Neutral Parties

by Christopher J Taylor

  Throughout the day, she had encountered rioters intent on reaching the governor, looters taking advantage of the chaos, and guards trying to arrest everyone. Mixed in with these were people who wanted nothing more than to escape unharmed. These were the people Sarafina had been escorting to the abandoned city gate. Most of the looters avoided her charges when it was clear they were protected. The few who strayed from looting to banditry quickly discovered Sarafina’s lack of mercy for bullies. She hadn’t had to kill many. Most of the rioters were in the northern neighborhoods of the city, but a few chased beleaguered and outnumbered guards wherever they were in the city. She’d had to kill a few who had mistaken her for a guard and refused to believe her declarations otherwise.

  What bothered Sarafina more than the looters or rioters were the city guards. She had not encountered many. Some had joined the looters, but others had tried to arrest her or the people she was escorting. It didn’t matter when she gave her word they were innocents in need of protection. Some had even attacked her. She had tried to hold back but had killed at least two. The guards were supposed to protect and yet were all too willing to prey upon the people most in need.

  Now Sarafina escorted a band of stragglers she believed to be the last. There were seventeen of them, mostly poor or homeless, with nowhere to hide or take shelter. They were elderly or young, save for one able-bodied man who desperately shepherded his family despite injuries from the beating by a guardsman Sarafina had stopped. They were the last she’d been able to find. Anyone left in the city were either hiding behind locked doors or taking part in the chaos. The main gate was ahead with only another hundred yards between her and safety. Then she could rest.

  Here, far from the focus of the riots, the streets were mostly empty. The few looters who remained were by themselves and far more interested in running than fighting. Thankfully, this part of the city had avoided serious fighting and there were no bodies in the street nor any nearby fires. The scent of smoke was inescapable, but there were no heavy clouds to blind and suffocate. Too many places within the walls had not been so lucky.

  They were nearly at the gate when someone ran out of the last cross street near the wall. The man, an elf by the looks of him, glanced to the gate before he turned and saw Sarafina and her group. Before she could shout a warning the elf had an arrow aimed their way. With a start, Sarafina recognized the elf as the fugitive the guards had been chasing earlier. She was amazed he was still moving, let alone running. Whatever the guards claimed, today’s riots were the result of many people, not a single elf.

  The guardian had no way to defend other than try to take the arrow herself. With luck, her shield would stop the shaft, though she doubted it. Elves were good with bows. The shield might slow the shaft, but it would come through and likely pierce her armor if it didn’t hit a plate. Her luck wasn’t good enough to expect this would go well.

  The elf hesitated. She hoped he saw that the people she led were no threat, not worth his attention. He turned to look down the street he’d come from and then turned to make for the gate. The relief was momentary as ten city guards, bloodied and bruised, boiled out into the street in front of her. They were clearly angry, the last of them limping along with an arrow in his thigh. Six of them rushed after the elf, but the remaining four, including the injured one, turned on Sarafina.

  “Rioters!” one of them shouted.

  “No!” she shouted back. “Refugees! We just want to leave the city until things calm down.”

  “Get them!” shouted another. They were too mad with their hunt to see reason. She prayed to Paladar that she could engage all of them.

  “While we fight,” she ordered the refugees, “get around us and run for the gate.”

  “Can you beat four of them?” asked the father.

  “No,” she replied. “I hope to slow them down.”

  She had expected agreement or a protest. These were good people, but none were warriors. They would let her make the stand or try to argue against it. What happened next was beyond any expectation.

  Someone behind her began shouting, “Excuse us! Coming through! Quickly, to the side!”

  Then two people ran past, directly at the guards. One, an orc armed with a heavy axe, let out a terrifying war cry that prompted a scream from the refugees. The other was small, a girl, she realized, with a pair of light blades that flew and parried and struck. In a moment, two of the guards were down, the survivors staggering away. The orc and girl did not give chase. They turned and the girl called out, “Come on! Hurry up!”

  Sarafina turned to look behind her and nearly ran into an old man panting and gasping as he ran. “Sorry, just coming through. The gate is that way,” he said as he pointed. Behind him, a young man carrying a stuffed burlap sack was herding her charges toward the gate.

  “Uh, hello, sir” he said as he got closer. “You’ll want to keep going before the cows get here.”

  “Cows?” Sarafina asked.

  “It’s a long story and we don’t have time,” he replied. “Just run!”

  Behind him, she saw a bull run out of a side street and turn toward the gate. The animal’s hooves couldn’t keep their grip on the cobblestone street and it skidded and tumbled into a store front. Another bull followed it. Then another and another. Sarafina turned, scooped up a child who had fallen behind, and ran for the gate, thoughts of pain and exhaustion replaced by fear.

  The military camp was well ordered. There were four squares of tents, each one four rows and four columns, each square meeting two others at a corner so that the camp formed a cross. Each tent housed two men, exactly one hundred; there were soldiers plus a score of cooks, wagon drivers, and others who served the small army. At the corners of the camp, a kitchen, corral, latrine and yard for parked wagons turned the cross into a square. A single large pavilion filled the center of the square, the clean while canvass of the tent decorated by the rampant lion of the Calivan empire in gold and purple, colors permitted only to members of the imperial family. Crown Prince Dairoth Veltarion, heir to the imperial throne, should have been pleased that his men had build a textbook perfect camp in the hours since they had stopped for the night. In truth, Prince Dairoth was annoyed. He and his adviser, Captain Perth, stood over a table in the pavilion that held maps of the area.

  “Captain Perth,” Dairoth said. “I tire of running about the edges of the empire after some phantom enemy.”

  “If I may say, this doesn’t seem to be a strategically sound set of maneuvers,” the Captain replied. He had not waited to see if he had permission to speak. He never did, nor did he ever refrain from speaking frankly. Dairoth found it refreshing and, since the Captain avoided improprieties in front of the men, he allowed it.

  “It’s not,” Dairoth agreed. “If there is a threat to the empire, as father claims, we should be preparing a concerted defense, not scattering detachments across half the empire.”

  “I’m sure his Imperial Highness has his reasons,” the Captain replied carefully.

  “He hasn’t shared them with me,” Dairoth said. “This time, I’m stuck following orders as much as you are.”

  “I believe the orders specified groups no more than forty strong,” said Perth.

  “Yes, well maybe I’m not following the entirety of my orders,” admitted Dairoth, “but as crown prince, I have the right to see to my own protection. If that gives me the freedom to keep a functioning fighting force together so be it. I’ve never heard of this Bartleby before, but if his minions are gathering to do the empire harm, we’ll need to be able to offer more than a company of men to stop them.”

  “You believe the threat is real?” Perth asked.

  “Father does,” said Dairoth. “I’m not sure, but if there is a chance it’s real, my duty is to find it.”

  “You think we will find it here?” asked Perth, studying the map.

  The area on the map was a wide basin between two mountain ranges. To the north, it narrowed to a pass that led to steppes
and barrens inhabited by tribes of human and orcish barbarians. The sides of the pass were easily scalable and armies moving through the pass with an enemy above them would suffer terrible losses. When the empire had expanded into the north a century ago, the barbarians had boiled through the pass before imperial troops could gain that advantage. The basin had become a battlefield that remained contested for weeks. Two legions had taken enough casualties that they’d been disbanded, survivors reassigned to fill gaps in those that remained. For every imperial soldier slain, two barbarians had fallen. Legend said the floor of the basin was so full of corpses that it was a full foot higher than it had once been. Old wives tales claimed fields still bled crimson in heavy rain.

  Since the imperial victory, remnants of the barbarian tribes had braved the pass three more times. Each time, their armies had swept through the pass, which was now controlled and fortified by the empire, and suffered crushing losses. The survivors of the charge met the empire’s legions here. No barbarian ever escaped the pass in retreat.

  “If they come from the north, they will come this way,” said Dairoth.

  Conversation was interrupted by the sound of shouting from outside. A moment later, a soldier came into the pavilion and saluted.

  “What’s the trouble?” asked Captain Perth.

  “Sir, sire, there’s a fog.” The young man was clearly unsure who he should address. The man’s sergeant would need to correct that lack of propriety.

  “A fog,” asked Dairoth. “And this warrants what sounds like fear from imperial soldiers?”

  “It comes from the north, and something glows from within,” said the soldier.

  “Have the lieutenants ready the men,” ordered Perth.

  “Yes Captain!” He saluted and left the tent.

  “You think they command a fog?” asked Dairoth.

  “I think fog in this places would come from the mountains to the east or west, or it would rise from the south,” he replied.

  “I agree,” Dairoth replied.

  With time short, Perth helped Dairoth into his plate armor and the two officers left the tent. Dusk had faded some time ago, but there was no way to miss the bank of fog that seemed to ooze toward the camp from the north. As the young soldier had said, there were green lights that lit the fog from within, like smoke above a fire. Other officers were still shouting orders to arrange the men in a line between the camp and the fog. By the time Captain and Crown Prince arrived, they were all in place. The line was thirty men wide. The first rank contained men with large shields and short swords. They knelt and overlapped their shields, forming a wall behind which the second rank held long spears, points extending forward to give the wall teeth. These men could receive a charge of cavalry, stopping its advance and killing most of the attackers. In the chaos, the third rank, encased in heavy armor and armed with axes and shields, would step through the front line to fall upon any survivors. The remaining men of Dairoth’s command were archers and officers. Most of his archers and all of his cavalry and scouts were scattered elsewhere in the hunt for invaders.

  “Launch a volley,” Dairoth ordered. There was no sign that the fog was inhabited, but he would not let an enemy approach his line uncontested. With a word, a dozen bows thrummed and twelve arrows arched over the line of imperial soldiers, descending into the fog with no visible effect.

  “Another?” asked Perth.

  “Continue,” Dairoth said, “but stop when they get close. Let’s not hit our own line.”

  “Of course,” said Perth.

  The archers loosed flight after flight. Dairoth began to wonder if they might be firing at phantoms. If any arrow struck an enemy, there were no answering cries of pain or dismay. In moments, the fog swept over the imperial soldiers and he could no longer see the men on the flanks. The archers had stopped firing and there was nothing but silence. Ahead, the dim, green glowing lights still moved closer. Dairoth thought he heard a sound, but it made no sense.

  “My lord,” said Captain Perth. “Is that the creaking of branches in the wind?”

  “There’s neither trees, nor wind here,” replied Dairoth, “though I thought the same.”

  Then men began to scream near the ends of the line.

  “Hold the line!” shouted Perth.

  Two of the green lights emerged from the fog. They were the eyes of a horror. The creature wore ancient armor that was torn and sundered in half a dozen places. Worm-eaten cloth barely covered rusty chain that was pierced by two new arrows. The helm was gashed and the skull within showed a matching gash. Glowing green eyes peered out of the skull. The skeletal warrior raised bony arms with tatters of withered flesh hanging down in strings. It held a rusty, gouged battled axe and it swung down on the nearest imperial shield with enough force to knock its owner to the ground. More horrors emerged from the fog; some had been human, some orcish, some still bore the imperial crest on the battered and weathered shield. Dairoth realized that his men were frozen by fear.

  “Attack!” Dairoth roared. “Defend the empire!”

  His men may have been scared, the scent of warm urine filling the air, but they obeyed the order and sprang to action. Across the line, his men fought back. Swords and axes chopped the fleshless horrors into shards of shattered bone, but there was a cost. These enemies had to be smashed to pieces to stop them, but a single sword thrust or axe cut was enough to fell an imperial. It was clear this battle was lost.

  “Captain Perth!” Dairoth shouted. “To me!”

  He could see the man fighting to defend a fallen soldier who struggled to stand, his blood a black stain in the green light. Once the soldier was on his feet, Perth was able to fall back and join the Prince.

  “We are losing,” Perth said.

  “Find one of the other commanders,” said Dairoth. “Tell them what we fought here.”

  “I’m not leaving you, my lord,” Perth replied.

  “I will not leave my men to die alone, Captain, yet word must go out. This is an order,” said Dairoth.

  “No, I can’t,” Perth protested.

  “Captain, if the legions remain scattered, they will be destroyed and the empire will be defenseless,” said Dairoth. “We will hold and buy you time.”

  Captain Perth offered a salute and said, “I have been honored to serve, my lord.”

  “As have I, now go!”

  Dairoth did not watch Perth retreat through the fog. He turned and stepped again into the fight.

  ***

  A black horse walked slowly along the side of the mountain,. Its rider wore a long, black cloak that hid his features, but the dark iron of his armor and sword were visible. The moon was bright in the night sky, but neither horse nor rider cast a shadow. Despite the cool night, no plumes of breath came from horse or rider. The pair did not spare a glance at the fresh scar carved into the side of the pass. A sheen of thick, black blood covered the legs and cloven hooves of the horse and hissed when it dripped to the ground.

  The rider had recently commanded an army, but his master encourage infighting to ensure only the strong remained. His army had not been strong. Not, at least, as strong as the abominations they had encountered on the other side of the mountains. Those creatures had hide and claws and tusks that tore into his soldiers as if enchanted. Perhaps they had been.

  The rider was now in search of a new army. Supernatural senses had drawn him here, to the scene of a recent avalanche. Here, an army had been crushed by falling rock. Their deaths had been swift, most dying before they even understood what killed them. This time, the rider would impart more of his master’s power into each of his new soldiers. The effort would leave him weakened and vulnerable for a time, but this army would have enough strength to match the abominations if he encountered them again.

  The rider drew his sword and blue flame engulfed the blade. He raised a gauntleted hand and began to chant in a rough, hissing voice.

  “Asslath nech ssereth, nith drass.”

  As the rider repeated the chant
, lines of fire leapt from the sword and settled in patterns across the scattered rock of the avalanche. Slowly, the desired rune took shape. When he was satisfied that the rune would channel the master’s power as he wished, the rider ceased his chanting. The rune covered the hillside in fiery blue lines. The grasses and shrubs growing near the lines of the rune did not burn, but withered and turned to dust. A reek of ozone, as if lightning had struck, filled the air.

  The rider held his fiery sword aloft and spoke. “Rise, my soldiers!”

  The rune flashed brightly before fading to darkness. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, amid the scraping of stone against stone and steel, figures began to dig their way from under the rock of the avalanche. Things that had once been men and horse arose at the rider’s bidding. They paid no attention to the battered and broken equipment they carried nor did they care about the stained and torn tabards that still bore a rearing blue stallion on a field of green. They did not notice that bones were broken or that flesh had been torn from their bodies. They rose to follow the rider and their eyes, even those that had been plucked out by vultures, began to glow a sickly green.

  Christopher J. Taylor lives with his wife and son (the TRUE god of Chaos) in the midwestern United States. An avid gamer, Christopher has played Dungeons and Dragons (and knows how to figure THAC0 from 2 ed. to 3 ed. and beyond), has a wide collection of GURPS books on shelves throughout the house, and adores reading fantasy and science fiction. When not writing, he can be found planning worlds and dimensions, plotting ruinous downfalls of fantastic civilizations, and creating plot twists that Alexander would have to take a sword to.

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