Beyond the Hell Cliffs

by Case C. Capehart

  Colonel Aetius began laughing. “Are those doors swinging… towards us?”

  Tiberius frowned and nudged the jolly colonel. “Stop laughing. This is pathetic. That damned Councilor was right; there is no real threat here. These are the pitiful survivors of our last attack… too stupid to hang a defensive door on the outside.”

  “Well, that iron will prove a chore for the Witzer,” Colonel Aetius said, stifling his laughter. “We could always shoot the walls down around it, but… Hell, why don’t we just push our way in?”

  “Excellent idea!” Tiberius said, astonishing his subordinate. The Colonel probably thought that he was being rash or cocky, but the truth was that he did not want to destroy the Citadel again.

  He was not in the Greimere to slaughter all of the inhabitants. He had been commanded to enforce genocide, but the idiotic members of the Gathering had not specified who was to be erased. Another meeting had been called, among those who knew of the Treaty. All of them, save the king, were present with Tiberius on that field; all there to assist him in enacting a new deal with the denizens of Greimere.

  Through the centuries, Rellizbix had molded the Greimere army into a suitable enemy for them, eventually making it so that only the Rathgar would wage war in Rellizbix. During his last attack on the Citadel, Tiberius confirmed the reports from other ambassadors, filed in the secret Caelum Family Vault, that the Rathgar had complete rule over the other races. Thus the plan to exterminate the Rathgar and place a new race into power was formed.

  The siege force Tiberius brought into the Greimere was composed of the 9th Regiment, who were off patrol in the Wilderness at the time, and his own 1st Regiment. Five companies of soldiers, hunters and mages from the Royal Guard were given more information on the Greimere than most scholars could ever learn on their own and tasked with following his commands without question inside the Citadel. Once they had killed every Rathgar and ensured that their entire race was gone, Tiberius would strike up a new Treaty with either the dark-skinned, long-eared people or the bestial, fur-collared people.

  Tiberius fully expected one of those races to eagerly comply with the Treaty. Why wouldn’t they? After generations of being underneath the boot of the Rathgar, they would finally be elevated to the level of kings, given all the goods and perks that had allowed the Rathgar to subjugate them. They would be given power, but most of all, they would be allowed to live and Tiberius would make it clear that he could end their existence just as easily as the Rathgar, should they not uphold their end of the deal.

  “Colonel, I leave the Summer Guard to you, to hold your position just outside the range of any archers. I will take my brigade from the Royal Guard and assault the inside of the Citadel before they can get those doors closed!”

  “General, wait! Are you serious?” the Colonel called out.

  Tiberius ignored him, spurring his horse into a gallop across the valley towards the doors. His men were right behind him, the entire unit mounted on horses or warbirds. Arrows rained down towards them, but the Rathgar atop the walls had poor aim. The hunters returned fire with their superior bows, sending arrows up to the top of the wall and driving the guards into cover.

  Tiberius reached the doors just before they could be shut all the way. Tiberius could not help but roll his eyes as he saw the wide-eyed barbarians trying to push the door closed from the inside. What kind of rot-brained lunatic hinges the doors on the inside? Were they trying to make it so they could close them without venturing outside the Citadel? I will have to teach the new owners a bit more about warring before I leave. Maybe I should even leave Ubrith here to oversee the reconstruction.

  The attack brigade followed Tiberius through the small opening and turned to dispatch the few guards on the other side, halting the progress of the doors. Hunters loosed their arrows into the oncoming defenders as the mages unleashed their magic.

  The battle was short-lived; much shorter than Tiberius had expected. It seemed as if all of the guards were already at the north gate; as if they had been expecting an attack from Rellizbix well before he had arrived. To each side were collapsed buildings and improvised barricades. It was a choke point, designed to prevent them from flanking the army of guards coming down the barrel for them.

  Tiberius smiled. Thank the Fates! They do have some fight in them!

  “Shieldbearers, to the front!” he cried, pointing his sword toward the wave of armored Rathgar sweeping down on them. “They think to bottle us up! We’ll hold them here! Hunters, provide covering fire! Flame mages, stand down! This rubble is like dry kindling!”

  Despite the advantage of the artificial corridor and a planned defense, the Rathgar were overwhelmed by the men of the Royal Guard. The shieldbearers stopped their advance, clustering them in their own trap as Aerial and Terrestrial mages tore through them with magic.

  As they pushed past the dead guards and onward through the corridor of rubble, they came upon an odd sight.

  Before them stood an older Rathgar dressed in ceremonial robes that resembled those worn by the Faeir Stone Seers. It was black and dark blue and adorned with symbols stitched into the fabric. The Rathgar stood atop a pile of golden wares, emberstones, ornaments and grains; all things that the Empire had received from Rellizbix over the centuries. It looked like everything they had left over from the last assault. There were no other guards around, all dead or dying. It took a moment, but Tiberius recognized the Rathgar. He was the grizzled general he had faced off against the first time he invaded the Greimere; the one he forced to watch as the Empress was executed. He did not make a move to attack or retreat; he simply stood there staring at Tiberius.

  “Can you hear me… Saban?” the Rathgar asked in the native Rellizbix language.

  Tiberius looked around and over to the interpreter he had replaced Malthus with, a young Faier named Kleitos. The mage shrugged his shoulders, just as confused as the rest of them.

  Tiberius turned back to the Rathgar. “Yes.”

  The Rathgar paused, as if he were unsure what the answer meant. Then he spoke again. “I remember… you kill Empress. Kalystra… her name, Saban.”

  Tiberius looked around, wondering how this Rathgar had learned to speak Saban words. It was clear that someone had taught him specific words to remember, by the way the old robed figure spat them out so clumsily. Other soldiers laughed, amused by the Rathgar’s accent.

  “Whoever is out there, just come out and fight me like a man!” Tiberius shouted.

  “I have words for you… from Grass-hair!” the old Rathgar shouted, his voice shaking with rage.

  Tiberius snapped his eyes back to the Rathgar. Had he heard the man correctly? Was he talking about the bastard? Tiberius felt his heart drop. This Rathgar knew his language and if he was talking about words from “Grass-hair” then Raegith must still be alive… and was responsible for the resistance they found inside the Citadel.

  “All these things… given to us by you!” the Rathgar shouted. “We need it no more!”

  “Somebody shut him up!” Tiberius shouted, pointing his sword at the man.

  In an instant, a dozen arrows zipped past him and sunk into the Rathgar’s chest. He faltered, his eyes bulging with the pain and he looked down at the feathered shafts protruding from his body.

  Then he looked up with a bloody smile and laughed. Like a lunatic, he howled and shook with laughter as blood soaked through his robes. Somewhere in the laughter, he said something in the Rathgar tongue and then dropped to his knees. He slapped his bloody hands onto the ground and suddenly a circle of dark pink light flared to life. Lines branched out from the circle around the Rathgar and hit barrels to either side of him.

  The barrels exploded in metal shards, shredding through the armor of the closest soldiers and sending up gouts of flame around them. The flames ignited the lines of rubble on either side of them with unnatural speed. Explosions rocked the brigade on its flanks and men screamed in agony and confusion. In seconds Tiberius and his men were surrounded b
y walls of green fire to the front and sides.

  “About face!” Tiberius roared, turning his mount around. “Back through the gate! Retreat!”

  The men were stunned and overwhelmed, but they were well-trained and knew to follow orders under stress. They turned and made for the gate, running through the artificial corridor as emerald death licked at them. Tiberius urged them forward, yelling and kicking men into a sprint.

  Suddenly he ran into the back of a mounted soldier and was nearly thrown off his horse.

  “Keep moving!” he screamed. Then he looked up through the smoke and his breath caught.

  The backside of the gate doors had neither handle nor brackets for a brace and were grinded smooth. Only a small line down the center, barely wide enough to wedge a fingernail, marked where the two iron slabs came together perfectly.

  “Those fucking idiots and their backward doors!” one of his sergeants yelled, running forward to try and get his fingers between the gap.

  “We’re the fools.” Ubrith was beside Tiberius, his left arm destroyed below the elbow and black charring along his face. “Those doors weren’t designed to keep us out, General. They were made to keep us in.”

  “It’s that bastard, Raegith!” Tiberius growled, caring little for subtlety at that moment. “This is his doing!”

  “Raegith? The king’s son? The one whose death we came down here to avenge?”

  “He didn’t die, Ubrith,” Tiberius confessed. “He survived; kept alive by the last Empress. By the time I learned of it, we had already sacked the Empire and for all we knew he had died in the attack or outside the walls. I could never have imagined that he could survive down here or that he was capable of turning on his own people like this! That Empress bitch must have done something to him!”

  “The half-Twileen bastard of Helfrick Caelum… survives for ten years in the worst hellhole in the land,” Ubrith said, bursting into laughter.

  “What the hell is so funny?”

  “We have revered the Caelum line as the strongest, most enduring line of Sabans since the dawn of the kingdom. The Heir of Throm Caelum has always been there to save us from the invaders from beyond the cliffs with near-mythological strength and leadership,” Ubrith cackled. “How arrogant were we to think that we could stop such a powerful bloodline just because it was tainted by a Twileen whore? Mark my words, Tiberius… this will be the most terrifying enemy our people have ever known.”

  Tiberius scowled at the old hunter as he swayed unsteadily in his saddle.

  “It is what we deserve…” he whispered before sliding off of the horse and onto the ground.

  “Damn that boy!” Tiberius cried, looking around for a way out of the trap Raegith had set for him. The smoke was rising above the walls and the explosions were deafening. “Why is the 9th not blasting through the walls? Can they not see us?”

  “General, over here! Quickly!”

  Tiberius followed the sound of the voice and saw a cloaked hunter on the other side of the barricade. The hunter’s hood was up and he looked like he was using a rag to keep from breathing the smoke. He was waving his arms frantically towards what looked like a hole in the wall.

  “There’s a breach in the wall! Get through the barricade here and follow me! Hurry!”

  “Men, on me!” Tiberius yelled, pushing his horse through the mob and over the low spot in the barricade. He heard others following him, but he did not look back to make sure. He saw the cloaked hunter disappear through the hole in the wall and outside the Citadel. The hole was just large enough for a man and he was forced to abandon his mount in the growing inferno in order to escape.

  Once outside of the wall, the exit spontaneously collapsed behind him, sealing off any others who might have followed him out. He tried to clear the rubble and looked around for the hunter, calling out for help. The hunter was nowhere to be found.

  “Where is the 9th?” he screamed, turning to signal the other regiment.

  He caught a glimpse of them just as a horde of enemy soldiers riding huge, hairy beasts rode down the hill and collided with the unaware regiment. Tiberius looked on in horror as his men tried to turn the Witzer cannon on the ambushers and were immediately set upon by giant wolves. Black creatures sprung up out of the ground on all sides of the men and fired mechanical bows into them. The Faeir mages could not accurately cast their magic in such close quarters and half-formed tornadoes and flames sputtered through the gaggle of men and beasts.

  As he watched his men torn apart by the Greimere savages, his ears caught the sounds of his Royal Guard clawing desperately at the rubble behind him that clogged the only exit. They were screaming as the fires cooked them in their armor. Tiberius dropped to his knees in agony and saw the words written into the sand before him.

  I’ll be waiting for you among the dead. –Grasshair

  Chapter 53

  Raegith sat atop the wreckage of the giant, mounted cannon and looked out on the remains of the 9th Regiment. He was disappointed that Vi-Sage Falfa was not among the ranks anymore, but it satisfied him that he recognized some of the corpses.

  There were bodies from his own army among them as well and a few of the survivors mourned for fallen comrades. The 9th Regiment were not pushovers and though he had taken them by surprise and quickly taken down their primary weapon, they were still better armed and trained than his ambushers. His warriors were more lethal, though, taking down three soldiers for every one of them that fell. The Gimlets had been a huge factor, picking off the whole lot of Faeir with crossbows before they even realized they were being attacked.

  His Reapers, mounted Lokai spearmen atop Turned Urufens under the command of Hitomi, poured over the hill to the east, sweeping into the startled Regiment and going straight for the hunters. His Berserkers and Helcats followed, engaging the soldiers.

  The battle had lasted only a few minutes. His Helcats and the few Kittens, those going through the induction process to become a Helcat, were standing below him, holding captive the few Twileens he had allowed to surrender.

  “Do you know who I am?” he asked the group kneeling before him. “Don’t be afraid to speak up; I’ve already decided to spare you.”

  They had seen him engage their commanding officer, the colonel with the polished shield and thin mustache; watched him dismantle the steel-clad Saban with his bare hands before crumpling him inside his own armor. They had witnessed him ignite his hands with the power bestowed upon him by the Path and pound the dying man’s chest protector into a dented, mangled ball around him and listened to his useless screams for mercy.

  He worried they would be too terrified to carry on a decent conversation.

  “I don’t recognize you, but I know what you are,” one of the hunters replied weakly.

  “You do?”

  “You’re Rung’un,” he answered. “A half-breed. I’ve seen only one before… in the Wilderness.”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard that term before. A Twileen friend of mine called me Rung’un once… told me what it was. You kind of look like him; maybe that’s why I didn’t kill you. His name was Ebriz.”

  “I knew Ebriz!” another captive spoke up. “Sir, you speak of Ebriz the bard? He is from my village!”

  “Oh?” Raegith asked, smiling at the man. “You were friends with him?”

  “Not really, no. But I knew of him… before he was killed in a hunting accident.”

  “A hunting accident?” Raegith laughed. “Is that what you think happened to Ebriz? I wonder what they say happened to Hemmil or Boram or Zakk? I wonder what they told my mother in Leafblade what happened to me?”

  “Sir, you are from Leafblade?” the Twileen asked. “Why are you here? Why are you doing this?”

  “Ebriz… did not die in a hunting accident,” Raegith said, ignoring his question. “Ebriz died right up there, inside the Citadel, pinned to the wall by the axe of a Rathgar General… a Rathgar who, just this day, sacrificed himself for me. Ebriz saved my life, you know. And I watched him
die for it; but it was not the General that truly killed him. No, that Rathgar was just following orders. It was Helfrick Caelum who killed Ebriz… and Zakk Hadrian and Raegith Caelum.”

  “Raegith Caelum?” the captive asked. “Who is Raegith Caelum?”

  Suddenly Izanami appeared near Raegith and nodded toward the Citadel.

  “Ask him!” Raegith shouted, standing up and pointing at the lone soldier approaching them from the blazing remains of the Citadel.

  The man slowed and glared at him. “Raegith,” he said, the name rumbling in his massive chest.

  “General Tiberius?” the Twileen asked, shocked by his survival.

  “Tiberius is it?” Raegith asked. “I’ve never seen you before, so if you know who I am on sight, you must be one of my father’s trusted men.”

  “Raegith, I don’t know what has happened to you, but what you are doing is wrong! Look at these men you have here! They are your people; your own kind!”

  “But not you, Tiberius? You’re quick to point out that, yes, I am Twileen, but you don’t jump at the chance to point out our shared heritage. I’m not good enough to be called a Saban?”

  “You are!” he said. “You are a Caelum; the greatest line of Sabans in Rellizbix! What you’re doing, what you’ve already done to the Royal Guard… it’s not what Caelums do, boy! These animals have done something to you to make you act this way!”

  “Were you there when he wrote it, Tiberius? Maybe you were the one who actually penned it.” Raegith jumped down from where he was perched on the destroyed cannon. “Maybe… maybe you really aren’t aware of it at all, and you truly don’t know why I would do something like slaughtering the 9th Regiment with such glee!”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Raegith.”

  “The Declaration!” he yelled. “Hemmil, Zakk, Boram, Tavin… Onyx! They’re all dead; all just to deliver that damned scroll to the Greimere for him! Only three of us even made it past the cliffs, the others maliciously murdered by the Sabans that now decorate this valley with their guts!”