by RG Long
Yet the goblins did not relent.
Madam Wishter nodded at her fellow Speakers.
"We must give them time to evacuate the castle," she said in a matter of fact tone. "A shield must be raised and kept until the last of them have fled."
It took only a moment for Teresa to realize what she was suggesting.
"But then you'll..."
"Die?" finished Madam Wishter. "Of course. We all will die. Even the elven race must taste death, though it takes them a considerably longer time to get there than us. But die we must. I would rather give my life so that others might live than to wither away on a bed with no strength left in my bones."
Benton stood with his mouth slightly open. Teresa could feel her face getting hotter.
"You wouldn't have had to do this if I had been wiser and listened to your instruction," Teresa said softly.
"And I wouldn't have broken my arm if I had listened to my own mother and not climbed a giant oak tree when we went out on a picnic," Wishter replied, dismissively. "We would all choose differently if given a second chance to avoid tragedy and pain. But we aren't given that luxury. So we'll use what we learn in pain and tragedy to make better choices the next time. This is my choice."
She turned to her Speakers.
"I don't ask you to do this with me," she said. "But the more of us there are, the stronger a shield we can make for a longer time. I don't think you'll need to worry about retirement from the school if you're with me."
Two old Speakers, looking nearly as aged as Wishter, nodded and stood by her side.
The third hesitated.
Madam Wishter spoke after a moment.
"You haven't lived enough summers to truly understand what laying down your life might mean at this point, Elyn."
The young Speaker wrung her hands. She was a plain looking woman, no older than Teresa. Perhaps even a bit younger. Her brown hair was tucked into a messy bun on top of her head and several smudges of ash covered her face. She was not beautiful, but in her face Teresa could see a kindness she hadn't seen in people for a long time. Not since her father died.
"It's not that," Elyn said in a small voice, looking up to meet Wishter's gaze. "I want to help and know it'll mean I'll be killed. I just don't know if I'm as able as you."
A smile appeared on Wishter's face and she patted Elyn's shoulder.
"You are more able than you realize," she said. "But I don't make this decision for you. It must be your own, Elyn. Don't lay your life down on my account. Go with them into the mountains. I dare say they'll need a Speaker or two with them on the other side."
Teresa nodded in agreement and pointed back towards the castle entrance.
"We could use someone who could light our way," she said.
Elyn nodded and hurried into the castle.
Benton was still looking around at the Speakers in awe.
"Yes?" Madam Wishter said to the stunned dwarf.
He cleared his throat and looked around a bit awkwardly.
"Bah," he finally said. "Excuse me, miss. I've got to ask your forgiveness."
Madam Wishter raised an eyebrow at him. Teresa wondered what he was getting at.
"Benton?"
"It's nothing," he said, waving his hand and bowing his head a bit. "But I've always thought that Speakers were a soft sort. Casting spells from behind more able bodied soldiers. You've shown me today that you've got a strength in you I hadn't taken into account."
Madam Wishter returned his bow.
"Apology accepted," she said, knocking her staff on the ground. "Come on, princess. We haven't much more time for chat."
The three Speakers trotted off towards the gate, Teresa and Benton following behind.
"Have you known many Speakers?" she asked the dwarf, curious about where his ideas of them came from.
"A few," he replied shortly. "But there's one I need to talk to as soon as I can. I think they've emptied out the magic school and sent them into the tunnels, right?"
Teresa told him that they had made sure children were taken before the older and he heaved a great sigh of relief.
"I need to apologize to him, then," Benton said absentmindedly as they neared the wall. Teresa was about to signal the retreat into the castle, but stopped for a moment and considered Benton's words.
"To whom?" she asked, curiously.
Madam Wishter and her two fellow Speakers were beginning to chant their words of magic and energy filled the air. The door that guarded everyone from the horde that was just beyond the wall began to splinter, even as more soldiers piled onto it. Some monsters had come over the wall and were fighting the defenders above. Goblins would soon pour in and overrun the castle lawn as soon as the retreat was sounded.
"To my son," Benton sighed, hoisting his hammer and planting his feet, ready to defend Teresa if needed. "He's a Speaker in training at the school up there."
He motioned to the large tower that housed the Speakers’ school.
"What's his name? Teresa asked as the hairs on the back of her neck stood up from the energy that flowed around her. She could feel the magical barrier beginning to form and knew the time to sound the call to retreat had come.
Soldiers began fleeing from the walls and gates, running for their lives into the castle and into the protective shield that was being raised even as they fled. Over the chaos that occurred right after she had given the command, Teresa heard Benton's reply and purposed to remember the name and find the young dwarf if his father fell in battle and was unable to deliver the message himself.
"Bah. Jeremy is his name," Benton spoke as if he regretted most of the words he had ever said to his son. “I haven't seen him in a year."
28: Dwarf and Elf
The army of the Southern Republic was crashing against the walls of Beaton, shaking the very foundation of the ground beneath it. Catapults hurled rock and stone at defenders above who had gathered to attempt to repel the tide of human bodies below. Siege towers inched closer and closer to the wall, carrying hundreds of men each. With each passing moment, these great towers came closer to releasing their wooden bridges that would make the pathway onto the great wall of the Glorious City clear.
Men shouted as they wielded spear and bow and sword. A sea of green and white banners flew in the chilly winds, though the noon suns did their best to warm the battle for the fighters below. The huge gates of iron and wood that protected the citizens of Beaton from the army that stood just outside shook as a giant battering ram was thrust towards it. No less than fifty men swung the solid pole in an effort to bring down the gates and let in their soldiers.
Jeremy and Abigail were far away from all of that. While most of the action was happening at the front of the lines, the troops would need to eat later.
They were prepping food for when the front-line would retire and switch with those in reserve right now. An army needed to be fed, even when they were in active battle. Jeremy and Abigail had been assigned to a food cart that was preparing bread. Speakers were rushing here and there, heating stones that were placed into iron ovens on the back of the carts. These ovens had been burning all morning, even long before they had been ushered out with the other children who had been deemed too young to fight or, in their case, too important to be allowed to die.
“I doubt our existence will be allowed to continue long after this battle, whether it is lost or won,” Jeremy said as he mixed dough in a large wooden bowl. A Speaker came over and smacked him over the head with a stick.
“Less talking, dwarf,” he said before moving along to another cart to see what was being done there.
Jeremy strained not to talk back or show anger. Any outburst from him, he knew, would only have one result.
He had become used to harsh treatment, despite being protected by Blume. She had made Androlion promise that they would live and, as he had found out in the last few weeks of his life, there was a distinct difference between surviving and thriving. It was a small miracle that they had survive
d at all.
“I wouldn't say things like that, Jeremy,” Abigail said in a low voice after she had ensured that any Southern Republic soldiers or Speakers were out of earshot. “We've come this far, haven't we? I mean, I thought that orphanage was bad, but then we ended up in those dreadful carts and then onto the boats after that...”
“Yes, Abi,” Jeremy cut across her. If allowed to speak freely, he doubted the best friend he had made since entering the Magic School of Thoran would ever stop. “But what type of future is there for a dwarf and an elf in a completely human society?”
She didn't answer, but instead put several large rounds of dough into metal dishes before shoving them all into an oven.
Jeremy took advantage of the silence. Covered in flour, sweat drenching his forehead and the smell of baking bread all around, he got as close to Abigail as he could without looking suspicious.
“Have you given any consideration to escaping?” he asked in a hush tone. “We almost got away from the orphanage. We could attempt a similar maneuver.”
He saw Abigail's expression turn sad.
“Not without Blume,” she said.
Jeremy knew that whenever Abigail spoke plainly, she spoke with a purpose that he could do little to change or challenge.
Still, he had to try.
“Blume doesn't need to escape from the dangers that surround us,” he argued. “She's safe and will continue to be so as long as Androlion can't find someone else to Speak to her necklace.”
“And what if he does?” Abigail shot back. “What if someone comes along who can use the necklace like she can? What will happen to her? Would you be willing to leave her and let her get herself into trouble without anyone to help her get out of it?”
Jeremy had been right not to question Abigail's determination.
“She's not trying to be useful to him,” Abigail continued, now aggressively pulling new pans out of a box and setting them loudly down in front of her. “She's only doing this to protect us, you know? I don't think you're being very grateful, thinking about running away while she risks her life to save us.”
“Alright, Abi,” Jeremy said, adding several cups of flour and water to his mixture, following a scribbled set of instructions he had been given. He was irritated. He didn't want to do the bidding of the people who were responsible for the genocide he had heard about. Jeremy wanted, more than anything else, to return back to Thoran and continue his studies of Rimstone.
He was a Speaker. Not a baker. Not a shipmate. Not an orphan, or even an innkeeper's book manager, though he had pretended to be all of those things recently.
Jeremy wanted to go home. He missed his books and the routine of the classroom. He'd do almost anything if it meant getting back to Thoran and to how things were. The School was his home. And Jeremy was not only mad at his circumstances, he was homesick.
“And I don't think you're giving Blume enough credit,” Abigail continued, reading Jeremy's frustration perfectly as he beat the dough more than kneaded it.
“For what? Transporting us into enemy territory and ensuring that every waking moment of ours is a living nightmare?” Jeremy near shouted, attracting a distant shout of “Stop yammering and get working!”
Abigail looked back in the direction of the one doing the shouting. She lowered her voice and replied.
“No,” she said, visibly upset. “For everything else. Think about the inn we worked at, and Miss Greer's, and even right now. An elf and a dwarf actually being spared, even though we're surrounded by people who hate us. We'd be dead if it weren't for her.”
A distant crash brought both of their attention off of their quarrel and back to the front lines. Great dust clouds billowed and a cheer rose up from the soldiers dressed in green. It appeared that a large section of wall had just crumbled. The portion that remained was only as tall as two men on top of one another.
“I hope Blume's okay,” Abigail said under her breath, going back to her task. “We do owe her greatly.”
Jeremy began kneading the dough again, just as forcefully as before. He wanted to point out that they would probably be just fine and in school at that very moment if it weren't for Blume, but he also didn't want to give Abigail anymore reason to be mad at him.
He had no idea how wrong he was.
29: A Daughter's Revenge
"I. Hate. Undead. Elves!" Tory shouted as he hacked away at another lifeless corpse that had shambled towards him. He, Holve, Lote and the entire army of Shiv, were attempting to fight their way through the shambling remains of long forgotten elves brought back to life to fight once more.
Tory wished that once the things lost an arm or even their head that they would lay down dead like any other thing he'd ever fought. But these monsters were different.
It seemed that no matter how many times he cut, sliced, or stabbed the slow walking former elves, they continued to harass him.
"I told you," shouted Holve from atop his mount as he led a group of two hundred or so elves in a charge through a particularly large group of undead. "Don't waste your time on them!"
Easier said than done, Tory thought bitterly.
"Follow them!" he shouted at his own elk, hoping that it would at least follow his kindred and not lead him astray as it had so far this battle.
Lote was shooting arrow after precious arrow at the undead that got too close, preferring instead to use her missiles for the elves who stood upon the high ledge overlooking the undead horde. It was from this high vantage point that her father, Paterus, was animating the corpses. It was the same place the army of Shiv was struggling to take. Tory realized the potential problem in this.
"Won't we just add to the undead if we kill them in our advance?" he shouted as his mount gracefully leapt over the bodies of several lifeless soldiers.
"Our own will turn on us as well if they fall," Lote replied coolly, loosing another arrow in the direction of her father and his guardians. It deflected off of a magical shield harmlessly.
Tory swore.
"So no one has thought charging mindlessly into this mess might be a poor decision?" he complained as he swiped over his left side at two pairs of grasping arms. The two hundred elves, plus Tory, drove deep into the shambling masses, generally causing confusion. Turning to look behind him, with one hand on his sword and the other clutching onto his mount, Tory saw that some of the undead were now turning to walk towards them instead of the rest of the army.
They were alone.
"Um," he said, realizing their situation was going to look very grim very soon. "Should we be concerned that we're completely surrounded?"
Holve answered by kicking away one soldier from his mount and chopping the head off another before giving a high-pitched whistle. The signal echoed throughout the battlefield and was answered immediately by the battle cries of two large groups of Shivian elves.
They had divided their ranks and were now fighting their way up to the Yule elves and Paterus. Both the undead and the living army of Yule were unprepared for the flanking maneuver, having been preoccupied with the fight right in front of them. The shining armored elves with their blue banners flying turned to face the new threat on either side of them.
Tory nodded.
"Well done!" he said triumphantly. Then he yelped as a rotting hand grabbed his leg.
"Yah!" he let out and kicked hard.
His mount was not too keen on being treated so, and turned around with a kick of its own. Sending the former owner of the arm flying. Tory was still trying to detach the hand from his leg as well as not fall off the mount.
Today still wasn't going very well, at least in his opinion. Finally freeing his leg from the hand, he wheeled around and saw that, though the living army of Yule was turned to face the new threat of being charged on two sides, the undead army seemed quite content to stalk its current prey.
"Wait a second!" Tory shouted. "What are we supposed to do!?"
Lote shot her last arrow and drew out two elvish blades.
"Some Sword of the King you are," she shouted, hacking away at the nearest undead. "We fight our way back out!"
"Some strategy," Tory said, facing the oncoming soldiers and wishing he were, instead, a part of the group above him.
THE FIGHTING CONTINUED on for the next three hours. Tory lost count of how many times he had found himself entangled in a mess of groping hands and disembodied limbs before being cut free by either Lote or Holve. Every soldier they lost fell dead, only to get back to his or her feet, a freakish blue glow filling their eyes and their weapons now turned on their former comrades. And still, above the massive cave that the dead kept filing out of, Paterus' magic issued forth from his hands in a snakelike blue aura that trailed from above to the carnage below.
It was a messy business.
Tory ached in his shoulders and hands. The cold air bit into him, though he was drenched with sweat. His knuckles stung and it felt like he may never let go of the sword's hilt again as his hands seemed frozen to it. Even his mount seemed to be growing weary from kicking and biting and goring whatever came close enough to be a threat. At the very least, Tory had learned to appreciate the great beast more than he had when they first rode here.
If this continued on into the evening, there would be little hope for the riders who had tried to distract the legions of undead. That part of the plan had worked too well.
“We can't keep this up, Holve!” Tory shouted over to his general, throwing off a particularly persistent grasping hand. “We'll have to break back through!”
“No good!” Holve replied, dealing with his own batch of soldiers. “There are more behind than ahead!”
Tory looked back to see that he was right. They had driven so far in, that it would be easier to fight towards the cave than to retreat to where they had come from.
“Holve!” Lote yelled, as if a sudden idea had sprung to mind. “The cave!”