Thorne's Conquest

by Matthew Cuthbert

  Helsifer still did not wear her helmet. She had a plan to challenge Thorne and try to end the war quickly even if the result was the same. She wanted him to see her eyes. She wanted to show him the pain he had caused and the rage burned in her. She wanted to see his, to see whether there was feeling or remorse behind the eyes of the murderous general. Her enchanted armour still protected her, ever since the day she had stolen it from a Mjolnori traveller who wandered into Chrone. That was the only time Helsifer had killed in cold blood. Something about the armour had called to her and filled her heart with poison; once its former owner had died that spell was broken, but Helsifer felt little guilt. The impenetrable plates had saved her life countless times, allowing her to save the lives of many of her people. Even with her helmet, nothing would stop Thorne manipulating the air around her until she suffocated, or from burying her under the earth. She would die as a Chronian warrior-queen, like so many of her ancestors had done.

  Mounting her horse on the right flank with the members of her personal cavalry, Helsifer waited in dreadful, vengeful fury…

  After a lifetime of wating, a single, magnificent white horse emerged from the tree-line in the distance. Upon the horse, sat Thorne in his black armour, his sword and sceptre sheathed across his back. He rode with a beauty and elegance that some of Helsifer’s riders almost admired- not her. As he rode out arrogantly into no-man’s land, Helsifer felt her fury focusing into a single stream that poured towards the man who would murder her entire civilisation. Kicking at her horse, Helsifer tore across the fields, closing the distance between them. When she stopped, Thorne dismounted and she followed suit. They approached each other with weapons down to talk before the carnage began. With the conviction of a genocidal monster, Thorne spoke first, “Has the insect come to beg? Do you wish to be crushed quickly? Or to die squirming and struggling with all your tiny warriors?” Helsifer ignored the petty insults.

  She replied with whatever authority she could muster in the face of such raw, evil power. “I am Helsifer, Queen of Chrone, Servant of Artemis, Guardian of the Warrior-Race and ruler of this land. I order you to leave.”

  Thorne looked amused for a moment before returning to his bored, apathetic expression. “I am Thorne, insect. And before me you are nothing.” Helsifer felt the truth in his words prod at her, trying to drain her resolve.

  “Perhaps, but I wish to test that with weapons, not words.” She gripped the handle of her mace and chain in a defiant challenge.

  “And how do you wish to die?”

  “Without magic.” She said instantly, not wanting her life to be another easy, thoughtless kill for the Supreme Adept.

  Thorne considered the tactical mistake, requesting the one thing her blood and armour already offered her resitance against. While his newfound Power as Archmage would have certainly been enough to overcome her advantages, she would have been wiser to choose a physical restriction. Weak, stupid, dead little Queen. “As you wish.” He said simply. He drew his sword but left the enchantments inactive: even if she died, her soul was so insignificant it would most likely drown in the currents of the Aether.

  With a few steps back, Helsifer drew her mace. There was no adjudicator, no rules of fair play, so she simply roared as she brought an overhead swing of her mace down on where Thorne was standing. Thorne was taken aback by the sudden ferocity of the Queen and the speed of the attack, but he dodged it effortlessly all the same. In the moments he had studied her before the fight, he realised this was not the grotesque creature that had ridden out to meet him in Caira nearly four months ago, but a battle-hardened abomination. It made the fight a little different, not more difficult. As Helsifer brought her mace in a sweep from right to left, Thorne somersaulted over her landing behind her. He still did not strike back. Pulling the mace into her armoured gauntlet, Helsifer gripped it before lunging for Thorne’s head as he danced around the strike. Stepping around her attacks and avoiding every colossal blow. “Fight me!” She screamed at him as she continued to lunge and swing at him, while he gracefully side-stepped, dodged and ducked her persitent attacks. “Fight me, you coward!” She spat her words onto the grass as he retained his unconcerned expression.

  “If you want to die, insect, you’ll have to ask nicely.” He said boredly, avoiding another overhead, moving too fast for her mace to be effective even with her newfound strength. She knew he wanted her to beg. For death, for the end. She had promised herself not to allow him any luxuries in this battle- she had also instructed her soldiers not to intervene until there was a victor. There would be no excuses if she died, no cheats or tricks, she would die with honour as all the hounourable fools die. Thorne waited for her to plead, but eventually he understood the Queen would never ask him for anything. He was the bane of her existence. Her murderous nemesis. To him, she was an irritating breeze. Weak and easily ignored. He would ignore her no longer.

  Beginning to engage in an offensive for the first time, Thorne tapped and prodded her armour as he danced around her clumsy lunges, testing it. Even his Obsyrian blade made no mark on the blue plates and he did not want to risk damaging his prized creation by blunting it upon impenetrable material. Scrutinising its design he quickly found weaknesses: gaps in the metal that allowed her to move easily and did not restrict her flexibility. Tiny targets, but easy enough for a man of Thorne’s skill. Remaining true to his word, Thorne used no magic, not even the supernatural strength of his Vampiric blood. He had spent almost all his life preparing for slaughter and war; he did not need to waste any extra energy defeating a worse combatant. As Thorne moved in to tease her with another light strike, she suddenly brought her sword out from its sheath with her left hand, letting the mace drop. Thorne had been caught off guard but his hasty reactions saved him from the easy kill. He caught the sword between the plate of his armour and his gauntlet but before he could break the blade Helsifer was throwing a fist at his face. He dropped, letting go of the sword so the Queen went sprawling into the dirt. He did not move in for the kill just yet. Wanting her people to despair, he made sure their so-called leader was humiliated and utterly destroyed. The wait was nearly over. If she was allowed to continue her pitiful assaults for too long, it would look like he had beaten her through endurance rather than skill. Seeing an opportunity Thorne could not resist, he decided he was done playing with his prey.

  After Helsfier overextended a thrust for his neck ever so slightly, Thorne ducked under it and slashed across the exposed area of her armour underneath the armpit. She yelled in pain but held onto the sword and turned in time to see him lunge under where her other arm rested, bringing his sword up and making a symmetrical cut on the other side of her body. Grimacing through the pain, she charged at him awkwardly and he dashed past her, bringing his sword around in a backward slash, severing the tendons in both her knees. She collapsed in agony, screaming, swinging her sword in a wild arc around her trying hopelessly to end her attacker’s life. On the verge of giving up she heard his cold, malevolent words while he walked around to face her. “Hush now, Helsifer. Death calls you home.” Before she could answer her severed head was on the ground, rolling away from the body that had once held it. Thorne felt the terror and fury spilling off the gargantuan army in wild, raging rivers. He bathed in their suffering and anguish. He let it pour through him and onto his soldiers as they emerged from the forest.

  ***

  Iyre saw the two armies meet all the way from his home in Varrasia; normally he only received visions of the future or the past but for whatever reason, the Creator had decided to show him this moment happening in the present. He was not immersed in the Plain of Visions like he had been during his revelations of the future, instead he simply saw the battle through the glaze of his golden eyes. Thorne’s force was tiny compared to the Chronian army: they waited on the eaves of the forest in perfect formation, each commander stood at the head of their individual army. In a mere physical battle, the Chronians had every advantage and could have chosen whatever method the
y liked to pulverise Thorne’s invaders: trebuchet volleys, a hailstorm of arrows, an impenetrable shield wall with pikes and spears poking out of it, the thunderous cavalry. But with magic, all of that was worthless. There resistance to direct attack did not prevent Thorne using his battle meditation, enhancing their fear and despair and using it to fuel the rage and synergy of his own soldiers. Normally, Iyre could have seen every possibility of a battle like this just by being aware of it, but the Creator wanted him to experience this in real time. Iyre looked upon the rolling head of the dead Queen, no light behind the once fiery and defiant eyes. A strange, familiar voice was heard in the core of Iyre’s prophetic soul:

  “And so it begins.”

  ***

  After an eternity of waiting, Thorne approached his commanders and directed them to sit in a circle with their legs crossed, just beyond the range of the Chronian archers and trebuchets. With them, several talented young recruits from among the Varrasian ranks joined the circle. The Chronians knew that they had the advantage in defence and that Thorne would never get close enough with his Black Fire to use it on the field without risking the lives of his own soldiers. Now, in another stroke of tactical genius, Thorne was about to lure the insects out of their cave. Sinking deeply into a collective trance, Thorne’s newly formed unit of mages with incredible talent in the Mentis Arcana, Thorne felt the minds of every combatant in the battle.

  With their combined strength, they were able to link the their minds and form a terrible nightmare of power and control. The force of their combined will manifested itself into a river of fire, explosive and furious, eager to suck others in to its unstoppable currents. They let the river form a conciousness of its own, allowing Thorne to direct its ravenous hunger into the Chronian ranks. He narrowed the stream until it was small enough to penetrate the mind of a single Chronian warrior on the shieldwall. In a milisecond, she was theirs. The river consumed her. Destroyed her. Now there was only Thorne and his river of Power. Feeling her arms become his, her body surrender itself to his will, Thorne took her sword in her hand and swung it around to her left, cutting the throat of her comrade. Thorne found the look of horror and puzzlement on the faces of the Chronian women rather hilarious, which meant that the woman he was controlling laughed hysterically. Just before one of the other warriors realised what was going on and put a sword through her heart, Thorne abandoned her and focused the stream into a warrior further back.

  She was in a trench, ready to hurl small barrels of oil at the Varrasians if they broke through the shield wall. After a moment, Thorne was ready to do the same. Instead of hurling the barrel at the Varrasians, however, he merely grabbed the torch hanging along the trench-wall and plunged it into the oil. Thorne just managed to evacuate from her body as the trench exploded, fire spreading throughout its length as barrels of oil continued to ignite one by one. Thorne let the river itself pick its next target: it found a beastly warrior on the left rank, atop a Chronian war horse. Once Thorne had control, he kicked at the horse and sent it charging behind the shieldwall, making its rider slash at the warriors with her curved sword so that they fell dead before they even saw what had happened. Still the river hungered for more.

  Thorne let it flow all the way to the walls of Disideris where it found a trebuchet. The giant weapons were controlled by three warriors but the combined might of Thorne and his allies was enough to take them all for a short time. They moved in perfect coordination, firing a volley of rocks into the Chronian warriors on the field.

  Thorne could keep this up for the entire battle until the Chronians tore themselves apart. Instead he drew himself out of the river and let Lyre take control of the deadly currents.

  Thorne marvelled at the chaos he had caused. Chronians were screaming, dying- some of them had the sense to kill the mad warriors, but it did not take long for them to stop being able to tell friend from foe. Thorne laughed to himself. Perhaps they would be wiped out without a single Varrasian having to spill their blood. His arrogant optimism was extinguished by a deafening roar from Orlana, who had now taken command of the Cavalry. She mustered enough sanity to call out the Chronian war cry, “BLOOD! FIRE! DEATH!” Before executing a single order to the armies “CHARGE!” Her fiery resolve seemed to break the spell of panic, and the surviving warriors tore out across the field, abandoning their now-irrelevant defences. The cavalry rode out with incredible speed, the foot-soldiers following behind. Thorne summoned Lyre and the others out of their trance to prepare for the battle.

  Despite their devastating first strike, the Varrasians were still outnumbered five-to-one by the approaching army. As the commanders fell back to lead their armies, Thorne stood at the head of the Varrasian forces, taking the Grand Sceptre and his sword from the sheath on his back. In the same way as he had done with the spirits, he brought them in front of him and commanded the earth to break apart. This time, he did not have to waste any Power connecting the fissure to the Aether: he was able to cause a rift through the entire charging army. Thousands fell into the chasm as the ground gave way beneath them, but still the Chronians pressed on, the two remaining halves of their army divided by the great gap in the earth. Any other army could have been wiped out by a blast of lightning or fire, shadow or death magic. Not the Chronians. Just before the cavalry met the Varrasian army, Thorne lept into the air, using its currents to glide above the battlefield. A few Chronians took a moment too long to wonder at this feat and were decapitated by Varrasian swords. The rest ignored Thorne and focused on killing the murderers who had invaded their land.

  High above the clamour and chaos of the conflict, Thorne looked down upon the Chronian forces. He let his wings erupt from his back so that he could focus more of his magic- the Varrasians would learn of his Vampiric heritage eventually, better he use it now than waste an opportunity. Hovering above the warriors, Thorne began to move the Sceptre in a spiral, focusing it on Disideris itself and fuelling it with dark rage. The air began to move, picking up speed until it was wind. The wind grew in strength, accelerating as Thorne crafted it into a whirlwind. Even this majestic display of magical power would have had little effect on the Chronian warriors- but it was gathering deadly debris as it tore apart the walls of Disideris and sucked up its broken stone. When Thorne was satisfied that there was enough ammunition within the windstorm, he moved it through the fields until it found the Chronian soldiers. He let it loose- it was strong enough to sustain itself until its vicious shards of broken stone were released.

  The Chronians did not even flinch as winds of colossal strength came upon them: their magical resistance meant their bodies were not affected by the tornado. However, it did not protect them from the pieces of their own city. Shards and rocks from Disideris’ walls fell on the Chronians like deadly rain, crushing warriors, impaling them, cutting them in half. The Varrasians had suffered heavy losses from the first assault of the Chronian army. But now, as their forces began to thin under Thorne’s god-like attacks, the pressure was easing.

  Now back in charge of the Crimson Army, Elrak Scarth wielded his hammer with all the strength and ferocity of a mountain lion. Countless riders had been crushed by his warriors in the first assault and now that the infantry were upon them the piles of bodies were filling the ground until the muddy grass was no longer visible. Amidst the chaos, Scarth saw a warrior whose armour bore the same Royal embellishments that Helsifer had carved into her stolen apparel. She saw him too. Finally, Scarth thought he had a chance to test himself against a real fighter, not the peasants Helsifer had mustered to her cause.

  Olympa turned to see a hulking Embarasi warrior closing down on her. After surviving the disastrous defeat at Caira nearly four months ago, she was determined to slaughter as many invaders as her body allowed. As the man broke into a run, Olympa held her ground, her mace close by her side. Unlike Helsifer’s, hers was held by a wooden handle with no chain. When Scarth was within striking difference she swung it in a vicious uppercut for his jaw. He battered the attack aside wit
h his gauntlet but she had rolled out of the way of his charge and was already bringing the mace down on him again. This time he barely had enough time to dodge the overhead, leaping out of the way so he was utterly defenceless on the ground. Olympa was too far away to kill him there and then but she wasted no time closing the distance on her prostrate opponent. He recovered to a kneel in time to meet her but she threw a dagger at him from a sheath on her left leg with her free hand. In the time it took to block the blade with his hammer, Olympa was swinging the mace at his head. There was no time to block it, no time to dodge it. Pain exploded in Scarth’s skull as his helmet crumpled and spikes stabbed into the right side of his head. Not deep enough to kill him, but enough to turn him ferral and vengeful.

  With volcanic strength, Scarth thrust his hammer into Olympa’s exposed body and sent her flying into the dirt- as she flew, her mace ripped through more of his skull before she let go. Olympa was left beaten and bruised, with all her ribs broken and her heart barely able to beat. Scarth was left on the ground with blood pouring out of his brain, dead. Olympa felt a small amount of pride- it was quickly replaced by pain and exhaustion. She rested her head on the corpse of a horse and let the darkness flood in.

  Thorne felt his friend and comrade die from his position above the Chronian ranks; there was no time to grieve. Flying back to the forest, he lowered himself onto the branch of a tree and his wings receded into his back. The branch was wide enough for him to sit and meditate and he delved into the Plain of Blood before Scarth’s death could cause the Crimson Army to falter or despair.

  He felt the horror of the soldiers who saw the mace tear Scarth’s head apart; the despair when the troops realised that their leader had fallen and they were still outnumbered by the Chronian forces; the hopelessness of watching yet another Embarasi leader fall to the dead Queen’s barbarians. Thorne let it swell around him, drawing in the fire of their pain. Once he could feel the whole army’s bloodlust and anger, he moulded it into a wave of pure fury. He extinguished the horror, the despair, the hopelessness with his blazing violet fire leaving behind the anger, rage and vengeance. He released the wave and saw it wash over the surviving forces of the Crimson Army. He tried to amplify it as it travelled so that it spread to the other engaged forces, still wondering whether his veteran Black Army would need to get involved. The wave spread as far as Thorne’s Power allowed, filling the soldiers with confidence and bloodthirsty skill. It synergised them into a singular fighting force that thought and breathed as one. Finally, Thorne let the beast he had created loose and watched it snarl at its enemy before engaging in a demonic counter-offensive.