Archangel’s Ascension

by Pablo Andrés Wunderlich Padilla

  His tower would not hold out for much longer. Three war machines had launched their hooks, and the orcs were climbing ten at a time. The number of soldiers was shrinking alarmingly, and he was finding himself more and more alone. He found himself cornered in a single moment and knew that there was no way of avoiding death. He ran to the barrels of fermented fat and overturned them. The viscous liquid drenched a hundred corpses. He left his weapons on the ground and smeared the fat on himself.

  “For the Empire!” he cried and grabbed a torch.

  The orcs came at him, and the captain put the torch to his body. He caught fire and hurled himself on the monsters in one last insane assault.

  “Come on, you bastards! We’re all going to hell!”

  The orcs began to run. Aware that these were his final moments, the captain leaped from the tower onto one of the war machines. His body, transformed into a missile, burned amid the wood of the machine. A column of fire rose and was stirred by the wind, setting fire to two other machines and catching the enemy inside as well as those around. The fire, gaining ground, reached the remaining barrels of fermented fat. The field burst into flames.

  The eastern rock tower exploded with a blinding flash. The castle crumbled amid dust and rocks, crushing all beneath it.

  ***

  Gramal, as a good Brutal Fark-Amon, had immersed himself totally in the battle. He delivered strokes to the right and left with his long sword, but there seemed to be no end to it. He was beginning to be aware that his strength was failing when a brutal explosion stopped the battle. Soldiers and orcs were left paralyzed.

  “Kathanas! Kathanas! Kathanas!” the soldiers yelled.

  The battle was renewed, with the soldiers unaware that the enemy had penetrated their rock tower.

  Gramal was cautious this time. He had not summoned words of power to turn his sword into an energy weapon. He would hold out until it was absolutely necessary. He had learned from Lomans that it was better to fight the long fight than the short one. If he wanted to accomplish this, he needed to refrain from accessing his mana. It would be very different for him if he were to enter unison with other Brutal Fark-Amon. In that state of mana unity, he would share the cost of enchanting his weapons and his skills, and the cost of magic would be significantly diminished, while the force of the incantation would be multiplied manifold. But as a Brutal Fark-Amon, he was alone.

  “Come and get some!” yelled the battling giant.

  ***

  Dartos ran to the general.

  “They’ve taken the base of the rock tower! The dead are walking! The dead are walking! They’ve breached the secret entrance!”

  Leandro feared the worst. The tower guarded by Lomans had fallen, which meant one less front against the forces of evil. They were going to lose the battle and then the war.

  “You must cut off the heads of the dead!”

  “To the castle!” Gramal cried.

  A wyvern swooped down from the sky and carried off the general in its claws. When the beast put him in its mouth, Deathslayer buried his sword in the beast’s palate, blocking its jaw. He writhed out of its grip like a worm and managed to climb up its head till he was seated on its back. The general was spat out from above and crashed against the ground with a solid thump. The violence of the impact broke his left arm and two ribs and left a piece of wood embedded in his side. Lulita came to his aid.

  “We have to retreat! We have to retreat!” she screamed as she dragged the general to safety inside the rock tower.

  ***

  From his lookout, the duke witnessed the collapse of his city.

  “The moment has arrived,” he said. “Father, you’ll be with me in the glorious battle. If I fall, I want you to take my sword and use it to defeat the enemy.”

  The duke seemed another person with his purple armor and cloak that hung from his shoulders. But the most impressive feature of the whole outfit was undoubtedly the Sword of Zarathás at his belt, black as night.

  Argbralius’s eyes gleamed when he heard those words. Darcy broke into a cold sweat while the wives had huddled themselves in a corner, terrified by the clamor of war.

  “Darcy, you go first.”

  Pig-face knelt before his master. “It was an honor to serve you and your family.”

  “I know, Darcy, but we always knew this moment might come.”

  “I know, my lord,” the servant said. He was in tears. “I’m ready.” And he bent his head.

  The duke unsheathed his sword, lifted it, and, with a ferocious stroke, decapitated Darcy. The head rolled away. Blood flowed from the severed neck and soaked into the stone floor and the fur rugs.

  One after the other, the wives came to the duke’s feet for a willing death rather than being taken by the enemy. Kathanas was falling, and they would not end as prisoners of ill-fortune.

  Argbralius was taken aback, although the sequence of executions did not bother him.

  “We’re on our way to the glorious battle, dear Father,” the duke said when he had finished.

  “At your command, my lord.”

  The double door to the duke’s room was kicked open. Dartos and a battalion of soldiers came in. “They’re in! We’re losing the battle!”

  “Silence! I’m the Duke of Kathanas, and if we’re going to fall, we’ll fall gloriously. We’ll go to meet the enemy through the secret way out.”

  “But—”

  The duke slapped the captain with his gauntlet. “Silence, coward. We’ve fallen, and now, only glory remains for us. To death!”

  The soldiers exchanged glances. The duke was insane, but they knew they were going to lose.

  “To death!” they cried.

  The duke went out first. He lowered the visor of his helmet, picked up a torch in one hand, and went downstairs with his purple cloak floating in his wake. Despite their panic, the soldiers were inspired by his determination to give themselves over whole-heartedly to the last battle.

  “I want my white courser, Dartos,” said the duke. He opened his visor. “Embers. He’s a war-steed the color of fire. That’s why I named him Embers,” he added to Argbralius. “I always imagined that if someday I fell in battle, I’d do it on Embers with the sword of Zarathás, which my family has inherited from generation to generation.”

  He closed his visor again and waited in silence for Dartos to bring him his horse. The fire of the torches shone, casting shadows on the stone. Nobody dared make the slightest sound.

  “The general is down! I saw it with my own eyes!” cried a soldier who was on his way down the stairs. “Leandro Deathslayer has fallen! We’ve lost! There’s no hope left!”

  The duke grabbed the soldier by the shoulders and kneed him in the ribs. He slapped him and then said, “We haven’t lost as long as I’m alive. Now join the line and wait for my order. We’re going in search of the enemy. Yes, death will find us, but the descendants of Mandrake will speak of us. They’ll write verses which will sing that Duke Thoragón of Roam fought to the end on his horse Embers.”

  “But if we all die, there won’t be anyone to tell the story,” a soldier protested.

  “Even the stones will remember this,” the duke replied. He pointed to a wounded soldier. “You. We have to sacrifice you so that the gods help us.”

  “What?” cried the soldier. An arrow jutted from his stomach. Soon, he would bleed to death.

  “Your elixir will grant us the strength we need. Father, tell this man that I’m right.”

  “You must be sacrificed for the good of mankind,” Argbralius agreed. He had no desire to be another victim of the insane aristocrat. “You’ll go directly to the Deep Azure of the Heavens when you grant us your life and your elixir.”

  “The Deep Azure of the Heavens,” muttered the dying man with sudden hope.

  The mad duke thrust his sword into the wounded soldier’s chest, and the black blade sliced easily through the armor.

  “Die, and give us the strength of your spirit!” yelled the duke.
The other soldiers were transfixed by this strange sacrifice.

  They heard the sound of footsteps and the hissing of swords.

  “Aaaah! It’s biting me! Aaaah!”

  Dozens of red eyes were ascending the stairs. Among the enemy were soldiers of Kathanas, manipulated like puppets, together with orcs and other humans. They were coming up slowly but steadily.

  “Their heads! Cut their heads off!”

  They obeyed, and the dead stopped moving. But there were more. They kept coming, and there were too many of them.

  Dartos arrived with Embers. The horse’s chest had been covered with purple metal. When the duke mounted him, the steed neighed as if he were aware of his mission in the war. Thoragón unsheathed the sword of Zarathás and raised it high.

  “Are you ready for the last battle?”

  “Kathanas! Kathanas! Kathanas!”

  “To war!” the duke cried.

  The courser trotted to the stairs. He went down the steps with the grace of a well-trained animal. The duke decapitated the bodies of the dead as he went. His madness spurred on his desire to go into battle, and that valor encouraged his soldiers. The black blade sliced through necks with ease.

  A little further down, a group of orcs was waiting. They became visibly alarmed when they saw the madman on his steed. They retreated. What neither the soldiers nor the duke knew was that their fear did not come from the leader, the horse, or even the priest and the hundred soldiers who followed, shouting; they were afraid of the strength that emanated from the Sword of Zarathás.

  “Dartos,” the duke said when they reached the base of the rock tower where a great hole had been opened. “You’ve seen how the cowards flee, but we won’t come out this way. We’ll come out through the secret gate in the cliff wall. If we go on this way,” he added scornfully, “it won’t be much fun.”

  “So be it, my lord.”

  “Attack!”

  The sacristan stayed close to by the duke’s side, no matter how fast he rode. He had only a single purpose: to seize the Sword of Zarathás when the duke fell.

  At the rear, a young man with only one arm was following. His gaze was blank, but his soul was alive and devoted to the defense of the living.

  ***

  Elgahar was tending to his master with one arm since his left arm was useless due to an arrow that had pierced his shoulder. With a great deal of pain, he had taken out the arrow, and now the wound was bleeding profusely.

  “You’re going to be all right, Master. You’ll see, you’ll see…”

  The light came from a guttering torch.

  “Don’t be an idiot,” said Strangelus. “Get out now while you can. Kathanas has fallen. Gather our people together and go to Háztatlon. There lies our last hope.”

  “I’m not leaving you for anything, Master,” Elgahar replied sadly, knowing that his only chance was to abandon the old man.

  The poor old man was lying on the floor, with no strength left, soaked in perspiration. The guise of death was stealing over his face.

  “Those who are still alive, with me!”

  “Balthazar!” Elgahar called. “Over here!”

  The Wild Man was bare, without the cloak he normally wrapped around himself. His ax, smeared with blood, hung at his belt. He studied the old man briefly and turned to Elgahar.

  “I’ll give you a moment to take your leave of him. But do it fast.”

  “What? I’m not going to leave my master here alone!”

  “You’ll leave him with me, but you won’t see him again.”

  “Do what he says, my dear pupil. Say farewell to me. Here is where we part forever. You’ve been a very good apprentice. It’s a pity I haven’t had time to teach you everything I wanted. Summon the School of Mages and tell them what you’ve seen. Keep studying more devotedly until you master the Conjuring Arts. It’s the only way to defend our Empire. Go now. Don’t be so foolish as to stay and watch me die…”

  “But, Master—” Elgahar protested, overwhelmed with emotion.

  “There’s no time.”

  “Very well. In that case… goodbye.” The young man embraced his master, who he felt was without strength, no more than a broken cluster of bones and skin. He was clutching his staff as he would have clutched his last breath.

  “You must protect the Empire from evil, my pupil. Now be a good student and flee. Go!”

  Elgahar did as he was told. Balthazar knelt beside the Mage. From his belt, he took a pouch full of herbs and a stone mortar and pestle.

  “The great Wild Man has come to my aid and has timed it well. Do what you must, and before it’s too late.”

  “With pleasure. Death isn’t the end,” Balthazar reminded him. He was mashing the herbs with the pestle as he spoke. He mixed the mage’s sweat with the herbs to make a thick green paste.

  “There’s no way back, Mage,” Balthazar said. “This elixir can only be used once.”

  “So be it,” the mage replied and closed his eyes.

  Balthazar brought out a handful of eucalyptus leaves and began to chant a spell. He rubbed sticks together and used them to light some tinder, then he set fire to the dry eucalyptus. The intense aroma filled the atmosphere.

  The voice of the Wild Man grew louder, the chant became more intense, and the eucalyptus smoke danced in sinuous shapes. With his fingers, he took a little of the paste in the mortar and put it in the Mage’s mouth. Then he painted the old man’s face with the same dark substance.

  The shaman vanished like air, but the echo of his voice remained in the place, reverberating and increasing in intensity as if the stone walls themselves had been summoned to chant and finish of the incantation. The mage stood up. His eyes were two crystals filled with a mysterious strength. Without letting go of his staff, he shot off to the battlefield.

  Chapter XXVII – Kathanas VIII

  Like a dart, the flame-colored horse shot out of a cave in the cliff, west of the city of the rock towers. The evil army had not foreseen the attack. The orcs were exhausted and thought that this single horse was the vanguard of the imperial cavalry. The figure that was shouting with such a fervor carried a sword that emanated terrible energy. The blade slashed the enemy with ease.

  Behind, dozens of newly inspired men and women joined the fray. Also a young man who was bewitched.

  “Kathanas! Kathanas! Kathanas!” the leader exhorted them, slashing to left and right as he advanced. The black blade seemed to pulse with each kill.

  What remained of the army joined the duke and his followers, among whom was a young man of faith who delivered sword thrusts as if he had been born for battle.

  Two beams of electricity burst out at the enemy’s rear, and two sáffurtans appeared, hidden by cloaks. The duke leaped forward like a flash of lightning and brought down one of the sáffurtans with a blow that took off his head.

  The orcs drew back. The other sáffurtan had no time to react when he saw the black sword coming at his neck.

  “To war! Kathanas! Kathanas! Kathanas!” the leader cried.

  They all shouted the same cries, united in battle. The orcs fled the wake of power that followed the mad duke.

  A croak tore the air. A grey beast ridden by Elkam settled in front of the defenders. The animal was colossal with a scaly hide like that of a wyvern. Its wingspan was enormous. Sharp teeth could be glimpsed between fleshy lips. The duke, far from shrinking before it, was gripped by frenzy.

  “Charge!”

  He aimed his black sword at Elkam and his beast from hell and broke into a gallop. The human army followed the fire-colored horse, which they could still glimpse in the darkness thanks to the fires burning on the battlefield.

  The duke and Elkam crashed against one another. The Sword of Zarathás hummed in the air, sank into the beast’s flesh, and severed a wing. The monster’s howl rose to the sky. Elkam’s mouth fell open. That sword, the strength that emanated from it… His demonic face twisted in surprise. The duke charged again, and with another clean
stroke he severed the beast’s head. Black blood splattered from the wound and drenched the earth of the battlefield.

  Elkam fell to the ground but got quickly to his feet. He seized a spear and threw it with all his might. It happened so fast that the duke had no time to defend himself. The spear pierced the duke violently through the chest and lifted him off his mount. The horse fled in terror and ended between the jaws of a group of orcs. At a shout from Elkam, the orcs threw themselves on the defenders of the city, who, without their leader, began to tremble.

  But one of them did not stop with the duke’s fall. Argbralius ran, reached for the Sword of Zarathás, and grabbed it. He felt its strength, its energy, and became infected by it. He remembered the day he had killed Trumbar, the moment when he had burned the bandits on the road with instant fire, his mother’s suffering, his lost childhood, and the black seed that had blossomed until it had turned into a black flower which swallowed him.

  He squeezed the pommel of the sword, and silence fell. The air seemed to freeze.

  Mórgomiel was riding Górgometh across the River of Time. A spectator floated close by. They exchanged glances.

  Mórgomiel congratulated him. “You found it. I knew you would, someday.”

  “It’s an impressive sword,” the spectator said. “Who are you?”

  They were communicating without the need to use words, only through their minds.

  “I am Mórgomiel, God of Chaos. Do you know who you are?”

  “Argbralius.”

  “Then I am Argbralius,” Mórgomiel said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “We are one in a different dimension of space and time. I am, you are, we both are. We have met in other dimensions, but we are already connected. You have been dreaming about me since you were a child, and thus you communicated with me. Don’t you remember when I planted that beautiful seed in your soul?”