by Travis Peck
As the dust drifted away, smoke replaced it, eddying through the air. He could scarcely draw a clean breath into his burning lungs. Sweat poured into his eyes, and he had to keep wiping it away frantically to keep it from obstructing his view. His heart was pounding and his legs threatened to collapse under him, but he gritted his teeth and managed to resist his body’s desire to give up and fall to the ground. He had no idea how the battle was going as a whole, but he saw more ravinors streaming toward them around the tipped-over wagons, so he could not spare it a thought.
Seeing a brief lull in the action, Lerius scooped up a shield from the ground that had been dropped by one of his fellows and would not be needing it again. He just got his arm through the straps and his spear up as the next group crashed into him. He felt more than saw that Hossen remained standing next to him. The shield allowed him to keep the ravinors back while still being able to stab at them whenever they gathered themselves up for a renewed charge against the human line.
He knew nothing but the ceaseless struggle to keep his shield up and his spear in hand, thrusting into the mass whenever he was able. His spearpoint glistened red from the blood, and his hand was covered in the sticky, red wetness. He felt the sting of sweat and ravinor blood running over the cuts and scrapes on his arms. Lerius was a survivor and so could not be infected again. But the other defenders were not, and they were likely experiencing the same thing. If they survived the night, there would be infections—many of them.
In a precious moment of calm, as the battle ebbed away from his section of line, he glanced over to Hossen and nearly gasped. The innkeeper was still standing, but he was wounded on the arm and leg and splattered with ravinor blood. There was no way that he could avoid infection with that much tainted blood covering him and his wounds. His companion swayed on his feet but miraculously stayed upright. Under his helm, Lerius could see the innkeeper’s white teeth clench together, strikingly bright as they contrasted with the crimson blood that streaked his face. He looked as if a bucket of red dye had been upended over his head. Lerius knew that he looked the same, but he did not have to worry about infection, only the less frightening fate of death.
And then the battle found them again, and he could no longer worry, or even think, about anything else but the foes before him. His left arm was numb from the collisions of ravinors launching against his upraised shield. The black-eyed creatures threw themselves at the defenders in a frenzy that was triggered and heightened to a fever pitch by the scent of blood that wafted through the night air. It had the opposite effect on him. Mixed with the smoke, the acrid, sweet smell of blood hung in the air like a fine mist that threatened to make him retch. Once again, he thanked the Giver that he was immune to the ravinor infection for it was impossible to avoid the tainted blood on this battlefield.
The fighting became a blur, like a half-remembered waking dream. He knew at some point there was a break in the action, and he was offered water, but Lerius could not be certain if he had really had any, or if it was only his extreme fatigue and dehydration playing tricks on his mind.
Block, thrust.
Block, thrust.
Block, thrust.
The pattern was all he knew. At times, his thrust would be met with nothing but air; other times, the point would sink deeply into ravinor flesh, and he would have to struggle to wrestle it out for his next thrust.
Lerius saw Hossen fall to a knee. He and the other defenders stepped past the injured, or just plain exhausted, man as ravinors flung themselves at the vulnerable innkeeper. The healer struck furiously at the enemy as they tried to claw around him and the two other defenders who had placed themselves between Hossen and the horde. Screaming with rage, Lerius felt a sudden and unexpected strength infuse his limbs as he repeatedly stabbed at the nearest creature with his spear. The ravinor’s abdomen turned into a red, gory mess as entrails and viscera sloughed onto the ground, adding to the already blood-soaked dirt of the battlefield.
Lerius roared in triumph as his foe toppled to the earth, dead. His analytical mind was recommending calm, but he could not stop the wave of fury and energy that his rage provided. He stepped forward and lunged the spear at the next ravinor to come into his view. He saw the ravinor flinch as the spearpoint pierced its throat. The healer savagely kicked his leg out into the creature’s stomach to help dislodge the point from its neck. A gout of hot, tainted ravinor blood splattered on his face and chest. Heedless of the blood, Lerius kept striking forward. His vision was obscured by all the blood in his eyes as he blindly thrust the spear forward and back.
The ravinors in front of him stood aside. For the briefest of moments, he gloried in his battle lust that had cowed his enemies. Then the giant ravinor stepped through the opening. The fires raging in the fields were now much closer and gave the impression that the giant was stepping out from hell, as if he brought their doom with him.
Flames spiraled skyward, the tongues of flame as hungry and greedy as a ravinor searching for flesh. Lerius’s rage guttered out as suddenly as it had burst forth from him. Now it cowered and fled. His berserk charge had left him exposed a few paces in front of the line. In this battle, that was a great distance. His gaze was pulled against his will to the undulating rise and fall of the flames bearing down on ravinors and humans alike.
Sensing Lerius’s distraction, the giant lunged at him, swinging his mighty axe. The weapon whirred over his head as he ducked the savage blow. Before he could straighten, the giant planted a steel-shod boot into his chest, and he was flung backward halfway to the line. By pure luck, Lerius had raised the shield enough to take the brunt of the kick.
Collapsed on the ground on his knees, he tried to suck in air but his lungs no longer responded to his desire to breathe. He still held the shield and gripped the ash haft of the spear, but he could not see his hands or his weapon. They were covered in the red, charnel house muck that the ground had become. His knees felt like they were a hand deep in a tepid, viscid mire.
He panicked when he desperately tried to breathe but failed. Lerius, still gasping, tottered to his feet. His legs trembled and he could tell from the pain in his chest that the giant had broken several of his ribs—the shield interposed between his upper body and the blow had saved his chest from collapsing from the impact. He finally managed to get his breath back. Then the giant was on him again.
He was saved from the axe swing only from his close proximity to the giant, as the terrible creature was unable to make a full swing. That did not stop the giant from smashing the flat side of the axe blade into the healer’s face. His helmet flew off his head and his nose crunched as his blood mixed with the ravinors’ blood that was already drying on his face. Broken nose, his healer’s mind diagnosed impartially. He stepped back a pace to recover from his nose breaking, but he quickly discovered that was a mistake.
The giant whipped his axe in a wide arc, and Lerius met the blow with his shield. The shield crumpled under the weight and speed of the massive axe. His arm—already numb from the battle—now felt strange. The axe got caught in the bent and torn metal of his shield it had punctured. The giant heaved back with his weapon and the shield ripped from Lerius’s arm.
Lerius screamed. The numbness in his shield arm was not deep enough to spare him from the violence done to it. Bone protruded from his skin. The point was jagged where it had snapped and then tore itself out of his arm. Blood pumped from the wound with each beat of his heart. The giant swung his axe again. Lerius raised his spear feebly and the haft was cleaved in two. The point fell away harmlessly as his weapon was rendered useless.
There was now a pounding in his head. He did not know whether it was caused from exertion or the throb from his broken nose and the accompanying concussion, but it sounded like galloping horses in his skull. The galloping grew stronger and he felt the earth tremble under his feet. Lerius could only register shock when the giant was knocked sideways by the three charging mounts that had plowed into the towering beast. Each rider le
ft their lances sticking into the massive ravinor; one fell to the ground, but the other two, one in the creature’s thigh and the other through its stomach, remained firmly lodged.
The giant staggered but did not fall. The creature studied the lances jutting from his body with disbelief, but only for a moment. The giant snapped off the lances, not pulling them clear, but rather keeping the wounds filled with the weapons that caused them. Lerius was surprised by the action. The creature was aware that he would bleed out in moments if he were to pull the lances out. The giant roared in pain and rage. Nearby ravinors quailed—as did the human defenders—at the terrible sound. He stood to his full height and glanced around the battlefield. Then he turned behind to see the fire sweeping toward the rear of his forces.
With another roar the giant turned, and with his large stride, picked his way through the ravinor lines, shouting to the others as he did so. The other ravinors followed suit and trailed after their hulking leader. With the fire bearing down from their rear, and the line of defenders standing resilient in front of them, the creatures made for a gap to the north that allowed them to quit the battlefield.
As the ravinors retreated, Lerius collapsed beside Hossen, exhausted. Pain from his wounds racked his body, and he clutched at his broken forearm. He would have to set this right away but he had to clean it first. He at least did not have to worry about infection from the ravinors, but there were still many other potential dangers that were present inside an open wound that was covered in blood and dirt.
He and Hossen were lying prone on the ground, lungs billowing for air. The healer was relieved to see that his comrade was still alive. Lerius knew, though, that the chance of Hossen contracting the ravinor infection was high indeed. He suspected it would be the same for most of the defenders, and that meant that only one or two of the infected would survive as he had. They had been ill prepared to fight so many of the creatures. Even with their timely warning to Lord Geryn, there were not enough trained and equipped guards that would have been needed to properly ward off an attack of such an unexpected magnitude. It was the Giver’s luck that they had fought them off at all, but now the next battle would begin in earnest, a fight that each infected defender would have to fight for themselves—alone.
“We made it through again, eh?” Hossen said through gasps, still recovering from the harrowing battle.
“More or less,” Lerius said, not bothering to turn his head but rather gesturing at his badly mangled arm. His ’esses’ came out as a nasally whine through his broken nose.
“Thank the Giver… I didn’t think we were going to get through that,” Hossen said. His gulps for air became less frequent as his tired lungs finally began to catch up with the exertion he had forced them through.
“Me neither.” Lerius agreed, but his enthusiasm about their survival was tempered by the knowledge that Hossen would fall into the ravinor fever within a day or two. As would so many of the other defenders. His guilt for bringing the ravinors to Lord Geryn’s estate would haunt him for the rest of his life. The tenants had fought bravely and doggedly, and Lerius knew they would need his skills as a healer if they had any chance at all of making it, not from the ravinor infection—that was up to the Giver—but from the wounds themselves. He would heal what he could. He was determined to give as many of the wounded as possible the chance to fight for themselves in the ravinor dream.
Spurred on by this thought, Lerius groaned. He knew what had to be done before he could help anyone else. Cradling his badly broken arm protectively to his chest, he forced himself to stand. Just that simple movement sent jolts of pain from his ribs, arm, and nose, but he gritted his teeth and stood up as straight as he could.
Each breath he drew pained him, but after some tentative prodding with his good arm, he decided that he did not have any broken ribs but had bruised them badly. Scant relief but better than having the shattered point of a broken rib tearing up his insides. That was not something that he would be likely to survive.
Lerius tore off his tunic that was stiff with dried blood and soaked with sweat. He tied it into a makeshift sling for his arm. He would need to clean off the bone as soon as possible before forcing it back into place. There were no scraps of clothing on the battlefield that would be near clean enough to bind the wound with—even temporarily. Immobilizing his arm afforded him the essential ability to use his good arm to begin to help the wounded.
He examined Hossen first. The innkeeper was splattered with blood, and it took a few moments of searching to discern whether or not any had come from the innkeeper. “Are you cut anywhere, Hossen?”
The tired old man furrowed his eyebrows as he mentally cataloged each ache and pain. Lerius saw Hossen’s eyes the moment he realized that he was doomed. The innkeeper opened his mouth and closed it abruptly, unable to find the words. The healer put his good arm on Hossen’s shoulder and squeezed.
“I made it,” he comforted, “there is no reason why you can’t too.” He did not know if that was true but he fervently hoped it was. There would only be one or two people who would prove to be immune to the ravinor infection in the group of defenders, from a statistical standpoint, but the numbers meant nothing when it was your friend who was fighting against the odds.
“Just a scratch… After everything we’ve been through and one Taker-damned scratch is what gets me,” Hossen lamented in a quiet yet emotional voice. The innkeeper stood up then, tremulously. “Might as well help some others while I can.”
Lerius did not reply. He could not. He could only nod in answer to his friend’s bravery and help steady the innkeeper with his good arm. Survivors of the battle were coming to life again as the need to help their friends and loved ones overcame their exhaustion and injuries. Lerius saw Lord Geryn, Evin, and Daeris still mounted, and in deep discussion, twenty yards away in the gravel driveway next to the manor.
He steered Hossen in that direction. The two men supported each other as they had done so for what seemed like forever: brothers in the fight for survival, despite their disparate ages and occupations.
With one short backward glance behind him, Lerius was shocked by the damage and carnage of the battle. Dead ravinors spoiled the once-pristine grounds of Lord Geryn’s estate. The neatly trimmed grass and lovingly tended hedges and fences were torn, smashed, churned, and scattered in ruin. The once-green landscape had been torn and savaged, replaced by dirt and blood. And the fire still raged on. For every breath they took, it moved inexorably closer to the manor and the survivors. Lerius knew they had a limited amount of time before it would force them onward. Onward and toward the retreating ravinors that they had sacrificed so much for in order to defeat.
Lerius knew that their world would never be the same. They had survived the battle only to find themselves in another for their souls, and those that made it would live only to see more battle, such as the world had never seen before. This would be a war for survival, and he knew that their world had been forever changed—and not for the better.
Chapter Thirty-Three
MOIRA SAT WITH HER knees pulled up toward her chest, her head resting on her knees, eyes closed. The Shadowman had not spoken to her for some time, and she was left with nothing but doubts and worries to keep her company in her stone cell. Surely her fate, and those of her family, must have been sealed by now? It seemed that she had been stranded here for days without any contact, and she was starting to lose what little calm she had mustered.
Every time she would think about her family, the workers on the manor, the horses, and even Lerius—whom she had only seen for a fleeting moment—she could feel the despair grab hold of her again. She would fight down the sorrow, and the moment she let her mind go where it would, she would think of the waking world and again the despair would take hold. That was how she had passed this last…however long it had been. Her only solace was communicating to her captor, who was far from sane.
During a particularly painful bout of hopelessness, she screamed and beat
her hands against the stone wall until her knuckles were bloody and scraped. Then she imagined that they were fine and the pain lifted, leaving her feeling content for a few moments after the cathartic release. She desperately needed to get out of this cell.
Moira finally managed to sleep, or whatever passed for sleep in the ravinor dream. Whatever state it was she was able to enter, it had allowed her mind to rest without touching on any triggers that would cause another frantic outburst from her.
When she came back to her ethereal body locked away in stone, her stomach was still empty and begging for sustenance. Did this mean that her family had left her at the manor, or was it a clue that she was under the care of the ravinors and the Shadowman in the waking world? She nearly sicked up at the revolting thought of being fed by those creatures, not even considering exactly what she would be fed. She forced her mind to stop thinking along that particular track.
Then, as suddenly as the voice of the Shadowman had departed from within her walls, it was back.
“IT IS DONE. WE HAVE YOU NOW.”
Moira could not hold back the tears now. Her father and friends would never let ravinors get to her while they lived. It could only mean one thing. She sobbed into her hands and she felt the Shadowman’s presence withdraw.
Time lost what little meaning it had for her here as she grieved. She sobbed. Then she screamed and raged. Then she cried again. The torturous pattern repeated itself, and all the while Moira refused to will her tears away or make her throat and eyes feel normal again—as if she had not been crying for so long. That would have been unfair to the memory of her loved ones. Moira tried, and failed, to reach her sleep-like state in the dream to get away from her emotions, if only for a while.