Bloodletting Part 1: The Affinities Cycle Book 1

by Mark Ryan

  Orocs were warmer than most creatures, and stood out like guttering torchlight for those who knew where and how to look. Otherwise they could’ve crept up to the very castle walls, sight unseen.

  “Report, Corporal. Can you give me a better sense of their numbers?”

  Faulk shook her head. “Sorry, sir. I can detect their presence and general movements, but picking out individuals is a bit beyond me. They burn so hot, that it is just a mass of orange out there. I’m not sure how many, but it is a lot. In the thousands. They’re staying out of archery range though.”

  But not out of range of the siege ballistas and catapults mounted on the castle’s upper towers, Reynolds thought. For a moment, he considered passing along the order to send a first volley soaring—but with this poor visibility and no real sense of the orocs’ positioning, it’d cause minimal damage and ruin the ambush on their end.

  He paced behind the line of soldiers crouched behind the parapet, doing his best to keep from slipping on the ice separating them from the earth. The tactic would only hide them while the orocs remained distant. Once they closed and exposed themselves in the open field, Reynolds’ Tectons and Geists would begin dampening enemy earth and spirit affinities; but they had to wait as long as possible. Their unit had some strong affinities, but not enough. Dampening not only exhausted the body twice as fast as any other technique, the range of effectiveness also remained severely limited. Drayston’s plan was built on a string of perfectly timed surprises. To Reynolds that was risky at best.

  He had his Tectons and Geists spaced apart to cover as many of the other guardsmen as possible. He churned his thoughts, trying to determine anything else they could’ve done, any contingency they might’ve overlooked. But with their spare forces and minimal prep time, they’d made as strong a showing as he could figure.

  And now they waited. Top on the list of things he despised.

  Faulk gasped.

  “What do you see, Faulk?”

  “Their main mass is heading this way. Two smaller groups splitting off on the sides, looks like they’re aiming for the western and eastern walls. By Volterus, they’re fast! You should be able to see them any second …”

  “Be at the ready!” Reynolds whispered to commander on his left. The order traveled down the line of crouched figures.

  Then Faulk stiffened. “Sir, Lord Major Illamer’s line is moving to engage.” She opened her eyes, fiery light pouring from them.

  “What? It’s too early!” Reynolds swore. Stick to the damn battle plan, Illamer! You’re the one who convinced Drayston to make this happen. But why had he? To actually defend the lives in Castle Drayston or to give himself a chance to sate his lust for action and glory?

  “A portion of the assault has turned their way. The rest are—” Faulk cut short in a scream.

  Reynolds turned to see a spear-thin earthen spike protruding through the ice and up through the guardsman’s thigh. She sagged, and a Geist already raced her way. Her eyes had given her position away. Reynolds cussed under his breath.

  No more time for pretense. Reynolds shouted, “Nullify!” as dozens more of the deadly spikes punched through the ice. The orocs had to be casting blind, but some of their guesses proved fatal to the Drayston soldiers. Guardsmen screamed as spikes pierced feet, legs, and straight through one man’s skull. Blood spilled over the ice, too quickly.

  The upper portion of the wall rippled like a flag in the wind before several stone blocks exploded, scattering a handful of soldiers off and down into the court behind them. Their bodies tumbled like the straw dummies they’d used for target practice.

  Reynolds reacted instantly, fearing another instability that might breach the whole wall. “Tectons! Reinforce the wall. Ignore dampening the orocs, let the Tiduses deal with the ice wall. Keep the castle standing!”

  As suddenly as they had started, the initial attacks died off as the castle’s Tectons fought the surge of magic. Earth struggled against earth, and the walls shook beneath their feet. Reynolds drew his sword. Faulk held hers in one hand, while her other gripped the spike still embedded in her leg. With a cry, she yanked it free and then let the Geist place hands on her. As her flesh sealed over, she straightened. She raised the spike and her eyes flared red. The stone turned to molten slag and dripped to sizzle on the ice at her feet.

  Her voice came out as a growl. “Corporal Mikkels, on my mark.”

  Mikkels waved from down the line. “Aye, Corporal.”

  “Sir, there’s a lot of them,” she said under her breath to Reynolds. “I’d wager at least a thousand.”

  Reynolds nodded to acknowledge the information, but it didn’t change anything. They stood committed. The signal finally came. Whumps sounded from above him as catapults launched balls of ice over their heads. Reynolds pulled on the power of his own affinity, speeding up his personal time and watching the scene below unfold in slow motion. The castle’s Archons and Vortens hammered the balls of ice with raw force and directed blasts of air, exploding them over the oroc army below.

  Deadly shards of ice fell, undetectable by the Tecton orocs. Orocs died, cut through by the glass-sharp spikes. Midnight blue blood, black in this light, covered everything below. Hundreds of their attackers had fallen in the first counterattack. But it wasn’t enough; thousands of lumbering forms kept coming, swarming over and around their fallen comrades.

  Almost time, Reynolds thought. One more trick to go before he was up. Inside the ice, scattered randomly across the battlefield, were small steel balls all connected to each other and the castle by thin steel wire. It would take a year to recraft the munitions being used tonight, but that was the point of them. To defend the castle.

  The Magnus contingent was up. They had been spilt, half on the upper reaches of the castle, half on ground along the walls. Though sparse in number, unlike the common material affinities, a Magnus could have a devastating impact upon a battle.

  The Magnus soldiers above grabbed the lead wires connecting the castle to the giant net. Those below touched the castle wall in special spots the Tiduses had cleared for them. Metal loves metal … Every soldier on the ramparts fell to their knees as the castle walls drew everything metal to themselves. On the battlefield below, the metal net sped towards the walls. orocs fell by the scores. Legs were sliced from bodies, torsos were cleaved in two as the net rushed to the wall. The metal nets slammed into the castle walls and the Magnuses released their magic, freeing the Drayston soldiers.

  The sounds of the charging orocs started as a steady vibration that rose to a rolling thunder, to the roar of an unstoppable flood. A battle chorus keened from the darkness, filling the air with inhuman rage. A third of their army was dead before the castle walls, but they still outnumbered the humans by two to one, maybe more. Reynolds released his hold on time and nodded to Faulk.

  “Now, Mikkels,” Faulk cried as she raised her left hand. Torches all along the wall flared to life with golden brilliance, accompanied by volamps that had been placed in a grid in the ground, extending a quarter mile out from the walls. Light flooded the area, as bright as dawn, illuminating the horde of orocs charging over the blood and limbs of their fallen clan-mates. It looked like a dead forest had come to life, with bare, gnarled trees uprooting themselves, forming a tide of wooden limbs.

  Mikkels and the other Tiduses shoved their hands into cisterns along the wall. Each held a pool of water, fed by gutters running throughout the castle’s stonework. Connected directly to the waters in the grounds, they summoned jets of water, directing the eruptions towards the assaulting forces. Faulk shouted as she and several other Volcons shoved their hands into the cisterns alongside the Sirenes and leached the heat from the water, hardening the spray into razor shards of ice.

  A forest of spikes erupted in the midst of the charging horde, a trick learned from the oroc hunters, though applied differently. The front line of attackers went down, taking the defenses with them. As orocs were impaled, their weight shattered the spikes. The re
st charged on, almost to the walls. The few remaining walls of ice were sundered as the earth below them boiled then swallowed them whole.

  “Sir!”

  Reynolds looked to where Faulk pointed. Illamer’s forces had engaged a straggling line of orocs and now rode hard through their numbers, chopping them down one by one. An impressive, if minimally effective, display. Then another hundred orocs loped from the trees beyond them. Reynolds groaned. Not only had the Lord Major failed to box the attackers in, but now they stood poised to be trapped themselves.

  He spun and grabbed the nearest private, shouting over the cacophony, “Get to the siege captains. Tell them there’s been a change of orders. Keep two catapults in reserve, but use the others to target the orocs hemming in Lord Major Illamer’s troops!”

  Reynolds calmly stepped to the side as a portion of the castle wall beneath him heaved, throwing more of his line into the courtyard. With his peripheral vision, he spotted the same thing happening all along the walls. “Do what they can to hit the outlying orocs and give the soldiers space to maneuver and break free. Tell them not to balk at firing near their own. They knew the risks being out on the field, but if we don’t take action, those men are lost, understand?”

  The private nodded and raced off as fast as he could on the ice. Reynolds clutched his sword hilt tighter, aching to strike something. Anything. Aspects damn that man. Their first offensive had worked brilliantly, killing a third of the orocs below, but Drayston had already lost at least a hundred soldiers, at a quick count, and couldn’t afford to lose more. The siege weapons had been a reserve tactic, intended to rout the enemy once they were entrenched before the wall. Now their efforts would be wasted just keeping that fool Illamer alive.

  A volley of ice boulders arced over them, launched from the smaller trebuchets down in the courts. Made of Tecton-fused gravel frozen into the ice, the giant projectiles exploded just before they hit the ground, pelting orocs with shrapnel. Each explosion devastated handfuls of the beasts, but they weren’t as effective as Reynolds had hoped. Even dampened, the oroc Tectons were doing something to those weapons. If only he had more Archons. His were experienced, but their low-magnitude affinities wore out fast and the ammunition piles dwindled just as quickly.

  The orocs reached the wall, but brought no ladders. Reynolds peered over the edge to see orocs bashing the iced wall with clubs and fists. Cracks raced up through the ice, while other orocs turned their stone clubs into axes, which they jammed into the newly formed gaps. With these handholds, they hauled themselves aloft, one chop at a time. Some just jammed fingers into the cracks and dragged themselves upward, arm over arm. A final contingent of the attackers ripped the ice off the walls and placed their massive hands on the stone, battling the Drayston Tectons to control the castle walls. If the humans were overwhelmed, those walls would become graves of rubble in mere seconds.

  “Sir,” Mikkels appeared at his side. “Permission to shatter the front early?”

  Reynolds considered this for half a second, but shook his head. “Let them come. Its Heiml’s decision to change our orders, not mine. Besides, if we expose too much stone and lose our dampening, they’ll be able to tear the whole wall down from under us. Save it for last measures as planned.”

  Mikkels frowned and looked ready to argue. Then he paled and yanked at the sergeant’s shoulder.

  “Down!”

  Reynolds yanked free from Mikkels as he and Faulk dropped to hands and knees. Reflexively, Reynolds altered his time flow, digging into his affinity. An instant later, stone shards rained over them. With Reynolds’s altered time, they floated casually through the air, gently bobbing towards the line on the walls. Without giving himself time to think, he pushed his affinity to the edges of his endurance.

  Gripping his hilt in both hands, Reynolds swatted at the rocks, sending them flying back at the orocs. He sprinted up and down the line, feeling like he was a child playing stickball. In truth, the effort he expended was beyond his limits. Seconds later he was ripped from slow time and collapsed on the rampart floor, gasping. Dizzy, his vision blurred and he tried to shake his head to clear it.

  The rest of the stones landed. They ricocheted off helms and breastplates. They knifed into eyes, throats, and skewered leather and the flesh beneath. The assault only lasted a few seconds, but by the time Reynolds dared to rise, he’d lost another dozen men. Their dampening couldn’t be wavering already, could it? Unless the orocs had Tectons several magnitudes higher than their own. Humans were weaker than the other races, true, but this assault of theirs was too much. Did the orocs have an Archmage in their midst?

  He shoved these details aside, still gasping for air and unsteady, readying his sword as the first oroc leapt over the battlements. Its club swept a soldier over the edge, and it bellowed in fury at the line of spears and swords leveled its way. Ten more vaulted the ledge. The smallest easily stood seven feet tall, with arms as thick as a man’s waist and a chest the width of a horse. Their bark-like skin looked equal to the thickest studded-leather armor, and turned aside all but the straightest thrusts and strongest slashes.

  Soldiers engaged the creatures three or four to one along the wide walkway. Orocs were met with magic. Fire, gusts of air, stones flung with force, all weapons alongside the swords and spears. The ground beneath them rippled and shimmered, throwing up spikes and gouts of stone.

  Guardsmen went down with snapped limbs and crushed skulls. Orocs staggered as blades skewered them from all sides, and midnight blue blood mingled with crimson. One burst into flames, courtesy of Faulks. Then she and the other Volcons conjured balls and sheets of fire, which they launched at any oroc who poked their head over the wall. This stalled the climbers for a minute, and the guardsmen began to reassemble in a semblance of order. There were so few left. Reynolds shook his head, clearing the last of the dizziness away.

  Then the most massive oroc he’d ever seen clambered into view. Nine feet tall and wielding a club the size of Reynolds’ leg, it knocked away two men in a single blow. On its return swing, the club shot out into a scythe blade that cut three more guardsmen in half. Flames from the Volcons washed over the juggernaut attacker, but it didn’t seem to even notice. The closer guardsmen scrambled away from the carnage, opening a hole in the defense as more orocs scrambled up.

  “You shouldn’t have come here,” Reynolds said.

  The creature seemed to hear him through the chaos. It turned and loosed a savage roar his way. The sergeant stepped forward and snagged the flow of time as he did so. He would pay for doing this again so soon, but it was a price he was willing to accept.

  Everything around him slowed for an instant—one crucial moment. The oroc froze, gaping in what Reynolds might’ve thought a comical expression if it hadn’t just killed five of his men. He lunged and thrust his sword into its maw and out the top of its skull.

  He allowed time to shift back to true, accepting the temporary backlash without moving to safety. Time and exhaustion slammed into his body as hard as the oroc would have. He was only able to keep his feet by hanging onto the hilt of his sword for dear life. The warriors of Drayston needed to see this giant fall to his blade … and so did the orocs.

  He tugged his blade free and side-stepped as the oroc collapsed to its knees. One more thing to do. If he could rally the morale of his troops, the day might yet be theirs. He hacked at the oroc’s neck with all his strength, freezing time right as his blade connected. Closing his eyes, the dizziness was too great, he trusted his body to guide itself. The blade sank in a few inches. He yanked the blade out and chopped again. And again.

  Never letting go of his grip on time, fighting the nausea welling in his stomach, he chopped until a last fleshy strand connected the giant’s thick neck to its body. He swung one final time, releasing time as the sword arced through the orocs mostly severed neck. To any watching, only a second or two went by before he made a final, grand slash that severed the oroc’s head and sent it flying back over the rampart. O
roc and human alike froze, while a greater cry rose from the attackers beyond the wall.

  Reynolds stepped into the breach and guardsmen fell in on both sides. Vomit and blood dripped down his chest, the price of his overuse of his magic. But no one of the soldiers noticed. They simply saw their sergeant, triumphant. A cheer coursed down the human lines and reinforcements began to beat down the remaining orocs, while fewer appeared over the ledge. Then a horn rang out in the crisp night air, and a lull fell over the fray.

  Geists were already at work, pulling the wounded from the lines and healing them enough to keep them fighting. They carried the worst cases off on stretchers towards the infirmary, where Healer Alma and his team would be at work all night, saving what lives they could.

  Reynolds peered about for Illamer’s group and spotted them closer to the western corner. The earth around them had been pockmarked by boulders and a number of orocs lay impaled by ballista bolts. Most of the Lord Major’s men appeared to have survived thus far, though a good number had lost their horses and now fought on foot.

  A noise caught his ear, and he realized Faulks muttered to herself, counting off on her fingers. Then she exchanged looks with the grouped Volcons and raised a fist high overhead, a signal to prepare.

  An officer cried, “Release!” and several ranks of archers loosed waves of arrows into the sky. They sped up as they fell, faster than gravity should’ve accounted for. The Volcons tracked their flight and then spread their arms in unison. Their eyes blazed orange as each arrow burst into flames before thudding into the oroc horde.

  The forest dwellers hooted in dismay, but then the earth around them churned and splashed over those who’d caught fire. Soon, mud smothered any lingering flames and few of the orocs fell from the attempt.

  A tremor shook the ground, followed by several more. Reynolds glimpsed a large, dark shape fly over the castle wall, out above the orocs.

  “Light the night!”

  Lieutenant Heiml’s command came from her post atop the eastern tower. Reynolds echoed the order weakly. Mikkels appeared at his side and shouted the order. Two pitch-soaked bundles of hay flew into the sky at the center of twin air vortexes. The balls ignited with a burst of yellow light and illuminated the orocs still swarming the field. They’d eliminated almost half their number now. Drayston’s numbers were far too low. Reynolds didn’t even want to guess at how many had died so far.