The ranks of Némaldon were composed mostly of demons, orcs, and other beasts created through the Black Arts, such as voj and duj. The dethis were a minority, as were the Grim Shepherds. The black wyverns and other monsters created in the Cauldrons of Árath advanced like four-legged spiders. Elkam was riding a kind of elephant, a cross between orc and wyvern. From its muzzle, which was flat like that of an orc, it could expel corrosive acids. Its legs were broad and muscular with wyvern claws at the end, and a pair of enormous wings enabled it to fly.
The troop occupied the entire Field of Flora, inundating it with black. It was almost dawn. At the top of the four rock towers, the defenders waited with a hundred catapults and barrels of fermented fat.
Lulita was already at her post in her tower where she had arrived through one of the hanging bridges that joined the rock towers and was checking that her archers were ready to launch. She had charged Mowriz with the defense and was confident that the boy would perform well.
“And so begins the game of death,” the general said.
Meanwhile, the duke was on his throne watching the scene with a jug of beer and one of his wives sitting on his thigh. He was enjoying the display of the enemy forces as though he were attending a tournament between champions, far removed from the coming disaster.
The sword was sheathed in the stone pedestal. Argbralius, whose gaze was now very strange, was not letting the weapon out of his sight. He was doing the same with one of the wives who returned his attention with a swirl of her tongue which stimulated the man of faith. He was imagining several ways of taking the woman when another knelt before him and parted his cassock to start pleasuring him with her mouth.
While the woman was at it, the sacristan concentrated on the Sword of Zarathás. Ever since the moment he had set eyes on it, he had wanted to possess it, not only for its beauty but also because it had transported him to another dimension. Until then, he had never considered killing anyone simply to take something from them. But now it was different, and he would not mind making an exception right there and keeping the sword. But he would have to think about every one of his movements carefully, perhaps taking advantage of the way the war unfolded and thus justifying the duke’s death.
The sacristan wriggled with pleasure, his face twisted by the oral play of the woman at his feet. He had never thought that anything of this kind would awake such voracious hunger.
Chapter XXIV – Kathanas V
As dawn broke, the defenders could see that the hellish legion was made up of three factions. On one side were the humans, armed with curved swords of medium size that were perfect for cutting throats and protected by black leather and helmets that appeared to be made of wood and metal. The second faction was a wall of orcs, voj, duj, and giant warthogs equipped with heavy metal weapons, axes, crossbows the size of trees, massive spears, and wooden towers with wheels almost as tall as the rock towers themselves pushed by the orcs; the orcs were holding back the wyverns, keen to unleash their fury. And behind this wall was the third faction made up of the dethis Elkam and his murderers, the Brotherhood of the Crows. Alongside Elkam marched other Grim Shepherds and a hundred sáffurtans divided into two groups.
Deathslayer was pacing about the Lookout, calculating the right moment to release the catapults. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end. He opened his eyes wide and was struck by a thought: Black Arts!
“Strangelus!” the general called out.
Two worms of black smoke rose to the sky. Seconds later, a deafening detonation echoed between the rock towers for several seconds. The worms of smoke went on rising like snakes with two, three, and then ten heads that slowly spread to cover the sky. There came a bloodcurdling croak from the enemy’s rearguard. Everything was silent, paralyzed, except for the worms of smoke that went on taking over the skies.
Lulita nocked an arrow and tightened the string. Her archers followed her example in perfect synchrony. The action was repeated in the other towers.
“Archers!” roared the general.
Below, the army of the accursed began to run toward the rock towers.
“Wrath and blood!”
The sky filled with the whistling of arrows over the plain.
“Wrath and blood!” Deathslayer repeated, and another volley of arrows rained down on the enemy.
“Rocks and fire!”
More than three hundred catapults whistled harshly like dying horses and launched their missiles. Some of these were crushingly heavy, others flammable. The Field of Flora, previously green and fertile, would soon run with blood, fire, and destruction.
The rocks crushed skulls and limbs in a grim concert of smashed bones, under a sky taken over by shadows. The barrels of fermented fat burst open on the ground and scattered their contents around. The archers shot their flaming arrows. The field began to burn.
“Wrath and blood!”
Another volley of arrows rained upon the enemies who ran to reach the walls of rock. Some of the imperial soldiers leaned so far over the battlements in their zeal to hit their targets that they fell from the towers and were killed in the fall.
“What are they doing? It’s impossible to climb the rock towers.”
A sound of metal striking rock began, louder with every moment.
“By the Gods!” Dartos shouted. “They’re digging into the rock tower! Soldiers!”
Dartos gave the soldiers their orders, and one group went into the rock tower. He turned to the general.
“They’re digging to make an entrance for themselves. We’re ready, General! Permission to carry on with my instructions?”
“How will you get down there?”
“It’s a secret, General. You’ll have to trust me. The towers have a secret entrance at ground level. The enemy must have spies among us! They must know where to strike and break into the secret entrance!”
“Go!”
There came another croak. It was Elkam, who was calling his second horde of men and charging against the rock tower furiously, not with swords, but with tools for cutting into the rock.
“Rocks and fire!” roared the general, trusting that the defense would ruin the digging plan.
Leandro saw the rocks fly and crush soldiers. But there were many of them. It even looked as if they were reproducing themselves as they ran madly, fearlessly, caring only about climbing the towers under the sky with its covering of shadows created by the sáffurtans.
Thousands of men were picking at the rock, all focused on the central tower—the one guarded by Lulita. Only dust came out of that solid rock, but thousands of simultaneous blows, endlessly repeated, would eventually take their toll. In a matter of days, the enemies would reach the interior.
Deathslayer thought of Dartos and his task at the base of the rock towers. Surely the architects had foreseen that something like this might happen.
“Rocks, fire, and arrows!” he ordered.
The leader of evil cried out again, and a hundred black wyverns emerged from the tumult, beating their strong wings and rising in the sky with their black shroud.
The general summoned Strangelus.
“What’s happening?” asked the mage as he arrived at a run.
“The clouds!” Leandro cried. In a few hours, everything would be dark.
“I know, General, but there’s nothing I can do at this distance. I have my limits. If you want me to undo the clouds, I’ll consume myself in doing it. More than a hundred wills are concentrated on keeping that spell! I can’t break it by myself!”
Elgahar arrived, also at a run. “I have an idea, Master!” he gasped.
“Wyverns! They’re upon us!” Deathslayer called out in warning.
Gramal, Lulita, and Lomans spread out their archers to defend the soldiers preparing the catapults for the aerial strike.
“Speak, man!” the general urged Elgahar. “There’s no time!”
“I thought that—”
Thwip!
Elgahar fell to the floor. An arro
w had pierced his shoulder.
The general was looking everywhere to see where the attack had come from.
“The bastards!” he cried.
The head mage raised his staff. With an electrical slash, he burnt up a black wyvern and its rider who were diving toward them. Another wyvern swooped down, then another and another. Then ten, twenty wyverns swooped down, spitting corrosive liquid on both catapults and soldiers. The bodies writhed on the ground, burnt alive by the acid. Skin and flesh melted away. Even the bones burnt in that scorching fluid. Some avoided this fiery death; they were eaten by wyverns or seized by them and hurled into the abyss.
A rider somersaulted from the back of a wyvern. Only his eyes could be seen, bright with hatred. On his black suit was the coat of arms of the Brotherhood of the Crows.
“To arms!” yelled the general. “He’s a Crow! Be sure to rip the pendant off on death!” He was sure no one had heard him.
He took his sword and launched himself into the fray amid the roar of the soldiers’ cries, the hammering on the rock below, and the croaks of the wyverns.
The mage wielded his staff and sent forth bolts of blue energy. He saw an arrow heading toward the general and deflected it with a blast.
The archers never stopped launching arrows at the wyverns, some of which fell heavily.
“Throw the barrels of fat on to the ground!”
The soldiers rolled the barrels. The fat spilled over the edge of the wall and rained down on the ones who were hammering at the rock below.
“Fire and blood!”
They released flaming arrows which set fire to the fuel and devoured everyone in the vicinity. The howls of agony climbed the rock towers, and the smell of charred flesh invaded the atmosphere.
***
Lombardo, on Lulita’s orders, was working as hard as the others to try and eliminate the ones who were hacking at the rock below under the menace of the wyverns flying over the tower. Evening fell, and at the same time, the cloud continued to spread.
“It’s happening all over again,” Lulita said sadly. “We’ll be in their hands pretty soon if we don’t do anything.”
Lombardo, horrified by the inexorable advance of the enemy, said nothing. They would end up being overwhelmed.
“Until now, all we’ve done is defend ourselves,” the old woman complained.
Balthazar’s interest was aroused. “So what are you proposing?”
“That we attack.”
“They’re coming down from the sky!” a soldier yelled.
Lulita, Lombardo, and Balthazar covered themselves. Balthazar took the bow of one of the fallen and, with great marksmanship, buried an arrow in the head of a wyvern. The rider fell, and Balthazar, wasting no time, gave him an ax-blow to the torso, which nearly split him in two.
“Lombardo, you stay in my post,” Lulita said.
“But—”
“No buts. They’re gaining on us. Something has to change.”
“Yes, Captain!”
Balthazar and Lulita summoned twenty men and went inside the rock towers. In the damp darkness of the castle in the central rock tower, they could hear the constant tapping of the enemy, who never paused in their efforts to create an opening in the rock.
“To the tower’s secret entrance,” Lulita ordered.
“It’s secret! And there’s only twenty of us,” said a soldier, his face pale.
“Against a bunch of rock pickers,” she snapped. “The important thing is to deflect them. A distraction will be enough, and that doesn’t seem so difficult.” Although she had doubts about her plan, she was not letting anybody notice.
“I’m coming with you.”
The group turned around. It was Strangelus!
“An old man isn’t going to help us win the battle,” the soldier said.
Strangelus grabbed his spear and jabbed him in the stomach with its end. The soldier bent over, gasping for breath.
“Don’t underestimate me, comrade. I’m the most important mage in this Empire.”
“My apologies,” the soldier gasped. “I’ll take you through the passages, but I’d recommend that we come out by the underground gates and toward the caves near the foundations. That way, they won’t know where we come out from.”
“Sounds perfect,” Lulita said. “But now stop talking and start walking.”
The group went into the rock towers' depths and came out by the side caves beneath the Path of the Fallen.
***
Gáramond, aware of his limitations, had tried to avoid the war at all times, which was why he was hiding in the common area of the Lookout. He was eating and telling stories to anyone who was prepared to listen.
“… And they say that the dragon made the valiant knight a tempting offer,” the philosopher was saying as he studied his audience by the fire of the torches.
“What offer?” asked a girl of ten, her large eyes thirsty for the story.
“That if the knight joined his side, the dragon would reward him with riches so that he could impress the princess and win her heart.”
“But,” put in a young warrior with a shrewd gaze. “The princess had asked him for the heart of the dragon to prove his courage. Riches aren’t worth as much as a dragon’s heart.”
“There, you’re right, but the valiant knight thought he’d die fighting the dragon, so his best option was to accept the riches.”
An explosion shook the floor. A fine layer of dust fell from the ceiling. The young people ran to their posts. They did not even blink. Gáramond took a sip of the spirit he was drinking and went on with his story.
***
Leandro was giving orders, not with any intention of victory but of survival—pure and simple.
The wyverns went on falling on his men like bolts of lightning. The general managed to avoid a blow intended to decapitate him. He grabbed a spear from the floor—it had belonged to a dead soldier—and buried it in the wyvern.
They were running out of ammunition, the number of soldiers was diminishing, and the army of evil had only sent its first wave of terror. They would not be able to hold out, even for a couple of days.
There came an explosion and a blast of intense light. The general leaned out to peer into the precipice. But as the tower was blocked by the three lower ones in front, he could not see anything. Lomans was celebrating, his arms raised high.
“It’s Strangelus!”
When had the mage left? Elgahar was still there, injured, fighting with a wounded arm.
“Graaah!” the general yelled. He ran to the enemy and decapitated him with a single stroke.
“Elgahar!”
“I’m all right! I’ll manage. We have to keep fighting.”
Another explosion filled the sky with smoke and spread a gust of electricity like a spider’s web. The branches of that electric shockwave reached deep into the enemy army.
“It’s Strangelus,” Elgahar said. He sounded both proud and concerned. He fainted and lay there unconscious.
The battle took a turn. The strategy of going down and confronting the enemy had caught them by surprise, and they were now withdrawing. Although the general knew that the move would be temporary and that the Némaldines were only going to reorganize themselves, he took a deep breath and sat down on the floor. He was aware that his face was smeared with blood. One side hurt badly, although there was no wound there. He looked around. The area was strewn with mutilated corpses; soldiers of both his ranks and Kathanas had been torn apart by the wyverns, burned, or massacred by the enemy.
A dead Crow began to rise.
“Stay down!” yelled the general and decapitated him with a single blow. “Bloody Crows…” But then he remembered the power of the sáffurtans to bring back the dead and reacted. “We have to get rid of the corpses! Throw them over the cliff! And with luck, we’ll kill a few more of the bastards.”
A soldier of fifteen or so objected. “But they were our brothers and friends—”
“There’s
a risk that they’ll come back to life, manipulated by the necromancers. Give your friends and relatives the chance to serve our cause one more time, even though it’s in their death.”
The boy blinked, not understanding. Other soldiers did not hesitate and threw the corpses out. The boy finally understood that the sacrifice was necessary and joined in the task.
***
Strangelus and Lulita had retreated into the secret passages. They arrived at the Lookout after the surprise attack to find Leandro rejoicing silently with a broad smile.
“We’re throwing the dead over the cliff. That way we’ll stop them from—”
“—coming back to life,” Lulita finished for him.
“And Dartos?” the general wanted to know.
“He stayed below to guard the passages that lead into the rock towers,” said Strangelus.
“How much rock did they hack away?”
“Enough to mean that an explosion or a strong blow would breach the walls of either of the three towers. It wouldn’t bring the tower down, but they’d find the passages and stairs that would lead them up here.”
The mage took off his blue pointed hat. His hair was plastered with sweat, and his face was paler than ever. There was blood on his beard and his staff. He looked like a profoundly tired old man. He reached into his toga and drank a whole potion. The blue liquid made him shine briefly, then he seemed to grow stronger. He took a smaller potion and drank from that as well, but only a sip.
“I need to rest; this battle has drained all my energy. Where’s my pupil?” A dark shadow came over his gaze.
“He’s resting, Strangelus,” Leandro said soothingly.
“And Balthazar?” the grandmother asked.
Strangelus and Leandro shrugged.
“We need him,” Lulita said. “He’s a great healer; he’d be very helpful with the wounded.”
“Let’s go inside,” Leandro said. “We need to eat and rest as much as we can. We’ll take turns.”
Archangel’s Ascension Page 23