I tried to find some words to say about one of the best friends I ever had, but nothing came out. Losing Dekar, was something I was not ready for despite knowing there had always been that possibility.
Someone shouting my name interrupted my thoughts.
Hamath rounded the corner of the well. The last shout of my name faded as he took in the scene.
It was his turn to swear.
“I-I’m sorry, Ira,” said Hamath.
Ira bobbed his head.
Then Hamath continued. “I hate to say this, but Tyrus, we have to go. One of my men saw Amasa rummaging through the stuff these Geneshans had carried. He came across a small box, opened it, and took something out—”
“What did it look like?” I asked.
“Just like you said. Ugly as sin, and a mix of a turtle and some big bug. Apparently, the Geneshans hadn’t just set up an ambush. They had already found the artifact and were returning to the main host. Amasa ran off with it and knocked my man down when he tried to stop him.”
Just what I had feared. Just what I had warned Balak about. He was going to try and sieze power for himself. And it was up to me to stop him.
“And Datan?”
“Dead. We have to go after Amasa.”
“I’m coming too,” said Ira, wiping his eyes.
He tried to stand, but his leg gave out. “Twisted my blasted knee when we charged our target.”
“Then stay.”
“No, I—”
“I know you want to help, but that’s an order. You won’t be doing me any good against a High Mage injured like that.”
Or after losing your brother, I thought.
Reuma looked like she wanted to say something, possibly try to come in his stead, but I gave her a shake of my head. “Take care of him and the other wounded. Set up a perimeter with the survivors. There could be more Geneshans about.”
“Yes, sir.”
I nodded, then slapped Ira’s back as I stood.
Following Hamath, we set off as fast as our tired limbs would carry us in the direction Amasa had gone.
* * *
We ran in silence.
Well, we ran without talking, trying not to make too much noise. We clearly heard the fighting from Balak’s army against the Geneshans outside the city. On top of that, there was no way we’d be able to maintain complete silence at the speed we moved, not with our boots hitting dirt, stone, wood, and other debris.
Hamath led the way.
I had to push down memories of similar situations where the two of us would venture off on a dangerous mission while I left Dekar in charge of the remainder of the unit.
Dekar. Molak-be-damned, why Dekar? Dekar and I had always been good friends, but when Hamath and I parted after the war, it was Dekar who I became closest to. He knew what to say and what not to say after I discovered Lasha’s death. And it was Dekar who first connected with Myra through crests, softening her walls for me to later penetrate. Gods, Dekar wasn’t blood, but he was family.
We came to a halt behind a half wall. Peering around, we spotted Amasa standing at the base of a set of stairs that led up to the top of the outer wall of the city. Hamath turned away with a grim look, shaking his head at me.
“Dekar. Of all people.”
“Yeah.”
“I know he was never my biggest fan, but it was hard not to respect him.”
“Very few faults in him.”
“Unlike us.”
I thought about all the things Hamath had done recently, and even in years past the things I maybe overlooked when I shouldn’t have. Then I thought of my own poor choices, and things I hated about myself.
“Yeah,” I said bitterly. “That’s just the way it goes, isn’t it? War doesn’t pick good and bad.”
“No.”
I snapped myself back to the task at hand and peeked around the corner of the half-wall again.
“Should we attempt to talk to him?” he asked.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. At least not yet. Not until we see what his real intentions are.”
“Well, he’s going to the wall which probably means he might be going to attack the Geneshans with their artifact as Balak said he would.”
“Maybe. Maybe something more. You know how High Mages are.”
“Yeah. I never met one I could trust.”
“So why start now?”
“Good point.”
We said no more.
We both watched Amasa enter the doorway to the tower.
I held up my open hand. I closed my fingers one-by-one slowly. When I held out a balled fist, we made our move, each taking a different, winding route to the tower entrance just in case someone, whether Amasa or a stray Geneshan watched.
We converged on the doorway, each on opposite sides of the entrance. I signaled I’d go in first, counting down again silently with an open hand. However, this time when I got to three, Hamath rushed in. I mouthed a curse and darted in afterward.
He stood still in the empty space at the foot of the winding staircase. I cuffed him on the shoulder, giving him a look that asked what that was all about. He just shrugged. We froze at the faint scuffling of footsteps above us.
I started climbing, Hamath on my heels.
The staircase wasn’t impossibly tall, but after all the running, fighting, and stress of the day, walking quietly up one hundred thirty steps had my legs burning.
We cleared the last few steps slower. I didn’t know where Amasa was, and I didn’t want to become careless with a person who had a world-destroying weapon at his disposal.
The roof of the tower was gone. The gray sky hung above us as the sounds of the battle outside the city’s walls roared.
I went to the doorway at the top of the tower. Hamath came up on the opposite side. We peered out and saw that parts of the outer wall connecting to the tower was barely intact. Amasa carefully maneuvered himself on what had not fallen away to a more sturdy area that overlooked the battlefield.
I’m not sure why he got so close. Even from our viewpoints, we saw two armies a hundred yards away kicking the ever loving crap out of each other on open land. Sorcery lit the battlefield on both sides, though twice as much from the Geneshans. Arrows flitted up from the Turine army. Sorcery from the Geneshans took most of them down.
At first glance, you’d think the line where both forces met was frozen in place, two masses pushing and shoving. After closer examination, I could tell that the Turine forces slowly gave ground. I was unsurprised.
If anything, I was pleased that Balak had held things together as well as he had. We looked to be down by a quarter in our numbers. The Geneshans were down by nearly the same percentage, but still better off at three-to-one odds. They continued to hold all the advantages. Except maybe in stubbornness.
It was that stubbornness that caused Turine to stand up and succeed against the Geneshan Empire.
I turned my attention back to Amasa who had gotten into position near the outer battlement on a more secure, complete section of the tower wall. He took his time surveying the battlefield.
I cast Hamath a quick glance. He shrugged silently, and seemed to gesture with his eyes as if saying he had nothing. It was my call.
Of course he had nothing. This was all new territory. I had nothing either. I studied Amasa more, hoping that something would come to me. It was hard to tell from our distance, a good fifty feet away, but a slow grin seemed to crawl across the profile of his face.
He raised the small, wooden artifact up in his left hand. The last I had seen it was in Balak’s tent at the end of the Geneshan War. Amasa’s hand covered too much of it to make out the ugly details, but I still knew it anyway. I could feel it.
Amasa raised the artifact, pointing it toward the battlefield. He moved it over slightly until hi
s arm ended in line with the Geneshan army.
That was a good sign.
Then there was a shift in the air. The wind began to blow, slowly at first, but gradually increasing until it seemed to swirl and surround our entire position. I had to squint from the force of the wind just to see through it all. With the wind, came a sulphuric smell that caused bile to creep up my throat. I licked my lips and then wished I hadn’t. I suppressed a nauseous burp.
My head pounded. My skull felt as though someone had a hand on either side and was squeezing their palms together.
I glanced back to Hamath who looked worse than I felt, unsteady on his feet. His resistance was not as strong as mine. Reaching across the open doorway, I touched his shoulder. That seemed to help.
We looked toward Amasa again as the High Mage yelled with something between pain and glee.
A force that rippled the air came out of the artifact. It expanded rapidly, blurring most of what we saw as it descended on the Geneshans.
It struck a moment later, and with it came sorcery unlike any I had ever seen before. Soldiers didn’t topple, burn, or writhe in pain. They simply ceased to be, disintegrating in the blink of an eye. The spell Amasa cast must have been tuned specifically to the Geneshans as the effect of their demise occurred not just at their rear and middle ranks, but also at the battle line where Turine soldiers toppled in surprise at an enemy that was suddenly no more.
My mouth turned up into a grin, relief overwhelming the artifact-induced sickness in my gut. No more Turine soldiers would die today.
Hamath grabbed my arm, shaking me until I refocused.
Amasa was on the ground convulsing with the artifact still held tight in his hand. The power was too much for him. The wind that had just died down began to tighten and speed up. Above, dark clouds swirled in the gray sky. Flashes of lightning followed.
I swore at the familiarity of it all.
Balak had mentioned that the High Mages thought the artifact would erupt again soon which was why we partially had been on such a tight eight-week deadline. I wondered if using it to wipe out the Geneshan force had sped that process.
It was very likely that this eruption would be the last, far worse than those we had experienced before. This close, it would be the last for anyone near Hol for sure.
I thought of my kids, but only briefly as screams of agony came from the battlefield below. I glanced over as Turine soldiers fell to the ground, writhing. Turine soldiers might no longer die by Geneshan hands, but they could all still die as a result of the artifact.
I hadn’t yet worked out a plan of what to do next, but thankfully, I didn’t need to. My legs started moving on their own out of the doorway and over to the High Mage who convulsed. Hamath was a shaky two steps behind.
Clinching my jaw tight against vibrations from the artifact that shook my very teeth, I reached out toward it, thinking that perhaps my resistance might stop it from doing more damage. But before I touched it, Hamath charged into me. He knocked me into the battlement, nearly pushing me over the side. I gathered myself quickly and watched him lunge for the High Mage.
He made contact with Amasa, and was immediately repelled backward, crashing into the part of the tower that still remained. He hit hard, then slumped without moving.
Every part of me wanted to check on Hamath, but I fought that urge as I sensed a change in the artifact. Hamath’s contact, brief as it was, managed to dampen the effects of the sorcery so that the power radiating from the sky above and around us lessened.
The artifact fell out of Amasa’s hand. The sorcerous power lessened again.
I looked to the barely conscious High Mage for help, but when our eyes met, he seemed insane. The artifact had done something to him. His skin turned pale. His body clenched into a ball, then straightened rigid as a board. He didn’t move again.
Dead.
The air shifted again, faster. My attention returned to the artifact. The reduction in its power from both Hamath touching Amasa and the High Mage releasing the artifact was beginning to come back.
I guessed that once activated the artifact would not stop until it completed its task.
Hundreds of thoughts ran through my head. I had to do something. Thousands of soldiers counted on me below. They’d be the first to die by the artifact. Millions more around Chayal also counted on me if this artifact was truly meant to destroy the world.
Most importantly, Ava, Myra, and Zadok counted on me.
No pressure.
I moved quickly to the thing, raised my sword high and brought it down. An intense jolt ran up my arms, and the sword disappeared from my hands. I lay on my back, blinking.
That wasn’t a good sign and neither was the ever swirling sky.
Examining the wooden artifact, there was only a small scratch from where I had struck it.
Lightning arced down in various locations around me.
Molak-be-damned. Nothing ever came easy.
I reasoned out what had happened. My sword wasn’t resistant to sorcery. I was. I doubted my resistance was strong enough to stop something of this magnitude before dying, but I had to try.
I crawled, then dove the last few feet toward the artifact, latching onto it with both hands. Immediately, I wished I hadn’t.
Cold so intense it burned engulfed my hands, then my lower arms, then my upper arms, traveling into my shoulders. I could see my breath in the air as I gasped from the pain.
Everything in me wanted to let the artifact go, to make the pain stop, but I couldn’t. Not until I was either dead or the artifact was destroyed. I closed my eyes tight, then clamped my jaw down harder, putting pressure on my teeth as the cold worked into them as well. I tried to focus on my resistance, imagining it eating away at the sorcery.
The wind seemed to slowly subside.
Then there was a surge of power in the artifact, and the wind’s strength returned. With the surge of power, came something like anger from the artifact. Then satisfaction permeated from the thing as I screamed in pain, doing everything in my power not to reflexively drop it.
Was this thing alive? Was I feeling something from the Geneshan god that the artifact resembled?
The first question I could hypothesize on later. The second increased my stubbornness to new levels. I hated the idea of the Turine gods and goddesses, and our gods were nowhere near as awful as the Geneshan god. If this was my chance to finally face a deity, then I was not going down easily. Instead of letting the artifact go, I clenched my hands tighter, bending over myself and pulling the wood close to my body so that I wrapped myself around it.
The wind lessened again.
The artifact seemed to fight back again as if alive.
Inconceivably, I bore down harder.
This struggle continued for what seemed like an eternity, all the while I endured more pain than I ever had. A mental image of my kids is what drove me not to give into the pain and let go.
Even still, I’m only a man. Even my stubbornness has a breaking point. The artifact must have sensed me tiring for it pushed harder. It was almost too much for me. I began to weaken.
Then a hand fell on my shoulder. I didn’t look to the hand lest I break my concentration, but I knew even before he spoke whose hand it was.
Tiredly, Hamath rasped. “I’m with you, Tyrus.”
Hamath had almost died with his initial attempt at stopping the artifact by touching Amasa, and though I had a stronger resistance, I could not stop the artifact’s power either. Together though, we seemed to have just enough strength to battle its efforts.
Almost as if the thing was truly sentient and sensing its demise, the artifact gave off one more blast of cold that ran through my bones. Hamath must have felt the same for he gasped for air. But neither of us let go. I held the wood tight, and Hamath squeezed me tighter.
That last effort must
have been all the artifact had left in it for after that rallying surge, the power it once held embedded inside leaked steadily away.
Geneshan words ran into my mind then, words that promised revenge, that promised pain and suffering. I actually managed a laugh as those repeated themselves over and over. The Geneshan god, or the life within the artifact, or whoever owned those words didn’t understand that pain and suffering were old friends to me.
Promises of more would not break me.
CHAPTER 42
The Geneshans attacked them with everything they had.
A couple hundred of the enemy’s infantry came into view at the bottom of the low mountain, leaving the dead forest they had organized in behind. Immediately, Ava saw the fruits of Myra’s earlier plans. The time their group had spent pushing rocks and repositioning felled trees on the slope leading to the cave mouth created a narrow path that allowed for only two Geneshans to come through at a time. That helped alleviate some of the advantage the enemy had in numbers.
The Geneshans did not arm their infantry with spears which also hindered their efforts at pushing through. The path Myra constructed limited the ability of someone wanting to swing a sword, meaning the Geneshans would need to get very close to their group to attack.
Ava’s small force had no qualms against using spears though, and therefore held a big advantage in reach with their weapons.
Ava found herself grinning as she watched the first Geneshans fall under the quick, stabs of her group defending the path. She was proud watching them maintain discipline and not falter under the pressure of so many of the enemy in front of them. She almost chuckled as the Geneshans at the front not only tried to protect themselves from the spear thrusts, but also pushed against the press of their own men. Those at the back of the enemy couldn’t understand what was causing their delay in advancing while those at the front had no desire to sacrifice themselves in order for the surge of so many to overtake the defenders.
Resurrected Soldiers: The Tyrus Chronicle - Book Three Page 37