by Phil Tucker
The human staggered back, again and again, as Tharok pressed his attack. Within a minute or two, Tharok's interest had waned. The human was brave, but unable to regain his momentum. With a roar, Tharok slammed home a blow that knocked the human's defenses open wide, and then punched the man straight in the chest. The force of it lifted the man off his feet and sent him flying back.
Tharok grunted and glanced around the courtyard. The humans were retaking the gate. They were streaming from the bases of the towers, moving forward to cut off the flow of kragh. Tharok eyed the numbers that had already entered the courtyard and nodded his satisfaction. It was enough.
He reached out to his trolls. Half of them were dead, more than he had expected, but he gave them a sharp tug, pulling them from their numerous battles and ordering them to descend the ramp. A dozen of them leaped from the tower tops, clawing their hands into the stone work so that as they slid down the sides of the towers, they tore the masonry apart to slow their descent. They jumped free at the last and slammed down into the courtyard.
Tharok inhaled deeply and looked at his wyverns. He wasn't sure what would happen to them after he had passed through the Portal, but they had served their purpose. He bade them continue raking the battlements, and then turned and strode through the twisted grating and down into the depths.
His kragh were pushing the humans back. Snarls and roars echoed around the broad passageway, and with a roar that dwarfed them all Tharok threw himself forward, bulling his way through the ranks of kragh to smash into the human line.
He powered deep into the humans, wreaking havoc all around him with World Breaker. They fell all too easily, their screams cut short, their eyes rolling like those of panicked mountain goats. His kragh followed, and then the first troll descended the ramp and gave a bellow fit to rattle the last vestige of human resolve.
The humans' blades caressed his skin, opening him over and over again, but he simply healed each time and fought on, cutting down five, sometimes eight men at a time. He was wrath, he was death, and no one could stand in his way.
The human line wavered, then broke. Men screamed and turned, clawing at each other to get away as more trolls descended the ramp. They reached over the heads of the kragh to seize humans by their heads and crush them like grapes, blood splashing everywhere.
The retreat turned into a rout. Tharok pounded after the humans down the ramp, his kragh screaming in delight at the sight of their retreating prey. In moments, he reached the Portal chamber.
How efficient, how economical, to connect the Portal so directly to the outside world. How simple it made Tharok's life. He looked up and saw swirling white waters undulating within the Portal's archway. Satisfaction surged inside him. There was still time.
Humans turned to face him, more of them running in from side passages. This was going to be butchery, but so be it. He pulled his trolls to the fore. They came in great fell strides, dragging their hammers behind them, and set to with a will. The humans couldn't stand in the face of such an onslaught, their very ranks restricting the mobility that might have given them an edge.
"Onward!" screamed Tharok, raising World Breaker. "Kill! Kill them all!"
The mighty mountain tribes and the many lowlanders swarmed around the legs of the trolls. They hacked and threw themselves at the humans, who died, and died, and died.
The ground was slick with blood. Bodies lay sprawled on top of each other, but the trolls moved forward with inexorable pressure. The humans shrieked and prayed and fell. Tharok saw their rear edge being pushed back through the Portal, men falling into the white water and disappearing.
Hundreds more kragh were pressing in from behind. Humans had filled the side corridors, but they couldn't fight their way into the chamber. The coppery stench of blood filled the air, and Tharok half-expected to see crimson fumes. He walked on behind his trolls, watching, waiting, ready to seize the moment.
The troll directly in front of Tharok roared and swept its hammer with both hands, clearing the last of the humans away from the Gate. Tharok ran forward, leaped over dismembered and crushed bodies, and stood before the Portal of Abythos.
The entrance to the human Empire.
He spread his arms as if confronting a foe, looked up the sheer wall of rippling white liquid, and bared his tusks. "I come!" His words were a promise, carrying with them a shiver of delight. "I come for your Empire, humans! Prepare yourselves!"
Tharok stepped forward and immediately the tapestry of curses, cries and shrieks was cut short. The circlet turned to white fire on his brow, World Breaker glowed a darker black against the night, and he emerged into a different world.
The sounds of battle greeted him, bathed him, welcomed him to the Ascendant Empire.
He was below ground, in a vast cavern of unworked stone, stalactites as immense as the mightiest fir trees descending from the gloom above. He was standing on an island; around him, causeways extended to other islands and connected to tunnels in the rock. Purple light surrounded him, patched here and there with a shifting green radiance.
The humans had their backs to him, hundreds upon hundreds of them fighting with white-haired Bythians at the far end of the causeway, striving to keep Shaya's people from reaching the Portal.
Tharok laughed and moved forward, swinging World Breaker in great figure eights in front of him, human blood from a world away spattering across the rock floor. Cries of alarm and shock sounded from the rear ranks of the humans, who turned and gaped at him, then looked past him as the first troll emerged through the Gate.
Tharok threw back his head as wild, chaotic joy raced through him. He pointed his blade at the human ranks and roared out to his kragh and trolls as they emerged: "Kill them!"
The kragh came through like blood from a neck wound. They stumbled, saw humans, screamed, and charged forward. A second troll emerged, its sulfurous yellow eyes blinking, and stomped forward to join the attack.
The humans tried to turn, but their ranks were muddled, their energy focused on the Bythians beyond. The kragh smashed into their rear and began to hew and cut them down.
The sun was setting on Abythos. How many of his kragh would get through before the Portal closed? Twenty had already crossed. Now thirty. He needed a force strong enough to hold the Portal through the long night, to resist any human attempt to destroy it. Forty kragh, three trolls. Almost enough.
The humans rallied. There were a number of knights amongst them, and they yelled orders with terrible desperation. Men turned, brought their shields to bear, and, seeing that their foes were still few in number, began to press forward.
A spear sailed through the air and slammed into a troll's chest. More flew after it. The troll roared and waved its club through the air in annoyance, then brought it down two-handed upon the front rank, crushing kragh and humans alike.
Some sixty kragh had come through. They spread out to fill the central island, but only a third of their number could engage the humans on the causeway at a time. Tharok scowled. They needed to make space.
Moving forward, he seized a Medusa-Kissed kragh lieutenant by the arm and shook him. "Take your kragh down that causeway there! Circle around the humans, hit them in the flank! Go!"
The lieutenant understood immediately. Roaring, he clubbed and shoved at his kragh, forcing them to cease milling in their attempt to join the battle, and herded them down one of the other causeways. Movement sparked understanding among the others, and soon they were racing along the open causeway to the far end, where it joined the circular path that connected to the huge ramp that led up to the surface.
A hundred kragh had arrived, Tharok guessed, along with another troll. The humans were fighting bravely, but they were being pushed back. Tharok saw a kragh grab hold of the rim of a human's shield, yank it down, then slam his tusks into the human's face and leap forward to drive him back and down to the ground. The other humans immediately started stabbing at him, but the valiant kragh had opened a line in their defenses. More
kragh forced their way into that gap, and soon a wedge was formed.
Humans began to fall from the causeway's sides, pushed back by the expanding core of kragh. Trolls knocked more with great swings of their hammers.
Tharok felt exultant. It was working. The humans were in disarray, and even more kragh were pouring through the Gate and racing down the side causeways, across the small islands of stone to the far path that led around the chasms to the main ramp. The Bythians turned to cheer their arrival – and then began to scream as the kragh attacked them.
Tharok cursed, then let it go. They were all humans. His kragh couldn't be blamed. He'd ordered them to leave the white-haired humans alone, but in the thick of battle, accidents happened.
His kragh were coming in from both sides, flanking the Bythians. The fight between the white-haired humans and the soldiers flickered out and died as understanding swept through them. They turned to fight the kragh as one.
No matter. His trolls would see the job done.
Still his kragh came through. The cavernous vault rang with the din of battle. The humans were proving as tenacious, fighting with desperate strength to keep Tharok's forces at bay, but the battle was lost. The intelligence that sparked through Tharok's mind told him this was an incontrovertible fact. Though the humans still had a slight edge in numbers, the kraghs' ferocity and the shock of their arrival, along with the trolls' overwhelming reach and strength, would see them through.
Suddenly, the kragh ceased coming through the Portal. Tharok grunted and stared at the shimmering waters. Had it closed on the far side? He waited, but still the Portal remained open.
What was happening?
A figure stepped through. A slender human female, clad in green enameled plate, a torn and bloody cloak of the same color hanging from her shoulders. Her helm had been knocked askew. Tharok saw fiery hair tied back in a bun, pale skin, freckles.
Her blade was burning with white fire.
She saw him and raised her sword, pointing it at his chest.
Tharok gripped World Breaker with both hands. Feral joy rang through his heart. He picked up speed, roared, and threw himself at her.
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
Not even the battle atop Mythgraefen's wall against an army of demons matched the shock and horror of the past half-hour. Never had Kethe seen so many men and women die, or worse, lie dying, crying and screaming and trying to hold their innards inside their gutted bellies, writhing as they were trod on and tripped over.
Never before had Kethe killed so many living beings. Never before had she felt the continuous and sickeningly intimate shock of cutting and stabbing and slaying so many. Thick kragh blood was splattered across her hands, her arms, her armor and face. Her shoulders burned, her breath was coming in raw gasps, and her instincts were pitched to an impossibly high degree.
But through it all, she held on to the song of the White Gate, so terribly far away, a lifeline out of the madness, a rope lowered into the dark abyss within which she was fighting. She fed her fear into that white fire, and worse yet, fed her compassion into it as well. She turned her heart to stone so that she could fight on, and turned away from the dying, refusing to give them comfort or succor. She stopped her ears to their screams and focused on doing one thing and one thing only: chasing the kragh warlord.
It was no easy matter. The kragh were boiling through the ruined grate, shouldering blocks of stone aside, brutally tearing through all resistance as they sought to follow Tharok into the depths. They were a river of muscle and bone, a flood of savagery and bloodlust.
"To me!" she screamed, raising her blade high. "For the White Gate! To me!"
Soldiers rallied around her, calling out hoarse cries of support. Khoussan was at her side, his blade dripping gore, a wicked cut running down the left side of his face. Dalitha, shaking, vomit running down the front of her tunic, was standing in his shadow, her eyes gleaming feverishly.
Kethe whipped around, seeking the others. There! Gray Wind, staggering, his left arm hanging limp, blade still clenched in his right hand. Where was Wolfker?
A roar sounded from behind her, and she saw dozens, no, a full column of fresh soldiers come running out of the base of the closest tower. Her Honor Guard, Kade at their head, his face alight with fury and relief.
"Virtue!" Kade's voice was barely audible as he ran toward Kethe. "You live!"
"We need to cut through them!" Kethe yelled back. "Fall in behind me! Form a wedge!"
Kade reached her, understood, and turned to bellow commands. For good reason these men and women had been selected to be Kethe's Honor Guard – their discipline was impeccable, and they immediately raised their shields and stepped into their new formation.
"Kethe!" Akinetos was staggering toward her, a massive dent in the side of his great helm. With a grunt, he tore it free and cast it aside. His temple appeared misshapen, but his eyes were bright and lucid. "You're leading the charge?"
Kethe raised her blade in response. Just then, the sun dipped behind the castle wall and shadow flooded over her. She opened her soul to the song of the White Gate, and her blade incandesced, its brightness redoubled by the gloom. There was no more time for words. She pointed her blade into the thickest part of the kragh flood and ran forward.
Akinetos pounded alongside her, his ponderous plate armor clanking as loudly as sledgehammers striking a forge. Then Mixis was at her other side, wild black hair whipping behind him, his dark robes heavy with blood, his blade burning just like hers. Together, the three of them plunged into the kragh.
Mixis leaped high into the evening sky and fell like a thunderbolt amidst the enemy a good dozen yards in. Akinetos simply lowered his head and bull-rushed his way through, not bothering with his blade, overpowering his opponents and crushing the kragh with his bulk as Kethe cut and swung her blade.
The three of them forced a path into the flood, a path that only widened as her Consecrated followed, then her Honor Guard.
Kethe's world was reduced to a narrow point, a small sphere of axes and muscled thighs, bellows and tusks, as her blade sliced and cut with ease through one body after another.
Madness surrounded her, and then, suddenly, she was through. She staggered, nearly fell, and saw Akinetos emerge to her left. Mixis was still amongst the enemy, dealing death. Her Honor Guard had formed a wall of shields and was being hammered and pressed by the mounting number of kragh who had been cut off from the grate and the ramp leading below ground.
"Akinetos! I'll go after Tharok! Hold the line!"
The Virtue of Immovability nodded and waded back into the battle, singing a dirge that echoed deep in his chest and seemed to unnerve the kragh even before they turned to face him.
Kethe glanced up at the walls as she raced toward the grate. Thousands of soldiers were trying to rebuff the kragh as they climbed up their rough ladders onto the battlements. Wyverns were still swooping down and plucking soldiers from the wall only to drop them to their deaths – until suddenly, with wild, panicked cries, the winged beasts rose as one into the sky and began disperse rapidly in all directions.
Kethe didn't have time to reflect. The ramp was ahead. Footsteps thundered beside her. Khoussan, she saw, and Dalitha. No sign of Gray Wind. She whispered a prayer for her missing friends and plunged down the ramp.
The stone was slick with blood. Bodies lay tossed and discarded everywhere. Ahead of her, the kragh were bottlenecked, roaring and shoving at each other in an attempt to pass into the great Portal room. Kethe felt a sinking sensation of despair. Hundreds of them! How was she to deal with so many?
"For the White Gate! For the Ascendant and his everlasting glory!" The cry was a clarion call of stern majesty, and in response Ainos swept out from one of the side tunnels. Behind her came her seven Consecrated and her Honor Guard. Kethe bit back a scream of delight and threw herself forward.
The kragh were packed in too tightly to turn and do battle effectively. They shoved and roared in frustration, but Ainos didn't gi
ve them time to react. She was a golden meteor, her longsword leaving arcs of burning fire behind it in the gloom of the cavern.
Kethe fought her way into the kragh ranks as well, Khoussan at her side. He was shielding Dalitha, Kethe noticed, protecting her when the slender woman's guard fell, when she flinched and turned from a blow. Somehow he was extending himself to both fight and guard, and Kethe's heart swelled with pride.
She blocked and parried blows, desperation augmenting her already fearsome speed. Massive bodies fell away from her, but it still wasn't enough. She needed to connect with Ainos and break through into the Portal chamber. Kethe crouched, then leaped, her head grazing the cavern ceiling, soaring over the kragh who turned in amazement to watch her arc over them and land a dozen yards farther in, where she killed a massive, black-skinned kragh with a blow to the back of its head just as it lunged at Ainos.
"Well met, Virtue of Happiness!" Ainos reeled back, gave Kethe a wolfen grin, and turned to the entrance of the Portal. "Attack! Press on! To the Portal!"
Her Consecrated cried out their support, and together they hurried into the great room, hacking and slashing. It was bloody work, and the kragh fought back like cornered dogs. Kethe saw one Consecrated after another fall, unable to summon the preternatural grace and stamina of the White Gate like she and Ainos could.
Doubt flickered in her heart. Would she make it through? Then another war cry sounded from a few yards away and she saw Henosis, as savage as the kragh and perilously beautiful, cutting her way through their ranks. Behind her fought a legion of men who butchered the kragh around them and thinned out their ranks before they all finally met at the foot of the Portal.
Kethe's mind reeled. What they had accomplished was beyond the ken of normal people. Blows that would have felled a knight had glanced off their armor. Their blades had sheared through the kragh with ease. She felt shocked by her own prowess.