by BJ Hanlon
Placisus shook his head. “He’s joined the Darsol Rose.
He went to scout. The lad is slippery.”
“I hope Ashica doesn’t blame me…” Edin said remembering his promise to look out for the lad.
They continued, Dorset healed Edin a bit more… but he’d still lost blood.
They were both pale now. At the tavern, they found it empty, not even the dead were left. At times they spotted Flack and another man rushing through the land on either side of them.
It was beginning to turn to dusk when they reached the bridge to Delrot. A few straggling families, led by far-too-proud-of-themselves looking brosons, joined with them.
One of the two scouts would signal to Placisus letting him know of the people approaching. There were no more soldiers, no invaders. He suddenly remembered Kes’ father throwing her into the manor. A place about to burn.
Edin cursed the image. It was too much, he remembered the screams and shivered.
These invaders, who were the majority of them? Common townsfolk or hardened warriors. Did any of them have a conscious, any have a soul. Were they like Edin at all… or where they the real abominations?
Carts, wooden planks, and all sorts of debris was piled up before the bridge, it was as if someone dropped the contents of a carpenter’s shop down and left it for someone else to pick up. Behind it was the open chasm and the wall-less city. There’d never been any fear of attack from within their own islands so a wall was never a necessity.
Now it was coming. I caused this. He thought.
Tall row buildings stood only a few meters from the precipice. Homes, offices, businesses… they were shuttered. On the roofs, crouching behind the crests of the pitch were defenders. Some didn’t look older than twelve.
A horn sounded and a group of men in makeshift soldier uniforms poured out from behind another barricade at the opposite end to open a path for the newcomers.
They could move the cart to grant the farmers entrance. Edin looked down into the shadows of the waterway. He could barely see the strait flowing below and couldn’t remember where it went.
The bridge groaned under the stress, but eventually, they made it over. Edin saw Le Fie, standing on a roof, his hand guiding a rope with a large object attached to one end and grunting men to the other. It looked like a mini catapult.
More were going up down the length of the rowhouses.
Healers met them, ushered them to the small square where he’d tried to get chits and instead was accused of starting a riot.
Makeshift tents and other structures were set up, the old and young were huddled around small campfires that emitted no smoke. With the exception of healers, there seemed to be no uninjured person in the camp between the ages fourteen and seventy.
A bit of a distance away, was a dark and ominous tent that had pained wails coming from it.
He saw a pale man step outside, he was nearly green. He sat on a bench, laid his head in his upturned hands and shuddered.
Edin was sure the man was crying.
Edin laid down near a fire with Grent on one side and Dorset on the other. They were exhausted. Edin closed his eyes, hoping he could get some sleep before the next attack.
19
The War for the Isles
Edin couldn’t.
A woman appeared, old and gaunt with trimmed hair and a face that reminded him of a skeleton. Her hands shook as she offered Edin a wooden bowl that smelled of a tomato stew. Edin wiped his eyes and stared at it like it held some question he couldn’t comprehend.
He began eating. She woke Dorset and he started eating. Grent was gone and the crowd around them were strangers. The woman disappeared into a nearby tent and came back out with a pair of mugs and a pitcher.
“Ale?”
“Yes please,” Edin said and took a huge gulp. He drank it down and poured another. His roommate did the same.
“Keeping up with you is no laughing matter,” Dorset said.
“I do my best.”
“Like that first night you came back with Baili on your arm and as loaded as the Castilander arriving in port.”
Edin quickly looked around for Arianne. He didn’t see her and he nodded. “How is she?”
Dorset looked out toward the darkening camp. “She didn’t make it.”
Edin felt his heart drop. She was good. The first really good person to him on this island. She didn’t care he was Rihkar’s son or wasn’t trying to bribe Ashica for a better price on leathers.
“We were a bit a like you know.” Dorset said. “She was from the city, a good family, tailors and brewers.” He paused, though he looked like he had more to say. “She never quite fit in here. Like me. She moved out there, bought the tavern and convinced half the ranchers she’d wed them. All of it to get away from all the politics and the smugness of the cities. The carriage blotards who pay lip service to the mundane folk but secretly hate them.”
Edin nodded. “Sounds like where I’m from.”
Dorset pointed to a group huddled around a fire. “See them…”
An old man took off his shirt exposing an emaciated torso and thin arms, he wrapped it around a small child.
“They’re descended from some of men who helped maintain this place. They’re mundane, never had an ounce of the talent in their bodies and they starve. There’s never enough food on the table for them… its awful. But much of the praesidium treats them like showpieces as to why we need to be taxed. This place isn’t the refuge you thought it’d be.”
“I guessed.”
“Out there,” he gestured to the west beyond the rising buildings and the volcano toward the sandy beaches, the green forests, mountain ranges, and vast plains of Bestoria. “At least people have a chance to change their lives. Here, you are forced into a job, paid predetermined wages, and die. You do what your father had done and his father…”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“They want to live as much as we do… our invaders. They’re scared.”
“They attacked your wedding, murdered your father-in-law… murdered Laural…” Edin said feeling sad and angry as he was just now thinking about her.
“We’re a threat to them. And they to us. Casitas doesn’t see that, others don’t see that… they only see themselves, not the sick and poor of our own island and definitely not the fear of others…”
Edin swallowed, he thought he knew where this was going. “No.”
“We need someone that does, someone who has been on both sides.”
Edin remembered what Arianne said, ‘our people.’
“That is a world you’re familiar with, I’m certain, you don’t want it to destroyed.”
“No of course not…”
“There will never be a Utopia. That I can guarantee.” Dorset said. “You know I thought you were a drunk and an egoist when I first saw you. A man without principles, without ambition… but when those people were in trouble, you went straight to the hamlet without a thought.”
Edin said nothing.
“You’re a good man. Despite those you’ve killed. Maybe you are the leader we need.”
“No.”
“They’re coming.” Dorset nodded toward the harbor. “We’ve known peace here, we haven’t had the heroics of battle, mourning families and great deaths except from old age. We are who we are born as, nothing more. We need you.
We’re here,” he waived his hand across the square, “all of us are together, we can’t hide anymore behind the mists. We need someone who’s been out there.”
“Le Fie has, Grent has…”
“A spy and a terrin soldier who isn’t one of use.” He shook his head. “We need a leader. Someone who can give us a purpose instead of wallowing away.”
Edin took a drink of ale and pressed his hand to his side. It didn’t hurt so bad now. “How about not dying first?”
“We will come out of this. Hopefully, it isn’t devastating for our people… or theirs because if you’re correct
about the dematians rising. Both of our two worlds will be at risk.
At
that moment the bells began to ring like an orchestra rising from the smallest of notes nearest the harbor to the grand crescendo around him. He spun back.
Toward the south, he saw an orange glow lighting up the sky. People began to head toward the castle, away from the growing lights and peals.
Edin stood, his side burned only slightly as he lifted his sword belt and strapped it around his waist. Some townsfolk stood around, gaping, unable to do anything, all shocked by what was happening around them.
“Let’s go,” Edin said and began fighting the crowd as he headed toward the harbor. He shimmied past carts, abandoned in the street, around fences and dropped packs and worse, the people fleeing the opposite way.
He leapt a ginger cat that was busy cleaning itself, oblivious to everything around it.
Edin heard his name, he stopped. It took another shout for him to spot Arianne moving with the crowd toward him.
Whistles floated on the air followed by pops or raucous explosions. “They’ve started another bombardment. The harbor is alight.”
“What about the traps? The wards?” Dorset said. He’d stopped next to them and was breathing heavily still favoring his arm.
“It seems many of their ships have gone down… but every time one does another appears. The scrying dish…” She swallowed. “There are too many too count.”
Edin saw Grent fighting his way toward the harbor on the far right side of the grand boulevard. The opposite side.
He called his name, but the warrior didn’t hear.
Behind him was Le Fie, Placisus, and some city guards back in their normal uniform.
Edin ran and whipped around a woman who was just standing in the street wailing. Edin looked for a place to cut across to join the warriors but the human wall was too thick.
He had to find better access, freer movement. He glanced at the rowhouses about ten feet to the left. The problem with island living is that space was a premium and you’d want to get as many buildings in as small an area as possible. It was a problem unless he wanted a less obstructive pathway without people.
Edin noticed something just right.
About four yards off the ground, a trellis hung from the wall with vines creeping down. Edin raced toward it and spied a barrel below. He leapt, put a foot on the barrel and pushed off reaching for the bottom rung. His fingers caught on one hand, missed on the other. Edin pressed his foot into the brick, reached with the other hand and pulled. He moved fast, climbing like a spider.
Edin vaulted over a small parapet to the angled roof and sprinted across. Ahead of him, in the black void of the ocean, orange orbs floated then fired onto the harbor. The docks burning. He saw giant green clouds in the ocean and then waves snuffing the fires and ships.
It was a minute before he reached the last of the buildings, he glanced down at a long drop to the road. He couldn’t be afraid of heights. Not now.
Edin leapt, he felt the talent and used the wind to hamper his fall. He landed.
A whistling sound came over his head, Edin glanced up and saw a small awning. He dove beneath it.
A moment later, his talent was suppressed as wan stones clattered to the ground near him. He wasn’t sure he had the strength to defy it.
Out of the corner of his eye, Edin spotted the small unit led by Grent. They were ahead of him and following the harbor east toward the beach. He stepped out.
“Edin, can you help?” Dorset called from above. He glanced up and saw his friend had followed, Arianne too was peaking over the parapet.
One thing he didn’t want was either of them to be in danger. This was his duty.
“Can’t, wan stones.” He didn’t wait for a reply and began running over the near deserted harbor. He dodged the flaming debris of carts, sacks, barrels, and bodies. Solider and civilian bodies.
Edin covered his head each time he heard an explosion. It was merely luck that kept him from being struck.
The unit was fast, they all wore black and made it to the beach. Then began disappearing beyond a dune. A minute later, he crested it, he heard the clang of battle and saw groups of men trying to get out of their landing ships.
Edin drew his sword and began to run at them but the fighting stopped before he even had a chance.
Grent was finishing an assault on a small boarding vessel. But Le Fie wasn’t fighting, he was at the bow of the craft. A moment later, two soldiers began rowing out to sea.
Edin ran up but they were already too far out and with the crashing, exploding projectiles, he couldn’t be heard.
A hundred or more yards out, Le Fie stood with two other men. Their hands shot out and a beam of white-hot fire burst from the three. It rose above the waves toward the first ship a few hundred yards away. The ship exploded, its flames rising, charring the ship like a burnt cobb of corn.
The beam moved, tore into another and then another. The invaders ships were catching fire, burning for a moment then descending into the water. They were so close to each other, that from where Edin stood, it was an immense wall of flame.
A wave of relief and horror spread over him simultaneously as he watched the ships exploding one by one. At least thirty… but then the flame began to sputter, turning to short bursts that hit, but didn’t destroy.
Above he saw the flaming stones hurling toward him… no toward them. The boat was turning around and coming back.
Edin reached out, he had to help. He felt the water around them and pressed it into a wave to carry the small vessel. The rowers fell toward but the ship was moving fast.
Then he noticed it, a bomb on the direct path of the craft. He tried to turn, but the speed was too much.
Edin yelled, none of them saw it. They were going to get hit. He closed his eyes and felt for the energy. He was weak but could still feel it flowing through his body.
He felt it and let it flow out of his hand. A long thin rope flew out over the ocean toward the ship with great speed. Edin wished it, told it to expand and cover the boat.
It spread like a spider’s web, enveloping them as the black orb crashed into it. It slowed the projectile for just a moment. Then he felt the pressure in his stomach and his skull. The shield popped and the weapon crashed into the boat. Though a moment before, the occupants had all leapt out.
Edin dropped to the sand. More black and orange balls were flying toward them, it would’ve been beautiful in other circumstances.
He heard Arianne and Dorset behind him, screaming something. Edin looked back and saw them pointing toward the harbor.
Beneath the glowing light, Edin saw more dark crafts gliding through the sea. But a moment before one touched, it tilted and flipped high into the air.
The people clad in metal armor were crashing to the harbor and sea. With the extra weight, he was sure they didn’t survive.
Suddenly, a stalagmite type rock leapt up and turned a second ship into a kabob.
The attackers were struggling to get onto the dock. He turned back toward Grent’s crew, they were a ten yards off shore still, but swimming or running fast.
They’d be fine. He had to do something about those ships. There were so many. Dorset appeared next to him. “There’s too many… we need to retreat, hide in the castle.”
“No way can the entire population fit there.”
Dorset said. “Our ships are burning. We have no way off the isle...”
Edin thought for a moment.
“Do you have a plan?” The barrage was teetering out, there’d be a lull for a short while, five, maybe ten minutes, before they resumed. Edin glanced back toward the city. The bottom half was burning while further up, it seemed quiet, like a peaceful fall evening.
In the shadows of the long dead volcano, he saw the Boganthean Tower. The idea clicked into place, it was the same one that was teetering on his mind before the first bombardment.
“Do you remember that spell, the one Ph
aront’s men were using…”
He seemed to be trying to work it out in his mind. “A nightmare spell… waking nightmare…” he followed Edin’s eyes toward the tower where the four secret spell casters had attempted it.
“Yes…”
Arianne reached them, “how do we do it?”
“I don’t know, we’ll need four I think…” Edin glanced back, Grent was pulling Le Fie and another man from the water, Placisus was pulling the third. A few guards that had stayed on the beach were helping now. “Le Fie is too tired…”
“Cannopina?” Dorset asked.
“She’s at her father’s right now.” Said Arianne.
“Get her Arianne, meet us at the tower…”
“I can,” Dorset said.
Edin shook his head, “you’re the wizard with spells right? Let’s see if you’re just a talker or if you can actually do it.”
“Think it’ll work?” Arianne said.
“I hope so.”
She kissed him and they all began running back toward the city. Grent called him from behind, but Edin didn’t respond.
He was just about back to terra firma when he saw silhouetted figures on the cliffs to the east. They were straddling some sort of horizontal ladder from Newland and crossing the canyon to Delrot. There’d be no need for the bridges…
“They’re trying to cross,” Arianne called.
“I have this one,” Dorset said. He shot out a hand and bit his bottom lip. Did he always do that when concentrating? Didn’t matter.
There was a slight quaking, chunks of stone fell from the Newland side of the strait.
A moment later, the men dropped, screaming until their noise was washed away by the destructive force of gravity and the wicked water.
The roads were less crowded. To the left, he saw men standing in the shadows of the stand alone buildings that made up much of the central part of the city.
Edin picked up his pace. To the right, he saw men in dark cloaks and soldier uniforms beginning to stream out from the row buildings. Apparently, they’d decided to cut through.
They poured out of doors in waves only to meet with guards. The clashing of battle reverberated down the streets. Chunks of stone blasted up, fireballs slammed into both sides.