"Retreat?" asked Lord Myosk, "What do you mean a retreating force? No army has ever breeched The Keep. Not even the army of trolls from ages ago, and they were well equipped with the machines of war. I do not think we should focus on our retreat strategy just yet. I say again, if we place our archers as I have suggested, we could marshal the main portion of the soldiers to support them and reign down death from our flaming arrows. Not to mention the flaming oils we have already used to coat the keep walls."
"Again, your assessment of a defensive strategy against a conventional force is correct if you wish to defend the keep. But it is not your keep that should be defended," said Eriboth as he moved the pieces representing archers and soldiers to different positions.
"Not defend the keep? That is ridiculous! Did you not come for precisely that reason?" asked another of the warlords.
With all eyes focused on him, Eriboth looked to each of them with his all white orbs, "I have not come to defend your keep, nor your crown, for they are both lost. I have come to defend your people. You must order an evacuation and seek refuge elsewhere."
"Evacuation!" said Lord Myosk. "That will never happen while I am seated on the Stone Throne! Do you know why it is called the Stone Throne, Eriboth? It has been so named because it is as hard as stone, unyielding in its presence, and immoveable for those attempting to do so," he continued, growing in is pride, "How dare you come here, on the verge of battle and attempt to convince us to evacuate leaving not only the Stone Keep defenseless in its taking, but the whole of the Silver Empire itself! If this is truly your opinion, then I will ask you to leave not only this room, but the lands of the keep as well!"
"My Lord, I offer no offense to you, but neither can I ignore the knowledge I have been given. Your Keep is already lost, as is the Silver Empire. I assure you, I have been sent to protect the lives of your people. Would you sacrifice them at the altar of your pride?" the question hung in the air as a suspended guillotine moments before its plummet.
"How dare you!" a voice shouted.
"Rest your voice, Niris," spoke a calm Lord Myosk. "It is apparent the legend of Eriboth has been confused with this beggar in rags. Remove yourself from my presence. We no longer require your services, or those of your woman. Our defenses will be sufficient without your intervention," and the Lord Myosk returned his attentions to his table and model.
As Eriboth and Soliana turned to leave, she looked to him and asked, "We are not going to actually leave are we?"
"No. We both have something to do. You will need to gather as many city residents as will follow and lead them away. You will need to lead them northwest to find refuge. I will provide you the time you need," he answered as they exited through the throne room.
"Northwest? Will that not lead us into the Orcish Nation?" she asked hesitantly.
"Indeed it will."
"Very well, but it will not be easy."
"Indeed it will not. But we are not concerned with easy, we are concerned with what is right as defined by His Will."
"One day you will have to introduce me to your new King, Eriboth. I would very much like to meet the man who brought you back from the dead," she said to him as the inner keep door slowly opened.
"And one day you shall; when you are ready."
"I am ready now," she said flatly.
"No, but you will be," he said as the door closed behind him.
As she watched him leave, she was slowly being absorbed by the monumental task ahead of her. How was she supposed to gather people to follow her out of the protective walls of the city, let alone to travel to the lands of the Orcs, steadfast enemies of the Silver Empire and Man in general? And why had she chosen to follow Eriboth at all? Things with the elves had devolved so quickly after his arrival that she assumed she had no choice but to follow him. She knew that once they had recaptured him, passed judgement, and executed him for his treasonous actions, their attentions would be turned to her; specifically her account of his death and the actions leading up to it. No doubt they would question the truthfulness of her words and would possibly openly accuse her of fabricating the entire scene. Would she be seen as Eriboth's accomplice, directly contributing to the death of King Rendunial? She did not know, and did not want to find out. So when a hand reached hers in the glowing blindness Eriboth had created, she knew to whom it belonged. Yet as deeply rooter as her anger continued to be, her desire to preserve her own life was greater leaving her no choice but to follow.
The Lord Myosk, having ascended to take his position upon the inner wall again, stood with confidence as he ordered a single shot fired from his largest catapult. It flew in the air with all the promise of destruction, hope, and victory. But this promise was ended abruptly and without success as the great boulder landed harmlessly not twenty feet short of the silent army. Normally, this would have produced a large and exuberant cheer from the attacking force, but there was nothing, only continued silence. The expert positioning of the Dark Legion left the Lord Myosk with only one further course of action, to wait for the inevitable assault.
After its deployment was complete, the Legion stood eerily still and waited. Minutes later, although it felt like hours, it felt like the entire land was embedded within the eye of a great and foreboding storm which was gathering its considerable strength before its final elemental onslaught. Breaking the stillness was a lone figure that rose to stand atop the harmless boulder from the Stone Keep's greatest catapult. He did not appear to climb as much as he appeared to float. As he raised his arms, a single sound pierced the silence. Low at first, more base than treble, it soon grew into a high pitched buzzing, clearly audible to the ears of the defending soldiers. As they looked to each other, a great black cloud of dust rose from behind the lone figure. It grew behind him and continued its rise high into the sky where it cast a dark shadow on the keep walls blocking most of the setting sun's light. As it coalesced into a perfect sphere, it started to move toward them.
Lord Myosk looked toward his contingency of wizards, who quickly responded by preparing defensive spells themselves, but when they were unable to counter the accelerating dark cloud, a rising fear spread across the walls. With the cloud's approach, the buzzing became louder and louder. The Keep's wizards, still persisting with their spells attempting to stop it, met with no avail. The closer it came, the more it became evident it was not a cloud of dark mist as had been first believed, but many individual particles. As they reached the walls, the soldiers saw and felt the stings of thousands of small insects. They swatted and flailed against the flying plague. The wizards, seeing what they now faced in its true form, were able to dismiss them quite rapidly, but not before the insects' effect had been administered. Several of the soldiers grew lethargic and fell to their knees, cringing from agony. More irritated than compassionate, the Lord Myosk ordered the fallen soldiers be removed from the walls and transported to the healers. He surveyed his remaining forces and estimated his available swords had been reduced by nearly a quarter.
The Dark Legion advanced, and Lord Myosk again ordered the firing of all of his defenses. They struck with devastating results on the soldiers of the dark legion, but when ten were crushed by boulders, or felled by arrows, a hundred more were there to replace them. At this point in the attack, the advancing legion should have started running toward the walls to minimize their damage, but its pace never quickened. It was content to suffer the results of its slow progression, and so too was the figure atop the bolder. When it had crossed enough of the distance to render the war machines useless, the archers atop the wall began to launch their flaming arrows at will. As they struck the dark soldiers, no matter the location or frequency, they continued their slow walk. Nothing seemed to stop them, not even the flames.
"Why do they not run?" General Giprin asked Lord Myosk.
"I do not know General, but what concerns me more, and is possibly the greater question, is why have they advanced with no hope of gaining the wall? Where are the
ir war machines? What hope do they have for their assault if they cannot gain the walls?" replied Lord Myosk.
"I too wondered that, but look closely when one of their soldiers is struck with an arrow," said the general who spoke against Eriboth, General Niris, "Can you see it?"
"What do you mean, Niris? I am in no mood for guessing or games," admonished Lord Myosk.
"Just watch, closely, you will see," General Niris urged.
As one, the three generals atop the wall of the inner keep turned their attention to the advancing forces below. They were still slowly walking, and had there not been a wall in front of them, it appeared as though they would have continued walking well beyond it. But because it was there, the Dark Legion's soldiers continued their slow movements in an attempt to scale it. Many of them were being pelted by arrows, both flaming and not, but none of them had visible effect.
"How can this be?" asked Lord Myosk, as the arrows seemed to have no ill effects slowing their movements. They neither recoiled from pain, nor suffered any apparent impediment to their actions. "It is as if they have not been struck at all," continued the Lord of the Stone Keep.
"What kind of magic is this to have such an effect upon men? How can we stop them?" added General Giprin.
"Wait, there is more happening than what you see," added General Niris.
As the Lord and his generals continued to focus on the unending flow of Dark Soldiers, they were collectively aware of a larger endeavor set upon them by this first wave of attack. It was Lord Myosk whose foresight was enabled first. As he watched his archers draw and loose, draw and loose, draw and loose, he saw their quivers slowly begin to empty. As the catapults and trebuchets launched their destructive missiles, he saw their munitions diminish as well.
"They seek to deplete our defenses," Lord Myosk whispered.
"I feared as much, My Lord. But how can we not fall victim to their battle plan? Are we supposed to stop our defense and allow their soldiers free reign to scale our walls?" asked General Niris.
"We have no choice, General. What happens if we continue with our ineffective defense against these evil creatures that appear to have no ill effects from our arrows to the point of our own exhaustion? What happens if there is yet another wave of forces being held in reserve for just that moment? What if their true assault has not yet begun? We must conserve our strength to face the full force of their attack," said Lord Myosk with bile rising in his voice.
"My Lord?" asked General Giprin.
"Order them to cease their firing," he said after a moment's hesitation.
General Giprin motioned to his right and a large red flag was raised and waved back and forth three times. There were a few more random arrows launched as well as a single last boulder from a catapult, but after it landed, there were no more.
"What are we to do? Just let those slow moving demons trap us in our own city?" asked General Niris.
"Fear not, Niris. Arrows and boulders may have no effect on them, but we are not totally bereft of defenses. Signal the Wizards. It is time this battle begins in earnest," The Lord of the Stone Keep said, gravity heavy on his voice.
Once again the General motioned to his right and once again a large flag was raised in the air. This time, though, its color was green and it was waved twice. As it was lowered, a loud rushing sound began from atop one of the lower towers on the outer wall. Another joined it and then another. Like the sound of a rushing wind that was soon to follow, the magical energy pulsed and moved at the request of the Stone Keep's magical defense. It built over the next ten seconds, and on its tail followed a great and billowing cloud, dark and ominous, that hung suspended over the battle field. Then, when the cloud seemed to darken the very sun, a bright flash of lightning struck the ground beyond the outer wall of the keep wreaking havoc upon the Dark Legion's forces. Two, three, and four more times the sky flashed and the ground exploded leaving a waste land of body parts blown apart by the collective strengths of the wizards joined magical powers.
The soldiers, seeing the complete devastation of the lightning, yelled their excitement as the death toll of the attacking soldiers grew to far exceed its remaining numbers. There was only a spattering of them remaining, certainly not enough to amount to anything more than a slight annoyance, the way a mosquito aggravates the skin but has no hope of affecting its host on a more permanent and widespread level. "You see, Generals, there is no force capable of successfully assaulting the stone keep. Now, let us take to them what they have brought to us," said Lord Myosk as he turned to look at General Giprin.
"My Lord?" he asked with a look of confusion on his face.
"Send forth our Legions, the entire might of our forces," he said.
"But My Lord, will that not incur more injury to our men? If we but wait for our enemy behind our walls, surely it will reduce our casualties." General Giprin stated.
General Niris was next to speak, "I must agree with General Giprin. We have not seen the full might of this Dark Legion. What if they have more in reserve than we estimate? Should we not wait? After all, the death toll of a head to head battle without the protection of our walls could be more than we are willing to suffer, even in victory."
Looking to both of his generals as if he had been disappointed by his child, the Lord of the Stone Keep squared his shoulders and addressed them, "Who am I? Beyond the Lord of the Stone Keep, who am I?" he paused, not to wait for their answer, for they knew it was rhetorical, but to allow its effect to sink more deeply in, "I will tell you. I am the representation and vindication against all those who would seek to invade the Silver Empire. I am the bloodied face, the bruised cheek, the blackened eye. I am the one who takes the repeated punches in an effort to protect the face of the Empire that I love. But more importantly, I am the one who gets back up. For no other reason than to stare at my attacker in his eyes and bid him to strike again, I am the one who rises again, and again, and again. And when he strikes, and he will strike again, it is my face he hits, my blood he seeks, my heart he breaks. I am the target. But today, I will become more. I will be the weapon. Send! Forth! All! Legions!" The echo of his final four words was heard in the hearts of all those who heard him and caused a reverberation of agreement and belief deep within them.
Without hesitation, General Giprin motioned to his right and a black flag shot into the sky. It waved back and forth repeatedly and forcefully. In one motion, the guards emptied their posts on the walls to assemble beyond the keep's protection. The whole progression lasted only twenty minutes, but in their haste and excitement bolstered by the bold order for their Lord, they did not notice that in those twenty minutes, they could have and should have been attacked. But the Dark Legion just waited silently. The single figure standing on the boulder simply stood as motionless as his forces, his robes slightly blowing in the wind. Having moved their position to stand above the gate on the outer wall, the Lord Myosk and his two generals could see the whole of the battlefield from a closer vantage point.
Visually, their forces exceeded those remaining of the attackers. While still formidable, the army of the Dark Legion would not be enough to stand against the wizards, archers, and cavalry they faced. But they did not flee. More than that, they seemed to resonate a greater confidence now that their defeat was eminent. But because of their pride and bolstered courage, the men of the stone keep failed to notice there must be an obvious motive for their confidence. And that motive was hidden in the belly of the dark mist behind the dark army.
"Advance," ordered Lord Myosk.
As one, the infantry of the Stone Keep stepped forward and began its unified progression. Three lines of heavily armored soldiers slowly strode toward their attackers who continued to stand their ground. Stepping through the ranks of the Dark Legion were at least one hundred cloaked and hooded figures. They melted between them and were spread throughout the entire length of their formation. In unison, they each raised their right hands and extended it outward. Diffusely slithe
ring from their palms was more of the dark mist. The advancing army stopped its march, unsure of what to expect but when a single sharp horn was blown from behind them, they had no choice but to continue marching. The dark mist did not reach the keep's soldiers. Instead it seemed to harmlessly dissipate on the ground in front of them.
Lord Myosk chuckled under his breath. "You see that. Their power is nothing more than illusion." But the smile on his face slowly dissolved as he saw his advancing legion slow and come to a halt as soon as they reached the terrain where the dark mist had appeared to dissolve. Their steel booted feet all sank knee deep in mud making it almost impossible to continue their attack. But this mud did not relinquish its grasp with the normal effort of stepping, it held them fast. When all three lines had walked into the magic induced mud, it solidified around their sunken legs rendering all escape impossible.
"Do something! Signal the wizards!" shouted Lord Myosk, but their magical efforts to counteract the mud were useless. Replacing the cloaked dark wizards was a line of cavalry mounted on midnight black horses. Together they galloped toward the stuck soldiers, each of them carrying black lances. Their leader, riding the largest of the dark horses, was a woman adorned with a set of black, light armor the same depth of color as their mounts. She spurred her horse, as did her mounted soldiers, and reached their quarry within moments. The keep wizards were launching bolts of energy toward the riders in an attempt to defend their stuck companions, but all of the bolts harmlessly dissolved before they impacted the dark riders. There was nothing for the rest of the army to do but to watch the carnage. It was swift and complete. When there was no more movement from the bound soldiers, the woman turned to face the stone keep. Looking directly at Lord Myosk, she raised her lance high in the air. She slowly leveled it to point straight at him. Then she turned and rode back to the position of her dark army.
When she reached the side of the hooded figure still standing atop the boulder, he waited for her to turn back toward the stone keep. He raised his arms once again out to the side. It was then the men of the Stone Keep saw the gravity of their situation for the dark mist was allowed to dissipate entirely. In its wake was revealed the whole of the dark army's strength. Extending for hundreds of yards to either side, battalions of soldiers, each heavily armored, and each carrying all manners of weapons, became visible. The collective result was an almost tangible dismay developing within the ranks of the Stone Keep. Retreat was now not an option as there was no time to seek refuge within the keep walls. They had one option, to battle against an impossible foe under impossible conditions.
Convergence (The Dragon Within Saga Book 1) Page 81