The Argument of Empires (The Corrossan Trilogy Book 1)

by Jacob T. Helvey

  Clearly still confident, the old soldiers lunged forward and brought his dagger down in an icepick grip. Halfway through the swing, Grith entered the Deepening, watching as the knife slowed to a crawl to his enhanced senses.

  Grith lashed out, his hand moving at normal speed to his eyes, grasping Antis’ wrist with one hand, his throat with the other. He tensed his muscles, filling them with liquid fire, and lifted the soldier off his feet before smashing him into a shelf along the left-hand wall.

  As much as he wanted to shove the bastard through wood and stone both, taking down the whole storehouse around them, he knew no good would come of it. Antis needed to be taught a lesson, not killed. So Grith held himself back, only allowing the man to be knocked unconscious by the force of the strike.

  Still holding the soldier’s limp body with his right hand, Grith searched around for more food with his left. He couldn’t keep this up for much longer, especially with only a few bites of meat in his stomach. He found a few sausages and shoved them into his mouth, chewing only twice before he swallowed.

  When he was satisfied he wouldn’t be passing out from hunger anytime soon, Grith threw Antis over his shoulder and stepped out into the light of day. The sun didn’t seem as intense as it had been only moments ago, and he found he could look straight ahead without a blossoming of pain at his temples. Tain was on the bridge some distance away, directing the construction of barriers and defensive emplacements in the warm morning air.

  Morning? He checked the sun’s place in relation to the Sky Father. Yes, it was definitely morning, and late morning at that. That meant he had slept through the afternoon, the whole night, and much of the day. He only wished Tain would have sent someone to wake him earlier.

  Remembering that he was carrying these men’s sergeant on his shoulder, he trudged over to where Tain was directing construction. Before the soldier’s had so much as noticed him, Grith had deposited Antis at Tain’s feet.

  “Sweet fucking Tirrak!” his teacher exclaimed, looking from the sergeant’s still form to Grith and back again. “Did you fucking kill him!?”

  Some of the black-clad men shuffled back uncomfortably, but none of them uttered a word in challenge. That was good. If you couldn’t win men’s hearts through inspiration, intimidation was often a serviceable fallback.

  “He’s just concussed.” Antis’ chest still rose and fell regularly. He would be fine. At least, Grith hoped he would. Spirits, he hadn’t hit the man that hard, had he?

  “And why did you concuss these men’s sergeant?”

  “What was I supposed to do!? Let him kill me!?” Tain’s eyebrows rose until Grith thought they might take flight “He thought I was Fanalkiri,” Grith explained. “Said he wanted revenge for all the men they had been killed during the invasion.”

  Tain’s eyes flicked to the soldiers standing around him. He was assessing the threat they presented, the same as Grith had done only moments before. “I should have gotten your hair dyed black before we left. I thought there might be some looks, but this?”

  “So he’s not Fanalkiri?” one of the soldiers asked slowly, sounding confused.

  “No!” Grith roared. “It was a disguise!” He closed his mouth before he broke into a full on tirade. When he opened it again, he spoke in a more level tone. “I had dark skin, so we thought I could pass for a south man.”

  “He’s telling the truth,” growled Antis. The man had raised his head from where he lay. “He’s not Fanalkiri.”

  “You finally believe me?” Grith asked, turning on the sergeant. His anger returned as quickly as it had left. “Was it when I told you the truth for the fifth time or when I almost broke your fucking jaw!?”

  “Grith,” Tain said testily. “Don’t antagonize the man…”

  “He tried to kill me, Tain! I think that’s reason enough to antagonize him!”

  “I’m…” Antis looked away. “I’m sorry. Don’t know what came over me.”

  Tain rolled his eyes, but held out a hand to Antis regardless, who let himself be pulled to his feet. The older man put a hand to the back of his head. The fingers came away bloody. “Erik!” he shouted to no one in particular.

  “Yes sir,” said a particularly burly Akivian near the back of the group.

  “Get needle and thread. I’m gonna need my head stitched.”

  The man saluted and ran for the storehouse.

  “Now that that’s over with, we can get back to work.” Tain said it loudly enough so all the soldiers could hear. The words carried a clear message. Any more squabbles would be handled with force.

  “How long do we have?” Grith asked his teacher once the soldiers had gone back to their various tasks. He surveying the rise that overlooked the bridge. It wouldn’t be long before the dry scrub was swarming with Cutarans.

  “I’m not sure. A little more than a day, if I had to guess.” Tain swallowed. “Not long enough. We have the supplies, the equipment. We just don’t have the men. I don’t care if there are ten thousand bolts in that storehouse if there aren’t good soldiers to shoot them.”

  “Do they have horses here?” asked Grith. He turned to see if he could make out any stables.

  Tain shook his head. “No. I was thinking the same thing. We won’t be able to get a message to the High Lords, not before the battle, at least. And besides, we can’t spare a runner, not with manpower as thin as it.”

  Grith stretched his aching arms over his heads and let out a groan. “Then we just have to hope that Jionis got word to Irrin.”

  He reached down and scooped up a stone in the crook of each arm, large enough that a normal man would have difficulty lifting one on his own. “But, I guess there’s not much we can do about it now, except wait and hope.” He carried the rocks to the barrier being erected at the center of the bridge and sat them down. It was a pathetic defense, Grith thought, against seven thousand Cutarans. But he had to admit, a pathetic defense was better than none at all.

  Twenty-Eight:

  Grith

  “They’re coming!” came the call from the left tower.

  “How many!?” Tain demanded, running out onto the bridge. They had fortified their position as best they could, given the time. The barrier that split the Sikara Bridge was over five feet tall now and nearly as thick, still short enough for them to swing weapons freely over its top, but enough that the Cutarans would have to halt their advance to scale its side.

  “Two, maybe three hundred!” the soldier called back. A whistle split the air as Antis came up beside them, flanked by five soldiers. Each carried a crossbow in his hands. The other six would take up potions in the towers flanking their side of the bridge. The idea was to catch the enemy in a fan of fire, making defense from both the front and sides impossible, even with the thick hide shields the sergeant claimed some of the Cutarans would carry into battle.

  “The vanguard,” Tain concluded. He turned to Grith. “You have your weapons ready?”

  Grith leaned his spear up against the barrier and drew out his short recurve bow. It had been months since he had used the weapon, but Spirits, it felt good to hold again, to know it was about to see battle. “I only have eighteen arrows.” He pulled one of the rattan shafts from the quiver built into the bow’s case and nocked it to the string.

  “Then make them count. This will be the first test of our defenses. If we can hold here, we might actually stand a chance when the rest come calling.”

  A test? Grith thought. We’re outnumbered twenty to one. That’s not like any test I’ve ever heard of.

  “Get ready!” Tain shouted as the first Cutaran crested the hill, silencing any protest Grith might have given. The warrior was massive, easily eight feet tall and weighed down with great slabs of muscle that seemed barely contained by his sandy skin. In one hand, he carried a great bronze spear, and in the other, an ovular shield that would cover most of his body wh
en raised. Wards and tribal fetishes had been set into its hide surface. Grith shied back at the terrible visage. The human-like creature was just as he had seen in his dream.

  The Cutaran let out a single bellow and held his spear aloft, its bronze head shining like a beacon in the morning sun. At his command, the rest of the vanguard emerged in their hundreds. They would be fine young warriors, fast and strong. They would also be reckless, if Antis was to be believed, and would have no problem throwing themselves onto the bridge to die if it meant a chance at glory.

  They came down the rise at a slow jog, chanting in low voices, discordant, but with a strange unity, like a thousand notes let loose from a single throat. They carried a mix of weapons. Swords and axes and spears, but no bows. That was a welcome surprise. Bows were the one weapon Grith was sure they couldn’t counter. Without them, the Corrossans had the advantage of reach, at least.

  The Cutarans halted just out of range of the towers’ crossbowmen. They were tense, jumping from foot to foot, the grins on their faces making even Grith’s bowels turn to water. He gripped his bow hard and tried not to shake.

  He could hear Tain breathing heavily to his left. They had eaten a large meal just for such an occasion, and Grith was grateful for the forethought. He was tense, but ready.

  The Cutaran leader struck his shield with the shaft of his spear and let out a series of horn like cries. He pointed at the bridge and then to the warriors at his back. They shouted a reply.

  “They’re gonna charge,” Antis growled. “The bastards always yell like that before they charge.” There was real panic in the man’s voice, something Grith wouldn’t have expected from a veteran soldier. If Antis was afraid, maybe he should be as well.

  Grith gritted his teeth, trying to push the voices of the warriors from his mind. That constant bellowing… it made rational thought a near impossibility, like a splinter in his foot that he was impotent to remove. “Fuck it!” he shouted and stood tall so that he could get a better view over the barrier. He would shut this bastard up, one way or another. The leader of the Cutarans might have been outside of crossbow range, but that didn’t guarantee his safety!

  Grith drew his bow. The horn made a satisfying creaking sound as he pulled the string to his cheek and sighted down the shaft. This far into the Deepening, his old bow was almost comically easy to draw, allowing him to hold steady as a stone while he readied his shot.

  When he let fly, it was with absolute precision. The arrow flew the hundred yards or so to the Cutaran and struck him dead in the chest. The vanguard’s leader let out a yelp, more startled than pained, and stumbled backward. The shot was not immediately lethal. But even still, cheers erupted from the soldiers around Grith as he leveled another shot and loosed. The second arrow struck the Cutaran in the side, directly in the liver. He dropped his weapons and stumbled backward, blood pouring from the pair of wounds. Two of the man’s fellows came forward to help their comrade, only for the one on the right to find a feathered shaft piercing his neck. He fell to the ground and twitched for a few moments before going still.

  Grith grinned and set a fourth arrow to the string, ready to take down his comrade, but Tain grabbed his arm, arresting his draw. “You’ve made your point,” he said, any excitement absent from his voice. “Save your arrows. We might need them for later.”

  Grith nodded wordlessly and placed the shaft back into his quiver. The soldiers gave another cheer as the Cutarans finally managed to drag their leader back. Even Antis was smiling.

  That smile turned to a frown as the first Cutaran stepped onto the bridge. He was smaller than their wounded leader, but Grith would have bet his life the bastard was still seven and a half feet tall. The rest of the warriors followed their new commander in a raging tide across the bridge. The planks began to shake violently as more and more warriors piled on.

  Halfway to the barrier, Cutarans started to fall as bolts plunged into their ranks. Some toppled onto the dark ironwood, while other suffered the more gruesome fate of a fall into the chasm below. Twenty must have been killed by Grith’s reckoning, before the first Cutaran reached the barrier, but their momentum was hardly blunted.

  The young warrior who now led the vanguard came forward. He carried a bronze axe in both fists, its head the size of a dinner plate. He was peppered with bolts, sticking from his chest and legs. One had even caught in the braid that hung to just above his waist. He gave a deafening war cry as he made to leap onto the barrier, not much of a struggle considering his height.

  But as he put his first massive foot onto the stones, Antis shouted. “Shoot!”

  Six bolts ripped from their crossbows. At point blank range, even this young, seemingly invincible juggernaut fell. His face went slack, and he tumbled off the barrier to be trampled by his comrades.

  But like clockwork, two more warriors came forward to take their leader’s place. Grith grabbed his spear in both hands and thrust, shoving the leaf blade deep into the right Cutaran’s chest. The warrior tried desperately to reach out with his sword, but Grith gave a Delving powered shove, sending him reeling backward and into the warriors scrambling up the barrier behind him.

  Tain made short work of his companion, bringing his two handed sword down to slice into the Cutaran’s skull. The warrior slumped to the side and tumbled into the chasm below, dead before his body slipped from the bridge’s edge. Another flight of bolts struck the warriors on the sides, these from the towers that flanked the bridge. Grith watched the Cutarans scream… fall.

  Not enough, Grith thought to himself as the Cutarans surged forward for another attack. Many had been struck through by bolts in half-a-dozen places, but it did little to slow them. They surged forward, screaming and throwing themselves onto the barrier. It seemed the only way to kill these bastards was with hard steel wielded by a steady hand.

  Grith skewered the next Cutaran over on the end of his spear, feeling the rattan shaft bend dangerously as the full weight of the man’s body fell onto it. Using all of his strength, he shoved the newly made corpse off the side of the bridge and thrust for the neck of the next man over, dropping him before he could so much as lift his blade

  He spared a glance for Tain, who had switched to a modified grip, grabbing his sword by the blade and using it like a short spear. He thrust and cut with terrifying speed, killing half-a-dozen Cutarans in as many seconds. Remembering his own battle, Grith turned back and slashed with his spear, raking it across the chest of a warrior carrying a nasty looking forward-curved blade. The cut barely even fazed the monstrous savage. He gave a shout, and leaped from the top of the barrier and onto Grith.

  The force of the impact knocked the spear from Grith’s hands. They hit the boards hard and rolled, Grith trying to get on top of the screaming warrior and retrieve his belt knife.

  He went as far into the Deepening as he could manage, feeling the strength of a dozen men fill his muscles. He grabbed for the Cutarans throat as they struggled, desperately trying to get a grip. He could break the man’s neck with little more than the twist of his wrist, if he could just get his hands on him…

  Tain let out a cry of warning, and Grith realized just how far they had rolled. He grabbed onto one of the poles that suspended the conch like instruments along the side of the bridge, roaring with strain as he arrested the movement of both himself and the Cutaran. They were inches from the edge, so close in fact that the warrior’s feet actually dangled over the side.

  Grith tried to grab the hilt of his knife, but with one hand grasping the pole and the other gripping the huge man’s right arm, he couldn’t manage. The Cutaran reached up with finger bearing long, claw-like nails, coming close to wrapping them around Grith’s throat. Grith couldn’t let go, couldn’t move away. He could only sit and watch in terror as the grinning warrior came closer and closer to throttling him.

  Then Antis was on the Cutaran, grabbing his immense head with one hand, driving his d
agger into the warrior’s neck with the other. Blood shot from the wound, powered by a heart far larger than any human’s, showering Antis and Grith both with the dark, thick fluid.

  Grith spit and pushed off the large body. Without time for proper words of appreciation, he gave Antis a quick nod, an unspoken acknowledgement of thanks between soldiers, and turned to find that the tide of battle had turned against them. The Cutarans had all but taken the barrier, standing atop the stacked stones and using its height to get added reach against Tain who now stood alone against them. Antis’ crossbowmen had taken shelter behind the Delver, using him as a kind of human shield while they worked with goat’s foot levers to reload their weapons.

  Grith made to get his spear from where it had dropped, but stopped. It was snapped in two, likely destroyed by one the Cutarans, and to do so would require running through a gauntlet of blades. He bit his lip and cursed inwardly. The spear had been his father’s. But still just a spear, he reminded himself, tearing his eyes from the weapon. Father had many. He cursed again and drew his arming sword. As much as hated leaving the spear, one of only two physical mementos of his past life, there was no place for sentiment on a battlefield.

  The blade felt strange in his hand, especially when compared to the practice saber he was used to, but familiar enough that he thought he could handle its strange, pommel-heavy balance. He ran to Tain’s side and parried a blow from a two-handed axe, driving the blade down and to the side. Grith watched the warrior’s eyes go wide at the impotence of his attack. In the intervening moments, he flicked his sword up and drove the point through the Cutaran’s left eye. A low hiss passed between the warrior’s teeth as he fell.

  “I’m about to go over the top!” Tain shouted over the booming of Cutaran voices. He danced forward and pushed a pair of Cutarans back with warding thrusts. “I’ll clear the bridge. You take anyone who gets through! Understand!?”