The Storm's Own Son (Book 3)

by Anthony Gillis

  Talaos smiled as archers fled before him. All was as planned, he thought. He had chosen well in Aro, and his trust in the others was being rewarded. But, from his new position on foot, in an area crowded with fighting men, siege artillery, and massed cavalry, he had no way to see what was going on further away in the battle. The verdant green light had grown stronger over the Prophet's camp, and the slow, sonorous singing went on and on. It rose louder and grew ever closer to perfect rhythmic unison.

  Ahead was a catapult still intact, a big, long-ranged thing with a lofty crossbar. The crew had stopped working and withdrawn in good order. Talaos sheathed his swords, sprinted and leapt across the intervening distance. He soared, flipped in mid air and landed in front of the catapult. Then he vaulted upward with his own momentum and landed lightly atop the crossbar.

  Once there, he did not like what he saw.

  His army was in good order, but at the shore, the enemy had completed their landing of what might be as many as six thousand men, and they marched toward Tescani. The latter looked to have pulled up a great many of the sharpened stakes nearby and set up a hasty palisade. Behind it, his pikes massed in a half-circular line facing the sea. Drevan and the Megasi troops had moved to a position behind Tescani, guarding his back against the original enemy force.

  Out at sea, things went ill. The Avrosan navy had engaged the enemy fleet with fire ballistae, and several of the latter were now aflame. However, other enemy vessels had closed on, boarded and captured at least half of the outnumbered and lightly-manned Avrosan ships.

  Something else entirely was happening at the camp of the Prophet.

  The vast, singing crowd consisted of men, women, and children, young and old. There were very few men of fighting age among them, as those had been sent into battle. Most of them stood close together in a huge circle, swaying in time with their song. That song now approached perfect unison. The entire vast crowd flickered faintly with wisps of green light.

  A ring had been dug in the ground around that circle, fully three feet deep, and in its depths was a faint green mist. Just inside the ring, thirty-six tall stakes had been driven into the ground. People stood at them with hand clasped behind their backs. They were not tied, and they sang as they stood there. As Talaos watched, blazing light like verdant fire burst around them.

  In the center of the great crowd there was another, much smaller circular trench, with mist like the other. Thirty-six priests and priestesses in robes and white caps and shawls stood around it, spaced regularly and clasping hands as they sang.

  Inside the smaller circular trench was one final circle of people. Twelve warriors in heavy armor stood there, facing outward, so close their shoulders touched. They glowed with green light that grew ever brighter and flickered upward like flame.

  Six of them were men of Hunyos with large round shields, breastplates, and open-faced helms. Four were Easterners with leaf-bladed swords, scale armor, rectangular shields, and helms with visors in the form of smiling, bearded faces. Another had gear Talaos recognized only from descriptions in history books; the long, heavy chain coat, tall, narrow shield, and lofty, tapering closed-face helm of the knights of old Dirion.

  The last warrior was lightly armored, and bore a small round shield and a curved sword. He was short and lean with raw-boned angular features. Talaos remembered Cratus's strange bodyguard from what seemed a lifetime ago. It occurred to him this might be a plainsman.

  One of the people standing at a stake was a very old woman. She seemed to wither in the flaming light, dropped to the ground and did not move again. At another stake stood gaunt young mother with a frail, young infant bound to her side. She sang amid the green flames, but her child squirmed helplessly, screamed, and then was still.

  The glow around the warriors brightened.

  Talaos burst into fresh anger. Rage filled his heart, and furious power arced out from him in all directions. Lines of blue-white lightning wrapped around the catapult and shot into the ground. Others radiated far out into the air around him.

  Talaos roared, his voice thundering far across the plains.

  Heads turned all around and from all sides, in shock.

  He raised his right arm, hand aimed toward the center of the singing circle. He unleashed a massive bolt, a line of lightning searing bright even in the midday sun. There was a flash of green at the outer trench line. His lightning stopped and struck in midair at that point. Blue-white energy crackled and sparked outward. Green light appeared around it, swirling like mist. It glowed brighter and spread until a verdant dome of it became visible, with the trench as its boundary. It rose far over the heads of the singers.

  Another singer at a stake, a thin, sickly-looking old man, fell and was still.

  Talaos howled like raging wind. He poured forth his power. The line of lightning grew stronger. Energy flickered out from along it in all directions. Enemy soldiers backed away. His Madmen gathered close before him, and his Wolves further off, around and behind. Enemy arrows flew their way and fell among them.

  The twelve green-lit warriors turned in perfect unison in their close circle, turned till all faced Talaos. Their eyes lit with brilliant green-white light, like emerald furnaces.

  He was aware of a great roar behind him as Adriko and Kurvan's forces arrived. He heard clashing sounds of battle further off to his left, southward, where Adriko's cavalry must even now be fighting the outnumbered enemy. However, he could pay it little heed. There was another battle before him that he must win.

  His raw power, searing blue-white lightning, poured with rage into the swirling dome of green light. The dome began to flicker, to falter. Two more singers at the stakes fell.

  The twelve warriors with eyes of green flame raised their right hands.

  At the dome of green light, a gap burst open in swirling tatters around his lightning. The bolt shot through but stopped against another, smaller dome of green around the twelve warriors. Lightning arced and splashed explosively in all directions. Singers nearby flew backwards with charred bodies.

  From the outstretched right hands of the twelve warriors came spiraling, flickering bolts of radiant green fire.

  Talaos leapt forward off the catapult. He landed on his feet, roared, and a maelstrom of wind blasted outward from him. It hurled the Madmen and Wolves several feet further away. The luminous green bolts converged at exactly the spot where he'd been, and for a strange instant, everything seemed to grow silent. Then an inferno exploded, bright as an emerald sun.

  The catapult crushed into the ground, shattering, flattening and withering all at once, as if the wood weathered a hundred years in a moment. Two of the closest Wolves were knocked flat, then withered, burned and died as they lay on the ground. Others, more fortunate, were blown off their feet and hurled far backwards, singed as with fire.

  Talaos, closer than anyone else, stood fast in the blast wave. He felt searing, withering agony burn through his body and being. The crackling aura of blue-white power around him flickered, faded and went out. He breathed, and it felt as if his lungs filled with fire. His flesh withered, healed, and withered again as his life and vitality struggled with the raw death consuming it. Then, over in an eternal instant of pain, the blast was done.

  In agonized fury, he called the wind once more. A gale hurled itself against the circle of singers, passing through the green mist around them. They pressed against one another for support. Some toppled from their feet and ceased singing. Others dropped to the ground, braced themselves against the wind, and continued.

  "Madmen and Wolves, to me!" Talaos roared, voice howling above his own gale.

  With grim faces and hard eyes ready for vengeance, they came running.

  As he fought down the pain in his still-seared flesh, Talaos thought what he might do. He'd learned brutal lessons watching the way the Prophet's followers acquired and used power. His own source was very different, but he would see if it could be used in a similar way. The gale faded, and he reached his right h
and to Vulkas standing near. The latter gave him a grim nod and extended his own. Talaos gripped his forearm in the military handshake.

  He willed it. He felt it leave him.

  Vulkas stood bolt-straight with surprise. His eyes crackled with faint, blue-white light, and it flickered along his war mattock. He grinned.

  "What in the hell?" snapped Kyrax.

  "Now you!" roared Talaos in reply.

  Looking something far beyond doubtful, Kyrax stepped forward.

  Talaos gripped his arm, and more power flowed out from him.

  Kyrax gave a ferocious snarl, with faint-flickering eyes and crackling weapons.

  "Talaos!" shouted Larogwan, pointing at the ring of singers.

  Brilliant green light flashed there, from the center of the circle.

  "All of you! Hands out, to me!" roared Talaos.

  Madmen and Wolves extended their right hands to him, in a great ring around him, over shoulders and past weapons. Only the closest reached him directly, but it would have to do. He took a breath, focused, and hurled a gift of power outward, flowing through his followers.

  There were feral, deathlike grins from the Wolves, under blue-white gleaming eyes.

  The Madmen, even silent Epos, made low primal howls.

  Talaos staggered with sudden exhaustion. He fell to one knee. The world reeled.

  Then, over the circle of singers and priests, the twelve warriors leapt with ghostly silence. They leapt superhumanly high and far, and swept faint swirling trails of green fire with them as they soared over the singers. Then, silent and graceful and still in motion, they landed as one. Swift and purposeful, they stalked in unison toward Talaos and his warriors. Those whose faces were visible wore serene smiles.

  "At them, men…" said Talaos in a low, hollow voice. His body refused to move. He struggled to fight weariness, excruciating pain, and the spreading blackness within.

  His Madmen and Wolves walked grimly forward to face the enemy with light in their eyes and power crackling on their weapons.

  Talaos smiled, as waves of agony wracked his body. He smiled in thought of what he'd just done. The Prophet drained others of life and power to fuel his own, then distributed that power to those more useful to his cause. Talaos's power welled from within, and he'd given freely of it, with his right hand, to the loyal and true men, friends, brothers, who'd stood with him through war, death and fire. He had no idea how long it would last for them, or everything it might do, or even whether he'd regain it in time, but he cared not. Loyalty given had been rewarded, when needed most.

  The twelve green-lit warriors advanced in silence. Their steps were in perfect unison, yet they moved at different speeds, those behind fanning out until they'd formed a line. Emerald flame flickered around them as they walked. Some soldiers on the enemy side backed away in fear, while many others came running to join them, swearing oaths in service to the Prophet.

  Fast as the Madmen and Wolves walked to meet them, others were swifter. A squad of Adriko's charging horsemen reached the leftmost of the green-lit warriors. It was the tall man in the armor of old Dirion. The first horseman's spear shattered and burned against his green-glowing armor. Then with barely a glance their way, he swept the long, heavy sword in his right hand toward the horsemen. A wave of searing green fire blasted outward in its wake. Men and horses toppled backward screaming as they withered and died.

  In response, there came a shouted order from somewhere further away among Adriko's cavalry, and two hundred javelins or more poured down on the green-lit warriors and the men behind them. The ordinary enemy soldiers died in dozens, but javelins striking the twelve warriors withered to dust amid flashes of verdant fire.

  Then the Madmen and Wolves were upon the twelve.

  Vulkas roared, louder than Talaos had ever heard him. Like a towering beast he roared, his mattock raised high and arcing blue-white power. He brought it crashing down upon a green-lit warrior in armor of Hunyos. The foe raised his large round shield, and the mattock crashed against it with a thunderclap. The enemy staggered, but his shield held, and he swept his sword to strike.

  An Eastern warrior brought his green-flaming sword at Kyrax, and it seared a smoking line along his round, red and black shield. Kyrax snarled curses and brought his own sword low at the other's armored guts. The point struck the armor with a flash of blue-white against swirling green.

  Epos thrust with his spear straight at a green-shrouded, calmly smiling, warrior of Hunyos, and it struck like a thunderbolt against the other's oval shield. With a loud blast, electricity shot through the other side. The warrior then pulled back and stabbed a long sword at Epos. Green fire raged all around as the blade struck his armor.

  Larogwan faced an Easterner, trading strikes of lightning and fire. Halmir roared with hatred at the Plainsman and threw a crackling blue-white axe at the foe. The plainsman raised his small, green-shrouded shield to block, and the axe struck with an explosion of crackling power. The shield shattered, but then the plainsman spun low and brought his sword past Halmir's guard and into his side. Flame flashed and Halmir stumbled backwards.

  Imvan fired arrow after arrow at the twelve warriors. Each burst with blue-white power upon striking amid swirls of green light. Firio cursed under his breath and drew his twin lightning daggers as he advanced on the twelve warriors.

  All around, Wolves leapt upon the enemy. They slaughtered ordinary enemy soldiers like sheep. Against the twelve, they leapt, struck, and retreated, then struck again. The warrior of Dirion blocked a Wolf's attack with his tall shield and brought his long blade down, trailing green fire, into the Wolf's shoulder. The Wolf snarled under blue-white eyes, brought his blade past the other's guard and through the heavy chain shirt. The warrior of Dirion took a step back and wrenched free of the blade. Then the Wolf toppled back as the green flame spread from his shoulder and seared away his life.

  Talaos watched it all helplessly as he struggled to master his weakened, withered body.

  He would not let them fight alone.

  Agony coursed through him. He mastered himself. He rose to his feet. Pain. He put it aside. He focused his mind and will. Blackness was growing. He forced it down. He sought for the spark of his power within.

  The power of the Prophet still flowed from the singers to the twelve warriors, and the singing went on and on. He was faintly aware of hundreds, thousands, of soldiers in battle all around. Volleys of arrows and javelins rained down on the green-lit dome over the Prophet's singers. There were children there, put on a battlefield by their own parents. He had to stop this, had to give orders. He had to face the warriors. He had to move. The sight of the mother who callously sacrificed her own child was more than he could ever forgive.

  Anger rose in him at the memory.

  Ahead of him, his men were fighting hard, but the twelve warriors moved with superhuman strength and speed. There were no other enemies left nearby, only the twelve, but they were forcing his Madmen back, step by step. The Wolves swirled around them. The warrior of Dirion ran one through, and green fire blasted out from the man’s back.

  His Wolf. Another warrior and brother dead.

  Fury. Power.

  Talaos drew his swords, and electricity traced along the blades.

  He roared and leapt at the warrior of Dirion, whirling in the air with blades arcing around him. Landing and still whirling, he swept the enemy's shield aside with his short blade and scythed his long blade into the gap in the other's armor made by his fallen Wolf. There was a blast of blue-white lightning, and green light recoiled in mist-like swirls from the blow. The warrior of Dirion staggered back, yet even now kept his shield and sword high.

  Something else changed. He heard a rending sound, like a veil being pierced. The light from the Prophet's camp, which had never left the corners of his vision since they'd come to this part of the battlefield, suddenly went out. He now heard hundreds of javelins and arrows striking flesh, and the singing dwindled into silence. Yet there was not a sing
le scream.

  Too late. Fighting for his life. Nothing to be done. But he raged.

  Firio, unnoticed as always, crept close to the far end of the enemy line, where a green-lit warrior of Hunyos did battle with a half dozen Wolves. Suddenly he leapt upon the enemy and struck home with both lightning daggers. Mingled lightning flashed as Firio's gift of Talaos's power joined with that of the daggers. Then the lightning exploded, and the enemy fell with his torso in one direction and his legs in another. His light went out at last.

  Vulkas roared with furious joy. He had black, seared wounds in many places, but still he roared. He brought his mattock down on his foe's shield yet again. The latter had many blackened score marks of its own. This time the mattock crashed through, and the foe went back sprawling, but not dead. Then a group of Wolves pounced on the foe with stabbing spears and blades, and he died as his green light flickered out.

  Talaos scythed and stabbed, raining death and fury on the warrior of Dirion. The enemy returned with superhumanly swift slashes that sent searing waves of fire and force around them. At last Talaos saw an opening as the foe, slowing at last, lunged at him for a killing blow. He avoided it, spun, and brought his long blade scything around to shear the enemy's head from his shoulders. As he fell, green flame sprayed from his neck instead of blood.

  The plainsman, swirling with green light, whirled and scythed his own blade in combat with Halmir. The Northman suddenly leapt backward, grabbed another hand axe, and hurled it into his foe's face. Power flashed, and blue-white triumphed over green. The plainsman fell back with his face charred and cleaved in half.

  The other Madmen, backed by swarms of Wolves, now piled upon the remaining foes. It was a brutal fight, fought with superhuman speed and strength on both sides. The green-lit warriors had brilliant emerald flames in their eyes, and those of Talaos's men crackled with lightning. Weapons flashed and lightning struggled with searing green flames.

  One by one, the remainder of the twelve fell.