Belial - Episode 1 of the Elder Bornshire Chronicles

by Ben Stivers

  Some of the master craftsmen had pleaded for him to escort them back to town. They could carve out a living without risking their lives to unknown monsters, trading instead for known ones. Others advised him to keep his troop together rather than split up, but he would entertain neither solution.

  While their ideas had merit, they were not solutions. Going back to Ploor resolved nothing. That “thing” would still be out in the forest to prey on anyone who happened by, or widen its hunting ground. Keeping his entire troop together and simply waiting for the creature to return definitely led to folly. The beast could reappear at any time and the civilians would be a distraction if it did.

  No, finding the underlying cause of the mystery, facing the danger head-on might still yield casualties, but it certainly addressed the problem one way or another.

  Their third day out, the sun had already crossed the zenith when the tracker, Koun, called out in the distance.

  In the midst of his call, his shout turned shrill. His voice climbed an octave and then the forest went deathly silent.

  No birdsong. No breeze.

  The phalanx snapped together with Ptolomus inside, facing the direction the bleak report had emanated. Shields locked around them in a protective shell. Spears protruded.

  Koun had been a tracker for most of his adult life. Whatever had caused such a sound to originate from his lungs had killed him. He did not know fear.

  From the underbrush, thunder shook the ground. Several trees swayed and from the dense underbrush sprang a two-headed hellhound.

  “Brace!” Ptolomus shouted.

  The multi-headed beast plunged forward, digging up dirt with its magnificent claws on feet abnormal for the largest of lions. Ptolomus lowered his head, glaring from beneath his helmet with grim resolve. In the hound’s eyes, there shined no light, not even a twinkle. Thick sinew over heavy bone rippled under his slick, black, hairless skin. Fangs protruded from beneath drawn taut lips, exposing gray gums beneath. The slit tongue that Ptolomus noted forked and darted like a snake’s.

  Reavis reoriented his spear to the right to engage the rightmost head. Had Ptolomus been in his position, he might have done the same, as that head arrived a split second before the other.

  The tip pierced the beast in the top of its mouth. Momentum carried the monster forward; the spear barb erupted through the beast’s left eye. Yet, the same impetus that pushed the spear through the back of the beast’s skull broke the spear’s wooden shaft as the creature snapped its jaws. The weight of the beast collided on that single shield, turned just to the right, and bent it at the center, deforming Reavis’ grip and ultimately his arm. He groaned and dropped to a knee, creating a weak point. Elizabeth leaned toward him to cover the opening.

  The phalanx adjusted instantly, closing the gap as the hellhound galloped into the shieldwall. Half a dozen spears penetrated both sides of the beast’s rib cage. Several snapped, pinned between the soldier’s strength and their enemy’s and stressed against the shield.

  The creature plowed over the top of their formation. Ptolomus’ sword chewed deep through the creature’s underbelly with a potent two-handed stroke.

  Scalding blood exited the wound to splash down upon Ptolomus and his men like hot oil from a castle wall. To their credit, curses volleyed forth as the men burned, but they did not release the grips on their shields and not a single Templar vacated their place in the formation as the beast trampled, wounded, down the other side.

  “Inverse!”

  A mild shift rolled through the phalanx as the creature backpedaled and came to a full stop, turning slowly to eye the phalanx. Its left eye hung from the socket in ruin and the forest floor steamed with the creature’s blood. The ferocious beast crouched, evaluating the formation, not used to meeting resistance to its murderous ways.

  The phalanx bristled still with spears as the rear ranks became the first in compliance with Ptolomus’ command. The beast stalked toward them slowly, low to the ground.

  “Ready,” Ptolomus called and his men braced their spears into the ground as they would for a charging infantry.

  The beast pounced, not bothering to run over them as it had before. Instead, it dug its claws around the edge of the shields, attempting to pry open the phalanx to the prey beneath. Spears found their way to the brute’s body, but still the fiend dug.

  “Crouch!” Ptolomus ordered and the shields pulled in more tightly, shielding the soldiers from the scalding crimson that drained from the hellhound’s trunk.

  “Swords!”

  His own short sword went to work and cleaved a clawed toe from around a shield mate’s shield. The nail was nearly as long as Ptolomus’ forearm. Still, the creature managed to get a claw around two of the shields and threatened to yank the formation open.

  “Heave!” he shouted. As one, the formation shoved right, throwing the hound onto the ground onto its side. Phalanx’s flank spears met their first quenching drink of the day pinning the monster to the ground.

  Not releasing his orderly function, Ptolomus called, “Forward right!”

  The phalanx again flowed in a single fluid movement, shields tight against the beast, pinning the hellhound against two ancient elms and the forest floor. Within minutes, the demon ceased movement and gasped its last.

  “Stand down,” Ptolomus commanded, winded by adrenaline.

  “What the hell is that?” Reavis gasped, visibly winded. His arm blistered from the hellhound’s blood, as did most of the men and their shields.

  “Regroup. Tend to our wounds, but stand ready. There may be others.”

  “Surely not,” Reavis replied.

  Ptolomus looked off into the underbrush and returned, “I wouldn’t count on it.”

  Raliax stood nervously before Nerva’s desk and waited for the governor’s sporadic attention. He shifted foot to foot, trying to remain still in the presence of his supreme commander, but Nerva had become increasingly unpredictable in the issuance of his orders and his temper alarmingly volatile. He had two of Raliax’s men flogged the day before for refusing to punish those in the lottery who had not met work quotas. Civilian citizens had never been placed under such physical demands. To expect that they would be able to comply, even if they had wanted to, which they did not—they could not keep the frantic pace Nerva had demanded. He wanted to harvest miracles where miracles had never been planted. Yet, Raliax had little choice but to do his duty as best he could.

  He had been standing for half an hour in front of the governor’s desk, waiting for him to look up after Raliax had been announced. Why he had been summoned remained to be seen. Whatever the agenda, Nerva felt the need to make Raliax squirm, but that happened more frequently with each passing day.

  “Are you ill with me, governor?” he finally asked, tired of waiting and willing to take a verbal beating if that meant they could move things along. “Have I done something that displeases you?”

  The governor continued reading the stack of parchment in front him, and Raliax expected that the nudge had done him no good. After a lingering pause, the governor finally looked up. “I have not seen the report from our scout, concerning Sabinus. Why not?”

  Well, that was easy enough to explain. “He has yet to return.”

  “Why?”

  Raliax suddenly felt his neck slip into what felt like a taut noose. “Governor, I cannot know why he has not returned until he does.”

  “Have you sent out a scout?”

  “You want me to send a scout out to scout the scout?”

  Nerva finally looked up from his papers. “Are you mocking me?”

  The metaphorical noose suddenly metaphorically tightened and threatened to literally do so. “My pardon. That is not what I mean. Would you like me to send a scout to find Retch, or to at least gather a report?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Only an idiot would do that.”

  Raliax had already started to speak, anticipating Nerva would tell him to send a second scout. When he did not, Raliax
closed his mouth and waited, hoping not to kick the stool out from under his feet.

  Five more minutes passed before Nerva looked up again. “You are still here?” When Raliax did not speak, Nerva asked, “Have you sent soldiers to Hellsgate to proceed with annexation and taxation?”

  “I await your order to proceed.”

  Nerva leaned back in his chair, holding a quill in his dodgy fingers. The ink that dripped off the end looked like blood. “Raliax, must I tell you everything? Must I consume my day directing the army for myself? If so, why do I need you?”

  “I will handle it,” Raliax replied. “Am I dismissed?”

  “See to it,” Nerva replied. Raliax swept down the hall glad he would live to see at least the afternoon.

  Nerva cradled his head in his hands for a bit, then scratched his forehead with his fingernails and squeezed his eyes tightly closed, trying to shut out the constant headache that had plagued him for the last several weeks.

  Where had the days gone? There had been so much to do and so little time to follow up on the city’s initiatives. From his balcony, the wall repair proceeded well. The patriots of Overlord City put in their time to make the city strong again, sweating their lives out in the summer sun because they loved their city and more than that, they loved him.

  He gazed at the pile of papers on his desk. His signature sprawled on hundreds of pieces of paper. He had read them—every page. Yet, he barely remembered doing so.

  Raliax exhibited frustration and Nerva found himself regretting that. Why his captain would feel so, escaped him. After all, he had come unbidden to Nerva’s office.

  Had he not?

  When Mrandor and his troops arrived within sight of Drybridge, he brought them to a firmly orchestrated halt. A banked fire at the center of the village curled white smoke into the morning air, but already the sun encroached the morning, sending any dew skittering into the sky.

  He rode to the front of the troops and surveyed his options and apparent dangers.

  Several villagers sat around the central fire ring, seemingly unaware of his presence. Evidently, however, they had prepared for an attack, though he doubted they had expected an army. Thick wooden posts had been set in the ground to repel horses, and he suspected that the skeletal layer of trampled grass before them probably hid a rudimentary moat.

  He let his physical senses pass to the background. He felt a ripple of Lieala’s magic ahead, an attempt to mask it as something else, something more distant. Even so, the strength of the magic’s core could not be hidden. Not from a master such as himself.

  He reined his horse and prepared to give the order to charge into the village when from the edge of the woods, nothing moved, but as if they had sprung from the trees themselves, arrows clouded the sky, casting a shadow.

  “Cover! Cover!”

  Octavus had taken only half a dozen men, but the druids had chosen wisely. His men traveled through the forest only a few feet from him, and yet, he could hardly see them. On the second day, they had passed Mrandor’s army. As army’s went, the numbers ranged to the average and as to their military conditioning—they were drones and barbarians. If any of them had an original thought, Octavus would find himself sorely surprised. Mrandor and his personal guard brought up the rear, and as they passed, Octavus considered creeping out from under the forest’s canopy and killing the sorcerer while he could. Mrandor, however, must not be underestimated. How he still lived remained a mystery that none of them had solved. How he had restored his youth piled in that same heap of mystical fogginess. To attempt to kill him and fail would put Joanie and Drybridge at greater risk than they already assumed. Turning loose his own desire to exterminate the blight of Mrandor, he and his men continued forward for two more days before arriving where Mrandor had anchored his fleet.

  The ships moored not far off the shore and rocked harshly, the persistent western gale tossing them around on a chaotic blanket of waves. The sailors left onboard were a minimal crew. Enough to keep the ships ready for Mrandor’s withdrawal or restock his lines should he need place his enemy under siege.

  They quickly slid back into the woods to a place they could not be heard and proceeded to build three ballista, a catapult upon which Octavus had first learned to ply his trade as a centurion. Within hours, they had the first two completed and an hour later, the third was finalized.

  “We will not be able to test these,” a man named Alpein said. While the men with Octavus were younger than him by a decade, Alpein clearly had been instructed to lead and his men were masters of construction. Octavus found them quick studies.

  “I have inspected them,” Octavus said. “Gather the stones—ten kilograms if you can find them. Have the men dip them in pitch from that pit we passed. Towards dusk, we relocate them as close to the shore as we can and then at dark we move the ballista within range. Once we send the first volley, if they rain arrows down on us, hide under the ballista, but do not abandon them. If they do, they will come ashore and pursue us. The day could be lost on both fronts.”

  “We understand,” Alpein replied.

  At dusk, they moved nearly sixty stones unseen. The ships’ crews found themselves occupied, protecting their ships from the rowdy sea with no thought of an unseen enemy upon the shore.

  When evening swept in clouds covered the moon. He wondered if Alpein influenced the sky’s decision to aid them, but he did not ask. When at last they were ready, he nodded to Alpein a last confirmation.

  Lighting the pitch upon the loaded stone, they triggered the three ballista and sent the small, flaming boulders into flight, scraping a fiery arch across the night sky. The first two exploded upon broadside impact with one ship, setting the sinking craft brightly ablaze. The second ship began to sink as the largest stone punched through the deck near the main mast, burning the ship from within.

  Octavus looked on, reminded of his days in Rome’s legion, but instead of burning an enemy to surrender to Rome, he hunted a fable, intent on destroying its retreat.

  The druids and their forces pinned Mrandor’s forces from the beginning, first from arrows in the forest and then reinforced from behind over the far rise to the south. His barbarians, he realized, were used to charging in, not holding back, waiting for the enemy’s arrows to run out. As evening approached, he felt their order collapsing as his men grew weary of hiding under their shields. Now and again, a man fell with an arrow in the leg, or in his back. Mrandor himself kept a warding spell around him, deflecting the arrows that lurched in his direction, but finding no sense in trying to take on a hidden enemy by himself. Eventually, either they would tire of trying to kill his men, a task they could not accomplish from the cover of the forest, or they would run out of arrows and charge. Either situation suited him. If they tried to flee, he would deploy his infantry and chase them down. If they came from hiding, it would be his pleasure to slaughter every man, woman and child. That, after all, had always been a secondary objective.

  Near dusk, the arrows stopped, but each time the army tried to gather itself, a fresh round of wooden shafts sailed forth. Mrandor considered charging them anyway when a single female stepped from the woods.

  She was slender, her red hair draped over her shoulders, and she dressed more like a warrior than a woman did. Her leather armor shadowed her in the gathering dark.

  He called out, “Lieala Bornshire! I have no burning desire to murder these innocent people, but I will have you. Save them the brunt of my anger and cease these hostilities. Let the two of us challenge one another in our own way.”

  She stepped three steps closer and Mrandor blinked. The woman felt like Lieala, but her youth gave him pause. Daemon had aged like an autumn crop. This woman looked more his own apparent physical age. Perhaps Belial was not the only one who could restore youth.

  “Hold,” she called and throughout the forest, and in a repeated circle around Mrandor’s army, the call reverberated. If this was not a ruse, a larger number of heathens surrounded his army than he
expected. That simply could not be. The woman cast an illusion of some sort.

  “Your magic does not impress me, young hag. My army cannot be surrounded. What I do not understand is why you pretend to be Lieala Bornshire. Give her to me now and I will allow you to leave. You have my word.”

  The area grew silent as the woman left the edge of the forest and strode confidently toward Mrandor who still sat upon his horse. The horse fidgeted as she drew closer, but the beast grew quiet when she drew Fwithin ten paces.

  “Lieala is not here,” the woman said. “I know who you are.”

  “Then I will know you,” Mrandor snarled. “I will not leave without Lieala. I smell her magic. I know she remains.”

  A guarded smile crept to his adversary’s lips. “My father knew you, as did my grandparents. They tell bloated tales of their battles with you, Mrandor the Pompous. Your enormous ego. Your sinful twisting of magic.”

  Bile rose in his throat and he considered blasting the arrogant bitch from the face of the earth. It would not relieve his thirst for making Lieala suffer, but it would alleviate a healthy portion of aggravation.

  “I know nothing of your parents or grandparents, you obstinate guttersnipe. Surrender or I will kill you where you stand.”

  The woman looked down at the pommel of her sword. When she looked back up, her eyes burned bright blue lightning.

  “You are going to die here today, Mrandor,” she said. “You. This army. Oh, and I forgot to mention, your fleet.”

  With her last words, she pointed back the way he had come and against the horizon of the night sky, a red-orange reflected off the clouds.