by J. S. Morin
The wolves were equipped for battle, with steel helmets that were fanned out at the edges to offer a semicircular screen for the rider to duck behind for cover. Thick leather collars and vests protected their vulnerable necks and underbellies. Goblins left little they dealt with unimproved; their animals were no exception.
The wolves threw up great sprays of powdery snow as they ran, seemingly extending the cloud of fog as they ran. But as the snow fell back upon the earth, it revealed goblins on foot, following in the path trampled by the wolves. The goblins did not hoot and cheer as humans might as they charged into battle. Their tiny voices did not carry far enough or with enough resonance to strike fear into enemies’ hearts, and they knew it. Thus onward they came with just the panting of wolves as their herald, still too far away to be heard by their enemies, yet closing rapidly.
Men upon the remains of Raynesdark’s battlements shifted nervously and tightened grips on their spears. On the bit of walls and tower that remained, archers arrayed themselves as best they could manage to steady a shot.
“Archers, fire on the wolves as they come into range! Save the enchanted arrows for now!” Brannis shouted.
Bows twanged as the archers took that for liberty to begin firing immediately, and some of the arrows reached their mark.
* * * * * * * *
The view from atop the avalanche wall was breathtaking. Higher than even the top towers of the castle, Juliana could see out over the entire battlefield—though she still could not see what was concealed in the fog.
They must keep their command back there, and obviously there are the cannons, but what else are they hiding? They must have some other trick, or keeping the fog up is just a waste of aether.
The runes were damaged along a long stretch of the avalanche wall. She had struggled with disabling the physical protections of the surface long enough to damage the wards that bore the weight of the Neverthaw Glacier above. She wondered how old the wall was. It was weathered and water stained but in perfectly functional condition. She had never been a strong student of history, but she had gathered that the wall was probably nearly as old as the city itself—thousands of summers. Juliana felt a pang of regret at what she might have just set on a path to destruction. One day, history books might list her as the one who had destroyed Raynesdark’s ancient wall, a monument to the early days of the Empire.
But will they see me as a vandal, recklessly toppling a piece of the Empire’s heritage, or as the savior who was willing to place the lives of everyone in Raynesdark ahead of the architectural richness of their forebears.
She watched for a moment longer, fascinated by the battle unfolding so far off. The forces arrayed on both sides looked like the tiny ceramic figurines sold in the markets, little clusters of toy people and goblins, too small to be real but so amazingly lifelike in their detail. It was easy to ignore the fact that the figures breathed and bled and screamed, when seen from so far away.
Suddenly the plains erupted in flame. A huge swath of the pack of charging wolves turned into living flame. The charge broke off and diverted around the destruction but kept coming.
Unless that worm Caldrax did that, Iridan must have just cast that firestorm spell. That was no firehurling—not on that scale for sure. Just … be safe, please, Iridan? You are not your father. Fate willing, you never will be.
* * * * * * * *
[I sensed that!] Ni’Hash’Tk snarled, sending G’thk and the masseurs stumbling away from her reflexive shift to an alert posture.
[Mighty One, I understand your desire for combat. I cannot see any reason you should not join the battle at your leisure. I know you are supremely powerful, but please have care, Holy One. This human feels powerful, and I do not wish to see you injured,] G’thk said, trying to instill some thought of caution in his arrogant goddess.
She knew that she would be fine and wished that her followers would show a bit more confidence in her power. G’thk, she suspected, was more concerned over the damage she might inflict on his new city.
* * * * * * * *
So it seems the demon has joined the battle. If the great beast wishes to confront the thing directly, so be it. It seems strong enough, though I imagine I could hold my own against it, if that is the extent of its power.
Jinzan had spent most of the day pacing. He needed access to the city and did not want to risk open battle if he could at all avoid it. His mission was more important than the overall conquest. The Staff of Gehlen was all that mattered.
Well, maybe not all that matters. The loss of the Raynesdark mines will hurt the Empire, though not fatally. There is the girl, too.
It was a silly, impulsive decision, he knew. Before he had known she was a spy, he had bedded her because she was there and willing, nothing more. But she was a captivating creature now that he knew more of her. Comely enough to be sure, but she was devious and cunning, and did what it took to survive. Oh, he knew that she came to his bed to gain his protection and nothing more; that was simple enough to grasp. But she lied to him at every turn, and did it well. Certainly she was not the same caliber of liar as that snake Kyrus, but Jinzan also had resources that Denrik lacked.
Jinzan has studied her Source thoroughly as she slept. He was no novice and could see subtleties in the swirls and whorls of the aether that most others could not discern. He was able to pick up the signs of extensive life extension taking its toll on the power of her Source. Oh, it was healthy enough, but starved and weakened. If she was nineteen autumns, he was a goblin.
But it was her deceptions and will to survive that he admired in her. She was living the life she was given and making her way. He would take her back to Megrenn as more than a trophy; his interest in her was genuine. She might encounter some small hostility, being Kadrin-born, but Megrenn was nothing if not accepting, and his standing was more than sufficient to validate her among the elite of the kingdom.
Jinzan reached into his pocket, feeling the cold, hard surface of the tiny cannon that was secreted away within. Another pocket held a bag filled with tiny cannonballs, and a pouch contained black powder, wadding, a powder horn, ram, and swab. He had pilfered the materiel from the goblin batteries and used his magic to shrink them down. It was exacting magic, using the aether to crush everything down equally and lightening it proportionally. The little cannon kit moved awkwardly as he fiddled with the pieces; they were intact cannon components, just compressed, and every bit of them was still there. The portion of the spell that made them feel manageably light was not quite as precise, and the pieces did not handle as if they were miniatures made to be the size they were.
Awkward or not, they were the key to his plan. If anything went wrong with the battle, he would not have to rely on the goblins giving him the use of one of the cannons as they fought for their lives.
* * * * * * * *
The first of the wolves reached the mountain road up to Raynesdark. Unable to scale the low cliffs that separated the switchbacks, they were forced to weave back and forth as the road wended its way up toward the city gate. Built for defense, Raynesdark had only the one gate.
Arrows fired down from what remained of the wall, expertly picking off the wolves as they ran sidelong to the wall. The armored helmets for the reckless goblin cavalry were designed to protect them as they mounted a frontal charge. The Kadrin arrows were finding flanks left bare to allow for speed.
“Help me with him. Get him down to the ground,” one of the lookouts said, holding a slumping Iridan under the arms.
His third firestorm had taken from his own Source for aether and left him spent. He was conscious, but exhausted, and was ready to fall off the wreckage of the tower he had taken up position on if no one else was ready with aid.
Having seen the aid his magic had been, spearmen rushed over to help lower Iridan to ground level, hoping fervently that he would be able to rejoin the battle. The more of the goblins he slew, the fewer that they would have to fend off. Iridan’s head lolled to the side as he
was handed down into the waiting arms of Duke Pellaton’s troops.
Brannis spared a glance after his friend’s well-being, but he had to focus on the enemy and the command of his own troops.
Fool. You did it to yourself again. At least this time, you did not burn yourself unconscious.
Brannis gritted his teeth in frustration, wishing his friend had learned better control over his power, or was at least more judicious with it.
“Catapults, all fire!” Brannis shouted back to the siege crews.
The infantry was in range, and he could not let the opportunity pass as he checked on whether Iridan would be in any condition to rejoin the battle.
Crrrk … Thgggthggthgg.
The catapults loosed sacks full of gravel from the mines, left open such that the gravel lofted free as the sacks arced through the air. The crews were supplied with countless sacks of the stuff, a waste product that was built up and eventually hauled out of the city to be dumped. Brannis had just ordered the process be carried out by catapult and had designated the goblin army as the dumping ground. Much of the gravel was landing on the lower portion of the road as well, possibly impeding the goblin advance.
As Brannis looked to the west, he saw an absolute sea of goblins. More and more emerged from the fog, which had persisted all the way to sunset. The estimates from the survivors of Illard’s Glen had been woefully inaccurate. There were likely already sixty thousand goblins upon the plain, and who knew how many more yet to emerge. Yet even with the walls in ruins, the city was defensible, and the humans still held advantages in reach and strength when the battle was joined in hand combat.
“We have waited out their bombardment. We have forced them to face us. Now is our chance to drive them back and throw them off the mountain as they try to take it from us!” Brannis shouted, trying to steel the courage of men who had never seen real combat.
He glanced down the lines, spearmen four deep, archers still picking their shots as the dwindling pack of wolf riders grew closer. None had broken yet and fled in the face of the enemy. None were crying—at least audibly—or talking of retreat, but there were dark looks among those who stood with Brannis; haunted eyes, muttered imprecations, and a few seemed to be catatonic. They might feign bravery well, but Brannis mistrusted them until he saw whether they held against the first charge.
When the wolves were nearly upon them, Brannis took up a position at the fore. Avalanche in hand, he stood out among the grim and dreary mail of soldiers and unarmored winter clothing worn by the militia. The sorcerers had the sense to dress in black for battle, and the knights’ bright steel and green-on-black livery shone, but Brannis Solaran looked every bit the commander of an imperial army in his gold-and-quicksilver armor, the polished surfaces reflecting the last moments of sunlight.
The wolves came across the rocky ruin at the approach to the wall, fanning out and making a break for the interior of the city. Wolves as large as mules danced like mountain goats across the uneven terrain, few even missing a step as they leaped and sprang from boulder to flat spot to fallen masonry. The growls and snarls as their prey stood waiting were fearsome, and the wolves fearless, and they plowed heedless into the waiting line of spears, trained to trust in their frilled helms and leather armor to keep death from finding them before they dealt it.
A golden statue amid tin soldiers, Brannis was sought out by several wolf riders eager for the kill of an obviously important commander. The goblin spears deflected harmlessly off his armor as they charged him, not even connecting with enough force to rock him backward, as Rashan’s demonstration had. Avalanche swept through the air like one of the goblin-swords the Kelvie expedition had brought, but unlike those wisps of steel, his enchanted blade moved with the force of a mountain behind it. Neither wolf, nor armor, nor goblin rider impeded its path in the slightest. Brannis could only even tell he was finding his target by the sound and the mess. Wolves were cloven in twain, strikes that hit flat-bladed sprayed buckets of blood and gore across the crushed rock hilltop they defended. Men who had previously bunched close to defend their commander now offered him wide space. Brannis retreated only against the onslaught of carrion that was piling in front of him.
All down the wall, the defenders held their ground. The wolf riders were brave and foolhardy, seeking out the well-armored knights in search of trophies rather than probe for weakness among the lines. But their charge had bought time for the infantry behind them. Unlike their mounted comrades, the infantry were climbing the rock faces and heading directly up the side of the mountain toward the fortifications.
Brannis and the rest of the Kadrin defenders had no way to know that the whole of the goblin infantry wore special climbing gear. Crude brass claws, cast by the score in the goblin forges, were strapped to the backs of their hands, and toothy spikes dug down from the tips of their boots, giving them bite into the loose rock of the mountain bottom, and—should they reach that far—the masonry pile higher up. Thus they surprised the defenders with the speed at which they ascended, making time up the mountainside quicker than even the wolves had, running fast but needing to follow the road until nearly at the top. The goblins were light, fragile creatures, but what there was of them was mostly muscle and sinew. They were able to pull their own weight up easily as they climbed, and it fatigued them little. Their short, razor-sharp spears could even be clutched in one hand while the claw strapped to its back held their grip on the rocks.
Brannis saw it and knew there was going to be a slaughter the likes of which he had never witnessed. The goblins knew that many of them, perhaps even most of them, had little chance of surviving the earliest phase of the assault, but they knew that their brethren would follow behind, and trusted that the humans would wear down and eventually succumb. Brannis could only hope that they were wrong, and that, with magic and stamina, they could withstand the onslaught.
RrrrrrrrrrrOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR!
The battlefield stilled as the goblins paused in their ascent. Goblin and human alike turned to find the source of the great bellow that sundered the air and shook the ground beneath them. Lesser slopes to the north and south of Raynesdark, with no wards to stop them, saw avalanches begin due to the noise. The fog over the goblin campsite dissipated rapidly as a rush of massive wings flapping created a tempest near the Neverthaw River, where it seemed that the command tents were pitched.
“KNEEL DOWN, HUMANS, AND FACE YOUR DOOM. I AM JADEFIRE, GODDESS OF THESE, MY LOYAL FOLLOWERS, AND YOU DIE AT MY COMMAND!” a mammoth dragon bellowed in excellent Kadrin, going so far as to use the name that humans knew her by, or at least once did some centuries past.
With a great beating of wings, the monstrous dragon took to the air. The massive silhouette as she ascended was awe-inspiring, even at the great distance separating the defenders from her. Scale was difficult to judge, but it was so far away … and still looked so large …
“Fall back! Take up defenses of the streets. Use the houses. Keep the houses between you and the dragon’s fire,” Brannis ordered.
His troops needed little prompting to abandon the wall and the scant cover it would offer against an aerial assault. His challenge would be to get them to stop and fight rather than head for the undercity.
Iridan, still weak enough that he needed help being moved, fumbled inside his tunic for the stone Rashan had given him, fighting against the two soldiers who had lifted him up and carried him from where he had taken respite at the base of one of the fallen towers.
* * * * * * * *
Juliana heard the dragon’s roar and thought that the wall she had just finished sabotaging was about to give way beneath her. The wall held, but just barely. Its sturdy stone construction was enough, even without the aid of the wards, that it held the advance of the ice against the disruption cause by Jadefire’s bellow. She watched as the dragon took wing, and two hints were quite enough for her to decide to take leave of her vantage.
She looked down from the wall to the city streets fa
r below. The wall rose a hundred and more feet above the top of the cliff wall, which itself stood forty feet from the level ground of the overcity. The gate to the undercity was directly beneath her, and there was no provision for getting from where she was to where she was going.
She jumped.
Her unbound hair streaked behind her as she plummeted, a pennant of reddish-gold announcing her own charge toward the ground. The frigid air was both exhilarating and numbingly cold at the same time and she relished it. To all appearances, she slammed into the cobblestone path to the undercity with force enough to splatter her body like the unfortunate wolves that crossed the path of Brannis’s sword. Instead she spiked down onto the street on one knee, with a hand out to steady herself. Magic had cushioned her fall, of course, a spell she knew well enough to trust to it mid fall and silently cast.
She considered joining the fighting, but thought better of it. I am no warlock. I can keep my head on my own shoulders if it comes to a fight, but in a war, I am not prepared to stand out there amid the chaos and trust my magic to keep me alive.
Instead Juliana contented herself to loiter in the gate area. She was still undercover in case the avalanche wall gave way, but had a view of the streets of Raynesdark and enough of a view to know if the army was being routed or not. She would also be able to hear any further proclamations from the dragon.
* * * * * * * *
“If any portion of the claim is called into question, you have but to request my presence and I will appear with all haste,” the knight spoke.
He wore no armor and carried no sword within the emperor’s audience chamber. Sir Kaelar Montagu wore his family’s coat of arms upon his tabard, green swords crossed facing north and west, upon a white shield, and the fashions of a court dandy about the rest of him. Wide sleeves, green hose, and pointed shoes that turned up slightly at the tip. Rashan was disgusted by him.