Malik arrived in his cold dark costume and mask. ‘What have you been saying, Anthrom?’ he said. It was the Goddess speaking through him. Malik looked at Aurelia. ‘She doesn’t look ready to surrender.’
Aurelia laughed. ‘No one is surrendering here.’
‘This is my sister, Aurelia,’ said Anthrom. ‘Alive.’
‘You are speaking directly with the Goddess,’ said Malik, addressing their enemy. ‘On your knees!’
‘Never.’ Aurelia scowled at the Cephean. ‘You are no Goddess of mine.’
Anthrom was impressed that Noctiluca hardly lost a beat realising that Aurelia was still alive. ‘Soon, Empress, you will cower before me,’ snapped Malik, his eyes blazing blue. Anthrom was grateful only Noctiluca’s words came through and not the power of that voice. He would have been reduced to a whimpering wreck, as would Aurelia. ‘When that time comes, you will beg to call me your Goddess. But stand against my army today, and you will not get that chance. You won’t be thralled, you will be destroyed as an example to those who think to stand against me.’
‘I look forward to the day we meet,’ said Aurelia, brazenly, breathing heavily. ‘I will spit in your face.’
‘Stand down and I will be lenient.’
‘If you want this city,’ said Aurelia, ‘you will have to go through me. You have no tricks left. I know you value your thralls, just as I value my people.’ She gestured to her army on the ridge. ‘You will have to spend thousands to get past us.’
‘You would attack your own people?’ asked Noctiluca. ‘Those thralls are your subjects, Therians.’
Aurelia swallowed. ‘That is my only choice. To save the people of Argentor, I will have to sacrifice those you have brought here to fight.’
Anthrom spoke up. ‘But there is no point, Aurelia. You cannot hope to prevail. You have a few thousand soldiers at best, a ragtag army with no cohesion. We have tens of thousands of thralls, possibly a million Medusi. You won’t even slow us down.’
‘Then try me. We will make you pay for every inch,’ she said through gritted teeth.
‘But you won’t win,’ said Noctiluca, through the Cephean. ‘Fine, if you want to throw your life away and those of your army, so be it. There is a city behind you just waiting to welcome me.’
Aurelia turned to her mount, but Malik had one more question.
‘I was led to believe you had been executed. What has happened to my servant, Faibryn?’
The young Empress threw herself into the saddle, took the reins in hand. ‘We haven’t seen the traitor since I took power. He came out to scout your approach, so if you haven’t seen him, he is missing, presumed dead. Perhaps you’ll find him thralled when you’ve finished with the city.’ She jerked the reins and the creature stood on its stilt-like legs and galloped away.
Anthrom turned and ran back towards his own lines pounding the grass strewn ground, followed close behind by Malik.
So, it was to be battle then. He thought of the hundreds of hours of Teca he’d played, the thousands of times he’d won.
I’m going to annihilate her.
Chapter Thirty Nine
Aurelia
Aurelia galloped back up the slope to her waiting soldiers, skidding to a stop as she wheeled the Ambler about; she could see Anthrom and the Cephean mouthpiece for Noctiluca, running back to their front lines. She could feel the warm flanks of the creature beneath her, its hot breath. Its blood was up. So is mine, she thought. I want this.
Anthrom’s fate was sealed in her eyes. He had thrown in with the enemy even more completely than he had during the siege, and he would reap the bloody consequences. If he didn’t get himself killed, she would kill him next time they met. As for Noctiluca, the coming battle would show if she could be defeated. She was surprised at her apparent concern for Faibryn, but the less thought given him the better. She had spoken directly to a Goddess and not balked in fear. She felt a wave of confidence flowing through her.
She drew her sword, holding it high for those who couldn’t hear her. ‘Take positions!’ she shouted. ‘We have the high ground. Let them come to us! Make them pay for every scrap of ground. Remember what you’re protecting! They’re trying to take your city, they’re trying to thrall your wives, your children.’
This battle would make or break her plan; everything had to work as perfectly as a clockwork machine.
She looked down the lines, left and right. This was her first test in the field against her opponent, the Sorceress who wanted to thrall the world. She had to do better than she had managed against Terracon. That time she had been overwhelmed, she hadn't listened to warnings and the Medusi had been an unknown.
This time, everything was different.
As her ranks formed up around her she felt a swell of pride. She spared a thought for Periphy; with this army she could finally avenge him. She had gone so long without fighting back intent on securing this force. And she didn’t intend to lose them. Revenge would have to wait. She remembered her childhood friend helping her during the battle that had decided the fate of Theris; high above the city when it fell, he’d been killed when that Celestial had arrived, blasting bright lightning at them and destroying her airship, taking her friend’s life.
Aurelia looked for the Celestial on the horizon, her plans did not include or cater for that thing’s power or range, its ability to rain down lightning strikes. If it arrived, the battle was as good as lost.
The army she had fought and suffered for took form, far greater than what Anthrom would have seen from their parlay. Ranks of soldiers, every last one the city could muster from their reserves, numbering close to ten thousand, spread out behind her. Each was armed with steel, and ready for battle. All were veterans of the war with her own dear Theris.
A further thousand made up her force of archers, clad in leather jerkins so that they could move fast; no amount of thick shiny armour would hold off a determined Medusi and she had stripped every soldier of the unnecessary extra weight. Each had a longbow, as many rag-wrapped arrows as they could carry, and flint.
The archers made up her leading edge. Behind them, the soldiers were held in reserve. Sprinkled amongst them lay her greatest fighters; the Primes. Each was a martial expert, trained like Chrysaora was trained in a hundred weapons, proficient in every one. There were only three hundred but each was armed with a deadly sharp scythe and held other blades and flails underneath their white and blue robes. The other soldiers gave them a wide berth; when it came time for the slaughter, no man wanted to get in their way.
Aurelia was looking forward to the mess those scythes would make of Medusi. She thought Naus would be proud of his input.
The last part of her force was the Amblers; arrayed between the archers on the ridge, she had taken a suggestion from General Opetreia when arming them. ‘Our offense is weak,’ she’d told him during their planning meeting. ‘Soldiers alone will not last long against Medusi.’
‘Empress, you are forgetting what Argentor is famous for,’ said Opetreia. ‘Guns. Powder. Cannon!’
Aurelia could remember the grin that had slowly crept over her face. Now she took a moment to appreciate them. Each stilted Luacha knelt low to the ground, their backs supporting small mobile cannons. A team of soldiers were ready to fire. There were less than a hundred Luacha, but they were going to turn the battle and fast.
Aurelia tried to calm her breathing. She knew she was insanely outnumbered. One for one, her army wouldn’t even stop ten thousand of an enemy that numbered in the hundreds of thousands – she thought Anthrom’s estimate a little high, but she granted she couldn’t see into the forests, just as he couldn’t see what lay over the ridge.
Ennius had taught the three Nectris children many of the secrets of strategy, chiefly that no plan survives the first encounter with the enemy. She hoped to prove that as wrong as possible today, but she had a secondary plan if things went very wrong.
The better lesson had been ‘make your enemy underestimate you’. By ar
ranging her forces behind this ridge in between the Medusi hordes and the city, she made it impossible for Anthrom and Noctiluca to see the extent of the battlefield they intended to take. She was counting on it.
Opetreia sat astride one of the only horses in Argentor, holding his majestic black beast by Aurelia’s side as she looked out over what they had designated the killing field. He’d been quietly impressed with her strategy chops, but she had told him to reserve judgement until after the battle. If we are still alive come morning, she thought, he can tell me where I went wrong.
‘What are they waiting for?’ he asked instead.
Aurelia searched the skies again for the Celestial, but found no sign. ‘They are trying to sap our morale,’ she said. ‘To coax us into a charge. Tell your men to hold until the last moment, they know the plan.’
Opetreia nodded and the horse huffed as he turned it about, marching out across the ranks of archers.
Lucinda Marchioli strode up to take his place, her dark hair tied back out of her stern set face. ‘Everything is in position, Empress.’ They had all begun to call her Empress again. It was unforeseen, but welcome. Lucinda, she knew, had never been part of Nepheli’s campaign against her.
‘Thank you, Marchioli,’ she said, smiling down at her. Behind them Aurelia could see a few twinkling lights from the city. The city they fought here to protect.
Lucinda caught her gaze. ‘I remember another time you stood on another high vantage with me and looked down on Argentor. You were a political prisoner, an enemy with an impossible goal. Convince an enemy state to help fight your war. Now you command our forces. I never thought I would see the day that a woman would command in Argentor. You have made that possible. Even if we all die today, I thought you should know.’
‘Thank you, Lucinda.’
‘I know of many women in the city who have asked to fight.’
‘Perhaps, if we survive this, we will train them.’
Lucinda nodded, but she stayed silent. It was the waiting game now. What was happening between Anthrom and his Cepheans? Was Anthrom in command, or Noctiluca?
The afternoon was waning, but Aurelia was not concerned with fighting in twilight. The enemy were lit up like a forest floor of bioluminescent mushrooms. They couldn’t possibly miss them.
She reached out to the only other Nectris not here on this field.
Cassandra? Can you hear me?
Aurelia! intoned her sister, excitedly. I’m so glad to hear your voice.
Are you okay? asked Aurelia. She didn’t need the added concern of her sister’s welfare, not moments before battle was joined, but she had to know.
I cannot lie to you in here. But it would be better if you did not force me to answer that. Cassandra must have picked up on her anxiety. I do not want to worry you right now. I know what’s happening to you, I can hear it.
You can hear it? Aurelia asked, but then realised Cassandra’s link to the Cephean meant she could hear the what they were saying over in the enemy lines ahead. The battle you mean? It was strange to think that wherever Cassandra was, whatever trouble she was in, she could hear the battlefield her sister stood on.
Yes, you are all they talk about, sent Cassandra, though she sounded resigned. You are everything, everywhere.
Tell me what they are planning.
Cassandra laughed, her mirth coming across their link. I can’t. Anthrom has told them I still live, that I can hear everything. They are issuing commands, changing them, issuing new ones that contradict. There is so much chatter back and forth, like they are trying to obscure the true orders. I can hardly hear the Medousa in the constant noise. She paused and Aurelia assumed she was attempting to listen carefully. I can’t help you. Anything I hear could be part of their campaign of misinformation. It’s staged to destroy your plans. It would be safer not to hear any of it.
Aurelia sighed through her nose. It was frustrating, to be denied the secret weapon she had relied on during the siege. Cassandra had almost helped her to win.
Noctiluca was certain you were dead, sent Cassandra. Whoever was feeding her information has stopped.
It was Faibryn Argentor.
Then he is the one I see standing over you.
Haven’t I caused that vision to disappear yet? asked Aurelia, incredulously. I revealed him as a traitor. He’s gone.
No, I still see it. It feels redundant telling you that you’re in danger, but you still are. She was silent for a moment and Aurelia suddenly saw movement on the front lines.
Noctiluca is not happy you revealed him. She hates you.
Aurelia scoffed. She will hate me more when this day is through. Something was definitely happening. Cassandra, listen. I love you. I have to go. Then she thought of one last thing. Tell me, have you seen the outcome of this battle?
Cassandra didn’t answer.
Aurelia raised her sword high. The moment she slashed it down would be the signal her archers, and her cannon teams, were waiting for. It was all coming down to this.
Yes, many outcomes, Cassandra sent finally. She sounded upset. And you always lose. Always.
The Medusi were moving, slowly at first, then with mounting speed. They ignored the wind that usually determined their movements, driving forward and picking up pace. The blanket of Medusi stretched as far as she could see in both directions, like looking out on a shining horizon, or a glowing tidal wave. It flowed into other valleys, and it was deep, thousands deep at every point, going back and back until it met the treeline and merged into the forest.
She could see the lead Medusi streaming forward, their tentacles flailing with the speed, and she began to hear their blood-frenzied screams echo across the valley. One became a hundred, became a thousand, became a deafening cacophony of screeching jellies.
Here it was, the moment her battle hinged on. The Medusi hit the centre of the valley. One of the soldiers beside her knew the moment even better than she did, blowing a grand bass note on a huge battle horn. For a moment it cut through the pitched shrieking.
I need to talk to you about your dream, sent Cassandra.
If I make it through this battle we will talk.
Aurelia slashed the air with her blade, pointing death to the oncoming hordes.
From all across the ridge cannons fired in unison, their payloads arcing out over the field and falling, smashing into the Medusi advance. Each payload was a clay sphere filled with oil, tar or blackest pitch. As they smashed down they exploded, coating the Medusi in their thousands.
Not a single Medusi went down.
‘We will never stop them with bullets or arrows,’ she had said to Opetreia during the war council. ‘Arrows go straight through, as do bullets, their flesh is jelly. Even cannonballs would only take out a few in a straight line.’
‘Then what do you suggest?’ he said.
‘Medusi are vulnerable, but not to those things,’ she assured him. ‘Blades are the next best thing, severing right through them in a stroke or two. We will fight them blade to tentacle.’
‘And the best thing?’
She smiled, remembering.
‘Fire!’ she shouted at the top of her lungs.
A thousand archers lit the oil-soaked rags on their arrows and loosed. A thousand flaming arrows launched into the sky and rained down on the Medusi below. The pitch, tar and oil that covered battlefield and Medusi alike, caught alight in a thousand places. Every fire spread to a dozen others in a mounting conflagration, the screeching doubling in intensity as many more Medusi were engulfed in the flames.
Medusi with splashes of oil on their bulbs or tentacles, suddenly found themselves burning. The advance guttered and stopped, Medusi writhing and screaming in pain as the fire ate straight through their fragile membrane skin. Aurelia didn’t know if the insides of a Medusi were especially flammable, but everything burnt with enough oil and pitch coating it. Tentacles of flesh became tentacles of flame, a seething inferno. She watched Medusi writhing in the flames, careening into each oth
er, turning black and sinking to the ground.
She watched ten thousand lights go out.
We will make you pay for every inch, she had said to Noctiluca. She would make good on that threat.
When Aurelia looked at the battlefield as a whole, a thick meandering line of flame wandered down its centre; the killing line.
‘Again!’ she yelled, the war horn sounding her command.
This time only the cannon fired, they didn’t need the backup of the archers. The second volley was even more satisfying than the first; each pot of oil exploded and caught alight immediately as if it were already aflame inside. The first volley had crashed down silently, waiting for the arrows to complete the attack. This time each and every one was like an incendiary all of its own. Exploding clay was flung in all directions, slicing into the few Medusi which escaped the flames.
She laughed out loud at the destruction. She had completely lost all hope of counting the Medusi they were burning.
With one final volley, she knew the cannon on the backs of the striders were spent. They had only had two days to prepare and the sum total had equalled three shots each. That was why it was so imperative to make them count.
Again, every clay sphere was like an explosive grenade, smashing into the Medusi ranks and sending burning pitch in every direction. Fire was flung into the sky, and then rained down on a hundred different Medusi, adding them all to the burning conflagration.
The killing line was like a burning river. A hundred thousand Medusi carcasses smouldering as the pitch slowly burnt out. Aurelia knew it wouldn’t last long, they had a few minutes reprieve before the enemy army could advance again. We have to make it count.
Smoke drifted over the ridge, thick and smelling caustic. ‘Sound the first retreat,’ she shouted. The same horn, but a different note.
The line of Luacha stood slowly, with much frantic cajoling from their handlers, turning around and striding away behind her. The archers followed them, moving fast but organised and deliberate.
Embrace of the Medusi (The Overlords Trilogy Book 2) Page 54