by F. C. Reed
Kallan Sha’Gol was, at one time, the guard’s Acolyte Major, and he fought during a time when Therios Kaval was in its infancy: powerless, vulnerable, and desperate. That battle, the Ans Marta Conflict, proved to be Kallan’s demise, but it also secured the plane and established the great cavernous scar now known as the Danover Chasm. That conflict disrupted the flow of aether throughout the plane.
Through Kallan’s actions, the resulting reaction was theorized to be how the liquid black came into existence. And as the Legion define the very essence of death, the black quickly formed a symbiotic relationship with the Legion. The living have fought the dead and dying ever since. There have been many lore historians, scientists, and theorists who debate the possibility that Kallan was to blame for vir’sakul, which means ‘a rise of death’ in Verellen.
The skies burned crimson and orange as the guard marched towards the great divide. Reconnaissance scouts forged ahead on the hard, dry packed earth dotted with foliage. Their aim was to uncover tactics and strategies and troop strength of the Legion long before the guard reached the edge of the battlefield. At their final approach, the scar upon the earthen surface was a barren, ugly canvas. The bodies of the fallen would soon litter its surface and give it the color of battle and blood.
The Crimson Bloodguard reached the lip of the Danover Chasm following a half day’s march. It was steep and nearly vertical at some points, but not enough that one could not descend - never mind how carefully. With the slopes far too steep to ascend, it would be half a day’s march to the gradual inclines to access the chasm. Unless, of course, one could sprout wings and fly, but of those there were very few. That half day of marching usually followed a full day or more of entangled battle with the Legion.
General Strann approached the edge of the chasm and peered out over its lifelessness. It was quiet. Far too quiet for an army of the Legion to be approaching. But her scouts and reconnaissance she trusted. They were never in the habit of reporting something unless it were certain.
A shallow, fleeting breeze kicked away at the barren lands of waste. The air was hot and damp, and it transformed to heavy and stifling when the breeze itself died away. Gray skies blanketed the valley where General Strann and Captain Ursin sat mounted atop khydrid, observing the brigade’s crossing of open terrain towards an enormous swath of dense brush and trees.
They kicked through dirt, ash, and broken soil. Couriers volleyed back and forth to keep the men supplied with fresh drinking water. The medical personnel pulled men aside from time to time, lancing pustulous boils and plastering green gooey herbal salves over blisters alike. Some tended to exhaustion here while others medicated a stubborn rash there.
General Strann’s eyes focused on faraway movement to their west. “Order the men to stop,” she said.
Captain Ursin hesitated. “This area leaves us terribly vulnerable to—
“Now, Captain.”
Captain Ursin yelled for the guard to stop. Ranking soldiers at the rear quickly passed the order toward the front of the brigade as they rippled to a halt, slightly weary and confused.
Off in the distance, a lone figure approached on the back of a khydrid. General Strann guessed where the khydrid must have come from; a small path that ran next to the valley. The area, known as Ynan’s Alley, was too narrow for the Bloodguard to quickly pass through it. That route might have taken them weeks to squeeze through the tiny crevice of a through-way, but a handful of riders would run into no such issues.
Puzzled, she asked, “Did you, by any chance, send a forward recon?”
“No, sir,” Captain Ursin returned as he watched the figure gallop towards the Bloodguard. “It doesn’t look to be a legionnaire either.”
As it rode closer, the soldiers in the Bloodguard backed away in what seemed like panic. They yelled and pushed away from the approaching khydrid. The headless body, cinched in place by a rope, fell from its makeshift perch as the khydrid trotted to a halt. The body bounced to a stop beside the khydrid. Soldiers scrambled every way they could and fell over one another. One soldier sprinted hard up the hill towards General Strann and Captain Ursin, waiving his arms.
“The soldiers look like they’re going mad. I’m sure they’ve all encountered far worse than a headless corpse,” Ursin said. “I will go down and—
An ear deafening explosion tore a hole in the earth as the khydrid and its decapitated companion vanished in a ball of bluish-purple fire. Bloodguard bodies flew across the area. Some ran about with various parts of themselves lit ablaze by the creeping magical fire, not to be doused by water. Others scrambled to find their weapons. Still others rushed in to tend to their wounded brethren who flailed about at an arm or leg that was now missing.
Captain Ursin saw it. A glint of light in the distance, almost concealed by the wooded area ahead of them. “Take cover!” he yelled. An arrow screamed through the air and landed against his breastplate, jolting him out of position on his khydrid. Then another. A third, meant for his face, instead lodged in his aethermechanized shoulder. He yanked it free, bellowing the signal to ready.
From the woods and surrounding rock faces emerged the Legion’s vanguard. Their ranks commander led the charge with a bloodthirsty yell that took even the alert and focused soldiers by surprise. What seemed like an endless number of legionnaires poured from the wooded area, nearby hills, and rock formations. Scores upon scores of twisted black creatures poured from the far ridges like carnivorous ants swarming an unfortunate grasshopper.
Creepers. Their small, agile bodies descended into the chasm like a dam breaking loose, spilling the snarling, oily, fanged, and spiked creatures into the valley, making it even more treacherous. Not a threat in twos or threes, but any more of them than that and they had the potential to do real damage. Here were more of them than one could imagine.
This fell into the routine war tactics for the Legion. They sent creepers first, hoping that some might make their way through the front ranks. Occasionally, the creepers tear their way through the front lines, if the aether is at equilibrium.
Captain Ursin signaled the flame cannons, poised just beyond the lip of the chasm. A rain of fiery debris, molten metal, ash, and pitch began at his command. The ground shook underfoot at the repeated explosions. Those aimed skyward in ballistic arcs left long streaks of oranges and yellows, splitting the contrasted skies.
General Strann sensed the Legion’s commander before she spotted him. She stiffened at the sight of him far, far across the chasm. He was as unmistakable as ever. Gray skinned, heavy, muscular, and with a menacing calm about him that may betray one to his trust while he slammed a hammer into one’s skull. General Strann imagined that he was returning her gaze as he stood against his massive hammer, grinning in that arrogant way he often did.
She heaved a solemn sigh, the stench of death coating her insides and billowing from under her nose to join the acrid odor of the iron of blood that so very clung to the air itself. This was not the first time she squared off with Bastille. It was not the second, or the third.
She had met him on the battlefield many times, and many times she and her bloodguard would repel him. More confounding were those times where she faced certain defeat. At that, he would pull his forces away and depart. None of Bastille’s retreats ever made sense to her until now. Now she knew why he came, and this time, she suspected he would not turn back if at an advantage.
Captain Ursin, on their most recent near defeat, argued the Legion’s tactics to be mindless and uncoordinated by saying, “The odds were never truly against us, even though we still faced a numerically superior army. Their lack of formation and flanking prowess was clear. The battalion of mounted archers might have had me to worry if they were under proper command and routed us from behind.”
General Strann always listened to him compensate for her failures, but she knew better.
The Iron General Bastille wanted her to see him. He wanted her to know that she and her Crimson Bloodguard are not invincible, an
d that he could take down the wall, the guard, and the plane whenever he wanted. His toying with her seemed to be a well-kept intimate secret between them. The relationship left her feeling vulnerable and that she and the Bloodguard could be defeated at any moment he chose.
“He’s here,” General Strann said through the thudding of the cannons. Arrows whizzed and buzzed through the hot, tense air. A cloud of arrows broke the horizon line and traveled their arcs. And without a second thought, she charged down the hill, drawing her sword and resting it on her shoulder. Sensing the next attack, she had a lot of ground to cross before being impaled by thousands of arrows. She yelled as the soldiers struggled in the surrounding melee, signaling them into action.
Captain Ursin shouted the order to cover and advance, pushing his khydrid over the ledge alongside his general, who had now lowered her face shield and plunged her khydrid over the chasm shelf. The haughty war cries of the plane’s best soldiers followed her.
They reached the bottom of the chasm just as volleys of cannon fire struck the ground. Explosions rocked the surrounding areas, creating giant holes in the earth. Craters formed before them as the creepers shot skyward from the impact site like a child throwing rocks into a black, writhing pond.
The surrounding areas became a dance of Crimson Bloodguard, creepers, and columns of searing flame. Creepers dissipated into ash and smoke as they received mortal wounds. It was their numbers that could prove fatal. The swarms of the Legion charged headlong into the front lines, crashing into the Crimson Bloodguard’s vanguard.
A gruesome and slaughterous battle followed. Cracked ribs and broken necks and arrows which skillfully found their targets. Death and victory at every turn drew out the continuous struggle of both armies. Their goals were very similar: to achieve victory on the one hand and avoid death on the other, or in the Legion’s case, true death.
The skies filled with cries of anguish and fear. The Crimson Bloodguard mangled and battered and pounded their way through the lower ranks of the Legion. Thick smoke soon hovered overhead as the ground below burnished with the bitter, morbid stench of death and fallen soldiers crying out for aid.
The world above quickly became infested with red and orange. Fire ravens strafed the battlefield in groups, spitting hot sticky acids that burned flesh and armor alike. The acolytes did their best to keep the creepers from breaching the cliff face, where they would no doubt overtake the support forces on the ridge above. Answering to fire ravens, they responded with concentrated bolts of icemist. Connecting with the fire ravens meant a quick freeze and fall to the earth, the ball of ice shattering on impact.
The sky marshal and her valkyr gave relief to the soldiers on the ground. They screamed down from the sky, their metal glider wings guiding their descent. The spears they carried drew in aether and converted it to an electric charge as they dived towards the ground. Upon each valkyr’s touchdown a thunderous discharge of electrical energy leapt from the area of contact, stunning or shocking or killing anything it reached.
Across the battlefield stood Bastille, intently focused on General Strann, seemingly as oblivious of his surroundings as she was of hers. Finally, she caught his eye.
He smiled. And waited.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Bastille’s patience was her invitation to advance and engage him, so she refocused herself. Pointing her khydrid in his direction, she tightened her grip on her wideblade and settled herself into her saddle. Captain Ursin at her side took notice.
“General,” he called over the noise of war, fearing what she was about to attempt. “Wait for an opening.”
She did not hear him, nor did she want to. Instead, she dropped her face shield and spurred her khydrid towards Bastille in a hard gallop. The surrounding battle whistled past her as she pushed through the center of the chaos towards her intended target. Bastille readied himself, taking hold of his mighty hammer with both hands.
Her approach was swift as she careened effortlessly across the broken land and broken bodies while dodging the pockets of combat. At the instance of reaching him, she swung, hoping to cleave the Iron General in two halves, but he easily stepped aside, not even raising his weapon to block or parry. General Strann was always taken aback by his speed. Given the size of him, she thought he’d have no choice but to absorb the blow.
Now unnerved, General Strann turned her khydrid for another pass, analyzing Bastille’s frame for any visible weakness. She found none. As she spurred her khydrid once more, a lone creeper threw itself at her face. She blocked and batted it away in quick succession. Another leapt at her, throwing itself into her shoulder and knocking her from her khydrid and to the ground. Frustrated, General Strann stood.
Bastille grinned, beckoning her to him.
Several more creepers ran toward her along with a legionnaire. She slashed at two of them, which seemed to explode as her sword passed through them, kicked a third, and parried the wild swings of the legionnaire with ease. Her hand lashed out and grabbed the legionnaire near its mouth. A forceful squeeze pulverized the jaw and part of the face into a dust as the rest of the creature collapsed beside her.
Bastille observed her with raised eyebrows in mock surprise. “Now that the stars have aligned after all these years,” he said, “we can get started.”
Bastille raised his massive hammer behind him and advanced so quickly, it seemed near impossible. Again, his ability to maneuver so quickly caught General Strann off guard. She threw herself out of the path of the arcing hammer, and the ground where she stood moments before was all but decimated under the hammer’s power.
Recovering just as quickly as she had dodged, General Strann bolted forward for a wide swing at Bastille’s midsection. Bastille caught the blade in one hand and with the other, grabbed General Strann’s chest armor. He pulled her close to his face.
She could see the wild ambition and triumph in his eyes.
“Where’s the girl, M’Sennia? Or should I call you Ryna? That’s the name you’re using now, isn’t it? I want the one whose blood is as gold as the rays of the suns over the Rocin Wastelands. You have awakened her. I’ve come for her,” he whispered in his deep, gravelly voice before pushing her away from him. “And as always, I will leave you to your playacting at a general.”
General Strann flailed before gaining her footing and then braced herself for a crushing impact that knocked her several feet away. Another step and Bastille was quickly on her, again swinging his hammer in her direction.
The first blow winded her, but again she prepared herself. As he swung, Captain Ursin, seemingly out of nowhere, while holding a shield in both his hands, smashed into the Iron General with all his might and at a hard run. It was enough to topple the mighty warrior. He lost his footing, but did not fall.
Again, General Strann took the opportunity as she saw it, sprinted forward and threw her shoulder into his gut. Bastille teetered on one foot for half a second, just enough time for her to plant the knuckles of her right hand into the underside of his jaw. He fell flat on his back.
General Strann swelled with a strength and courage at seeing the Iron General downed, although the cost may have been a broken hand and a dislocated shoulder. She ignored whatever pain she was feeling in that moment.
Bastille blinked the stars from his vision, a dazed look on his face. General Strann wanted to end this. She wanted to end him. All the yelling and screaming and war cries faded into background noise by her rage as she looked at the moment as the opportunity to remove Bastille from existence. The next step she took was a powerful one, or so she thought at first.
What sounded like a faraway thud rippled across the battlefield and jostled her to the ground, along with everyone else in the surrounding area. As she steadied herself, another thunderous thud rattled them where they stood. Then another. The intensity of the shocks mounted, causing the soldiers and some legionnaires to glance around for what was causing such a disruption as to set aside a major conflict in this way.
&n
bsp; General Strann, however, maintained an intense focus on the Iron General. The surrounding battle ceased to exist. She would not lose out on the opportunity to sever the head of the snake and end this battle and soon the war.
Another powerful shock wave shook them where they stood. General Strann raised her sword. And another powerful jolt shifted the ground under their feet. She took a step toward Bastille as he stood. He was a mockery of her talents and skills as a general. It would be much to her satisfaction, because belatedly she realized that the conflict between the both of them was personal. It always had been.
Captain Ursin grabbed at her shoulder and pulled her from her bloodlust. “General, we must fall back.”
A growl escaped her throat as she pushed her captain’s hand away and took another step.
Captain Ursin positioned himself in front of her and shouted, “We have to retreat!”
As if waking from one nightmare into another, General Strann’s anger shifted into anticipation and anxiety. Captain Ursin pointed behind her as the cracking and splintering of thousands of trees cascaded through the chaos. She turned in time to see the tyterradon emerge from the horizon.
The beast was a tower of reds and blacks, with skin like granite. She held brimstone in her gut and breathed the same sticky, acidic fire-like substance that the fire ravens did, but much more at once. She was in the shape of a lizard-like creature, back ridged with a row of spines that ran along to the tip of her tail. Her arms were long and powerful as was the jaws set inside her massive head. A tyterradon was a rare sight, and took many forms, but this was among the largest the Crimson Bloodguard had ever encountered.
The tyterradon raised her head and pierced the air with an ear-deafening, blood curdling roar. Bones vibrated from the very sound of it. Trees parted, pushed aside like grass blown over by a powerful gust of wind. Another loud, screeching wail pierced and paralyzed the fiery skies as the tyterradon emerged from beyond the ridge and stepped down into the mouth of the battlefield.