The enemy reached the berm wall quickly, but rather than assault it all at once, they broke into four units, each called to their position by a banner held high. They formed up into wedges protected by raised shields and moved forward, advancing up the spiked incline methodically, defending against the pike and slingshot attacks with their heavy shields.
The first wedge reached the shield wall. Rather than thrust into the wall, the lead man reached out with his war axe, hooked the nearest man’s shield over the top and yanked him down the hill into the midst of his soldiers. He died quickly. A pike darted out and stuck the lead man through the shoulder. Another took his place.
Four points on the line came under focused attack at once … and it was working. The enemy was weakening the line, primarily through the tactic of pulling defenders down the berm one at a time where they could be hacked to death quickly.
Behind them, another twenty thousand men began to crowd into the gap, charging forward with reckless abandon.
“Signal the archers to fall back to the secondary line,” Anatoly said.
Blake dutifully waved the flag to the archer commander.
“Spread the word,” Anatoly said, “on the whistler, the shield wall will fall back to the narrows.”
“Right away,” Iker said, trotting off to deliver the message to his runners.
“You need to fall back, too,” Liam said.
Anatoly didn’t respond, staring at the advancing enemy, watching his archers begin to pick up and run back to the second line of soldiers. He’d chosen a narrow spot in the gap, not even a hundred feet wide, to form the basis of his second defensive line.
“He’s right, Anatoly,” Alexander said. “You need to fall back to your secondary command post. You’re about to be overrun.”
Anatoly nodded reluctantly. “I’ve always hated to retreat.”
“I’ll go see what Corina has ready,” Alexander said, vanishing and reappearing in the wyvern camp well to the rear of the battle.
Corina was standing in the middle of the camp yelling for someone to hurry up.
“Your first attack was a success, but rather than retreat, they came straight at us.”
“I see. I have a squad loaded and ready right now,” she said. “I can send more as they’re made ready.”
“Whatever you can do will help,” Alexander said, vanishing and moving his sight to the enemy wedges attacking Anatoly’s line. He manifested three bright orbs of light and began to float around the weakest points in the line, moving toward the advancing enemy in erratic and threatening ways, blinding or distracting them while they fought. The technique worked. When the enemy soldiers ducked or flinched to avoid one of Alexander’s orbs, they would open themselves up to attack, usually with dire consequences.
The whistler went up and the line began to fall back. Alexander started racing up and down the line, three orbs of light dazzling enemy soldiers all along the way, flashing up to within inches of their eyes, moving with the speed and precision of thought, unbridled by the constraints of time and substance.
The illusory light he could muster was nothing compared to the brilliance of Luminessence, and it didn’t even belong in the same category as his staff’s brightest light, but it was enough to blind, dazzle, distract, and otherwise sow chaos within the enemy’s ranks.
Anatoly’s forces fell back, quickly racing toward the narrows and the second line, filing in between the men waiting for their turn to hold against the enemy. Many of the last to retreat were cut down by javelins, but otherwise the action was a success. The second line closed ranks and locked their shields.
The horde charging from behind the assault force reached the berm just as the four wedge units were re-forming into a single unit on the near side of the berm. The horde came over the top and spilled into the enclosed space like a wave.
The commander of the assault force tried to assert command and gain control, but finally simply braced for the impending flood of barbarians. They washed over the berm and around the assault force, surging toward the line with battle lust and mob mentality.
Anatoly gave the signal. Archers and slingers began to fire at will. The air filled with arrows and stones, whizzing and hurtling toward the enemy in the kill zone. This was the spot that would be stained the reddest. Rank after rank of archers filled the space behind the shield wall. Soldiers just behind the shield line hurled stones with their slingshots while the soldiers lining the cliffs rained stone and shaft into the enemy.
While the assault force had shields, this horde had no such protection. Most wore light armor, a few had breastplates.
The arrows devastated the onrushing barbarians, felling them in waves as each volley crashed into them, but still they came. The surge of so many pushing forward carried those in front, driving them toward the shield line that bristled with hundreds of pikes and spears.
A wyvern roared and then the sky seemed to fall onto the switchback road as twelve Sky Knights dropped several tons of stones into the back ranks of the horde. The sound alone was enough to stop the battle for a moment. The barbarians faltered as those nearer the front seemed to realize that they were trapped and being pushed toward a field of death littered with corpses, arrows sticking up at odd angles by the thousands.
Momentum carried the next wave of enemy into the kill zone, advancing into a lull created by the death of so many men in so little time. A few reached the shield line but were easily killed by pike before they even got close enough to attack.
Anatoly shook his head sadly before ordering another volley.
“Corina will send what she has when she has it,” Alexander said.
Anatoly nodded, looking out over the battlefield, enemy soldiers clambering over their dead comrades to get one step closer to death. Arrows raining down into them, bodies beginning to pile up.
“They can overwhelm us if they’re willing to take the losses up front,” Anatoly said.
Alexander nodded. “I’m hoping they don’t have anyone left who’s smart enough to realize that.”
“The commander of that assault force knows what he’s doing,” Anatoly said, pointing his finger out into the growing carnage. “If he manages to get control of his men, we’re in trouble.”
“Bianca should be here later today,” Alexander said.
“And Conner a few days after that, I know,” Anatoly said. “If we make it that long, we’ll have a chance.”
“You just have to hold out, Anatoly.”
“I know, Alexander. This was my plan, remember? But I also know how it ends. You need to be prepared for that.”
“I don’t want to hear that. I won’t let you give up,” Alexander said.
“Give up?” Anatoly said with a humorless chuckle. “I’m not giving up, I’m going to fight with my last breath. But I’m outnumbered ten to one.” He paused, looking out over the sprawling carnage. “Well, maybe seven to one now. The point is, I’m going to run out of arrows eventually and then it’ll come down to men on a line stabbing at each other. That’s a numbers game.”
Alexander sighed, nodding to himself, forcing himself to face the reality of Anatoly’s situation and then to face the very real possibility that Anatoly might die in this mountain pass. Intellectually, he had always known that it was possible, but it never carried weight before. Now, in the face of such an onslaught, Alexander had to face the fact that his mentor and one of his oldest friends might meet his end in this battle.
Thinking about it made his stomach churn.
“Tell me what I can do,” Alexander said.
“You’ve done all you can, for now anyway,” Anatoly said. “It looks like the momentum has shifted. They seem to be falling back to their base camp.”
“If I came over a berm and saw that,” Alexander said, gesturing to the field of death spread out before them, “I’d turn around too.”
“Yeah,” Anatoly said, nodding, his eyes staring off into the distance. “Check in with me later. I might need your he
lp.”
“I will,” Alexander said. “What are you going to do?”
“I thought we’d go get some of our arrows back. Then we wait. It’s their move.”
Alexander nodded. “I’ll be back tonight,” he said, vanishing into the firmament and returning to his body.
He felt restless. So much was happening around the Seven Isles and he was waiting, sitting still. He needed to do something useful. He considered leaving, heading to Karth, but reconsidered again for the same reason—the delivery he was awaiting was far too dangerous. He had to be here when it arrived.
Also, he felt a sense of obligation to explain in person to Erik and Kelvin why he wouldn’t be leading them into battle. Forces were converging, all eyes on the Nether Gate … and Alexander was leaving. He felt a pang of guilt but dismissed it, falling back on his reasoning to keep his resolve intact.
“How’s he doing?” Jack asked from his desk.
“So far, the battle’s been pretty lopsided,” Alexander said. “Anatoly has position and archers, but the barbarians have numbers and they aren’t afraid to spend lives to get what they want.”
“We could still go there,” Anja said.
“As much as I’d like to, we wouldn’t get there in time and I doubt we’d make much difference.”
“We’d make a difference,” Anja said with a frown.
Jack offered Alexander a sympathetic smile.
After a meal eaten with the soldiers that had manned this fortress for months, Alexander checked back with Anatoly. The enemy had retreated and appeared to be regrouping, but showed no interest in attacking at night. Bianca had arrived and was working with Corina to organize the two flights under their command. Anatoly set his watch and put his people to bed. Alexander returned to his body.
Lita changed the bandage on his shoulder and he went to bed himself. Using his magic for so many hours had taken a toll on him, leaving him physically exhausted and mentally sluggish.
He woke early the next morning. “Time to open the Gate,” he said, gently stretching his shoulder.
Lita stopped him from getting up with a hand on his forehead. “You seem to be on the mend,” she said, “just take care with your shoulder.”
He nodded his thanks and headed for the door, trailing his friends behind him.
Just after dawn, he stood by the Reishi Gate, the magical passage open, allowing an entire legion of Ithilian infantry to march through.
Alexander escorted Sofia, Evelyn, and Jalal to a command tent and a hearty breakfast while their soldiers marched into the Keep, spreading out and claiming the interior, one space at a time.
He spent a few minutes describing the enemies they faced and his strategy to intervene only after Phane and Zuhl had engaged—hopefully exploiting any injuries they might sustain. He didn’t add details that he didn’t need to add, not out of mistrust but out of caution. His plan contained many parts. Few of his allies needed to know more than their part.
After breakfast, he left them to organize the quartering of their soldiers. It would take the better part of the day to move the entire legion—all things considered, a quick trip.
A few moments in the firmament told him that he could do nothing to help anyone right now. Everyone was either traveling or waiting for a fight to start. In Anatoly’s case, he seemed to have been given a reprieve, but at a price. The entire enemy force had made camp and were busy reorganizing, repairing equipment and tending to their wounded—a well-planned, coordinated attack was probably coming, but not today.
He returned to his body and stood up with a frown, aimlessly looking this way and that.
“What?” Anja said.
“I have a whole day with nothing useful to do,” Alexander said.
“Perhaps you should rest,” Lita said. “You’re still not fully healed, you know.”
“I’ve had enough rest,” Alexander said. “I’m going for a walk. I need to think.”
I’m coming, too,” Anja said.
“I’ll stay here, if it’s all the same to you,” Jack said, gesturing to his desk.
“I have work to do in the infirmary,” Lita said, touching Jataan’s hand as she left.
Alexander set out along the wall that Perry and his men had built. It was an impressive structure, fully twenty feet tall and half as wide. The stones fit tightly and were cut in such a way that gravity pulled them tighter and more solidly together. The Keep itself was an imposing and impressive place, all the more so now that Alexander had access to the formidable weapons and defensive capabilities it possessed. He was probably safer here than anywhere in the world save Glen Morillian.
“When are we going to leave?” Anja asked.
“Probably day after tomorrow,” Alexander said.
“I don’t understand. Why don’t we go now?”
“I’m waiting for the Rangers and the Wizards to reach the Gate on Ruatha so I can let them through.”
They walked for a while in silence, Anja skipping from time to time to keep up, Jataan ever present in the background. Alexander stepped back from the war in his mind, looking at it from a wider, broader perspective, categorizing his enemies and the threat they posed to the world.
In the long run, the shades were still the greatest threat. Rankosi, and now possibly Horace, posed a more immediate threat, but the shades in general represented an end to all things.
As much as Alexander hated to admit it, Peti was next on his list of world-changing dangers. If she managed to summon her coven’s namesake, Sin’Rath herself, the world would fall under her dominion, every man bowing to her will without any hope of resisting her charms.
After the two demonic threats plaguing the world, Phane and Zuhl ranked next, both deadly in the extreme and only ranked lower on his list because of their relative mortality.
Looking at each of these enemies, Alexander realized that only the shades were his to fight alone. Zuhl would fall to Abigail and the Coven, Alexander was confident of that. Phane would fall to Isabel, or not at all. Her magic could penetrate his defenses where no one else’s could … and she was standing right next to him, no small piece of the plan. Peti was beyond him in a way that made his skin crawl. The Coven would kill her, costly though it might be. That left the shades—Rankosi and Horace.
Alexander’s plan to undo them hinged on Siduri, the ancient adept who had lived for so long in self-imposed isolation, ravaged by his own guilt, hesitant to touch the world again for fear of breaking it. Siduri alone could unmake Rankosi and his brothers. Isabel’s report about Hector and Horace confirmed it. Alexander just had to prove it. He was confident that Siduri would do what needed to be done once he fully understood the consequences of his actions … or inaction.
The first step was to make contact, a task that Alexander had repeatedly failed to accomplish. He thought about his encounters with Siduri, the first at the well of the blood of the earth deep under Bragador’s mountain, and the second in Siduri’s construct.
The second encounter still puzzled him, raising a number of questions that nagged at him incessantly. Why did he have to nearly die to reach Siduri’s construct? How had Siduri created another world in the first place? And how had Siduri returned him to the world of time and substance?
Alexander turned these thoughts over in his mind and decided that he needed to learn more about how his magic worked before he tried to contact Siduri again. If he could build his own construct, maybe he could figure out how to go there physically. He felt a little thrill of fear in his belly at the thought. He might be able to get there … but he had no idea how to get back.
Regardless, the concept merited exploration. He opened the door to his Wizard’s Den and went to his circle without explanation.
“I hate it when he does that,” Anja muttered to Jataan.
Jack looked up long enough to see Alexander headed for his circle and went back to his writing.
Alexander slipped quietly into the firmament, listening to the song of creation in all
its chaotic harmony for a moment before turning his attention to creating a place of his own within the infinite ocean of possibility.
The most immediate decision was determining the form of the construct. Alexander looked at the Seven Isles from so high that he could see the curve of the world. It looked like a map below him, albeit somewhat obscured by clouds here and there. He looked at each island, recalling his experiences and travels, trying to pick out a place of simple beauty. Many came to mind, but the one that stood out the most was a little box canyon above the vitalwood’s grotto.
It was only a hundred feet on a side, sheer cliff walls rising hundreds of feet on three sides, a waterfall cascading down the fourth, running in a burbling stream through a lush little grove before spilling off the cliff and falling into spray hundreds of feet below. Alexander shifted his focus there and explored the little place again, taking in the simple, pristine beauty, the calm, idyllic tranquility and solitude. It was perfect.
He slipped back into the firmament, unsure of how to proceed. Always before, he’d projected his illusions into the world of time and substance. This was entirely different. When he tried to create a duplicate image of the box canyon in the firmament, he slipped out into the world of time and substance, illusion and all. The first few times, the soldiers nearby were alarmed, to say the least.
Alexander persisted, trying again and again, working until he got hungry, failing every time he tried. His efforts felt forced and unnatural, at odds with the apparent will of the firmament to project an illusion inside of it.
He opened his eyes and sighed with frustration.
“Nothing?” Jack said.
“Nothing except the same failure over and over again.”
“Maybe you’re following the wrong path.”
“Yeah, but it’s the only path I can see.”
“Then take a step back,” Jack said.
“Huh,” Alexander said, nodding to himself. “I think I’ll go see how the Ithilians are doing, maybe find some lunch along the way.”
He thought back to his experience in Siduri’s construct, and more importantly, how he’d gotten there in the first place. Again, it came back to dying on the floor of the Babachenko’s cell. He could send his mind into the firmament at will, but he’d only transitioned there physically when he was dying. That wasn’t very helpful.
Sovereign of the Seven Isles 7: Reishi Adept Page 37