by Pedro Urvi
“Very well,” said Gerart. “In that case we’d better block the damaged stretches so that they can’t come in and attack our rearguard. Gudin, your Norriel must make a barrier at the gate and the ruined eastern section. I’ll do the same with my men at the western part.”
Gudin nodded. “I’ll defend the gate myself.”
“Thank you, Gudin, and good luck.” Gerart said. He offered his hand to the Master Warrior, who shook it firmly. “They won’t pass,” he said. With a nod to Komir, Gudin took half his five thousand men and formed them into three compact lines, sealing the entrance. The other half he sent to seal the eastern wall. Hartz turned to Komir.
“I’m going with them. My Norriel brothers will need my sword.”
Komir hesitated, not wanting to be parted from Hartz. Kayti came to stand beside the giant. “I’ll protect him, don’t worry,” she said.
“If you encounter any enemy magic,” Haradin said, “sound the horn and I’ll come to help you.”
Komir patted his friend’s shoulder. “All right, go. Don’t let them pass.”
“Let’s go and crush some skulls!” shouted Hartz, and ran after his countrymen, with Kayti behind him.
Komir shook his head, Hartz was incorrigible, even in the worst and most desperate of situations. And that was why he loved the big guy.
Gerart saw them leave and looked up at the blue sky. “A good day to defend the homeland,” he said.
Haradin too looked up. “Yes, your Highness. Today we’ll show the world what honor and true heroic worth really mean.”
“Good luck!” Gerart said to Haradin.
“Remember, the people need their King alive.”
“I’ll try not to forget.”
“Are you carrying the horn?”
Kendas stepped up and patted the object that hung at his waist. “I have it,” he said. “Don’t worry, Haradin.”
The Prince went across to the Bearers. “Thank you all for your courage. The King of Rogdon and his people will never forget it.”
“Thank you, your Highness,” Aliana said with a bow of respect.
Gerart saluted them with a light bow and left with Kendas and the two thousand Rogdonian soldiers. All the defenders took up their posts. Stoically they awaited the onslaught of the black tide and its fifty thousand men.
The first wave came with the sun shining high above, and crashed against the barrier of the defenders. The Norriel remained firm, dealing death to the men of the Black Army. Their round wooden shields stopped the enemy onslaught and their swords, forged in the highlands, shed the outlanders’ blood on Rogdonian soil. The roars of the wild Norriel muffled the din of the battle and the moans of the slant-eyed men as they fell and died.
“Stay firm!” Haradin shouted over the noise of the combat from where he was standing on top of the gate, the three lines of defenders beneath him. Beside him the five Bearers waited, watching warily.
Komir watched his people holding the line, fighting like true giants, roaring like enraged bears, managing to slow down the advance of the thousands of soldiers in dark armor who were trying to sweep them away. But the Norriel fought as if they were the sons of the God of War himself. The slant-eyed soldiers fell dead at the feet of those demigods of the battle, hacked by the steel of the highlands.
“Stand fast! Don’t let them in!” Haradin shouted to the heroic defenders.
The black tide crashed against the wall and the three groups blocking their way in. So sure were they of their superiority that they went straight to destroy the three weak points of the wall, where the defenders fought like men possessed.
Under the gate, in the center of the line, Komir made out Master Gudin dealing death with astonishing ease. He wanted to go and help him, and made an involuntary move which Haradin immediately noticed.
“No Komir. Your place is up here, on top of the wall, not down there. Put away your sword. Now it’s time to use the destructive power of magic.”
The great Battle Mage concentrated, closing his eyes, and cast a spell with his staff raised above his head. Before him stretched the black tide.
“May the fire of a lava lake consume you all!” he commanded.
Some hundred paces away, in the midst of the attacking hosts, a lake of incandescent magma began to form under the feet of the enemy. Horror broke out among the hundreds of unfortunates whose bodies began to sink into the lava, burning without any means of escape, screaming in agony.
“Aliana, you must concentrate. Using your Gift, order the medallion to emulate the spell I’ve just cast.”
“I don’t know if I can do that, Haradin…”
“Try. Order the medallion to follow your intention.”
Aliana closed her eyes and held the medallion in both hands. For a long, tense moment nothing happened. Komir and the other Bearers eyed her uneasily. Suddenly a flash of intense brown shot out of the medallion. There came a loud crack beside the lava lake, as if a mighty boulder had broken and fallen down a mountainside. The ground began to shake and crack under the feet of the enemy soldiers like the epicenter of an earthquake. Giant crevices opened in the unstable terrain, and the enemy soldiers fell into them with screams of horror.
Haradin watched the scene. His face showed restrained satisfaction.
“Very good, Aliana. Keep up the spell, don’t let it die out.” He turned to the other Bearers. “Now it’s your turn to try. Focus on a point in the middle of the enemy tide and conjure through your medallion. As Aliana has just managed to do it, it’s possible. You’ll manage it. Now. Go ahead.”
Iruki imitated Aliana at once without wasting any time, led by her wild spirit, but Asti and Sonea were left looking perplexed.
“If she’s done it, I’ll do it too,” Iruki cried fiercely. “Death to the invader!”
Sonea and Asti exchanged downcast glances and tried to imitate Aliana, but judging by their unsure expressions it did not seem that they would manage it. Suddenly a blue flash shot from the medallion around Iruki’s neck. The Masig had managed to cast a spell. Komir looked up and saw a huge lake of blue water forming under the feet of the attackers. She’s going to drown them, he thought. But to his surprise the lake suddenly began to freeze, so that the hundreds of men who had fallen in it and were swimming for their lives froze. In a few moments all the enemies inside the lake had become statues of ice.
“Wonderful!” said Haradin, who was expanding his spell to cover more land and incinerate more enemies with his extraordinary power.
Komir looked at his own Ether Medallion. What type of spell could he create, if any? He did not know, but he was going to try. He had to help his comrades, he had to create chaos, death and destruction in the enemy ranks. He closed his eyes and concentrated, then searched for his inner pool of energy and activated it. He clasped the medallion with both hands. I command you to create a lake of death and despair among the enemy. Let their souls lose their way and never return. Strange Ilenian symbols filled his mind, and Komir knew the medallion was casting a spell. He felt it draw on his inner energy in order to create that spell. He felt it envelop him and shoot out from him. He opened his eyes and searched the enemy hosts for the spell he had created.
Some way beyond Haradin’s Lava Lake an arcane swamp began to form, and a thick fog rose from it, covering a large area. It did not look either lethal or destructive. Komir went on watching the swamp and the mysterious fog and realized to his amazement that the soldiers who entered it did not come out again. Their bodies became ethereal, their souls were lost, unable to return to the world of the living.
It works! I did it! Full of enthusiasm, he concentrated again, trying to make the medallion strengthen the spell.
Haradin was shouting at the defenders: “Keep holding fast! Don’t let them break our lines, or else we’re lost! Bearers, death to the enemy! Don’t give up, we still have a chance, fight! Fight for what you love!” As he shouted, he fixed his gaze on the five, infusing their young hearts with courage and hope.
Now that the situation was turning against them the enemy army began to maneuver to assault the wall, while trying to avoid the areas where the spells were operating. Ladders and hooks made their appearance over the battered parapets.
“They’re going to climb the wall!” Komir warned.
“Damnation!” cried Haradin.
“What do we do?”
“You keep up the spells,” Haradin said. “We have to keep attacking them so they don’t reach the wall. I have an idea. I don’t know if it’ll work, but it’s worth trying. Sonea, Asti. Your hands, quickly.”
“But… we haven’t even been able to conjure…” Sonea said. She was trying to understand the Mage’s intentions.
He spread his arms wide. “I know, don’t worry.”
Sonea and Asti took hold of his hands.
“Close your eyes and concentrate.” Haradin closed his too, and the three fell into a trance. The Mage intoned strange words, like a chant.
“The bastards are climbing!” Iruki cried.
Haradin ended his chant. Suddenly Sonea’s medallion gave off a flash, followed by another from Asti’s. Haradin raised their joined hands to the sky and went on chanting as a luminescent aura enveloped them.
Komir knew the situation was turning critical. Hundreds of soldiers in black began to appear over the parapet. He tried to cast a spell over a group nearby, but as he had no other spell to use as a reference, he failed. Not only that, but the spell he had cast over the battlefield began to wane.
“By the three goddesses!” he roared in frustration. He concentrated again on the arcane swamp he had created and expanded it using the power of his medallion.
Haradin finished the spell. The three of them were surrounded by an aura of power which shone with blinding force. Haradin let go of the girls’ hands. He spread his arms wide, taking in the wall on both sides of the gate. In a dark voice he spoke words of power.
There was an explosion: the energy which surrounded Haradin was launched along the parapets of the wall, following the direction of his outstretched arms. As it ran along the wall the energy turned to liquid, as if Haradin were watering the top of the wall.
“What’s the Mage doing?” Iruki said. “We’re not going to stop them like that!”
“Be patient,” Aliana said. “Haradin knows what he’s doing,”
Komir watched, not understanding, but hoping the Healer was right.
And once again, so she was.
With a last great utterance of power, Haradin brought his arms down. As he did so, the whole top of the upper wall began to burn intensely. The enemy soldiers on the parapets were instantly consumed by fire. The soldiers who reached the top of the wall encountered a nightmare of flames. Fleeing the fire, they hurled themselves back onto their own troops, or else tried to cross the flames only to fall inside the city as blackened corpses. Cries of pain rose to the heavens like agonized prayers which the deaf gods failed to answer.
“That will keep them back for now,” said Haradin. His face showed signs of exhaustion.
“How did you do it?” Sonea asked. “There’s an unimaginable power and reach to that spell… Was it the medallions?”
“It was,” Haradin said as he retrieved his staff. “My power doesn’t allow me to create a spell as powerful as that, but the strength of the medallion does. That’s what I’ve done: I used their power and acted as a channel. Risky, as it might have consumed me, but it worked.”
“In desperate situations,” Sonea said, “you need desperate ideas.” She smiled.
Haradin smiled faintly. “That spell won’t hold forever, so we need to concentrate and wreak the greatest possible havoc among their ranks. Come on, Bearers! Death to the enemy! They must not pass!”
Isuzeni eyed the battlefield with growing unrest. Things were not going according to the strategy he had worked out. He had planned everything down to the smallest detail with the utmost care, spending hundreds of hours tying up loose ends, analyzing every detail in his exceptional mind, as he always did. The Marked had not surrendered, and the damned resistance of those highland barbarians was exceptional. More than that, it was unheard-of. A bunch of half-savage warriors and the last Rogdonians had managed to stop the advance of fifty thousand experienced and perfectly-led soldiers. The Empress’ seven armies were held immobile on the battlefield, unable to move forward. And now, to add insult to injury, the enemy Battle Mage was causing real damage among his troops with his devastating spells.
“Have you located them?” he asked Narmos, his loyal acolyte and priest of the Order of Imork.
“Yes, Master. They are above the gate: the Great Battle Mage and at least three other powerful Mages, my Lord.”
“As I thought. It’s not feasible for a single Mage to cast and maintain spells like that over such a wide area all by himself, no matter how powerful he might be. He’s being helped. This is a serious setback, unexpected and worrying.”
“The battlements are on fire,” Narmos pointed out. “We will not be able to climb them.”
Isuzeni half-closed his eyes and clasped his hands behind him. The sight of the wall crowned with flames was disastrous as far as his own interests were concerned. The troops would not be able to attack. He shook his head. This spell was immensely powerful, more so than any of his own. How could he have foreseen anything like this? How could those Mages have created a spell like that?
“Fate has a tendency to deal us bad hands when we are near our goals…” he said, seeing his army trapped in front of the wall. “Those Mages could never have created a spell on that scale. It has to be connected in some way with the medallions the Dark Lady has seen in her visions of the Skull of Destiny. Yes, that would explain it… that has to be the reason. The medallions…”
Cenem came up to his master. “The Generals have already given orders to surround the wall and find a way in,” he said.
Isuzeni was lost in thought. “We have to eliminate the Mages before they decimate our army completely. It’s time to fight magic with magic.”
Both acolytes nodded silently.
“What else have you found out? I need to have all the information available if I’m to decide on a course of action.”
Cenem showed the skull with its ruby eyes and brandished the silver axe. “The Prince-King of the Rogdonians is fighting at the breach in the western wall. With his leadership he’s preventing the army from breaking their way in.”
Isuzeni listened to his minion with the greatest interest.
Narmos imitated Cenem’s gesture. With the axe in one hand and the skull in the other, he said: “Master, I managed to locate her. The White Soul is fighting on the other flank, blocking the eastern entrance.”
Isuzeni smiled. His spirits lifted at the news.
“Excellent. Now we know where they are, which pleases me. It will grant us a strategic advantage denied to our enemies. It is a crucial advantage to know where the key figures are in the battlefield. It will tilt the game in my favor. We shall kill the Prince-King and the White Soul at the flanks. You will take care of that. As for the Mages in the middle section, I shall kill them personally. The Marked is bound to be among them. Not one of them must remain alive. None!”
“It shall be done as you say,” both acolytes said with a bow.
Isuzeni put his hand on his chin and said thoughtfully:
“Do not run any risks. Take reinforcements; you will need support.”
Trouble
The battle was turning ever more brutal and ruthless, but the Norriel were holding their ground. The enemy had not been able to breach the barrier they formed and enter through the half-destroyed gate. His fellow-countrymen filled Komir’s heart with pride. Suddenly he felt an odd sensation, like an intense pang of nervousness, and lost his concentration.
“Something’s wrong,” he said. At the same moment, his defensive sphere surrounded him with its magic.
He saw that all his companions, even Asti and Sonea, who had not been abl
e to cast any spell, had their spheres up. He breathed out in relief and saw that Haradin was raising his own.
“The medallions are warning us that enemy magic is being conjured,” Komir said to Haradin.
“Yes, my instinct tells me the same thing. Very powerful magic: Black Magic, Magic of Death. I feel it close, too close… But I can’t pinpoint where it’s coming from. Whoever is using it is very cunningly hiding his power.”
They scanned the enemy hosts, trying to identify some gleam, some anomaly that would reveal the enemy Sorcerer.
“Haradin!” Aliana suddenly shouted in terror.
A sinister blackness, like a specter of death, started to engulf the Mage. It enveloped his whole protective sphere, trying to devour the essence of the life it was protecting. Haradin fell to his knees.
“Get away from me!” he warned the others.
“How can we help you? Tell us, Haradin!” Aliana cried.
“No… you can’t…” the Mage replied with a great effort. “I must… counterattack his magic… strengthen my shield… repel the death spell...”
The specter of death expanded around Haradin, and the others took a step back to keep it from touching them. The Mage grunted, struggling to break it down, but did not appear to be winning. The enemy Sorcerer must be one of great power.
Komir craned his neck to see if he could locate the Sorcerer in the midst of the enemy hosts so that he could try to finish him off and free Haradin. He could see nothing but a sea of black dotted with blood-red, an ocean of horror which was on its way to engulf them.
Haradin screamed.
He was in deep trouble. And if the Mage fell, so would they all.
The shrill sound of a horn sounding the alarm rang out in the East.
Komir turned toward the origin of the call, even though he could not see what was going on. “It’s Hartz! Enemy magic!” he cried.
He searched for Haradin, but the Mage could not help him. The horn rang out again.
“I have to help Hartz!” Without thinking twice, he leapt off the gate and broke into a run. The big guy’s in deep trouble. I must help him!