Color and light blazed.
Bailey came swinging from a mast, clutching a rope. Her boots slammed into the two charging Elorians, one into each man’s chest. The warriors fell backward, flipped over the smashed railing, and splashed into the river.
Bailey released the rope, landed on her feet, and turned toward Torin. Her eyes flashed with anger, and she yanked him to his feet, then slapped him.
“You foolish boy!” she said. “I knew I’d have to save you, Winky. Now raise your sword and fight, damn it!”
More Elorians raced toward them. Standing back-to-back, Torin and Bailey fought. The night burned around them.
The ship kept rocking. Corpses slid across the deck and spilled into the water. More Timandrians kept rising from the hull, replacing those who fell. Coughing in the smoke, Torin saw his comrades leaping onto the Elorian junks that had rammed them. The battle had moved to those dark, clay decks.
“I’m going up for a view!” he shouted to Bailey.
He raced toward the mast, grabbed a rope ladder, and climbed. Cold air whipped him, thick with smoke. Clinging to the ladder with one hand, Torin surveyed the battle.
In the east, he counted a dozen burning Timandrian ships. Some were sinking; others were still floating toward the city as their sails blazed. Several Timandrian ships had been lost; only the tips of their masts rose from the river. Shards of wood floated across the water along with corpses. When Torin looked back westward, he saw dozens of ships still sailing toward the battle; they hadn’t even fought yet, and thousands of soldiers stood ready on their decks.
“I see only three Elorian warships!” Torin shouted down.
Was that all the Elorians had? Across all three junks, Timandrian soldiers were battling Elorians. Swords rang, arrows fired, and every heartbeat another soldier fell.
Upon each deck, the Timandrians outnumbered the Elorians ten to one. The nightfolk were falling fast. Soon King Ceranor cried in victory upon an Elorian junk; its warriors lay dead around him.
“The ship is ours!” The king brandished his bloody sword. “Seize their other ships!”
Farther east, a Timandrian galley slammed into an Elorian junk. Its prow thrust like a battering ram, snapping the junk’s hull. The Elorian vessel began to sink. Its soldiers shouted and tried to jump overboard, only for Timandrian arrows to tear into them. Blood filled the water.
“Three Elorian junks against a hundred Timandrian warships,” Torin said softly. “They crashed into us with fury and crushed our vanguard … but they cannot stop this fleet.”
He looked toward the city. It loomed close now, only a mile or two away. Its crystal towers lit the plains and water. A hundred other ships moored there, but they were simply merchant and fishing vessels.
He scampered down the rope ladder and joined Bailey on the deck. She stood among dead Elorians, her shield chipped.
“The Elorian fleet is smashed,” he told her. “By Idar, it’s hardly a fleet at all; I think they only had three warships.”
She nodded, face pale behind splotches of blood. She looked over at Pahmey. The crystal towers rose above, connected by bridges and walkways. The city now loomed as large as a mountain. Torin had thought Kingswall large; this city seemed thrice the size.
“Stay near me, Torin,” Bailey said, holding her sword raised. “If we enter this city, stay near me. I’ll look after you. I promised to look after you.”
They stood at the prow, boots in blood, as the Sunspear sailed toward the city docks. Dozens of Timandrian warships sailed with them, archers lining their railings. They left the corpses of Elorians—hundreds of warriors—to sink in the water behind.
When Torin looked ahead, he gasped.
“Merciful Idar,” he whispered.
At his side, Bailey clutched his hand. Her eyes watered. “They’re going to keep fighting. By the sun, they need to flee.”
Torin grimaced and watched as a hundred Elorian boats—mere fishing rafts, leisure pontoons, and merchant junks—came sailing toward the Timandrian navy.
Most of these vessels were smaller than a humble hut. Most had only a single mast. And yet they came sailing toward the fleet. Fishermen and merchant sailors steered them onward, clad in simple robes, bearing no weapons. Upon their decks they carried Elorian soldiers—two men here, three men there, a scattered army desperate to stop the sunlit onslaught.
Among the Timandrian fleet, laughter rose.
Soldiers stared at the ragtag vessels, pointed, and guffawed.
“The savages fight in dinghies!” shouted one Timandrian.
“Their ships are smaller than my tub back at home!” shouted another and brayed.
A soldier climbed a mast, pointed at the approaching rafts and pontoons, and roared with laughter. “Sink these barrels! Let’s see if the savages can swim.”
Torin grumbled. At his side, Bailey muttered curses.
“By the light,” she said, “I almost want to abandon our ship and fight for the other side.” She pointed at the approaching flotilla of fishermen and merchants. “That there is courage, Torin Greenmoat, and let there be no mistake.”
Torin ground his teeth and lowered his head, guilt burning through him.
And I slew one of them, he thought. I killed a man who simply tried to defend his home. And now I sail with an army to slay a thousand more.
He looked up again to see his fleet crash into the approaching flotilla.
Boats shattered and the river burned.
Arrows flew through the night, shards of flame.
Small, creaky junks smashed against the Timandrian galleys and carracks. Hulls shattered. Masts collapsed. Howling with rage, Elorian warriors boarded the Timandrian ships, only for swords to hack them down. A merchant cog charged forward, laden with more explosives, and blasts of green and yellow and red whizzed everywhere, tearing through sails, hulls, and men. Soldiers leaped from deck to deck, swords clanged, and blood rose in a mist.
“Sail forth!” the king was shouting upon a ship, a three-masted carrack with a black raven figurehead. “To the city. Smash through them! To the gates!”
The Timandrian fleet crashed through the flotilla like a wolf tearing through a brood of chickens. The smaller vessels sank all around, overcome by arrows and swords.
“Anchors down!” cried the king. “Into the landing craft. To the city gates!”
At his command, Timandrian soldiers entered small rowing boats, which they lowered on ropes into the river. The troops began sailing through flotsam, corpses, and sinking dinghies toward the docks of Pahmey. Hundreds of boats covered the water, storming forth, troops filling each vessel.
“Torin!” rose a voice behind him. “Bailey! Come on, we’ve got a boat.”
Torin turned to see Cam running across the deck of the Sunspear. Behind him, as always, lolloped Hem. Ash, sweat, and blood covered both boys.
“Are you all right?” Torin said. “You’re bloody.”
Cam snorted. “The Elorians have it much worse.” He grabbed Hem and tugged him closer. “Hem here squashed one half to death. Didn’t even need his sword. Just fell onto the poor bastard as the deck swayed.”
The larger boy’s lips trembled. “I … I didn’t mean to! Oh, this whole place is horrible. I want to go back home.”
Cam shoved him. “Oh, toughen up! This is war, old boy, and we’re soldiers.”
Torin sighed. He didn’t want to be here either. He also wanted to go home. He looked up at Pahmey, which loomed only a few hundred yards away.
“Thousands of people live in that city,” Torin said. “If the king can break through these walls, Ferius will demand them all slaughtered—the way all the villagers were slaughtered.” He turned toward the two boys. “Cam. Hem. Get into one of these boats and go home. Sail west along the river. It’ll be a long journey, but it’ll take you back to Fairwool-by-Night.”
The boys stared with wide eyes.
“Come with us, Tor!” said Cam. “Sheep dung, this place is a bloodbath
. This war isn’t for us. We’re not soldiers. I’m just a shepherd. Hem is just a baker. You’re just a gardener.” He looked at Bailey. “And Bailey is … Bailey is … blimey, I have no idea what she does back home—other than bully us—but she’s not a soldier either. We can’t do this, Tor. Let’s go home.”
Torin looked back across the waters. The Elorian flotilla lay smashed or sunken. Only a few Elorian soldiers still lived, but they were falling fast. Thousands of Timandrian troops were already in their landing craft, rowing toward the city gates. More kept joining them. Torin swallowed. He spoke in a low voice.
“I cannot leave. I cannot be the man who looks away. I cannot be the man who turns aside when evil rises. If Ferius has his way, he will slay the Elorians—an entire race of people, a race I no longer believe is evil. Our people have taken the path to darkness; not only the darkness of night, but also the darkness of the soul. Future generations will look back upon this war, and they will wonder: Where were the Timandrians who stood against their leaders? Where were the just souls who said to their kings and monks, ‘You cannot do this?’ Let me be that man. Let me be the one who says no. I slew an innocent upon this ship. Let me redeem myself. Let me save thousands.” He looked at his friends. “I don’t know how I can stop this slaughter. I’m only one man, and kingdoms fight around me. But I know this: If I turn back now, this blood will forever stain my hands.”
His friends looked at him silently, the two boys and Bailey, his three dearest friends in the world. Finally it was Cam who broke the silence.
“Well, by Idar’s beard, we can’t abandon you now, can we? Not after that speech.” He clasped Torin’s arm. “We’re with you, laddie. Now and always.
Hem nodded and gripped Torin’s other arm. “I’m not going home without Cam! I’m staying too. Maybe I can crush Ferius next.”
Bailey wasn’t even watching them. She was busy climbing into a rowboat that dangled over the railing. She looked up at them, blew out her breath, and rolled her eyes.
“Well, come on, boys!” she said. “You heard the babyface. We’re sailing into that city. Come along!”
Torin blinked, his eyes damp. At that moment he loved his friends more than life and sunshine and all the gardens in the world. They climbed into the boat and lowered it into the water. They rowed. The river swayed, burning flotsam floated all around, and arrows whistled overhead. They oared through the wreckage of the Elorian fleet, one boat among hundreds, heading toward the walls of Pahmey.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
TIGERS AND WOLVES
They rode across the black, rocky landscape of Eloria, ten thousand riders astride nightwolves. The stars shone above. Their eyes gleamed below. The Chanku Riders had left their crater, and the pack now moved on the greatest hunt of their lives. Under this moon, they did not merely hunt meat.
“We hunt fallen glory,” Okado said softly, riding the great Refir, now the alpha wolf of his pack. “We hunt Pahmey.”
Wolfjaw Mountain rose behind them in the night, blocking the stars. From its peak Okado had seen the distant city, but here, moving across the plains, the darkness spread into the horizon and no distant lights glowed.
Okado grinned savagely and licked his teeth. He wore his armor—a shirt of steel scales, greaves and vambraces, and a helmet shaped as a wolf’s head. His true wolf wore armor too; a helmet protected his head, and spiked steel covered his chest. All around, his fellow warriors wore the same armor, and each rider bore sword, shield, and bow.
And yet Okado was afraid.
He snarled in the night, breath steaming. He wanted to crush that fear, to bury it under his rage, to feel only the lust for battle. He was Alpha. He was a great warrior. He had defeated Yorashi himself, a fighter of legend, and had risen from a lowly fisherman’s son into the leader of an army. And yet, as he rode into war, he could not stop the iciness from flowing through his belly.
I’ve slain beasts and men, but I’ve never ridden against brick walls, facing an army in war, he thought. Pahmey has warships, cannons, battlements … Will we crash against their walls?
He gritted his teeth.
I will feel fear, but I will show none. I will feel fear, but I will fight nonetheless.
He turned in the saddle to face his mate. Suntai sat upon her white wolf, staring ahead with pursed lips and narrowed eyes. The wind streamed her white hair, and in one hand, she clutched her sword.
“When we reach the river,” he told her, “we will swim across—you, me, and twenty of our warriors. We will leave our wolves behind. We will enter the city gates clad in cloaks, humble traders come to peddle furs. We will slay the guards. We will hold the gates open as the pack swims across the river and storms the city.”
She gave him a crooked smile, one hand holding her sword, the other stroking her wolf. “It is likely, my mate, that we will die.”
He shook his head. “Not under this moon. Not in this battle. Suntai, you and I will never die. We will be victorious. We will keep the gates open. Our clan will rise.”
She reached across her wolf to clutch his arm. “We will kill together, my mate. We will rise together. I will spill blood at your side, under this moon and every moon. Our wolves will feast upon the hearts of our enemies.”
They rode on across the rocky terrain, moving in shadow, the greatest army the Chanku Pack had ever mustered.
With strength, with honor, with the wolf’s pride … we go home.
They climbed a rocky hill, the wind raising dust, the stars bright above. Okado and Suntai reached the hilltop first, gazed down, and saw the distant lights.
Okado inhaled sharply, tugged the reins, and squinted down at the horizon. His wolf growled beneath him. At his side, he heard Suntai’s quick intake of breath.
“What devilry is this?” she said and drew her sword.
Okado’s wolf pawed the earth, his drool spilling. Okado leaned forward in the saddle, staring down into the northern darkness.
Pahmey was still too far to see, lying beyond the horizon; this hill was too low. These plains should be barren. And yet across the wilderness ten thousand torches burned. The lights were moving fast, swarming toward the pack.
“It’s an army,” he said. “An army as large as ours, maybe larger. The city knows we’re coming. They’re sending troops to meet us.”
Suntai hissed. Her wolf leaned forward, bristling and baring fangs.
“No, my mate,” she said. “Ten thousand soldiers or more move toward us across the plains. Pahmey has no such forces. Barely three thousand troops fill that city.” She snapped her teeth. “This is no army of Pahmey, Okado. This is something new. And they will meet us soon.”
As the army below marched, Okado heard distant war drums, trumpets, and chants. Details began to emerge, and Okado saw banners fluttering, soldiers armed with spears and shields, and striped beasts the size of nightwolves. Every man held a crackling torch.
Paws thumped, armor clanked, and swords hissed against scabbards as the rest of his pack, thousands of wolfriders, came to stand around him atop the hill. Bows in hand, they stared downhill toward the plains and the army that approached.
“Who are they?” asked one rider, a burly man named Juro, the new beta of the pack.
His mate, a powerful woman with one eye, spat toward the approaching host. “Demons.”
Okado gnashed his teeth, and the iciness in his belly grew even colder. He squinted, watching the army approach. No—these were no soldiers of Pahmey. They wore no scales, but marched bare-chested, carrying only shields for armor. Their drums beat in a thunder, stretched with leather. Red, braided beards flowed from their faces, and they wore pelts of black and orange stripes. The same fur grew from their live beasts, creatures with long whiskers, dagger-like fangs, and the colors of fire. The soldiers’ cries rang across the landscape.
“Timandra! Timandra!”
Okado lost his breath. He snapped his head around to look at Suntai.
“Timandra,” she whispered.
<
br /> Okado stared back at the approaching host. He clenched his fists. Visions of his childhood slammed back into him: the glow of the dusk west of Oshy, the twisting plants that grew there, and the horrible lands he could see from the Nighttower … lands of green trees, sparkling blue waters, and a distant tower of gray stone. Timandra—the land of eternal sunlight. The realm of fire and heat. The kingdom of demons.
I saw one once, he remembered, jaw clenched. I crept as far as I could into the dusk, traveling until the sun burned my skin and nearly blinded me. And I saw one.
The woman he’d seen had been young, a mere girl collecting red beads that grew from the twisting plants. Her eyes had been so small, barely larger than the beads she picked, and her skin had been bronze. When she saw him, she screamed, spilled her basket, and fled. Okado wanted to follow, but when he took another step, he saw the sun. The fiery disk emerged above the horizon, as large as the moon but a thousand times brighter, burning him.
“I fled that day,” he whispered. “And now ten thousand of those demons return to haunt me.”
The Timandrian host was crossing the valley now, heading uphill. They banged spears against shields. They chanted in their strange tongue. Okado heard the word “Naya!” over and over—perhaps the name of their clan. Their beasts of black-and-orange stripes tugged at the leashes. Their warriors howled for blood, the wind in their red braids. They jeered at the Chanku Pack, pounded their chests, and marched toward them. Archers moved to the front of their lines.
“Okado…” Suntai said, fear in her voice. “Are these … Timandrians? From across the dusk?” She looked at him with wide eyes. “Like the one you told me you saw?”
Around him, his fellow warriors were drawing their swords. Wolves snarled. They were confused. They were afraid. But their strength and lust for war burned stronger.
Okado raised his sword.
“Chanku Pack!” he shouted. “Hear me. I am Alpha Okado! The city of Pahmey has aligned itself with demons. The elders who stole our homeland have summoned beasts from the realms of sunlight.” His wolf reared beneath him. “An enemy of sunfire approaches. Show them no mercy!” He bared his teeth at the encroaching host. “Show them how we kill in the darkness.”
Gods & Dragons: 8 Fantasy Novels Page 26