure that had befallen him when he lived in the town of Summerly, but AscendantSun was too distracted to follow it. How could he feel so alone in the midst of his friends? He forced a smile as they laughed around him. He scooped up a spoonful of stew, stared at it in the hope of inspiring his appetite, then poured it back into the bowl.
NeverFear sat down beside him. “Are you not hungry?” Since the Battle of the Crooked Stair, he often enquired how Asc
endantSun was feeling. AscendantSun sometimes caught NeverFear watching him. Obviously, he was aware that AscendantSun’s temperament had turned more withdrawn and melancholic. No doubt, he ascribed it to the battle.
Greetings from your nameless twin. Did that riddle have an answer, or was it merely a ruse to distract him at a vital moment in his duel with the sentinel?
“How was your meeting with Garscap?” NeverFear asked.
“Fine,” AscendantSun said, stirring the contents of his bowl. He wasn’t in the mood for small talk.
“Any word of Evram Erath?”
AscendantSun shook his head. “They’re still looking.”
“Will we be getting any more pupils?”
AscendantSun put down his bowl by his feet. “In the next couple of weeks, we are going to be inundated with them. We may have to train two or three villages at a time. Every politician is pleading for his village to be given priority.”
“Great,” NeverFear said. His raised eyebrows made AscendantSun smile.
“Oh, one other thing,” AscendantSun said. “I asked Garscap to appoint Grael as his proxy on all matters related to our alliance.” AscendantSun had done more than ask. He had insisted.
NeverFear’s frown impelled him to ask, “Must every decision, no matter how inconsequential, be put to a vote?”
“No,” NeverFear said, shaking his head. “I’m merely surprised you saw the need for one.”
AscendantSun shrugged. “Garscap is a busy man these days. I don’t see the point of bothering him with daily minutiae.” It was a less than subtle warning to Garscap. If any harm came to Grael, the politician would answer for it to AscendantSun.
Demands for silence relieved AscendantSun of the necessity to speak further. TrueFriend put his flute to his lips and started to play. The sickly sweet tune was familiar, though AscendantSun couldn’t remember its name.
A Bright Power Rising Page 36