Starfall (The Fables of Chaos Book 1)

by Jackson Simiana

  The defending forces had been able to avoid any sort of melee up until this night. With resources dwindling and exhaustion running rampant, the men could not hold them off as successfully as they had been, and they would shortly be scaling the walls.

  Reneda grabbed Cendel by the arm. “You’re no use down here. Grab a sword and get up on the wall, lad,” he ordered. “I predict we will be needing to deploy the stakes shortly.”

  Cendel had never seen the stakes used before. A part of him anticipated the spectacle, while also fearing having to resort to the measure.

  Cendel leant forward in a quick half-bow before racing back to the seawall. He dropped his bow and grabbed a sword from one of the many weapons racks positioned along the streets.

  The Akurai ships dropped their anchors into the water. Their ships began turning on the spot so that they floated parallel to the seawall.

  Cendel thought he heard a flock of birds flying overhead in the dark.

  Nope. Another volley of arrows.

  More Imperial ships smashed into the seawall in a similar manoeuvre.

  Cendel heard shouts as he climbed the stairs, pulling out his sword.

  “Ladders!”

  “They’re climbing up!”

  The Imperial soldiers lifted ladders, the bases of which were mounted on the ship decks. Others tossed barbed grappling hooks, snagging them in the gaps along the battlement.

  Cendel shuddered upon seeing the menacing spiked helmets rise from the void as the towering Akurai soldiers scaled up the wall.

  The Port Denarim soldiers attempted to hold them back and push them off. The Akurai soldiers, broad-shouldered, heavily armoured, and easily a foot taller than the defenders on average, climbed over the battlements with surprising ease.

  Cendel hurled himself into the fight, shoulder-charging one of the climbers. The Akurai soldier was unable to brace in time and was thrown backwards, tumbling back down onto the ship deck below with a crash.

  One after another they came, like frenzied monsters.

  The Imperials ploughed through the crowds of defenders along the wall. Some fell backwards off the other side, others stood their ground and fought head-on. Swords clashed with maces and morning stars in an ear-splitting symphony.

  One Imperial stood at least eight-foot tall with huge, armoured shoulder pads and a skull painted on his black helmet. He roared as he swung a flail through the air.

  Without shields, the defenders were helpless.

  The flail struck a soldier in the chest, shattering his ribs with a crack. He doubled over, having all the breath struck out of him. Two other men filled the void to try fighting the huge Imperial, but he only made them cower back as he flailed the barbed weapon around in the air.

  Cendel was not as adept with his sword as he was with his bow, so he fought very carefully. The last thing he wanted was for a sword to slice somewhere it shouldn’t.

  Again.

  Cendel waited for the Imperial to swing at him before dodging underneath it and hurling himself forward. He grasped his weapon with two hands, one against the pommel.

  He stabbed the towering invader in the thigh, where the armour was not as strong. The hit cut deep from using both hands. He sliced the sword horizontally from its fixed position, freeing not only his sword but also the Imperial’s leg from his body.

  The flail-wielder collapsed as his leg was amputated. Blood pumped from the wound in a sort of stream.

  Cendel finished him off by pushing his sword through the visor of the skull-painted helmet until it stopped against the stone beneath.

  Akurai soldiers came pouring over the walls, overwhelming the defenders. They were vicious- dismembering and disembowelling without remorse. Standing taller than the defenders made them far more difficult to fight against.

  The air fast became thick with the putrid mix of blood, sweat and sea salt.

  Cendel engaged a group climbing over the battlement nearby.

  He was punched in the face by the closest Imperial, splitting his lip open.

  Cendel swung back around faster than the Imperial had expected, stabbing the soldier in the gut, and running forwards with the sword still impaled. The groaning Imperial was forced backwards, smacking against the stone battlement behind him.

  Cendel pulled the sword free. The Akurai soldier clutched at his spilling bowels, and Cendel brought the blade around again to slice his throat open.

  Blood spattered into Cendel’s face from the gash.

  In that moment of horror, he saw the faces of his younger sister Enoia, and her baby boy Raston. Sweet, innocent, the epitome of love and joy, horrifically juxtaposed to the image of an eight-foot-tall soldier in green and black, clutching at his open throat, gasping for air as his airways filled with blood.

  Cendel whispered to himself in that moment as the Imperial slid down to die. “Creator, please let me survive the night.”

  The battle raged on.

  Cendel stepped over towards a ladder and tried pushing it back down to slow the flow of soldiers, but it was far too heavy with climbers already on it.

  Realising the walls were being overrun, Cendel turned back towards where Sergeant Reneda had last been. Thankfully, the Sergeant was still barking orders, only a dozen metres from Cendel.

  Cendel shouted to Reneda from across the battlefield. “Ser! We cannot hold them!”

  Reneda somehow heard Cendel’s call over the white noise of men perishing, weapons crashing, the roaring ships and the ocean swell.

  “Tower!” Reneda shouted with his hands around his mouth, glancing up to the top of the Port Tower.

  A bowman stuck his head out from the top, peering down at his commander.

  “Trigger the stakes! The walls are overrun!”

  Up in the Port Tower, as others rained arrows down at the ships crashing into the seawall, the lone archer who had received the command made a quick glance at the battlefield below him.

  Soldiers in black in green were flooding over the walls all along the harbour, like flies over old food.

  It was clearly a battle that Port Denarim was losing.

  The archer wrapped his gloved hands around an old, rusted, metal lever. He pulled as hard as he could, but it would not budge.

  The lever was as old as Port Denarim itself, and in all its history had never been activated.

  “Help me with this,” the archer cried. Two others dropped their bows and with all their strength began trying to heave the metal arm.

  The iron made a terrible screech noise as it began to shift, before sliding completely, triggering the device.

  “Stakes!”

  A monumental vibration emanated from the Port Tower as the old mechanisms connecting to the lever activated, sounding louder than a stampede of horses. The seawalls shook as a horrific lurch came from within their stony interior.

  Cendel had never heard a noise quite like it.

  Suddenly, the Akurai ships sitting adjacent to the seawall were thrown backwards into the air with an almighty surge of water and shattered debris.

  Imperial soldiers climbing their ladders were flung high into the sky as their ladders shattered into a million splinters.

  The stakes.

  Colossal, twenty-foot-long, solid-iron spikes, thick as tree trunks, had been activated by the lever. They sprung up from the submerged base of the seawall where they were forced from vertical to horizontal positions.

  The Imperial ships on the water’s surface were hurled backwards in an instant from the immense force of the spikes flipping upwards.

  Cendel crouched down behind the battlement as an explosion of wood and water came from the bay before him.

  Men were flung from the decks. Their ships shattered and sank.

  All along the seawall the stakes were activated, raising massive waves of water. Some of the ships capsized as they flew upside down after being hit from underneath by the enormous stakes.

  Others were simply split in half like breadsticks under a knife.<
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  Masts collapsed into the watery depths, crushing soldiers who had landed in the water. Broken pieces of wood rained down. Other Imperials below deck were completely pulverised by the stakes, and those who had survived sank with their broken ships.

  The soldiers on the walls cheered as the invading fleet was utterly decimated in a single move. The enormous stakes, now pointing out horizontally at sea level, created a new impenetrable barrier against the remaining ships that sat in the bay.

  They would not be able to climb the seawall again, but alas, the harbour could not be used again either, until the stakes were all dismantled.

  Akurai Imperials in the bay were struggling to tread water, their heavy armour pulling them down within the black depths of the sea.

  The ones left on the walls continued to fight but were overcome by the defenders’ newfound second wind. Some threw themselves back off the wall and into the sea.

  Cendel arose, a spray of seawater washing his face clean of dirt and blood. It felt calming, relieving.

  “They’re retreating!” someone shouted along the wall.

  The defending men began howling and banging their weapons as they watched the few surviving Imperial ships turn in the bay, heading back for the open sea.

  The remaining Imperials on the seawall were finished off hastily.

  Cendel breathed a huge sigh, dropping the sword at his feet and embracing the cool breeze on his wet face.

  ※

  “You there, soldier,” Sergeant Reneda called, pointing at Cendel who was helping other soldiers pile up the dead. His armour was bloody, and his face was so muddy that Cendel did not make out the Sergeant’s curly moustache upon first glance.

  “Me, ser?” Cendel asked.

  “You are Cendel, yes? Townsguard?”

  “Aye, ser.”

  “You were the one who warned me about being overrun. You did well tonight, soldier. I appreciate your support.”

  Cendel, holding the arms of a corpse, dragged the decapitated soldier into the pile of dead. His hands were still shaking from his frayed nerves.

  “Thanks, ser. I was happy to help. None of us want to see Port Denarim burned to the ground.”

  “You have family here?”

  “A sister and nephew, ser. But they fled before the first attack. I know not where they are now.”

  “I will light a lantern to the Creator tonight and recite the Words of Power for their safe return home.”

  Cendel bowed at the kind gesture.

  Reneda paused before he spoke. While he had the demeanour of a commanding officer, he still appeared hesitant to speak like one. “I need to ask of you a favour.”

  Cendel washed away the congealed blood on his hands with some water. “Of course, ser.”

  “We have imprisoned a Akurai soldier from the fleet,” Reneda said.

  Cendel raised an eyebrow. “Alive?”

  “That’s right. Chained in the dungeons, of course. But alive. We need help with speaking to him. He may have some key information about the invasion.”

  Cendel did not reply. He went over to pick up the next corpse.

  Reneda continued. “As far as we know, of all the attacks along the Broken Coast thus far, no surviving Imperials have been captured.”

  “I’m afraid I am of no use to you there, Sergeant. I don’t speak their native tongue,” Cendel protested.

  “Don’t lie to me, soldier. We know of your past employment.”

  Cendel averted his eyes from Reneda. Dammit. How does he know? Such knowledge could see Cendel hanged.

  “You were a smuggler, Cendel. We know you used to have dealings with the Akurai Empire. And no deal can go forward without an exchange of terms and conditions, if I’m not mistaken?”

  “That was a long time ago, ser. I don’t have anything to do with it anymore.”

  “I am aware, but that is why I need your help now. You can speak Avarwythian, can you not? Such a talent is nearly impossible to find in the Broken Coast. Help us translate what the hostage has to say. He may have vital information on the invasion. Prove to me where your loyalties lie.”

  Cendel thought for a moment as he stacked the last body on the pile. He grabbed a nearby torch and threw it atop the dozens of bodies. Their clothing began to burn. The flames spread and soon engulfed the entire mound.

  “If we cannot extract anything from the Imperial, he will be executed.”

  Cendel closed his eyes, weighing his options. He did not want any more blood on his hands, especially not an unarmed prisoner’s blood.

  Justice meant something to him. Unarmed prisoners should not be executed.

  Cendel looked at Sergeant Reneda and reluctantly nodded. He knew he had no choice. Reneda was dangling an incriminating piece of information before him to use as leverage. If the wrong people found out about his smuggling days…

  “I’ll try my best,” Cendel said.

  “That’s all I ask for.”

  “If it means saving a life, and an end to this invasion, I’d be crazy to say no.”

  As dawn came, Cendel was taken to the dungeons beneath Port Denarim. Those remaining in town continued to dispose of the dead. No one had the time or energy to dig graves, so pyres were the way to do it.

  The night-time air became thick with the stench of smoke, of death, and of burning flesh.

  It was sickening, overpowering.

  Cendel had only ever been in the dungeons when transporting criminals while on guard duty. He had always hated it. It was cold and wet, lit only by torches on the walls, giving the dungeons an otherworldly feel.

  Puddles of muddy water splashed under his feet, forming from seas pray in the cracks of the uneven stones. Squeaking rats bolted away as Cendel and Reneda headed for their prisoner.

  Cendel clasped his hands together to try and stop them from shaking. The shock of the battle persisted.

  Two guards stood outside the cell where the Imperial was held. They unbolted and opened the door for Reneda and Cendel, bowing to their Sergeant as he strode past them.

  Inside the small, dank, gloomy cell sat a lone chair on which the Imperial soldier sat. His armour had been removed, revealing a naked seven-foot-tall man with well-defined muscles and short, black hair.

  The man was looking down at his chained feet, clearly feeling defeated. Both wrists were also cuffed to chains behind the chair he sat on.

  He was going nowhere.

  The Imperial raised his head up at Cendel as he entered. He looked surprisingly…human? After fighting them for days on end and hearing his comrades speak of their monstrousness, it was hard for Cendel to remember how alike they were to Alyrians.

  Aside from his height and his grey eyes, the prisoner could almost be mistaken for an average person.

  The Imperial sat up in his chair. His expression was completely void of emotion. His skin was covered in scrapes, bruises, and dried blood from the fighting.

  Cendel and Reneda stood before the Imperial prisoner.

  The sound of water dripping cut through the eerie silence.

  “Ask for his name,” Reneda said.

  Cendel paused, thinking back to his days of smuggling. He had chosen to learn the Avarwythian language to help make trading with the Akurai Empire easier and more profitable.

  But it had been many years since he’d practiced it.

  Cendel cleared his throat. “Kinchasa re no?”

  The prisoner went wide-eyed, looking directly at Cendel. He had not expected an Alyrian to be able to speak his exotic language.

  The prisoner responded, “Evi neto sena kanatefa.”

  Cendel translated for Reneda. “Um…he says he will not speak to ‘mainland scum’.”

  Reneda huffed before backhanding the prisoner in the mouth. A drop of blood fell to the floor.

  “Ser, is that necess-”

  “Ask him why he’s here,” Reneda instructed. “Ask him why his people invade our lands.”

  Cendel hesitated but did as he was ordered
. Better he gets beaten than me. He translated the question into Avarwythian.

  The prisoner responded the same words. “Evi neto sena kanatefa.”

  Reneda, without warning, drew his dagger from his belt and stuck it deep into the prisoner’s knee. The tip pierced his skin and drove straight through the flesh, sliding underneath the bone of the knee cap.

  The prisoner wailed in agony as Reneda twisted the blade, lifting the kneecap up from its normal position.

  Cendel quivered as he heard the ligaments tear and the bone crunch against the blade.

  Reneda shouted in the prisoner’s face as he writhed around in his chains. “Why are you here?!”

  Reneda pushed the dagger in deeper before lifting it upwards, the kneecap splitting in a horrific popping sound that made Cendel want to expel the contents of his stomach.

  He had to avert his eyes, lest he be sick.

  “Why are you here?!”

  The prisoner screamed. “Ila, ila!”

  Reneda pulled the dagger out, wiping the blood with his coat. The Akurai prisoner stopped screaming, before grimacing and spitting at Reneda’s feet.

  “Heretic bastard,” Reneda muttered under his breath. “Ask him why he’s here again, if you don’t mind.”

  Cendel gulped. He did not want the prisoner suffering anymore. “Ser, I… I don’t think this is the right thing to do.”

  “Look at him.”

  Cendel looked at the prisoner, chained before him. His knee was dislocated, and a thin stream of blood ran down his bare shin. His head was bowed, and he was shivering.

  “This thing does not deserve an ounce of sympathy from either one of us. He was sent here to plunder, to rape, to kill. We need to know why, we need to know by who, and we need to know where any future attacks will take place.”

  “But ser, we cannot torture this man. It’s not right.”

  “He is no man. You will do as you have been ordered, soldier. We are at war- the rules do not apply anymore while these bastards attack our lands and murder our people.”

  Reneda stared at Cendel without blinking. The sergeant seemed desperate; he wanted answers, and he wanted them right then and there.

  Cendel rubbed his eyes, huffing. He knelt before the prisoner so that their gaze aligned. It was an intimidating position to be in- the man was huge. But he felt his odds were better if he tried connecting with the prisoner, and what better way to do that than stare the man in the face?