Rise of Dachwald (Boxed Set, Books 1 through 2)

by Lawlis, Daniel

  Their distance was now a mere thousand yards.

  Then five hundred.

  One hundred.

  Thirty.

  “TIME TO SEND THESE VILLAINS TO THEIR GRAVES!!” Feiklen called out, leading the square-like mass of enraged Dachwaldian warriors towards the Sogolians. Feiklen pulled out his fishing mace, as did all the other Dachwaldians, and he let loose some slack from it; about two feet of chain came out. Pitkins’ eagle eyes saw that they were about to come face-to-face with the weapon that over the recent weeks had turned armies of well-trained men into mush.

  “DEFENSE FORMATION!!” Pitkins shouted out.

  To Feiklen’s amazement, suddenly he saw a huge wall of protective steel emerge. Seemingly out of nowhere, right in front of the advancing Sogolians there appeared a series of interlocking steel cables, resembling a carefully woven steel spider web. Not knowing exactly how the fishing mace would fare against this contraption, yet not wanting to show any signs of weakness in front of the men he was leading, Feiklen lashed out, sending the steel ball flying right towards the Sogolians. The ball became stuck in one of the steel squares.

  “UCHINWELDD!!!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. Many other Moscorians and Vechengschaft were experiencing the same problem. As they lashed out with their fishing maces, they either bounced off or became ensnared in the steel net. The steel balls that bounced off of the steel net went flying wildly back towards them, many of them crashing back into the Dachwaldians themselves. Some were killed instantly, while many others were knocked off their horses or knocked unconscious. More and more chains became stuck in the steel net, and the chains became tangled around each other. Feiklen pulled back hard on his weapon, trying desperately to free it. Suddenly, he heard a shout emitted from within the Sogolian ranks. It was Pitkins. “BAAAACK!!”

  The Sogolians, in complete unison, took three large steps backwards and pulled hard on their steel nets simultaneously.

  Many of the Dachwaldians, still holding onto their maces, trying to free them from the steel net, were pulled forward by this sudden jerk, and went flying forward. Feiklen was one of them. Hundreds of the Vechengschaft and Moscorian cavalry in the first several rows lost their balance and went tumbling off of their horses. This caused a domino-like effect. Other Dachwaldian horsemen lost their balance and went flying into the ever-growing pile of horses and bodies. Within moments, there was chaos in the Dachwaldian ranks.

  As the front of the Sogolian U formation stayed still, the two ends of the U began wrapping around the confused Dachwaldians. Since the Sogolian soldiers at the ends of the U were on horseback they quickly managed to move forward and surround the confused, panicking Dachwaldians. Simultaneously, Sogolians suddenly seemed to spring from the ground.

  The erstwhile hidden Sogolians began wheeling numerous huge objects towards the surrounded Dachwaldians. The contraptions were odd-looking. They contained a huge box on the front of which thousands of arrows were placed into arrow slots. Attached to the bottom of each arrow slot was a six-inch steel rod. As the large box full of arrows was tilted backwards, the thousands of individual arrows fell back against the thousands of individual steel rods. At the back of the contraption was a cube-like block of steel to which all of the individual rods were ultimately attached. To the back of this cube-like piece of steel was attached a strong, flexible material made from leather and other materials. It took six men turning a large crank to pull back on the spring mechanism to which the cube-like piece of steel was attached. Once it had been pulled back as far as it could go, one man could pull back on a lever which would release the spring mechanism, and with thousands of pounds of pressure suddenly released, the steel rods would go flying forward, sending thousands of arrows into the air at a deadly velocity.

  There were twenty of these weapons being wheeled into position at that moment. The surrounded Dachwaldians, due to their confusion and the Sogolians surrounding them, couldn’t see these weapons coming their way, but Tristan, high up on the hill, certainly could.

  “Great Veihgung!” he whispered in terror, as he looked through his long telescope.

  “FIIIIIIRE!!” came the order from Sworin.

  SHOOM, SHOOM, SHOOM, SHOOM, SHOOM, SHOOM, SHOOM!!! Scores of thousands of arrows were simultaneously fired through the air by the Sogolians. The sheer awesomeness of it impressed Tristan so much that for a few moments he seemed oblivious to the fact this weapon was aimed at his soldiers.

  “Kasani,” he whispered as if in a trance.

  “AGHH!! AHHHHHHH!!” thousands of Dachwaldians shouted out in pain. About thirty thousand arrows flew in an arc over the Sogolians and into the surrounded, clump of terrified, bewildered Dachwaldians.

  “ATTACK!!” shouted Pitkins. His soldiers collapsed the steel net and began marching forward. With a righteous vengeance, the Sogolians began hacking through the Dachwaldians.

  The Moscorians lashed out with a vengeance.

  SLASHH!! SCHINNGG!! Bloody sword fighting ensued.

  Amidst the chaos, Pitkins found himself facing Feiklen. Pitkins had never met Feiklen, nor Feiklen met Pitkins, but they both could sense, judging by the ornate nature of one another’s armor, they were facing the leader of their enemy. Feiklen pulled out his long sword and quickly attempted an overhead chop against Pitkins’ skull. Pitkins stepped to the side, slashed Feiklen’s stomach with his sword, and then stomped on the side of his knee. The slash did not do much damage, due to Feiklen’s heavy armor, but the kick to his knee did.

  “AGHH!!” Feiklen shouted out in pain and anger. Jumping back to his feet, he made a forward lunge at Pitkins. Pitkins turned his sword towards the ground and deflected Feiklen’s sword, and then came around with his left elbow, which was covered with heavy armor, and brought it hard against the demonic face of Feiklen’s helmet.

  BAMM!! The impact stunned Feiklen momentarily. Seconds later, Feiklen grabbed Pitkins and tripped his left leg, knocking him off balance. Feiklen pushed forward hard and brought Pitkins down onto his back. Feiklen raised his sword high over his head and brought it down hard towards Pitkins in a stabbing motion. Pitkins rolled to the side, and Feiklen’s sword was buried to the hilt in the ground. Pitkins felt this to be the moment to test Feiklen’s knowledge of unarmed combat.

  He quickly grabbed the back of Feiklen’s right heel with his left hand and then brought his left leg behind Feiklen’s right leg and set the instep of his foot against the left side of Feiklen’s hip. Then, grabbing Feiklen’s sword belt and using his left foot as a fulcrum, he raised his own hips high up in the air and turned towards Feiklen’s leg. Then, he twisted back the other way, simultaneously putting his right leg against Feiklen’s left ankle. This entangling movement knocked Feiklen off balance, and he hit the ground face first. Not wanting to waste any time, he climbed on top of Feiklen’s back while facing Feiklen’s feet, and grabbed Feiklen’s right foot. He wrapped his right forearm underneath Feiklen’s calf and then, to strengthen the hold, put his right hand on his own left forearm and his left hand on top of Feiklen’s shin. He then put his right leg in between Feiklen’s legs, while keeping his left leg to Feiklen’s side, and then sat back on Feiklen’s tailbone and pulled up on his hip with all his might. Pitkins heard a loud SNAP!!

  “AGHHHH!!!” Feiklen screamed in pain.

  Towering over his now defeated foe, Pitkins said, “Turn over! Turn over, and face me like a man!”

  Slowly, knowing that it was going to be his last movement on this forsaken earth, he turned over.

  “This is for all the innocent men, women, and children you slaughtered!” Pitkins said.

  Feiklen couldn’t believe his misfortune. He had been bested in combat. Plain and simple.

  (how did he learn to fight like that?! how did—)

  Pitkins brought his sword down hard into the small space between Feiklen’s helmet and his breastplate armor. A geyser of blood erupted. Feiklen breathed his last.

  The fighting continued, and the Dachwaldians numbers be
came fewer and fewer.

  “PITKINS?!!” Tristan shouted in disbelief at what he was seeing through his telescope; “b-b-but that’s IMPOSSIBLE!!” he shouted. There’s no way he could have escaped from the pit . . . unless, of course . . . THE PHOLUNGS!!! As these thoughts rushed through his head, he grew more furious than he had ever been in his entire life. Several veins nearly burst in his neck, and his face grew redder than an apple. I WILL FIND OUT WHICH ONE IT WAS AND GIVE IT THE SLOWEST, MOST PAINFUL, CRUELEST DEATH EVER GIVEN!!

  However, at the moment, he knew he was quickly going to become a casualty if he did not hightail it out of there fast. He pulled out a long whistle and blew on it. It was the whistle he used to summon his pholungs. To his amazement, moments later, one of his pholungs came for him. It was Istus.

  “Yes, master,” Istus said quite humbly.

  “GET ME THE KASANI OUT OF HERE, NOW!!” Tristan shouted angrily. “Yes, master,” Istus humbly responded, and let Tristan get on his back.

  Kihlgun, who had been one of the Moscorians defending the hill against the advancing Sodorfians, was outraged when he saw this.

  “MASTER, WHERE ARE YOU GOING?! WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO?!”

  Tristan looked at him coldly. “You were given the chance to rule over the Sodorfians. You have proven yourselves unworthy.”

  With a look of disgust, he commanded Istus to begin flying away.

  “These worthless Moscorians and Vechengschaft are about to meet their end,” Tristan said to Istus, “but I will certainly not share their fate.”

  For the first time in his life daring to speak disrespectfully to his master, Kihlgun shouted out in a loud, furious voice, “YOU COWARDLY BASTARD!!!” as Tristan went flying off to safety. Kihlgun attempted to bash Tristan’s bones into powder, and while the mere gust of the missed stroke did send Tristan’s hair flying wildly out of place, the swift wings of Istus lifted him to safety before Tristan received what would have surely been a death blow to even a wizard of his high standing.

  The Sodorfians, fighting with a ferocity with which Kihlgun never imagined possible, were already starting to thin down the number of Dachwaldians defending the hill. They were down to about a hundred Moscorians and a thousand Vechengschaft. Now, approaching him from the west were about thirty thousand Sogolians.

  “We’re done for!” Kihlgun shouted out angrily, “but we shall never surrender!!” He rushed the Sodorfians, who were gaining more and more progress on their ascent up the hill. They had almost overtaken it.

  When Fritzer finally reached the top of the hill, he saw the large army below.

  “Sogolians?!” he asked out loud in astonishment, recognizing their banners. “What in Kasani are they doing here?!” he shouted. But as he looked more closely, he could see that all around them were thousands of Dachwaldian corpses. Pulling out his telescope and looking through it, he could not believe what he saw.

  “PITKINSSSS?!!!” he shouted out in ecstatic disbelief.

  Although he never thought that the Sogolians would have had any reason to attack them anyway, he was unsure what their intentions were. When he saw Pitkins, smattered with blood and mud at the front of the Sogolian army, he knew they were there to help.

  “PITKINS HAS RETURNED!! WE HAVE REINFORCEMENTS!!” he shouted to his men in triumph.

  The word spread quickly, and the Sodorfians began fighting with a vengeance. Even in the heat of battle, the images of Pitkins slaying the serpent—whether they had seen it in person or heard about it—were suddenly fresh in their minds, and they were ecstatic to have him on their side once again. Kihlgun, absolutely furious by this sudden change in fortune, charged the Sodorfians with his battle hammer.

  He came towards Fritzer. As Kihlgun raised the battle hammer high over his head and prepared to dash Fritzer’s horse’s brains out, Fritzer dug his boots hard into his horse’s sides. His horse sprang forward quickly, but at the last moment Fritzer realized he was not going to be able to strike Kihlgun with his sword before the grotesque battle hammer raised high in the air came crashing down upon his head and turned his skull into talcum powder.

  He pulled his horse hard to the right, narrowly missing the merciless downward stroke of what seemed to be a small tree armed with a hammer head on top. The gust from the stroke nearly knocked Fritzer and his horse over, and the shock wave from the impact onto the ground finished the job. Fritzer and his horse went falling to the ground hard.

  Kihlgun giggled excitedly like a drugged man who has heard the funniest joke of his life. He looked at Fritzer with eyes that each seemed as large as the hammer head itself and prepared to deliver a downward chop to Fritzer’s horse, which was directly on top of him, pinning him to the ground.

  A split second before the fate of both Fritzer and his hapless horse would have been irreversible, Fritzer saw something come poking through Kihlgun’s stomach, quickly retract, and then disappear. Kihlgun often shunned armor for even open combat, thinking it a sign of softness, but he had particularly not seen any use for it on this day, which was—to his gravest disappointment—supposed to be a day of long-range missile attacks.

  “UGHHH?!” he shouted in horror.

  He turned around to see Sworin, but for the first time in Kihlgun’s life he could see, by the eyes alone, that he was facing an opponent who would have to be beaten by superior mechanics alone, not by intimidation. For the first time in his memory, he felt a faint pinch of fear from deep inside of him, like the bite of a small, yet foul-tempered, piranha inside his bowels. His subconscious briefly but quickly reminded him of the warnings he had received from the Moscorians about the mechanical weaknesses of the battle hammer. Doing his best to shun these unhelpful thoughts aside, he raised the hammer over his head, his lips curling back in a snarl seen typically only amongst the canine species, and brought it down towards Sworin’s head. Sworin calmly—at least, it looked calm; Sworin’s heart was actually about one beat per minute away from exploding in his chest—moved to the side.

  The gust of wind from the stroke did push Sworin aside slightly, and the impact of the hammer into the ground nearly knocked him over. Somehow, he himself later wondered how he had done it, he forced his body to go through the mechanical motions of what was actually a relatively simple evasion and counterstrike. He moved to the side and with every ounce of fear in his body turned into kinetic energy brought his sword against Kihlgun’s neck.

  Sworin had seen men’s heads fall from strokes with half the force of that stroke, which had nearly thrown Sworin’s back out of alignment while delivering it, but to his dismay this stroke only succeeded in cutting deeply into Kihlgun’s neck, where the sword now seemed stuck against Kihlgun’s spine.

  Kihlgun looked at him with rage. He grabbed the sword with one hand, and for a moment Sworin expected him to bend it into a knot before grabbing him with one hand over his head and crushing it. To his surprised glee, however, Kihlgun was soon struck by a second sword.

  This was wielded by Fritzer. It was the same Sodorfian sword that an ancestor had used many centuries ago at the battle of Dachwaldendomel. His name was Sir Heinsel of Gindelson, and it was the same sword Fritzer had used to knight Pitkins. Fritzer’s stroke finished what Sworin’s had started, and Kihlgun’s head—enraged expression still intact—fell harmlessly to the ground.

  The Dachwaldians fought to the last, refusing to give up. General Sivingdon was one of the last to fall, his life ended by Sworin after several minutes of intense sword fighting, which, while a showcase of technical swordsmanship, lacked the adrenaline inspired by the beast that had nearly destroyed Sworin with the unnerving glare of his eyes alone.

  As Pitkins reached the top of the hill, all of the Dachwaldians lying about dead or seriously wounded, he and Fritzer embraced.

  “Never have I been so happy to see a stranger!!” he said warmly to Pitkins. “You have a lot of explaining to do, young man,” he said jokingly, “but judging by what I have learned about your character thus far, I’m sure no one could
have ever had a better reason for disappearing than you. Please tell me what happened!”

  Pitkins explained.

  Fritzer paused uncomfortably.

  “Donive . . . PLEASE tell me she’s okay!” Pitkins’ usually firm voice broke just a little as he asked this question.

  A tear sliding down his cheek, Fritzer said, “Pitkins, I fear she’s dead. When the Dachwaldians came, they came so suddenly and with so little warning there was no time for anyone outside the city to be rescued. We had to immediately lock the gates and not let anyone in or out. It was horrible, but otherwise we couldn’t have kept the Dachwaldians from storming the city.”

  As he finished he broke into tears. He was ashamed to cry publicly, but the glorious feeling of having conquered the Dachwaldians was vanishing like sunshine invaded by dark, stormy clouds, and the only thing he could think about was the probable loss of his only daughter. Wiping the tears away and doing his best to compose himself, he said, “If even my wife and son were spared, I will certainly have been more fortunate than most Sodorfians here.”

  As he said this, he looked in the direction of the City of Sodorf. The flames were beginning to die down now, but the destruction of the once beautiful city was nearly absolute.

  “Come,” he said to all those around him; “We must tend to the wounded.” He headed towards the smoldering city.

  As with Fritzer, the glorious feeling had disappeared amongst the other Sodorfians as well. They were now also thinking about saving the survivors of the city from the flames and rubble and wondering how many of their loved ones, if any, were still amongst the living.