“Yes. We are going straight to their church, or whatever it is, they have built. Protect our clerics, Forth Carso could you assign people to deal with that?”
He nodded.
“Okay, our man Allston here will lead us to our target. Let me make this clear: Kill everyone. No one is to survive. If you see an altar, destroy it. Do not hesitate to set fire to the temple if at any time it seems like we will be rebuffed. Those of you, who know what wardstones are, if you see a spot that has one, dig it up and destroy it as well.
“This is a full on assault, this is for our God. Feliogustus is with us, and commands that we destroy these vile followers of Tantrus.”
I heard a lot of growls when I said that.
“I suspect they will be expecting us, I have no idea what their numbers will be like, but only hope that they are small due to their need to be discrete. However,” I said raising my voice slightly and casting a cantrip to give my words more power, “understand that we have Feliogustus with us, and that we are fighting for our homes, and our families. We know what Barassa and Tantrus would do to wives, our families, our friends and neighbors should they come here. We will not allow them to come here; we will not allow them to stay! We will pay them back for what they have done here, to us, to our clergy, and to our God!
“And we will pay them back in blood!”
“Are you with me?” I yelled.
They cheered.
“For Feliogustus! For Hiland!” I yelled raising a sword.
“For Feliogustus! For Hiland! “ They all roared in response.
“Then let us be off!” I turned to Allston, “Take us there, run!”
He nodded and ran off and we followed, it was dark, the sun had set hours ago. Many of the men in the host were carrying torches. I hoped we didn’t burn down the whole of the city, but I knew we might very well burn down a decent part of it. But there would be no help for it; we had to get them now, before they had any more time to prepare.
The trip took us fifteen minutes, the part of town we were looking for was not close, and once we got into it, the area was a maze of hovels and run down buildings. People came out to look at us as we ran by. About a hundred of the men were the heavy foot I was familiar with from my last battle, I had ordered them to bring up the rear and catch their breath before they engaged. I knew if they showed up exhausted, they wouldn’t be worth much in the fight.
The rest of the group was lightly armored, so for them it wasn’t that hard of a jog. I’d told Second Corso to put the archers in the middle, and have them find cover before getting involved in the fight. I also told him that I expected this to be a very nasty battle.
When we came to it, it wasn’t a very large building; the others around it were set back maybe twenty feet or so from it. It looked run down, and was hard to distinguish from most of the others, but I could feel what it was before I even crossed the boundary behind it.
I felt Fel’s power imbue me then, I know I suddenly glowed with his aura and I could feel the men surge forward with me as I charged.
“Attack!” I yelled, kicking in the front door and running inside.
There were a dozen men in the hallway, I didn’t hesitate to cut several of them down using my enhanced strength and speed, and with the help of the soldiers to either side of me, we pushed into the main room of the church.
I could see the altar; it was surrounded by a row of men three deep, all heavily armed. And in the front of them, right across from me was Tantrus’ Champion, with Tantrus’ device displayed on his armor, just as Fel’s was upon mine.
He opened his mouth to say something, probably to make some inspiring speech, or attempt to influence my men. I didn’t care either way, I was here to fight and I attacked him immediately, not giving him the chance to talk.
I went at him right handed; he was fighting with a sword and shield, which wasn’t all that surprising. It didn’t take me long to figure out who he was either, it was Benjiman, the champion who had accosted me in Hillshire so many years ago.
“I’ll have you this time!” He swore at me, trying to bash me with his shield, but not moving too far away from the wall of men around him.
“Torches!” I yelled, figuring I might as well make it interesting.
“Hah! Good luck with that William!” he growled and tried a feint that might have worked if I hadn’t fallen for it the last time I’d fought Cenewyg. I took a step to the left then and switching to a left-handed attack I was able to behead one of the men fighting besides him. Benjiman swore and closed with me, and I backed away, hacking the head off yet another man.
When he turned and killed one of mine, I killed two more of his. “My supply is unlimited, how about yours Benji?” I said laughing at him.
Swearing again, he came after me, as I dropped two more. We were to the left side of the room at this point, and with him out of the center my men were pouring in, what surprised me was when several of them started attacking the wall on the right end of the building. But I had no time to pay attention to that as Benjiman pressed his attack and several of his men in the room helped him. At that point, I was fighting for my life.
I got stabbed several times over the next several minutes as I let myself be backed into a corner. Benjiman was laughing at me, but it limited the attackers to just him and gave me the chance to heal myself. I could also see what happened when the wall on the other side of the room suddenly gave way and the men all ducked down low.
The archers.
A large flight of arrows entered the room, pegging about half of the men still standing, they were sprouting arrows from their bodies a half dozen at a time. I could see the priests behind the altar being burdened down with healing spells, especially as several of their own got skewered as well.
My men stood up then and started to hack at the ones who were down with arrows sticking out of them, taking their heads off before they could be healed. I heard a loud whistle then and they all ducked again.
Unfortunately for me I couldn’t duck and I took an arrow in my left arm, pinning it momentarily to the wall, giving Benjiman the opportunity to stab me in the shoulder with his sword.
Swearing loudly I had to reach across my body and pull the arrow out, so I could move as he withdrew his sword and smashed me with his shield in the head. The only thing that saved me was he suddenly got hit by several arrows, and had to pause to heal himself.
I knew however, he had unlimited healing powers while mine were limited. So I lunged forward snapping my jaws at his face, like I had last time when I bit his nose off. He flinched, ducking back and I got inside his shield, running him through with my right hand sword I grabbed his hair with my left and yanking it down I got his throat in my jaws.
My felinoid jaws were a lot bigger than my human ones and I was able to rip his throat out, which he healed, which I then ripped out again, and again. After the third time I could tell I was making progress, not that I could see anything as my face was covered in blood at this point.
I think the others realized then that their Champion was in trouble, as I got stabbed several times, but we were so close I could tell they hit him almost as many times as they hit me. On my eight or ninth attempt I noticed he had stopped healing himself, and pulling my sword out of his body I pulled back and hacked his head off.
The effect on the other soldiers on my side was impressive; they all suddenly rallied and started fighting twice as hard. The enemy fighters were slowly starting to give ground now and I noticed there were only three priests left behind the altar.
Looking around the floor I saw a torch laying there, it was barely burning; something about the priest’s magic was hindering it. When I picked it up however it flared to life, twice as bright as before.
“Feliogustus!” I cried out and charged the altar, waving the lit torch in the faces of the priests as I brought my sword down as hard as I could on the altar, a shock going up my arm that was pure pain as I did so.
“Feliogustus!”
I cried again and repeated my stroke, the pain was even stronger the second time, but I could feel the wood beneath the blade start to give, but I needed something heavier. Looking to my right I saw a man with an axe and dropping my blade I grabbed the haft from him, surprising him, but he quickly let go and stepped back.
Three more times I shouted out the name of my God as I struck the altar, and on the third strike it broke, a sound like a thunderclap echoing through the room. Tossing the brand aside, I pulled up the axe to attack the remaining two clerics, but both of them suddenly dropped under a hail of arrows, their magic exhausted.
I looked around the room, exhausted, bloody, and bleeding. The enemy was dropping like flies, as the heavies had entered the room while I was attacking the altar and were dealing out punishing blows while letting their armor deflect the quickly weakening attacks of the remaining forces.
“For Feliogustus!” I cried, “For Hiland!” and the men cheered as we cut the last of them down.
And then I did exactly what Fel told me would desecrate what was left of the altar. And nearly every other fighter in the room took a turn as well as we hauled out our dead, and our wounded.
I went and found the healers, I was completely out of magic myself at this point, and I had a few bad wounds that needed bandaging at the very least. I told them to save their magic for my men, and went to find a place to sit, with my back propped up against a wall. Second Carso found me there a little while later, sporting several bandages of his own.
“How many did we lose?” I asked as he sat down besides me.
“Sixty three dead, one hundred and twelve wounded.”
I nodded, “How many of them were there?”
“Thirty two, plus six priests and one champion.”
I nodded, “I’m surprised that they sent their champion.”
Second Carso nodded, “So am I. Good thing you were here, or we would have lost five times as many men.”
“Yeah, but they still would have lost. All they did was incite the people more to hate Barassa, give us stronger support. Once they knew we were on to them, they should have just hightailed it out of here.”
“At least we won,” Carso said.
I nodded agreeing with him. “At least we won.”
“So now what?”
“Send someone for Jezza, or whoever is in charge of building around here, borrow one of the priests, and look for the wardstones, dig them up, break ‘em, and destroy them.”
He nodded. “I’ll keep a couple hundred men here until that’s done.”
“Good,” I noticed the healers were about done, and were starting to gather up their stuff. “Excuse me; I have to go do the Champion thing.”
He nodded, “I need to get the men ordered.” And got up as well.
“Yes Champion?” One of the priests asked I walked up to him.
“If everyone is taken care of, I could use some healing now.”
He looked a little embarrassed, “I’m sorry, but we’ve used up all our spells.”
“That’s okay; I’ll follow you back to your temple. The High Priestess can help me.”
“But, but that’s not allowed Sir Champion!”
I smiled, “It’s Will, and I’ve already been there once if you recall.”
He looked down a moment, ears splayed, tail curled.
“Yes Sir Will.”
“It’s just Will. Now how about giving me a hand here? I’m tired and I hurt.”
“Yes Will,” he said and led me off to their temple.
Which was a good thing, because I never would have found it by myself.
“I was wondering how long you would stay away,” Felecia said as I stumbled into the temple.
“Yeah well, I figured they’d be busy back at Fel’s place, so I though I’d come here where there wouldn’t be any wait.” I said with my best smile.
“Uh-huh, sure you did.”
“You know, I really am in a great deal of pain here.”
“And that’s my concern, why?” she said smiling back.
“Because I’m leaving blood stains all over your nice clean temple, which I’d like to see more of before I call it a night.”
She gave a very theatrical sigh, “Oh, alright.” And came over and healed me.
“So why are you here?” I asked as she finished with the last of my wounds. “I’m fairly certain that this is not your main temple.” I was looking around, and what was inside what looked like a simple barn was a very nice church, it was actually bigger than a church, definitely a small temple. If they tore down the outside walls, this could easily be rebuilt into a rather large temple.
“Fordessa is concerned about our temple in Marland, Tantrus’s people have been taking bolder steps against it, I came here to look into possibly relocating it. We had no idea that Feliogustus was planning on building a temple here as well. So of course I stayed to observe.”
I nodded, “I’d like to meet your Goddess sometime, if I could.”
“And why would you want to do that?” A pleasant sounding voice said inside my head.
“Because I have a thing for music mostly,” I replied out loud. “You probably know I’m not from Saladin, heck I think all of the Gods probably know where I’m from at this point. And I’m intrigued by the idea of a Goddess of music. Not sure how well that will work here in the long run however.”
“Oh? Why would you say that?” She said sounding rather curious.
“From what I’ve seen so far of this world, culture isn’t exactly high on the list of a lot of Kingdoms. Yeah, a thousand years from now you’ll probably be in a nice spot, but right now?” I shook my head, “Course I’m not a God, or a Goddess, so I don’t know all the rules of the game.”
I heard her laugh in my head, “I see you are a crafty one, and your God Feliogustus is even more so.”
“Well he was a pub owner you know.”
“Oh trust me, I know. As a performer I’m rather familiar with the type.”
“Umm, is that a good thing or a bad thing?” I asked trying not to blush myself, because I was a pub owner as well these days.
“Felecia and two dozen of my people will accompany you when you head home in two days.”
“Fordessa, what?” Felecia said looking surprised.
“Feliogustus wishes to discuss an arrangement. An idea I find most intriguing. It will require you to meet with his High Priestess to discuss. Do not fear, you will be safe.”
She bowed and I bowed towards when the altar was.
“Thank you Fordessa,” I said to her when I straightened up. “I honestly hope we will all be able to cooperate.”
“I know you do William. You are dismissed.”
I bowed again, and then bowed to Felecia. “I will see you again when it is time to leave.”
She smiled and gave me a nod of her head and I went back to the temple.
Then of course, I got totally lost trying to find my way in that maze of alleyways until Fel started sending me hot and cold signals to help me.
Ten
(Saladin – Tradeson / Hiland)
When I awoke the next morning, I was surprised to find that Kyle, the man who had been my guide when I had first come here was looking for me.
“Ah William!” he said as I met him outside of the temple. “Good to see you. Sorry to hear about what happened here, but I have news I believe you might be interested in.”
I flicked an ear, “And that would be?”
“A small band of tribesmen have come out of the grasslands to trade. You had said you wanted to meet with some of them, so I thought I would offer to take you over there.”
I smiled, “Ah yes, I’m very much interested. Let me just check on my men and I’ll be with you in a moment.”
I went back inside and made sure everyone knew what I wanted them to do, and checked with Kayryn to be sure everything was fine, then grabbing my weapons harness I went off with Kyle.
“How big a group is it?” I asked curious as we
walked across town.
“Not very, about a dozen. We often get small groups coming in to trade on small lots of stuff, skins, baskets, some foodstuffs. Things that they catch, grow, or gather out on the plains.”
“What do they want?”
“Mostly weapons and metal implements.”
I nodded; bronze weapons were mostly the rule here, though I did have an incredibly rare high quality steel sword. Iron had only recently been discovered, poor quality iron and steel swords were slowly starting to filter in from the east via our merchant fleet and the local smiths were still learning how to extract it and work with it.
“What kinds of weapons do they favor?”
“They like to use spears mostly.”
“Spears?” I said curious. “On the plains?”
“Well they ride these animals called wolats, and they take game by charging it, and spearing it as they go by.”
I looked at him shocked, “They charge the game?”
He nodded and laughed, “I know, sounds suicidal, doesn’t it?”
“Just how fast are these wolats?”
“Oh, about as fast as a suzhen.”
“Does anyone around here sell them?”
“What, wolats?”
I nodded.
“No, we really don’t have any need for them. They can’t pull farming gear like an ox; the wooden yokes don’t work well with them.”
I nodded, horses had the same problem, but someone I recalled had solved that back home. I increased my pace, and Kyle sped up as well.
When we got there, I saw the tribesmen. There were a dozen of them, all male. Their outfits were rather simple, though they all wore headdresses not much different from what I recalled of American Indians. Then again, on a plain with tall grass, that would make it easier to locate your fellow tribesman and identify who you were looking at as the headdresses while simple, held unique combinations of feathers of varying colors that looked like dye as we got closer.
They were discussing trade with one of the merchants when we approached. I waited until there was a pause in the discussion, and then turned to the one doing the dealing.
Portals of Infinity: Book Three: Of Temples and Trials Page 12