by Damien Lake
Lieutenant Fraser remained a moment longer, an apparent headache paining him. He noticed the alley and the men crouched within. His eyes took special note of Marik before darting to the thin tent wall. Fraser squared his shoulders and stepped into the alley.
Marik spoke before his lieutenant could approach any further, already knowing what the question would be. “I didn’t sense anything. If there was magic being woven there, I didn’t feel it at all.” Not that I necessarily would have, he thought. If the magic wasn’t magecraft, I might not have sensed anything. But I think I would have known anyway, and Colbey knew far too much about them for it all to have been a hallucination. “And they have auras. Illusions don’t have auras.”
Fraser pursed his lips. “I didn’t think there had been anything like that.” He considered, then said, “Rest up. Tomorrow is going to be hell.”
“Yes, sir,” Marik whispered while Fraser left. The others had long since drifted into slumber where they sat, Dietrik adopting his usual huddled sleeping form.
He listened to the outpost prepare for next day. Most men returned to their tents for whatever rest they could grab before the march. None of it seemed real. Nothing about the soldier camp seemed solid after the day’s unreality. Hopefully it would look better in the morning.
Marik sat in the corner formed from a crate and his pack, his blanket doing little to fend off the winter cold. When he woke, would it be to find it all a dream? That the march to Lysendra’s barony still lay before them? That would be nice, but that would require falling asleep first. To fall asleep, and put an end to this strange nightmare by awakening.
Exhausted, he tried to summon enough strength to drop into slumber.
Chapter 31
Sleep eluded Marik all night. He spent the entire time wriggling and shifting on the hard ground, constantly searching for a comfortable position that would allow him rest…until he finally awoke. Heavy eyes struggled to see through gummy lids. However much slumber he had actually stolen, he’d spent it dreaming about wanting to fall asleep. Exhaustion sapped his strength. It would be a bad day.
Proof of that came soon enough. Dietrik still huddled beside him. Cork sprawled across the narrow alley’s width. Wyman had woken earlier and left along with the Third Unit man. Marik’s bleary gaze put the light at roughly three candlemarks after dawn when Sloan abruptly appeared.
“Still sleeping?” The Fourth Unit’s sergeant sounded neither light nor harsh, simply flat as usual. “We’re to move out shortly.”
“Already?” Marik sounded drunk.
“We’re forming up at the outpost’s ass-end. Get over there.”
Sloan moved on to wherever the next Fourth Unit member might be tucked away. Marik poked at Dietrik’s shoulder, expecting the lengthy prod his friend usually required. Dietrik shot upward with a startled exclamation, hands flailing.
Marik cringed away until Dietrik became aware of where he was. Any other time he might have chided him, or teased him throughout day at the very least. He felt all too aware of what must have chased his close friend from his halfworld fantasies to find the reaction amusing.
“Get it together,” he commented, and kicked at Cork’s shoulder. “We have to move out soon.”
“Back to bloody Kingshome, if we had a feather’s weight of brains,” Dietrik mumbled. “Off to fetch the Fourteenth, are we?”
“Only if we were still dreaming. The captain wants to go have a look at the demons personally.”
“What? Is he out of his tree?” Dietrik stared, astounded. Cork mumbled indistinguishably as he rubbed the sleep from his eyelids.
“Didn’t you hear the argument last night?”
“After Glynn trodded off I stopped paying attention to all the hubbub. I needed to sleep.”
“We all needed to sleep,” Cork stated. “A battle like that one yesterday is a serious drain on a fighter’s stamina. That’s why we’re so hungry right now as well.”
Marik ignored Cork, his obvious words making him uncomfortably aware of the gnawing ember within his stomach. “The captain wants to confirm our sightings before he risks sending such a bizarre report to his superiors.”
Dietrik was lost for words. Cork nodded, adding, “He’s a career man, the captain. He can’t do anything to risk—”
“Oh, shut up!” Dietrik snapped. Cork, looking startled, did so. “I don’t like this, mate. Not one whit. He wants to go back to the pass?”
“Apparently.”
Dietrik sighed long, deep, a haunted soul. “The benefit of being a mercenary is that we can quit on it whenever we want. I don’t want to quit the band, but…going back there like this…”
“Another outpost is coming with us. The Seventeenth. Probably we will leave as soon as they arrive. If it’s as late in the morning as it feels, they could arrive within the mark, if we aren’t supposed to join them on the way.”
“That makes me feel a touch better, but I still don’t fancy it.”
“Are you serious, Dietrik? Will you actually leave the band rather than face those things?”
Dietrik stood, stretching the aches from his muscles. “I do not want to, but those things scare me, mate. I can’t go knocking over walls with my bare hands when I need to, like you can. All I have is my rapier, and that’s not an effective weapon against a rampaging bull.”
Cork’s interest perked up while listening to Dietrik. “Could you do that?” Before Marik opened his mouth, Cork charged onward. “Hey, if you can knock down a wall, then you could sweep away those demons, right? Why don’t you use your magic to kill them for us?”
“I tried that yesterday,” Marik replied hotly, “and nearly got my neck broken! Don’t count on me! I’m not a mage!”
But Cork’s question slapped him across the face. He had used his strength working in an attempt to kill the beasts, mostly in the hopes that it might bolster his shieldmates’ morale as much as to fight alongside them. It had never occurred to him to strike with his etheric orb, which would surely have been more effective against their thick hides. Why? True, he was no mage, yet the thought had never so much as formed!
These things were beasts, animals if not actual summoned Devils. Warriors they were not! His pride, which demanded he meet steel with honest steel, hardly insisted he behead a chicken destined for his cook fire with his sword, nor that he use it to slaughter a pig for roasting.
Cork looked confused. Marik did not care. Why should he explain anything to the braggart? He stood and stretched as well, facing Dietrik. “As soon as the captain sees those monsters, he’ll run as fast as he can with us dangling from his reins.”
“I hope so.” Apprehension still stabbed at Dietrik. “I’ve risked my life before this, but I’ve never cast it into the wind.” He stuffed his blanket into his pack before trudging from the canvas alley. Marik took the quiet fatalism to mean that Dietrik would stick it out a little further before deciding the Crimson Kings were no longer his best career choice.
He followed with his pack slung over his shoulder. They kept their words to a minimum. Each still struggled to come to terms with the previous day’s events. The outpost’s cook tent refused to give them breakfast on the excuse that supplies had already been drawn by the mercenary squad. This soured their moods further while they shuffled to the tent row’s eastern end where the four units slowly gathered.
A large pot had been bullied from the quartermaster. It hung suspended from a spit over a sizable fire. The smell of boiling oats dampened Marik’s enthusiasm. He had grown to loath army porridge during the Nolier campaign. Dietrik grunted a withering comment only half-heard. Marik caught enough to understand Dietrik asked the gods why army fare kept coming back to haunt his life despite his efforts to leave it behind.
They ate without paying the food much attention. The fare would supply them with energy, serving its purpose. It would never be remembered fondly. Their movements were rote, their arms dropping to the bowl, lifting spoons in nearly perfect time.
; Men were forming ranks in the main row close to the command tent. Atcheron, with his surviving men led by Riley, was given a place near the fore, close to where the outpost captain would ride. No doubt meant as an honor position in the column, it only drew sickening attention to how few of his and Lysendra’s men were fit enough to take part in the march. They were a single apple sitting forlornly beside the freshly-picked barrel, full to its brim from the orchard.
Sloan spoke briefly with Fraser, then stood close to where the Fourth sat eating desolately. He said nothing. Marik took the chance to study their ranks and estimate yesterday’s damage. It amazed him to find almost every man he knew. The Fourth alone had lost only four men, with the other units only about as badly off.
How could that possibly be? He reviewed the order of events. The mercenaries had primarily been to the rear in Atcheron’s fast march to the pass. The bodies littering the slope had mostly been guardsmen, slain while the beasts slaughtered their way down from above. All the worst damage had been suffered by Lysendra, followed by Atcheron.
And although that horrible battle had seemed to last for days, it must have only raged bare minutes before they fled. Very little light had been left to them upon arriving at the pass, and they could still see with bare eyes during their escape.
Time had turned fluid again. It always did during life-or-death battles. An old saying proclaimed that only time and man’s stupidity were eternal. These odd slippages refuted that. He wondered if anyone had ever studied the phenomenon before, and that brought Shalla to mind. Yes, people had studied time in depth, but had her peaceful sect ever been exposed to time’s peculiarities in mortal battle?
Sloan’s shout yanked Marik from his drifting thoughts. He’d been in a downward spiral, on the verge of falling asleep where he sat. Marik slapped at his cheeks, wishing for a water barrel to splash his face from, then cleaned his bowl as best he could with a handful of snow.
The Ninth Squad gathered, the crowds loosely organized by unit and unlike the ridged soldier lines further up the row. They left the porridge remains in the iron pot for the quartermaster to clean up. If he wanted it back, he could come collect it. It was his pot after all.
Nearly every soldier from the Eighteenth Outpost would form this column, clustered in twin rectangles holding one-hundred men each. Atcheron led his small force at the head while Fraser led the Kings at the rear. Four squads in all with the outpost captain reigning supreme.
As customary with many army officers, the captain sent messengers to each individual squad to inform both the leader and the men of the proposed plan. Despite every fighter present already knowing what the captain meant to do, Marik watched a man ride to Fraser and pass words before raising his voice. He had long since ceased questioning this oddity during his last encounter with the Galemaran army. Not every officer indulged the practice, yet it was common with the officers who subscribed wholeheartedly to army doctrine. Landon believed it to be a holdover from the long wars during the Unification, where battle carnage could rage unchecked or take such a high toll in lives that an under-captain thirty notches down the chain of command could suddenly discover he was the only officer left. At such a time, it would be vital that he, or even men lower, be aware of what the orders were.
“Our company is to move out westward, toward Armonsfield. Along the way we will join with…”
Marik paid the cry no heed. He focused on his shieldmates. Sloan stood five feet before them, hand resting on his strange squared swordgrip as usual. Wyman stood to Dietrik’s right, Churt a step behind the silent man. No doubt the swordsman would provide cover for Churt as he reloaded his crossbow. Edwin had taken a place behind Floroes to Wyman’s other side for much the same purpose.
Colbey had drifted, apparently by chance though he very much doubted that, to Marik’s left side. The scout looked indecently fresh, the fact reminding him of the stamina technique. Annoyed, he invoked it, blaming the oversight on his sleep-deprived mind. Marik felt most of his exhaustion melt away under the fresh energy saturating his body.
He held it in place for a moment before releasing it. Only a fraction of his weariness returned. Good. Maybe he could face the march ahead without sleepwalking.
Colbey cast a single glance sideways, apparently aware that Marik had just used the technique he had taught. Marik expected a disparaging comment on his skills. Instead Colbey acted far more interested in the crier’s words than the messenger warranted. The scout kept his gaze locked forward, hand twisting back and forth on his sword hilt. Looking down, Marik saw he stood mostly on his toes, heals bobbing up and down, rocking in battle readiness. Odd.
“…until we can form an accurate assessment on the nature of the opposition which—w-what? What was that?”
Marik froze. The messenger whirled in the direction from which the noise had arisen. Every man in the Ninth Squad did likewise, except Colbey, who cracked a broad grin and crouched lower, still rocking.
There was no mistaking that sound. It portended evil tidings. The demon-beasts had not remained in Armonsfield. No. They had followed. Followed them here.
Well, Marik thought sardonically when the bellowing chorus-roar rose a second time, now the good captain will be able to see in person whether these are delusions or reality.
* * * * *
They came hard, and they came fast. The lead groups burst from the northern tree line at a loping run, the only warning the increased volume of their howling.
Atcheron wasted no time after the initial roars reached them. He ordered his group to fall back. Riley herded his men down the row until they rejoined the Crimson Kings. Whatever objections the outpost captain might have shouted were lost under the rising bestial voices.
This left the captain alone with his soldiers to face the first assault. From the trees they exploded, first a few, then a dozen, then a wave that crashed into the northwestern corner. Tents collapsed, trampled under massive bare feet sporting four root-like toes capped with sharp claws. The odd beast became tangled. Most continued loping to smash against the Galemaran soldiers.
Marik watched their advance into the ranks ahead. They were no less terrifying in the clear daylight than yesterday. He studied them closely, distinguishing the peculiarities in their composition that had escaped his notice before.
Despite the onward rush, no beast strayed within ten feet of each other. He had dimly recognized that on the slope, assuming deep in his mind that they needed space to swing those obscenely muscled arms. Having witnessed their territorial nature though, their extended proximity must be caused by that instead.
Not all wore simple loincloths. Others wore wraps covering the torsos. These were all darker colored and smaller than the simpler clothed beasts, without any horns at all. Females, perhaps?
Most importantly, he knew to look for humans interspersed throughout. He identified many white-robed figures. All were carried in a beast’s arms, heads bared, at least one monster back from the frontline. The details were fuzzy from this distance, yet he believed they must be using some sort of spells after all.
His spine shivered from their sheer ferocious monstrosity, not from any reaction to active magic. He had come to recognize the minute differences. Perhaps the spells were beyond his sensing because they were not personally threatening him…but the bracelet had meant to assassinate Hilliard. That had been neither offense magic nor directed at him. There were still far too many mysteries about magic for him to tell for sure. The most important knowledge always proved to have nothing at all to do with the lessons Tollaf subjected him to, and he never knew beforehand what he might need to know since he only knew what that might be when he needed to know it.
Did these white-robes cast spells from a different branch of magic? One so completely alien that his mage talent failed to naturally detect it without specific workings set in place? Such questions would need to wait for a different time, if he survived long enough to ask Tollaf.
Soldiers were beginning to panic. Many
fled before the nightmares could descend on them. Fighters in the monsters’ path were resisting as best they could. The first three rows were already shredded and Marik had yet to see a single monster fall.
Sloan shouted for everyone to prepare, withdrawing his single-edged sword as he did so. Marik set his strength working into place while his sergeant took a ready stance, knees slightly bent, the sword angled low and ready to flick upward either left or right.
Churt held his crossbow pointing over Wyman’s shoulder. Marik had to admire the boy. His hands were steady while his eyes were wide knotholes, sweat dripping from his lashes. The young archer’s gaze flicked across the advancing horde, searching for the only targets he knew mattered.
Edwin knocked an arrow to his string but kept from drawing it back. His string would remain slack until a clear target entered his range.
The sounds were horrible. Marik had long become used to the cacophony unique to battle. As chilling as the sounds of steel striking steel or men screaming or a hundred arrows loosed as one could be, this din sang a different hymn.
Flesh ripping as monsters tore men apart with raw strength echoed in wet, sickening pops. Every few moments he could hear the sharp crack of bones snapping. Men were bent at unnatural angles whenever caught up by a hell-beast.
Twining throughout reverberated the deafening howls. No longer a unified voice rising from a pack on the hunt, these were individual cries of predatory victory. Whenever a monster dismembered a soldier, with the hot blood still flooding over its massive hands it would lift its head to roar the snarling bellow that made the largest bear sound meek.
The beasts trampled through the tents, making their way along the row’s northern edge. Sloan held his stance to meet them while Sergeant Giles shouted his defiance. Kineta’s scimitar rested on her shoulder to dart at her command and Bindrift simply stared. Soldiers hacked at the furry bodies when beasts flowed through the open corridor between the mercenaries and the second rectangular soldier formation.