The White Tower (The Aldoran Chronicles: Book 1)

by Michael Wisehart

  A wave of trepidation washed over Tolin as he pushed his way through the front of his tent and saw the battered state of the three pathfinders. They looked like they had fought their way through the entire Cylmaran army to get there. “What happened? Did you find Roan and Arnst?”

  Tolin could tell it was a struggle for the three men to remain standing. Terris had a shattered splint on his leg, Bayle was sporting a bloody sling around his arm, and Merrick was trying to stabilize them both. “We did, Commander,” Merrick said ominously. “Or at least what was left of them. But there is another force massing in the Black Hills, and I’m sure by now they are already on their way, sir. It’s like no force we’ve ever seen or heard tell of before.”

  “What are you talking about?” Tolin’s mind raced with a sense of dread as he tried reasoning out possible scenarios. Could Overlord Agnar have joined his Keldoran forces with that of Cylmar? “How many men did you see?”

  Bayle stepped forward, “They not be men, sir.”

  “Not men?” Tolin was not only confused, he was getting upset. “What the blazes are you three going on about? If they weren’t men, what were they?”

  “They be . . . They be hor’hounds.”

  “Hor’hounds?” Tolin’s face was stuck in a state of complete bewilderment. His mouth hung open as the air was expelled from his lungs in a forceful cough. Under normal circumstances, Tolin would have never exhibited such a show of emotion in front of his men, and he felt rather embarrassed for having done so now, but since every other soul within earshot of the tracker’s voice held the same expression, it didn’t seem to matter.

  “Our search led us to the caves within the ironworks,” Merrick continued, still keeping his shoulder under Terris as the unstable tracker teetered on one leg. “We saw a dark wielder calling forth the creatures. We rode out of there as fast as we could but ended up having to fight our way out of the pass.”

  “We lost Ellson as well,” Terris added, gritting his teeth in pain.

  “Aye, that we did. We rode as fast as our poor injured horses would allow, hoping to stay ahead of them—”

  Tolin didn’t let him finish. “How many do you estimate are coming?” He was desperate to know what they were up against.

  Merrick looked at the others and shrugged. “My guess . . . upwards a thousand.”

  “A thousand hor’hounds?” Tolin stood from his seat and stared at them across the table. “How is that possible? We haven’t seen or even heard of a hor’hound for centuries.” His eyes flared as he realized the danger they were all in. “Get yourselves to the healers and see to your injuries.” The three men bowed and departed.

  “Elior, send word to the king that a force of hor’hounds has been spotted. Tell him I recommend an immediate retreat. We don’t want to be caught in a fight on two fronts at the same time.” Tolin quickly laid word to paper for the runner to dispatch along with his official seal. “And send runners to Asa and the other captains and tell them to be ready to start pulling our lancers back.”

  “Yes, sir!” Not waiting for the commander to return his salute, Elior turned and proceeded to holler orders to his runners as he exited.

  Chapter 69 | Ayrion

  AT THE SOUND of the lancer signal horns blasting in the distance, Ayrion moved to the front and watched the halt of their forces. “What’s Tolin doing?”

  The king moved beside him and placed his leather wrapped ocular to his eye. “What do you see?”

  “Our ranks are taking stance when they should be pressing forward.” Ayrion grimaced. “Something has happened.”

  Dakaran grabbed a spare ocular from the table and stared out across the battlefield. “He’s right. Our front lines have halted their attack.”

  Ayrion turned at the sound of approaching steps. “Your Majesty!” Captain Barthol bowed as he reached the entrance. “I have a runner just returned from the front with news, sire.”

  The young man on Barthol’s left stepped forward.

  “Give him your message, son,” Barthol said, trying to coax the fear out of the young runner at the thought of addressing the High King.

  “Your . . . Your Majesty,” he said with an awkward bow. “Commander Tolin sends word of a new enemy.” The young lad glanced around at all the curious faces. “The pathfinders have spotted a large throng of . . . of . . .” The boy looked positively peaked.

  “Well, spit it out,” Barthol barked.

  “Hor’hounds! There is a force of hor’hounds on their way out of the Black Hills.”

  The king’s face twisted as he cocked his head to the side. “What did you just say?”

  The runner looked horrified, as if he thought his message would surely spell his imprisonment, or worse. Looking around at the others he repeated his statement. “Hor . . . hor’hounds, Your Majesty, from the Black Hills.” The lad gulped, clearly afraid he had just offended the High King.

  Ayrion was speechless. Of all the possible scenarios running through his mind, this was beyond anything he could have expected or planned for. “Hor’hounds?” The very name added to the tension of the moment as he tried grasping the reality of what they were about to face.

  A tall figure, wearing the official crimson of his office and surrounded on all sides by men in white uniforms, calmly stepped underneath the large overhanging material. “I just received word we are about to have company.” His words held a touch of dryness. “You see. This is what happens when the White Tower is held on a leash, and its duties suspended by a distrustful king.”

  “Watch your tongue, Chancellor or I will have it removed,” Rhydan said, each word clearly marking his otherwise palpable disdain for the man. “What do you want?”

  Ayrion could see a spark of hatred flare within the chancellor’s dark eyes, but it soon vanished. “It appears that what I wanted is too late to do either of us any good—” He gestured toward the mountain range. “—since we are all about to be fed on by the very creatures of magic the White Tower is supposed to be allowed to suppress.”

  “Do you have a helpful suggestion, Valtor, or are you just here to gloat?”

  “I am but a humble practitioner of medicines and a student of ancient lore, Your Majesty,” Valtor said as he managed an unsuccessful attempt at modesty. “The only offering I can present is that of my prayers.”

  The king seethed with anger. “Then do so away from here and out of my sight while the rest of us try to devise a way to save our skins.”

  Valtor bowed and slowly withdrew from the canvas shelter. The grin on his face would have terrified even the most bloodthirsty of cutmen. It was the look of a man who had nothing to fear and everything to gain.

  The young war-runner handed the sealed scroll to the king. Rhydan tore the wax with his finger and read the hasty inscription. He then handed the parchment to Ayrion to read.

  He read it twice.

  “What do you think?”

  “I agree with the commander, Your Majesty. I believe retreating in order to gather ranks will not only allow us to concentrate our force, but it will put the Cylmaran army between us and the hounds.”

  “I agree.” The king inscribed his reply, rolled the parchment, dripped some wax, and stamped it with his seal. Handing the runner his reply, the king bade him farewell and offered his encouragement on the fine job the runners were doing.

  Ayrion turned to his captain. “Barthol, spread the word. Let the High Guard know what’s coming. Also, have them pull part-way up the hill. I want them separated into four block units, no single formations. We can’t fight something like this in small groups. It must be as a whole.”

  “Yes, sir.” Barthol saluted and Ayrion watched as his friend rushed down the sharp knoll toward the High Guard station below.

  Turning back to the battlefield, Ayrion noticed the prince stepping around the side of the royal command post to have a word in private with his gaunt advisor. Something about Valtor always left Ayrion feeling dirty.

  Through the rain, Ayrion could
just make out the front lines of the battle below. He could see the outline of Tolin’s staging pavilion further back. He wondered how his mentor was holding up under the pressure of such news. It was going to take a miracle to hold out against what was coming if even half of what the young war-runner had said was proven true.

  Chapter 70 | Tolin

  “HOR’HOUNDS?”

  Overcaptain Asa stormed into the tent and shook his head, flinging water from his hair and face like a wooly sheepdog. He squeezed the moisture from his leather eye patch. “Did their rutty breath smell of brandy when they reported this?” He crossed the room to where Tolin stood over his table, strategizing their next moves. “Did you get yourself a good whiff?”

  Tolin looked up from his work. “I’m sure they would have rather it did.”

  Asa looked confused.

  “One of them had bruises across half his face, the second couldn’t walk from a shattered leg, the third was holding an arm that looked to have been half torn off and the fourth . . . Well, he didn’t come back at all. So yes, I’m sure they’d probably rather had been sitting around getting sloshed than the alternative.”

  “So it’s true?”

  “Yes,” Tolin admitted with all the candor he could muster given the circumstances, “and if we don’t want to join them, we need to secure our position immediately. I can only guess at the direction they’ll be hitting us from,” he said as he glanced back at the hand-drawn maps strewn across the table. “Which makes it even more difficult since we are already battling one army as it is.”

  “We need to move our lancers south, right here.” Tolin circled a section of the map with his finger. “It will give our pikemen a chance to change direction. We need to be facing north, forcing our Cylmaran neighbors to stand between us and the hounds.”

  “Aye, that would help.” Asa strapped his patch back over his eye.

  “We also need to have Nadeer and Bellos pull the bowmen in behind our lancers to protect their flanks. Give them plenty of space to fire on whatever the Defiler has in store for us today. The more proficient we are from a distance the fewer of the creatures we’ll have to face up close. I don’t know about you, but I don’t relish the thought of hand to hand combat with a hor’hound.”

  “Neither do I,” Asa said, stroking his ducktail once again.

  “Our mounted lancers are going to be the defining factor in this outcome. They’ll be the only ones capable of matching the creatures’ speed and size.”

  “I’ll be flamin’ hanged if I allow a pack of mangy fleabags to overrun our position!” Asa took a moment to refasten his headband where some of the loose strands of his graying hair were sticking to the front of his face.

  “With our lancers now facing two opposing forces, I’m afraid my time will be best served by working from here. Will you be able to handle the cavalry on your own?”

  Asa stared down the point of his nose at Tolin with his one and only eye. “Who do you think you’re talkin’ to? I was gonna insist on it. We need our commander . . . commanding, not stickin’ his neck out there for the enemy to get an easy strike at. Besides,” he said as he cleared his throat, “with you out of the way, I can take all the glory for myself.”

  Tolin was glad to see that the enormity of the situation hadn’t yet managed to steal his friend’s sense of humor.

  The evening light waned and the rain looked to have settled in for the long haul.

  Both sides were feeling the strain of battle when the first of the hor’hounds made their appearance. It wasn’t so much the ethereal baying alerting Tolin to their presence as the ensuing chaos that struck the Cylmaran ranks when the creatures rolled out of the shadows. Like specters out of the storm, they tore through the Cylmaran’s already muddled formations.

  As he sent out his couriers and trumpeters to relay his latest orders, Tolin realized the next few moments could determine not only the course of this battle, but the lives of every human fighting in it. Tolin was going to need to turn this to their advantage by transforming an enemy into an ally.

  As fast as Elior could send out his runners, Tolin relayed a missive ordering the Elondrian forces to cease all aggression on the Cylmaran ranks, which had already dropped all interest in them in order to combat the new, more fearsome enemy. The lancers in turn were to join the Cylmarans and fight side by side for everyone’s survival.

  Chapter 71 | Asa

  “WELL, AIN’T THIS a sight for sore eyes!” Asa shouted to his men as he unstrapped his large battle-axe. “One moment we’re killin’ ‘em, and the next we’re savin’ their sorry backsides!”

  He scanned the melee in front of him. Looked more like a circus than a war, he thought. The battle was at best demanding, prior to the onslaught of the weather, but now that it had transformed a more than suitable valley into a bog of mire and clay, while men and horses alike lost their footing to the pressing horde of vicious wolf-like creatures, it was nothing more than a merciless death trap to those unfortunate enough to enter.

  The Cylmarans had been caught entirely unprepared as the dark beasts tore their way through their rear flank, burning such fear into the hearts of their warriors that many took their own lives rather than have to face one of the mythical creatures. The Cylmaran armsmen ran in stampede fashion as they fought to escape.

  Asa leaned over the side of his horse and spit. “Like herding cattle!” He pointed toward the enemy lines as they scattered and fled. “Just look at ‘em! Cowards, every last flaming one of ‘em!”

  In the end, Asa could see that it would be his riders that needed to be called on to stem the tide, precisely as Tolin had predicted. He had to admit, the thought of directing a battle charge straight into the heart of a horde of creatures from another age brought a certain pulse of vitality back to his weary bones. It was the chance of a lifetime. This was what he had been born for.

  Instead of dividing his riders as they had against the Cylmaran flanks, Asa brought the entire contingent together. One unit, one solitary strike force that could be used to pierce the side of the hor’hound flanks. He knew they would never be able to go toe-to-toe with the creatures and win. So instead, he determined to hit them where he could do the most damage. Driving his men in and out of their flanks—pierce and run, pierce and run. Never striking the same place twice while cutting down their numbers and giving the Elondrian footmen a chance to counter.

  Asa raised his axe for his men to see and drove his heels into the back of his horse. He felt like Faylorn of Old as he galloped at the front of the wave, barreling toward his horde of Khuls, but instead of wild half-human cannibals with file-sharpened teeth, it was giant wolf-like monsters with wide spread fangs and dagger-sized claws.

  Glancing over his shoulder, his men, Creator love ‘em, were still there. There was fear in their eyes, but strength as well. They were going to sing songs about today. Tales would be told about this battle for years to come. Asa was proud to be leading these men into what could be their final charge.

  He held his axe high as they drew down on the creatures’ left flank, bellowing out his battle cry. “For Elondria!”

  The men behind him repeated the shout. He could feel the breath catching in his throat. Twenty paces. Ten paces. Five paces.

  He shouted again, even louder, his voice going hoarse from the effort. “For Elondriaaaaa . . .”

  They slammed into the side of the pack. Hounds were thrown aside from the initial impact. He couldn’t believe the size of the creatures as he swung his great axe, cutting, slicing, stabbing, striking. They were everywhere. Their stench alone was enough to make the most veteran of warriors cower. His men were still pushing forward, but he knew he would have to angle them back out while they still had momentum. If they were to get stuck inside, there would be no escape.

  He could hear his men shouting and the sound of their steel against the creatures’ hides as he forced his horse to angle its way back out. On his right, one of the hounds leapt across the others and grabbed
the lancer next to him, sinking in its teeth. With a twist of its huge head, the man’s arm and shoulder were ripped completely off. The look of pale shock on the young soldier’s face as he turned to Asa for help was sickening. Asa screamed and swung his double sided axe, burying it in the creature’s forehead. Its mouth fell open, dropping the man’s arm. The soldier was not long to follow.

  All around him, Asa’s men were fighting with every last drop of blood they had to give, but their drive was beginning to falter. If they didn’t break free soon, they were going to be overrun. Swinging to the left, Asa opened the neck of another hound as it attempted to reach for his horse. He couldn’t tell how close to the outer lines they were. The hounds were too big to see over and the rain was too strong. Asa was afraid he had driven his men too far into the creature’s belly to get back out.

  Quickly, he pulled his arm out of reach, narrowly escaping the jaws of another as they snapped shut. Asa twisted in his saddle and clipped the side of the beast’s head as he rode by.

  A set of claws ripped open his shoulder, forcing Asa to drop the reins. With nothing left but his legs, he steered the old battle stallion directly at the hound. He used his free hand to bury his long dagger in the creature’s left eye as it came at him again. Grabbing his axe, Asa finished the beast with a single downswing, taking nearly half its head off in the process. The warm blood running down his arm was actually a relief from the cold rain, though his fingers grew numb.

  He figured they had to be getting close to the outer edge of the pack. His men were beginning to falter. With no other option but to keep pushing forward, he kept his axe in motion and fought to keep the hounds away from his horse.

  Another ranker on his right went down, his horse knocked from under him. Asa grabbed the man’s arms and tried hauling him onto his own horse but one of the creatures bit down on the soldier’s leg, resulting in a brief tug-of-war match between Asa and the hor’hound.