Empire of Dirt

by Philip C. Quaintrell

  Glaide leaned into Asher and Nathaniel. “A piece of advice. Stay away from Salim on the battlefield. I fear he won’t recognise friend from foe.”

  Asher nodded in agreement, but he also knew that if he saw Salim in trouble, he would step in.

  Another call came over the riders and dust began to rise into the air. They all heard the thunder of hooves before the last line of horses charged away. Hadavad and Atharia strode across the gap and met up with Reyna and Faylen, ahead of the owls. Lost as he was, the ranger was starting to regret walking away from the preparations now.

  The riders charged into the desert to meet their enemy, but before any collision, the twelve hundred split down the middle and rode either side of the oncoming soldiers, clad with dark cloaks. Asher released some of the grip on his bowstring and watched as the two rows of riders skimmed along the edges of the dark-cloaks. Swords clashed and both men and horses went down in a shower of blood, but attacking them from the sides had other benefits.

  “Fire!” Tauren shouted.

  It was impossible to miss the dark-cloaks when they had bunched together to avoid the riders on the outside. Asher released his arrow with the others and watched as a few hundred flew high into the orange sky. Before the first wave of arrows found their way back to the earth, the owls had nocked another arrow and fired it into a tight cluster. All but Reyna aimed for the sky, as the elf simply fired her arrow dead-ahead. Adellum’s bow was perhaps their greatest weapon in this fight. Asher delayed his third arrow to watch the princess.

  “By the gods…” Nathaniel whispered.

  The arrows dropped into the charging dark-cloaks, every projectile felling men and horses without missing their marks, but Reyna’s arrows knew no limits. The first of her barrage sunk through three men before any of them were thrown backwards, relieving their horses of riders. The falling riders then created chaos through the charging ranks and Asher had to wonder just how far her arrow would go.

  “Come on ye bastards!” Doran was still astride his hog, desperate to be unleashed.

  Tauren fired another arrow and turned to Asher. “The riders will loop round and attack them from behind while we tackle the front!”

  Asher released his own arrow and looked to Tauren and the rest of the owls. “We’ll be dead by the time they wade through!” The ranger changed his mind about the son-of-none’s strategy.

  “Halion’s allies brought some supplies we have repurposed. Along with your friends,” Tauren glanced at Hadavad and the elves, “I think we can hold out.”

  The dark-cloaks were close now, their shouts mixing with the stampede of hooves. The arrows continued to thin their ranks, littering the desert with dead bodies and horse carcasses, but their numbers were still too great.

  “What supplies are you talking about?”

  “Watch!” Tauren lifted his chin at Hadavad.

  The old mage stepped forward and stamped his staff into the ground once; eliciting a fireball from the top. The molten ball of flames shot into the air, cresting just under the wave of arrows, until it silently fell back to Illian’s embrace. The dark-cloaks thundered towards them, riding into Reyna’s arrows without hesitation. Only Alidyr could motivate such warriors.

  The fireball landed in a small gutter, dug into the ground, that Asher hadn’t noticed until now. The fire spread in the blink-of-an-eye, stretching across the horizon into other gutters that connected to the first. Oil for the lanterns had been poured over the battlefield to great effect. Asher couldn’t help but smile, at least for a moment.

  “Swords!” Tauren yelled over the charging horses.

  The horses immediately slowed down when faced with several walls of fire. For the most part they continued, jumping and galloping through the flames, but their speed had been reduced. The heat and fire soon had the horses and their riders knocking into each other, however, and in their bid to escape the flames, a few were even set ablaze.

  Asher flicked a switch on his bow and collapsed the limbs, so he could tuck it away under his cloak. The ranger lined up with Nathaniel and the owls, his broadsword gripped in both hands. Tauren removed two curved short-swords from his lower back and shaved one against the other.

  Asher thought to put on his blindfold when he noticed the elves, still standing in the gap between them and the charging riders. “We need to get to Reyna and Faylen!”

  “Leave them to it!” Tauren commanded.

  Asher didn’t take commands very well.

  The ranger dashed across the desert with only a moment before the riders met the elves. Faylen glanced behind her at the old assassin, her expression unreadable at this distance. The elf quickly swivelled on the spot and both the mages and the elves pushed outwards with their hands and staffs. It was the same offensive Asher himself had used at West Fellion, only much more powerful. A wave of energy that could not be seen, but only felt crashed over the charging horde, sweeping sand, oil and dirt into the air, before finally smashing into the dark-cloaks.

  The result was utter devastation.

  Men were flung from their horses and the mounts themselves were pushed back in a throng of broken and shattered limbs. The domino effect stretched across the front line and beyond, quickly turning the desert into a graveyard. The centre of their charge had been dented, but the outer edges continued their ride until they were met by the owls.

  In the far left, Bale could be heard wading through the first attackers; the barbarian of the north cared little whether his axes found horse or man. Salim was far more surgical in his attack, but no less fierce. The southerner whipped his curved cutlass with clean lines, every swipe removing heads or blocking swords. Asher lost sight of them then, as the centre of the charge caught up, meeting him and the elves in the middle. There were very few horses now, as it had become too dangerous for the riders to charge through, blind as they were through the flames.

  “Asher!” Nathaniel screamed, but he too was lost in the rush of dark-cloaks, many of which had caught fire.

  The ranger wanted to turn back and fight alongside the Graycoat, but he was closer to the elves now, and surrounded by enemies and smoke. There was nothing elegant about the fight that followed, with Karathan soldiers rushing towards the gate with abandon, swinging their swords at anything not wearing a dark cloak. In the beginning there was no room to even lift a sword, as everyone bashed into each other in a vicious shoving match. Many were brought down before the fighting in the crushing impact.

  Asher pushed and kicked until he carved out some space, where he could heft his broadsword in savage arcs, giving them pause and himself some time. In all the chaos he had forgotten to blind his eyes with the red cloth, leaving him to his very ordinary senses.

  The blade of his sword caught attack after attack and always followed up with a cleaving swipe or a hammering from his spiked-pommel. Asher fell into the rhythm of the oldest dance known to man, using his elbows, knees and fists to keep his opponents at bay. Everything is a weapon, Nasta used to say. Ignoring the aches and pains in his knees and back, the ranger fought his way through the oncoming soldiers until he glimpsed the blonde hair of an elf.

  “Reyna!” Asher could see the dark-cloak that had circled around to attack her from behind, but his call could not be heard over the din.

  Two quick slices had the men in front of him reduced to coughing blood and collapsing at his feet. One more swing relieved them of their heads, helmets and all. The ranger ran through the drifting smoke and barrelled into the sneaking foe before he could strike Reyna down. With one hand on the hilt of his broadsword and the other on the blade itself, Asher shoved his sword horizontally into the man’s chestplate and pushed him back, into another dark-cloak. The ranger wasted no time dispatching the soldier with a pommel to the jaw and backswing to cut open the man behind him.

  Now he was back-to-back with Reyna.

  “Where’s Faylen?” Asher asked as the next pair came in.

  “I don’t know!” Reyna ducked and pivoted on her knee wi
th her scimitar held out to the side. One dark-cloak was brought to the ground without his legs and the other split open at the waist.

  Asher kicked and swung and never stopped until his opponent was still. There was no end to the horde of soldiers marching on them. The ranger could only hope that Kail’s forces were burrowing their way through from the back.

  A black and gold blur of motion flashed from left to right and half a dozen dark-cloaks dropped to the ground with missing limbs and cries of agony on their lips. The blur came back from another angle and Asher finally caught a glimpse of Doran Heavybelly racing through astride his armoured hog. His thick sword couldn’t be denied, as it easily cut through Karathan armour and bone. The ranger was fairly certain he could hear the dwarf laughing.

  A group of three dark-cloaks targeted Asher and tried to surround him, splitting him up from Reyna. The ranger parried the first two blades and kicked the third man away, using the space to retrieve his silvyr short-sword from his back. The rune-blade was in hand at the just the right moment, as the broadsword impaled the first attacker and became lodged between the man’s ribs and chestplate. Asher spun the short-sword in a quick circle and deflected the second blade before releasing the broadsword and using his free hand deliver an open-palm strike into the third man’s throat. Spinning around to tackle the second dark-cloak, Asher was relieved to see Reyna’s scimitar buried in his chest. The ranger gave a nod of appreciation and turned around to spear his silvyr blade into the choking man’s face.

  The display warded off the next group, giving Asher a moment to pull his broadsword free of the dead dark-cloak. He took a deep breath and felt pain stab at his ribs; there was no blood but the pain was very real. When had he taken the hit? This was why he despised fights such as these.

  The sound of magic could not be misheard. Asher headbutted another dark-cloak and blinked the blood out of his eyes to see Hadavad making short work of his enemies. The old mage contorted his staff into every unorthodox position and fired off spell after spell. Any who survived the destructive magic was met with a wooden bat to the head. Watching Atharia fight was more akin to observing a dance, as the younger woman leapt from one attacker to the next, using her powerful legs to push the soldiers away before following up with her staff and a spell. The mage never stopped.

  “Faylen!” Asher called over the fire and screams and horses. It was madness.

  There was no keeping track of time anymore, but the sun had descended beneath the horizon and the fight continued under the stars. It took Asher a bit longer to realise he was only twenty-feet away from Syla’s Gate now; they had been pushed back. The owls were proving their worth and keeping the dark-cloaks working, but there was still no sign of Kail and his riders. Every now and then the ranger would catch a glimpse of Bale singing his way across the battlefield, waving his axes around, or Doran’s hog taking legs out. The dwarf was missing now too.

  “Asher!” Glaide brought a dark-cloak down with a tackle around the midriff and rolled out to stand at Asher’s side.

  The two friends fought back-to-back until Reyna glided in with her scimitar. The three of them fell into a pattern that expanded and contracted to dispatch the waves that fell upon them.

  “Where is Nathaniel?” Reyna asked, her movements hard to keep track of.

  Asher wrestled a soldier off Glaide’s back and spun him around, where he thrust his broadsword until the crossguard connected with the dark-cloak’s armour.

  “Asher!” Reyna parried a stray blade, saving the life of an owl, before beheading the soldier in a single swipe. “Where’s Nathaniel?”

  “I…” Asher looked around at the falling bodies. “I don’t know...”

  Nathaniel had completely lost his bearings in the mayhem. When the opportunity became available he could see that Syla’s Gate was much further away than where he had started, though much of it was hidden behind a curtain of rising smoke. Some of Kail’s riders could be spotted in the distance, cutting their way through and fighting those still atop their mounts. Many had been thrown from their horses or simply abandoned them after injury. There were two or three owls by his side, but the majority of those he would call allies were now cloakless Karathans.

  “Watch out!” Tauren shoved Nathaniel to the ground as a riderless horse charged towards them.

  The leader of the owls had been a sight to behold amid the chaos of battle. The young warrior was just as skilled with his curved blades as Asher had been with his own. Nathaniel found his feet just as two dark-cloaks came in with their swords aimed at his chest. The Graycoat could never be called a novice with a sword, and he easily batted the attacks away and followed up with an elven manoeuvre he had picked up from watching Reyna. The two men were dead before they hit the ground.

  Tauren was there one second and gone the next, as an exotic flip in the air had an assassin’s foot colliding with the White Owl’s jaw. The Arakesh took no prisoners and killed three of Kail’s soldiers with her twin-blades. The three men were dead before Tauren retrieved his swords and stood up. It was the first woman Nathaniel had seen in the battle, and as out of place as she appeared, the assassin proved that the art of delivering death cared little for gender. Her time in Nightfall had left only a killer behind.

  Both Nathaniel and Tauren advanced as one, but the Arakesh jumped into the air and hit them simultaneously with a split kick. They once again found themselves on the dusty ground that had now become wet with blood and piss. Looking up from his back, the knight could only watch as the assassin cut down an owl and two more Karathan soldiers. Tauren recovered faster than Nathaniel and launched himself at the woman, where the two became locked in combat. They occasionally broke from each other to strike down another foe before coming back together.

  Not to be left out, the Graycoat carved his way through four soldiers until the Arakesh was before him. A swift punch had Tauren on the back-foot, opening the melee for Nathaniel to wade in. The sound of constant battle distracted the knight from the thundering of hooves, bringing the sound and image into one bloody vision, as Faylen galloped past astride a white mare with her scimitar swinging. The assassin’s head was cleaved from her body.

  The fighting had become too clustered, preventing the elf from riding much further. Demonstrating her kind’s grace and uncanny agility, Faylen back-flipped off the horse and came down fighting. Before she had come out of her crouch, two dark-cloaks had already lost everything below the knees.

  Nathaniel fell in beside her without a word and the two went to work fashioning out their territory on the battlefield. Tauren rallied what owls he could and the group grew in size until they were a force to be reckoned with.

  “Salim!” The distinct voice of Doran Heavybelly rang clear over the clashing of swords.

  The group of fighters, led by Faylen’s scimitar, turned and fought their way towards the dwarf. The smaller warrior could not be seen but enemies falling around him were easy to find. The armoured ranger was climbing up a piling mound of bodies when they came across him, scrambling to kill his next opponent with a sword in one hand and a spiked gauntlet covering the other.

  “Salim ye fool!” Doran cried, barrelling through the mess of soldiers.

  “Doran!” Nathaniel called, rallying the dwarf.

  “It’s Salim,” Doran explained, dragging a dark-cloak to the ground and burying his sword under his exposed chin. “The fool’s going for the Arakesh!”

  Nathaniel used the pile of bodies to briefly elevate himself above the din. Thirty-feet away, the old honour guard was striding towards a tight group of blindfolded assassins. The Arakesh had stayed near the back of the army, avoiding much of the chaos; Nathaniel wasn’t looking forward to this fight and he quickly scanned the carnage for any sign of Asher.

  Salim was set upon within seconds by the Arakesh. Tauren broke from the group and ran to his side, his own blades dripping with blood. Nathaniel wasn’t nearly agile enough to slip between the melee as Tauren had, forcing him to fight his way th
rough. Together, Faylen and Nathaniel covered each other’s blind spots, though for every one that the Graycoat struck down, the elf took two with her fine scimitar.

  “Father!” Tauren screamed, using the crumpled body of an allied Karathan to jump high into the air.

  With both blades held high, the White Owl fell into the fray with a fury Nathaniel had never seen. This young man was simply angry and in possession of a set of skills that combined to make him a deadly opponent. The knight could see his flaws, however. Nathaniel had no choice but to dash ahead of Faylen and intervene before an assassin’s short-sword removed Tauren’s head.

  The Graycoat took a slash across the waist for his assistance and a kick to the stomach. With all thought of honour fleeting, Nathaniel plunged his one-handed blade into the Arakesh’s foot on his way down. From his crouched position, the knight removed a dagger from his belt and thrust upwards, into the assassin’s neck.

  “You need to be quicker!” Faylen was by his side and batting away two more short-swords before they could find Nathaniel’s flesh.

  Tauren and Salim were working together in perfect harmony, their blades moving in every direction to keep the Arakesh at bay. Their anger would get them killed. Nathaniel knew of the level head required to engage an assassin of Nightfall in combat.

  “Come on!” Doran ran through with his sword taking out legs and opening guts. Any who fell to the ground with a beating heart soon found his spiked gauntlet buried in their skulls.

  A great wave of heat burned against Nathaniel’s cheek and he shielded his eyes from the flow of fire erupting from Faylen’s hand. The torrent lit three of the Arakesh on fire, sending them running into the mass of bodies and creating havoc. With quick thinking, the Graycoat ripped the pouch of Talo spices from his belt and threw them into the stream of fire. The resulting explosion was deafening and blinding, but only for an instant to his eyes. For the Arakesh it was hell.