The War of the Pyromancer

by P D Ceanneir

  It would have raised morale in the allied host if the enemy cavalry had retreated then, but unfortunately Jarl Olav and his Berserkers attacked Hagan’s force on his right flank. The wily old Jarl had taken a large portion of his men to the south, crossed the marshland and the flooded reed beds near the lake, and descended towards the ravine to hit the Havant Guards from the south. At first, the battle went ill for the countess’s men; many of the purple-hued armoured infantry fell to the surprise attack and were pushed back to a rocky hill near the Fallows brooks. Gunach, and his small band of tough dwarves, stormed in and flailed at the axe wielding Berserkers with their own double-headed axes. With his help, the fight changed for the better, and eventually the tide was finally turned when Lord Sandbrea’s squadrons of horse collapsed under the pressure of Hagan’s pikemen and retreated. This gave Hagan more men to spare to go the countess’s aid.

  In the battle with the Berserkers, Cinnibar and Jynn fought like demons alongside the dwarves. They hacked at the mad screeching Berserkers with equal force, driving them back with the use of the Arts before finally forcing them to retreat. Lord Edgemuir suffered heavy losses in the final charge, but was still in enough control of his cavalry to guard the Berserkers retreat. Many saw Jarl Olav carried off the field by five of his Bondsmen, a Havant Guard’s falchion had wounded him during the melee and a dwarf axe had cut through his doublet to open up his chest.

  His part in the main battle that followed was now over.

  I have to mention that a few days after the battle on the Fallows I went, under escort, to a small croft beyond the enemy lines, about two miles from the ravine, which the Vallkyte army were using as a hospital for the wounded. The house was long and narrow and many dead and dying enemy soldiers lined the walls. At the far end, lying on a low wooden cot and clutching his sword to his chest, was Jarl Olav. He had died an hour after the retreat from the ravine. The young Lord Edgemuir was sitting next to him and he stood as I approached to give me his sword in surrender. I still remember the tears in his eyes.

  The lull in the battle at the ravine was short. Hagan had lost many soldiers but Elkin arrived to augment his numbers and informed him of Kasan’s arrival. My second brother had force-marched his War Wolves through the previous night until most could barely stand, and yet they still had a battle to fight in the morning. He approached from the northeast to attack Count Talien’s rearmost troops who were now standing their ground on the hillock of the Fallows itself.

  Talien had been cautious. At first he had sent his cavalry against Hagan to scatter them in the hope of continuing his march south. In the end he had also taken the wise move of standing his army on the two highest hillocks of the Fallows in case the charge failed. The high elevation was to be ideal for his Crossbowmen and the late Lord Kelpo’s archers. When the three thousand strong schiltron’s of the Wolves attacked, in two formations for each hill, they were battered by arrow bolts from the count’s Wither Rangers. The Wolves had no shields, just chest armour, padded leathers and helmets for protection.

  The first charge from Kasan’s War Wolves faltered as it attacked the north hill where Count Talien commanded the Vallkyte infantry and the well-armoured men-at-arms of the King’s Bodyguards. The second, under Cokato, desperately fended off the other schiltron, but Hagan, Elkin and the Havant Guard left the safety of the ravine to attack the enemy from the south. What followed was the usual confusion of battle as troops and infantry companies merged into one seething mass.

  Lord Huron, elated at destroying Lord Withermorne’s cavalry, decided to follow this up by attacking Count Talien’s exposed eastern flank. He discarded his foot soldiers; leaving Lord Ness in command, allowing them reach the battle on their own and, and with his son, galloped to Prince Kasan’s aid. What he found should have been an easy charge into the enemy, as the ground his cavalry rode on rose gently to meet the opposing force on the count’s hillock. Unfortunately, the fringe land at the foot of the Fallows held deep waterlogged marsh and thus slowed the charge. Huron’s host became, ironically, easy targets themselves for Kelpo’s regiment of archers, and hundreds of the charging horses fell into the morass of the marshland. Count Talien had picked his ground well

  Duke Huron himself died under the rain of the first arrow fall and so did a large portion of the attacking cavalry that massed around his forward positions. His fifteen-year-old son, Lord Rett, and now the new Red Duke, though the news of his father’s death had not yet reached him at that point, valiantly extracted the survivors from the carnage and sought to find an easier way over the boggy ground. His tactic was simple; he carried out feints so that the enemy archers used up the last of their arrows on their shields, and then he crossed the narrow strip of marshland unhindered to gallop up the hillock.

  By the time I arrived, the battle had been going undulating along the hillock for most of the morning. One of my scouts had spotted the cloud of ravens to the southeast and I roared at my men to shed their backpacks and run as fast as they could. I arrived on horseback with the van of my bodyguards to witness a field of total confusion and devastation. The battle lines had become blurred, the dead and wounded from both sides lay in heaps all around the Fallows.

  I could see the Vallkyte army partly surrounded on their high ground position. To the north, I saw the waving standards and chevron pennants of the Rangers. The enemy on the count’s hill were managing to hold back the Wolves schiltron, but Lord Rett now made Kelpo’s Archers pay for their loyalty to Telmar as he carved a path through them. The southern hillock was under furious attack by the schiltron from the east and Hagan’s army from the west, though my brother had the worst of it, his men being forced to struggle through muddy ground and up a steep slope before engaging the Berserkers and a Regiment of Draymen Militia, which Cokato also commanded. From my high vantage point I could see that the count had chosen a good spot and had obviously hoped Hagan would attack him there, but he had not reckoned on Kasan reaching him so quickly or that I would show up, otherwise he would have won the day.

  My soldiers were literary being whipped by their sergeants in order to get them to the battlefield. The sun was high in a clear blue sky, waving swords and stained armour glinted in the field below; the sound of dying men reverberated through the chill air. The panting soldiers of my army scanned the dead that fringed the battlefield, knowing that some of them may join their fallen comrades. Mounds of bodies, horses, discarded pikes and flagpoles littered the approach to the two hillocks and many swan-fetched arrows carpeted the ground.

  I dismounted and a squire took my horse away. I adjusted my armour, making sure the straps were tight on my greaves; I pulled up my coif over the padded cap on my head, then extracted Tragenn and stood with my men. I had a company of Yeomen Archers who I positioned on the shallow ridgeline that looked towards the count’s hillock, about three hundred yards away, and ordered them to give us cover against the enemy’s crossbows. I then turned to my men. Each was silent, wrapped up in their thoughts. I saw eagerness in the eyes of some and fear in many of the rest. Even though I had been in battle before my heart was pounding against my ribcage, yet I kept a cold face.

  I shouted, ‘There has to be an end to this war! There has to be a chance to redeem what we have lost! All of you standing here before me are here to make a difference. Join me in glory! Those are our countrymen down there, let us do them proud!’ They cheered as they joined me as we charged into the mouth of the beast.

  5

  Telmar stepped out of the Door.

  Soft sage grass and meadow hillocks lay before him. The sound of crows cawing in the distance was piercing the otherwise peaceful silence.

  ‘What in the name of…?’ he said as he heard the distant sound of clashing steel.

  ‘Ah, the time has come. Your destiny awaits, your majesty,’ said Cronos, standing on the threshold of the Door. Harlequin hovered above his head.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Your army is surrounded by the Roguns,’ explaine
d Cronos who looked up at the low sun, ‘I judge that the end is near.’

  Telmar looked around, confused. ‘You brought me back several days in the future?’

  ‘Several months actually,’ said Harlequin.

  ‘Damn! Take me back to when I left them…’ protested the king.

  Cronos held up his hand. ‘That’s impossible, majesty. History will be rewritten if I do that. You are meant to be here at this time.’

  Telmar felt his anger grow. ‘Am I to die here then?’

  ‘That is not your fate as yet, but you will know what to do.’ Cronos stepped back into the doorway, but Harlequin lingered at the opening.

  ‘You are not coming with me, are you?’ Telmar asked the Powerball. ‘You are going with him,’ he said, pointing to the blue-skinned man.

  ‘Our lives separate at this juncture, master. You go where I cannot follow. I will now set my energies to finding a way to help Cronos be free of the will of the Earth Daemon.’

  ‘What of the Mastirton Maelstrom? It’s still unstable and I may need your help to fix it.’

  Harlequin was silent for a moment, and then said, ‘I’m afraid our paths will not cross again, and the Mastirton Maelstrom is to be someone else’s problem. Farewell Telmar, may the gods be with you, always.’ He floated through the open white door and vanished into the darkness. A second later so did the Door.

  6

  I split my force into two after we crossed under the flurry of crossbow fire from the Rangers on the count’s hillock. I sent one half to augment the forces attacking the count and I took the rest to aid my brother Hagan. I found him slightly wounded, drenched in mud and blood but smiling broadly.

  ‘Ah, Van, I was just warming them up for you!’ he cried.

  ‘Where do you want my men?’ I asked. He looked at the fifteen hundred soldiers behind me then chuckled.

  ‘I want them up there,’ he said, pointing to Cokato’s hillock.

  I smiled, ordered my men into formation and then charged up the steep bank. I remember coming abreast of Hagan’s soldiers and seeing Powyss smashing at the enemy with shield and sword. I swung my sword left and right with furious abandon, killing two militiamen, and cutting through the neck of a Berserker. That was when I saw Cokato for the first and last time.

  He was swinging his huge axe over the heads of his men and letting it crash onto the shields of the front rank of my soldiers, the force of the blow sent men scattering. Like the rest of his people he wore a cape of black bearskin, now matted with blood, and he was roaring at his men to hold the line. I thought that he looked utterly fearsome, but then I lost sight of him as my men pressed forward to get to the top of the hill.

  The first sign of victory came when the line of defenders on my hillock were breached by the Havant Guard charging from their south. The Draymen Militia there, a mix of many civilians from villages along Lake Furran, buckled under the more skilled swords and spears of the regular Rogun and Sonoran troops. Cokato’s Berserkers behind them had been engaging the schiltrons of the War Wolves when Gunach and his small band of dwarves carved through the decimated militia regiment and started hacking into the Berserker’s exposed backs. A dwarf in full battle frenzy is truly a remarkable and fearsome sight.

  For the enemy the fight was becoming desperate. Cokato himself gathered a group to break out of the formation and made a suicidal charge into the Wolves, which worked surprisingly well. Once they got past the Wolves’ long spears, they dished out death with their axes, massacring the Wolves in their hundreds. Unprepared for such a savage attack, the Wolves’ formation disintegrated and they withdrew from the Fallows. Unfortunately for Cokato he now noticed that his force on the hillock was almost totally overrun, so he retreated east with his men, leaving the Draymen to be slaughtered atop the hill by my men. He hoped to go to Count Talien’s aid on the north hillock, but Lord Rett’s charge had pierced deep into the Whither Rangers and, once my men attacked from the west, the fight was over. The Vallkyte army began to flee in droves, leaving over half their number dead or wounded behind them. They streamed eastwards with my army and Hagan’s following close behind, but the pursuit would be short because we were all utterly exhausted from the battle.

  That is when I remember hearing the piercing scream.

  It was an eerie roar of rage, so loud and primal that everyone stopped running to look west to find its source. Silhouetted on a low ridge to the south was a lone figure in mail and shining armour. He also wore a golden circlet on his head which held back his long dark hair. His silver rain cape flapped in the breeze. Emblazoned on his surcoat was the heraldic crest of Tressel.

  The Pyromancer had come to the field of battle.

  7

  That angry roar, completely directed at us, meant that the destruction of his army maddened him to a considerable degree and, for all he knew, many of his friends lay amongst the field of dead. Therefore he took his anger out on us all.

  I remember seeing the white glow around his hands, I saw it brighten and enlarge. Knowing what was to come next, I screamed for all of my men to hit the ground. Two large Pyromantic Fireballs slammed into the northern hillock, recently vacated by Count Talien’s fleeing host. It was as if a giant hand had just shaken the ground like a rag. The land around us lurched upwards and the hill fragmented into large chunks that rained down around our soldiers for miles around. I looked up through the descending debris to see Hagan smacked to the ground by a rock and Powyss run to him, he then use his shield to protect them both as sods of earth and stone pelted the metal. I heard thumps all around me as heavy mounds of earth splashed into the wet lands, and a few of those sounds were screaming soldiers falling back to earth.

  When the earth finally settled I saw that a huge chunk had been ripped out of the hillock, in fact it was just a hole in the ground now. I feared for Kasan, who I last saw on the east side of the hill while the rest of us had chased the retreating Vallkytes.

  I had no time to run back to him because Telmar was not finished with us yet. In his memories I could see his fevered madness brought on by the agony of the curse, though he retained a semblance of sense, he also fought against despair that only charged the Pyromantic energy all the more. He knew that his power would run dry, so he used the new-found knowledge of tapping into the Earth Energies to re-energise his strength. He used the Arts to “Link” with the volatile matter within the Dragon Lanes. Invisible to those who stood and watched, but not to Telmar, he reached out his hands and the ground ripped around him as he pulled the energy out with sheer force of will. Its yellow colour pooled and puttered along the fissures and then became vibrant as he condensed it into a form of concentrated vitality that sparked and flashed like bolts of lightning along his fingertips.

  He was vaguely aware that he was becoming the monster he had just defeated.

  Then he pointed upwards, and the sky became flame in an instant.

  A huge wall of churning orange fire rolled down from the ridge like a hundred foot high tsunami. It burnt everything it touched, scorching the ground and ripping moisture from the earth to turn it into scalding steam and made the ground blister.

  I barely had time to shield myself with the Rawn Arts. I created a bubble to deflect the fire and the flames that swarmed around me in a four-foot radius. The pressure was like a strong gale, battering me in consistent waves, and I leant into it to walk towards Hagan. Around me my men were roasting alive where they stood, I could even hear their high-pitched screams over the roar of the flames. I despaired; there was nothing I could do to help them, I was barely able to hold back the flames away from my own body as it was.

  Hagan was crouching beside Powyss; both of them were concentrating hard as the fire whipped into tiny tornadoes to eat everything it touched. Later, Powyss confessed to me that the emotional feeling of sheer dread was the catalyst to unveiling his control of the Fire Element. I reassured him that he was not the only one who felt the same that day.

  I have no idea how long we staye
d like that. To me it felt like hours and I was weakening by the minute. At some point Lord Ness appeared by my side, I was so surprised that I almost lost concentration. The pressure eased and I realised that the Ri was protecting us all by pushing the shield we had created outwards a several more feet, proving to many of us that Ris were far more formidable in the Rawn Arts than Masters. Afterwards, he told me that he arrived shortly after the rout and saw the vast devastation that Telmar was causing. In fact, the flames reached as far back as the woodland on the Dulan border. To this day half of the forest growth is still stunted from the flames.

  Lord Ness ordered us all to stay together and help him find others in the same predicament. Together we were able to Blend our powers into an expansive shield and beat back the flames far easier. We steadily and slowly trudged forwards, through heaps of blackened corpses, and found others close to the main battlefield using the higher ground of the second hillock for protection. Cinnibar and Jynn were standing alongside Lord Soneros and Lord Fowyn. I saw other Ri and Rawn Masters I recognised, although I later learnt that many others had died when the first wave of fire and heat hit us.

  The world burnt all around, it seemed as if it was never ending. The beauty of the flames, as they danced and weaved around our elementally projected shields, was hypnotic. It wove and coalesced like fiery spirits, bombarding us with tails of flame and intense heat.

  Then, just as abruptly as it started, it stopped.

  I was not the only one who fell to his knees with exhaustion and relief, but Telmar sent two more waves of flame towards us that day and we took it in turns to hold it back. At that point we fathomed that the attacks were becoming weaker, though no less dangerous. Telmar’s power was waning.