Estevan pointed out small groups of masked townsfolk, carrying sacks and large storage pots into position on the wall near the hulking form of Amogg. Each also wore thick leather gloves and aprons. “The last of his weapons are being moved into position as we speak.” He paused and frowned. “That’s odd. I could have sworn he made more than that… something caustic stored in large clay pots…” He shook his head and continued. “In any case, Amogg Hadakk’s arms will serve in place of a catapult. By now, Jerak should have finished his meeting with Tiarnach and the militia.”
Verena spotted the red-haired warrior sauntering towards them, a spear in one hand and a buckler strapped to the other. A dozen grim-faced militia trailed after him, but of the alchemist there was no sign.
“Your salty Highness,” Tiarnach said, sketching a bow. “Need a hand?”
The slynx around Verena’s neck hissed at him, and he hissed right back. The little white creature looked affronted.
The pirate queen glowered at him. “As funny as finding a shit in my soup, you stinking savage. Please tell me you haven’t left that mass-murderer to his own devices?”
The warrior scratched his beard with a filthy fingernail. “Not my sodding job to babysit him.”
She rested her hand on the knife at her belt. “Then I’ll deal with him myself.”
Tiarnach shrugged. “You go do that. I’ve got all I need from the wee prick. His head can adorn a rusty spike for all I care.”
Estevan looked to his lord, who sniffed the air. “The enemy draw close,” Lorimer said. “It is time to put the final preparations in place.” With that the vampire strode off towards Black Herran and Amogg, standing on the defences looking south.
“I am an old woman with one hand,” Verena said to Estevan. “I will be useless in a battle; instead I will go and take care of our other little problem.” She turned to her pirates. “Aleeva, you and three others come with me. The rest of you, make yourselves useful – most of these land-pigs have no idea how to fight; be sure to steady them.”
“Aye, My Crown,” they said, and moved off towards the wall. Aleeva and the other three followed their queen, hands never straying from the hilts of their weapons.
“I have heard tell of this man they call the mad alchemist,” Aleeva said as they turned left down the road leading past the temple towards Jerak Hyden’s workshop. “How dangerous is he truly? What weapon does he fight with?”
“He’ll probably be unarmed,” Verena said. “But don’t let your guard down. In his own way he is as dangerous as the Falcon Prince. He thought nothing of poisoning entire towns so he could study the effects on their bodies. Men, women, children, and even livestock, all are of no concern beyond furthering his lust for knowledge. Of all who served under Black Herran during her conquest of Essoran, he was the only one I would call an irredeemable monster. Worse even than Maeven.”
Black Herran nodded to Lorimer Felle and Tiarnach as they joined her and Amogg on the creaking walkway atop the log palisade. They watched the bulk of the Lucent army cresting the rise just south of town, fur-clad scouts in the lead. A bannerman in pristine white tabard and silver chain climbed into view, the golden sunburst of the Bright One on a white flag flapped at the end of a bronze-capped pole he planted in the earth, not so far away from Black Herran’s demonic sigil. Behind the bannerman came the Falcon Prince armoured in shining silver, his golden falcon visor lowered.
Maeven shoved past the sweating, shaking militia on the narrow walkway. The necromancer took up position beside her old general and stared at the distant form of the Falcon Prince. Her fingernails gouged bloody furrows into her palms.
“Are you sure these pricks won’t just wait us out?” Tiarnach asked, pulling on scavenged mail, cinching the belt tight and donning a helmet. “Lots more o’ them fuckers up north only a day’s march away.”
“I doubt they will stop to talk,” Maeven said. “In their arrogance they will come in hard and fast. The Falcon Prince’s wrath is brutally direct in nature. He thinks himself and his damned goddess invincible. It will not occur to him that he can fail.”
“Pretty fire make it easy to kill,” the big orc added. “Amogg say little humans scared to fight axe to axe.”
“We face many inquisitors this time,” Lorimer said. “How do you intend to counter them?”
“I don’t,” Black Herran said. “Thanks to Verena’s experience of fighting at sea we have their range now, and most of them will be dead before they ever get within bowshot of Tarnbrooke.”
Black Herran stared hard at the man who had come here to destroy her home of forty years. The Falcon Prince paused. His helmet turned towards Black Herran and Maeven. He seemed to shudder at the sight of them, but then he drew his sword and held it aloft. It burst into flames and then he pointed it at Tarnbrooke. His men advanced at a jog.
Black Herran gasped and her leg gave way, forcing her to grab Maeven’s arm for support. “The bastards are right where I want them to be.” Her mouth twisted into a rictus of pain as her entire body spasmed. The earth shuddered beneath the entire town’s feet. Boulders crashed down from the cliff walls on either side of the valley.
Blood drooled from the demonologist’s lips, eyes and nose as she sagged against the necromancer. Her spasms intensified, every muscle straining. Then all tension left her. She groaned and wiped her face with a handkerchief. “The great demon comes. Duke Shemharai’s general, Malifer, rises from the burning pits of Hellrath.”
The tremors intensified. Yelps of surprise and fear among the townsfolk caused Amogg to bellow: “This on our side! Big demon comes to eat up little humans.”
The militia shifted nervously from foot to foot, not entirely sure if Amogg was reassuring or not.
“It is time to remove most of our melee force from the walls,” Lorimer said to Estevan. “This place reeks of fear. The less the townsfolk see of this the better.”
Three quarters of the Tarnbrooke militia and armed civilians were assembled into separate groups stationed a short distance from the palisade, ready to charge into any breaches that appeared. Those left on the wall bent bows and readied weapons for when the enemy came within spitting distance.
“It begins,” Black Herran said, pointing to the peak of the hill where Lucent soldiers lurched to and fro, dropping weapons as they fell. She laughed, spraying flecks of blood as their formations were broken and scattered. The earth heaved up from underneath her demonic sigil, slabs of rock rising and splitting as something massive punched up from the depths.
Jets of steam and clouds of yellow gas billowed from the broken earth, scalding and choking. Men fell screaming, faces red and blistered; others flopped like landed fish gasping for breath. An inquisitor and a dozen of his soldiers dropped screaming into the depths as a chasm opened beneath their feet. Sheets of flame roared into the sky and the rotten egg stench of brimstone afflicted every nose.
A gaggle of bald acolytes raised their voices in prayer to the Bright One, an abjuration against all manner of evil. Rough, red-scaled hands the size of houses ripped free from the chasm in a torrent of stone. The earth juddered as they slammed down on either side, squashing the acolytes to paste and burying black claws deep into the hillside. A long, dreadfully fanged crocodile head rose into the air as the great demon general Malifer pulled itself from the gaping wound in the mortal world. It rose on two legs, and flexed two hands, but there the resemblance to humanity ended. It reared tall as the spire of the Tarnbrooke temple and thrice as long, a titanic demon armoured in pit-forged spiked steel wielding a heavy maul the size of a tree, the metal hammer head as heavy as a battering ram. Flame and smoke seeped from its fanged maw, and sizzling drool began to drip as it surveyed the feast of human morsels surrounding it. A long-ridged tail lashed the hillside, crushing a handful of men.
Scattered and terrified fragments of the Lucent army fell back in disarray, tiny ants scurrying for safety before the boot of this malevolent giant crushed all life from them. The Tarnbrooke milit
ia on the wall paled and gripped their weapons tight. Steel clinked and leather creaked as the defenders shivered in terror and prayed to the Elder Gods that this hellish monster would destroy only their enemies.
The demon general’s long, flat, inhuman head turned unerringly to locate Black Herran, its vibrant green eyes unblinking as it stared deep into her soul.
“This realm now belongs to Duke Shemharai,” it roared, the inhuman voice somehow understood in every mind when such a mouth and throat could never utter human words.
“Not yet it doesn’t!” Black Herran shouted, her voice hoarse and cracking. “Behind you stands the army of a goddess. By my blood and by my will, destroy it.”
As if to reinforce the point, a lanky inquisitor in dusty plate pulled himself from some rubble, drew his sword and pointed it towards the towering demon. He yelled a prayer to the Bright One and unleashed her power.
A torrent of golden fire capable of reducing humans to ash slammed into Malifer’s steel-clad chest. The huge demon was forced to take a step back. A patch of its armour glowed cherry-red. Then the demon lowered its fanged maw, one eye studying the insect that dared sting it.
It loosed a roar that shook shingles from roofs and set birds to flight for leagues around. Pots cracked, cats yowled and dogs fled. Black clouds boiled into being in clear skies, casting the town into gloom and lashing it with hail.
A clawed hand blocked the holy fire and the demon swung its huge maul down in the other. The head of the weapon hit like a thunderclap, crushing the inquisitor and a chunk of hillside with it. Dirt and pebbles rained down across the battlefield, and as the maul lifted it left a crater deeper than Amogg was tall.
Malifer examined its hand, noting the charred scales the same way a human would an unpleasant rash. “Know your place, vermin,” it boomed. “Your bodies and souls are my sustenance.” It stamped a few straggling soldiers to mush and bent low to scoop up another two, dropping the screaming men into its mouth and swallowing them whole.
The panicked enemy began to rally around the Falcon Prince as he drew his sword and advanced on the demon. His Goddess’s power wrapped around him, glowing brighter and taller with every step as he assumed the titanic flaming form of the Bright One he had worn during the battle with the Kraken. His sword extended into an incandescent blade of a size to match the demon general’s huge maul. His voice rang out, rich and clear and loud as a city bell: “I shall destroy you, servant of evil! This world bows to the will of the Bright One, and all that is impure shall be burned from existence. To the walls, chosen of the Goddess! This foe is mine alone.”
Malifer laughed, a rumble like two colliding mountains, and swung its maul at the Falcon Prince’s head. The champion of the Bright One dodged and struck back with his sword, quick as lightning. The burning blade pierced pit-forged steel with a shower of sparks.
The demon general hissed as its black blood sprayed the hillside, bursting into black and greasy flames wherever it landed. It turned and lashed out with its tail, swiping the Falcon Prince’s leg and sending him crashing down atop his own soldiers, his huge body of golden fire obliterating twenty men in an instant.
As the two colossal powers fought on the hill south of Tarnbrooke, the remaining Lucent soldiers streamed towards the town, their precise and orderly formations abandoned in favour of savage bloodlust and naked terror.
“Here come the fanatics,” Tiarnach shouted, hailstones rattling off his helmet. “Take your places, chug the alchemist’s bloody potions and get ready to loose your arrows. I’ll gut any man or woman who survives this fight without taking a pair of Lucent heads to sit on spikes. Make me a forest of Lucent skulls, you mad bastards!”
The final battle to decide the fate of every soul in Tarnbrooke had begun.
CHAPTER 37
The Tarnbrooke bowmen were hunters, not cold-hearted killers of men, and their shaking, hail-stung hands caused their aim to go awry. Arrows rained down on the Lucent charge, missing more often than not, or hitting raised shields and deflecting off helms. Only a few found exposed flesh, but every hit was one more ruthless fanatic that the farmers, butchers, spinners and innocent craftsfolk of Tarnbrooke would never have to face.
Lucent skirmishers held back from the front lines, picking off defenders atop the wall with their powerful war bows.
Arrows sped back and forth. People fell on both sides. The enemy were at the muddy ditch surrounding the town, slowed, making them better targets for the bowmen. Some slipped in the mud, falling onto sharpened wooden stakes while others got their clothing snagged, slowing them down. The charge did not falter.
Amogg acted as a living catapult, hurling Jerak Hyden’s alchemical weapons out into the mass. Iron balls with fizzing fuses exploded into razor shards, shredding all nearby. Pots shattered, releasing powders to the wind. Men screamed and clutched their melting eyes, others fell clutching their throats or staggered about swiping at hallucinated enemies. Dozens of soldiers tore at helms and mail, scratching at skin rapidly blistering and breaking. The rest continued on, grim-faced and furious.
The wind shifted, carrying green and yellow clouds back across a section of the palisade, then up and off to the west away from town. A dozen men and women of Tarnbrooke guarding that section dropped and fell frothing at the mouth, screaming with hysterical laughter even as they died.
Golden fire exploded against the western side of the palisade, blinding bright in the demonic gloom. It consumed logs and the bowmen atop them. An inquisitor sprinted into the billowing smoke of the breach, sword and eyes blazing. His men roared and charged after him, sensing victory.
A screech of steel, a thunk of flesh, and the inquisitor’s severed head bounced back the way he’d come. A huge shadow stepped into the breach, axe cutting through the first rank of soldiers.
Amogg laughed as she wreaked bloody ruin, tossing hard men away like broken children’s toys. “Fight good, little humans. Make Amogg Hadakk happy.”
The Lucent charge slowed but still came on, more cautious now with shields at the fore, weapons probing and wary of the huge orc’s superior reach. They all wore fine mail and sturdy helms, but even if their armour warded off the cutting edge, any blow from her heavy axe crushed bones.
Red Penny and a unit of female militia rushed to reinforce the orc warchief before she was overwhelmed by numbers. A wall of spears plunged into the enemy: thrust, withdraw, thrust, just like they had been taught.
Big as the elder orc was, she could not block the entire breach alone, and soldiers slipped through on either side. They tried to use their armour and strength to push through the forest of spears. Some hesitated on realising they faced women – a fatal mistake. Red Penny’s spear-sisters did not hesitate. Thrust, withdraw, thrust…
Golden titan and towering demon general fought on the hillside above the town, flaming sword against heavy maul, every hit an impact that shook and cracked the earth. Burning black blood and golden fire rained down as they cut and hammered at each other’s unfathomably powerful bodies, armour cracking under the pressure. Malifer’s fanged maw snapped shut just shy of the Falcon Prince’s golden nose, and the champion of the Bright One countered with a punch to its crocodile jaw. His fist hit like a fiery battering ram, the staggering impact a thunderclap booming through the valley.
Malifer recovered instantly, and both fought with deepening fury.
On the east side, more logs exploded into flame and ash. Two inquisitors, both slender and quick on their feet, advanced at a cautious jog with their followers arranged in a line behind them. They had learned from their holy brother’s fatal overconfidence.
Tiarnach stepped forward through billowing ash and embers to block their way, red hair blazing in the firelight, a sword in each hand and a sneer on his face. He laughed at them and screamed: “Come and get gutted, ya goddess-fuckers!” His heart pounded with a mix of mortal fear and that old savage joy of combat he had missed so very much. For the first time in decades, he felt truly alive.
“Slay the corrupt heathens!” one of the holy knights yelled, waving his army onwards.
Nicholas and a group of the other male militia roared, “For Tarnbrooke!” and charged in to meet them, two rows deep, spears lowered. The two sides slammed together in vicious melee. Men screamed as steel pierced flesh and bone.
Tiarnach fought his way towards the inquisitors. He sliced a soldier’s throat and kicked another in the side of the knee, shattering it. The man went down, trampled under the boots of his own side. Nicholas and another militiaman pushed forward beside their leader, spears thrusting for vulnerable eyes, necks and groin, desperately keeping the Lucent soldiers at bay. For now. Tiarnach knew the stalemate wouldn’t last facing veteran soldiers in heavy armour.
He couldn’t give the enemy the chance to push hard into the spear wall from behind the safety of their shields. He advanced, blades screeching off his helmet and mail as he waded through the enemy in a flurry of death. Something slicked his cheek, a burning line right along his jaw. A hasty parry left his knuckles skinned and bleeding. The pain was a badge of honour, a rejection of his previous cowardice.
A shield slammed into Nicholas’s face and he reeled back dazed, moustache drenched in blood. One of the townsfolk pulled him back from the line before he was slaughtered and took his place at the front.
The inquisitors both came for Tiarnach, quick and slippery as fish, one hand holding burning sword, the other empty but outstretched. “Be consumed by the fury of the Bright One!” they cried. Incandescent fire roared from their hands, enveloping Tiarnach and the militiaman next to him. The stench of burning flesh filled the air.
A holy knight grunted, his fires dying. His sword dropped to the mud as he stared down in shock at the sword thrust through his armpit, avoiding steel plate to punch through weaker mail and linen gambeson.
Tiarnach twisted the weapon and blood vomited from the knight’s mouth. He went down in a heap and Tiarnach yanked the blade free just in time to block a savage blow from the other inquisitor. Steel grated on steel as they shoved against each other. Glimpsed through the faceplate of his helmet, the knight’s grey eyes crinkled in fury as his sword ignited and began cutting right through Tiarnach’s.
The Maleficent Seven Page 32