Roars of War: The War for the North: Book Two

by Sean Rodden

  Nevertheless, the flow was slowed, stopped.

  The Singers set more missiles to their strings, drew back and took aim. But the laval sludge remained still and static, save its incessant bubbling and belching and retching. The reek of wrongness coalesced into a pale pink cloud and floated across the stone floor. A wave of nausea assaulted the Fiannar. Bitterness bit their tongues, bile rose from their bellies. A few tried to spit the foul flavour away, but found that their mouths were dry, their throats scorched and parched.

  The ground groaned.

  “Save your songs, my sisters!” called Lady Cerriste, her voice hoarse and harsh, yet steadfast, earnest. She thrust the cloud away with a contemptuous sweep of her staff. “Let our steel speak for us now. For despite our best efforts the enemy comes, and the sole song we can offer them is the silent dirge of death. And whether that dirge is sung in their honour or our own, only our swords and spears and the Teller can say!”

  And then masses of massive dwar-Durka arose from the flow. Hundreds of the barbarous beasts dripping with foul power, infused with outrage, imbued by abomination. Each and every one of them savagely aglow in the crimson corruption of urthvennim. And behind them, charging across the surface of the rapidly solidifying stone, thousands of their brethren roaring for slaughter.

  The Lady of the Fiannar crossed her weapons before her.

  Yes, save your songs, my sisters. Bright white light flared within the painted black outlines of her angry eyes. And then save your souls.

  Somewhere behind the wall of locked shields, a baby cried.

  “The shield wall bends! The centre holds well enough, but the enemy threatens to penetrate the left flank, and the right buckles toward breaking! Should one or both fail, and should the Lady not pull back, she will soon be encircled. And then there will be no one and nothing to prevent the enemy from assailing the chil… ah, the reserve.”

  The Shield Maiden stared into the seething maelstrom of battle. Sprays of blood and the unholy gleam of urthvennim stained the air a putrefying pink, and within that hellish haze the women of the Fiannar fought ferociously. Swords slid and slit. Spears sailed and impaled. Shields rang and bows sang. Where the line did not waver, Deathward warriors battled side by side, shoulder to shoulder, standing strong and sure; where the formation had faltered, they battled back to back, or separated and alone, and died in forlorn heaps. Ground was lost, ground was gained, shining blades rose and foes fell. Screams of rage and shrieks of pain tore at the tortured morn and into the hearts of those who were forced to watch.

  “I am not blind, Chelyse,” the Shield Maiden grated through tight teeth. Her dark hair was pulled back from her brow and tied into a trio of war braids. The sapphire specks in her irises blazed like blue stars against the pink pall and the yellow-grey haze of morning, giving her gaze a menacing green sheen. “Our Lady would be better served with swords than with words, Watcher. Return to her now. Your place is there, at her side.”

  The young warder of the Green Watch ran a hand through a mess of red tresses. She opened her mouth, then closed it. Opened it again.

  “The Lady sent me to you, Shield Maiden. To her son. She said my sword would be of better service to her here.”

  Caelle grimaced inwardly, though her visage remained immobile and marmoreal. Very well, Watcher. But you are just another soul that I must desert and discard in due course. The swaddled bundle that was nestled between her thighs moved a little, and a quiet burbling sound sifted up to her through the fine hogget wool. And the time will come when I must abandon you all.

  “I am only one sword, Shield Maiden,” continued Chelyse, “but a single sword can make all the difference in the world.”

  Caelle sat astride her mirarran directly beneath the soaring Glass Gate of Allaura. The infant Lordling was snuggled in slumber before her. To either side of her were mounted half a dozen warriors of the Green Watch, and on the wings beyond those grave-faced women were the oldest and most capable children of the Fiannar, none of whom had seen their twenty-first summer. And behind this frail and fragile line were gathered the young ones, hundreds of toddlers, tykes and adolescents, all eerily calm, bearing silent and sombre witness.

  Watching their mothers and sisters die.

  “I do not disparage your skill, Chelyse, not now, not ever – but I cannot see how a single sword will make much difference.”

  “What about one sword and two war-axes, Shield Maiden?” intruded a gruff gravelly voice. “I was having my way with the bald bastards, but your Lady insisted that I join you. I doubt you’ll be surprised to hear that she can be rather persuasive.”

  Caelle glanced down upon the bulky form of Mundar. The Darad was drenched in Dwark blood. Gore whirled from his weapons as they spun in his hands. His beard was parted in the impression of a smile, and a sound like a chuckle came from his chest, but the only humour in his eyes was bitter and black.

  I will abandon you as well, friend Mundar. Yes, I will abandon you all… all save Aranion.

  “No worries, Shield Maiden,” the Stone Lord rumbled, as though he had heard her very thoughts and did not consider them appalling. “I know what you must do. So does the lass here. And she and I have come to help you get it done.”

  The Shield Maiden nodded, then peered back into the bedlam of battle. Her hand tightened about the grip of her sword. Under her, the mirarran snorted, huffed into the morn, hoofed at the stone. Readying to run.

  “They will be overrun, Chancellor.” There was a melancholy underlying the martial calm of the First Knight’s words. A melancholy and a horror. “We cannot permit this. We must open the Glass Gate.”

  Atop the lofty battlements of Allaura a score of Sun Knights and the Prime Consul to the Athain King bore witness to the ebb and flow of the terrible struggle betiding below them. Most of the Neverborn were solemn and grave of mien, though some seemed more sombre than others. And one significantly less.

  Ingallin sighed, loudly and at some length.

  “As I have explained, Lalindel, repeatedly and in great detail – we cannot open the Glass Gate.” The Prime Consul brushed a shock of winter-white hair from his long high brow, painstakingly tucking the wayward tress beneath an elaborate clasp of gold. A cornucopia of gems sparkled as he lowered his hand. “The Laws of Gavrayel strictly forbid it. The Gate is to remain shut to any and all who might approach the sanctuary with enemies upon their heels. The sanctity of Allaura cannot, must not, be risked. Not for any reason. Not ever.”

  “A house that refuses asylum to those who seek it is no sanctuary, Chancellor, and can claim no similitude of sanctity.”

  Ingallin scowled, his white gaze darkening.

  “The King’s Law is the King’s Law, Lalindel. I will debate neither the rightness nor the righteousness of it. And I will not have Gavrayel’s will questioned.”

  “I do not question Gavrayel’s will, Chancellor.” Subliminal to the First Knight’s words were others left unspoken: I question your own. “I know only too well what the King would will.”

  “You question his Law then?” Ingallin smoothed away an imagined crease in his gleaming vestment, then laced his fine fingers before him. “Without law, chaos would reign. Without law, there can be no justice.”

  Lalindel peered down from the battlements above the Glass Gate. There, upon the killing ground of the gorge, the women of the Fiannar fought furiously, heroically. Beautifully. But beauty in its rawest, most primal form abides in both glory and tragedy, and oft are the twain intimately intertwined, like star-crossed lovers locked in one last desperate and deadly embrace. And far too frequently does this same beauty foster the bitterest pain, and there was pain in plenty dampening the First Knight’s lavender eyes.

  “Chaos reigns already, Chancellor,” said Lalindel levelly. “Justice should not serve the Law. Rather, the Law should serve justice. And there is nothing just in this.”

  “Know your place, Lalindel.” Beneath the velvet of Ingallin’s tone was a blade of rusted iron. “You
may be First Knight of the Sun, but you are a Sun Knight nonetheless and neverthemore, not a Sun Lord.”

  Lalindel forced the fury from his voice as he watched the right wing of the Fiannian formation begin to crumble.

  “Of that, Chancellor, I am all too aware.”

  The Lady of the Fiannar fought as though she was possessed by the spirit and of the strength of Cothra. And indeed, the holy Hiath of War was with her, was in her. In her heart and in her soul. In the tireless grace with which she dealt cold uncaring death. In her rage against a world gone wrong, against all the wrong in the world. Her whitewood staff and the Seer’s shining spear whirled about her, striking, deflecting, thrusting. Slaying. One after one, her opponents before her fell, battered and run through and awash in blood. Now and then, the Lady’s voice would soar in song, and a blast of power would pulverize the swarming horde of dwar-Durka. Ground that had been lost was regained, lines that had been torn to shreds were reformed. Foes were killed, holes were filled, souls were lifted. Resilience and resolve were revitalized, reinforced. Wounded women rose, weapons in hand, shrugging their agonies away. And upon the hard steel of those weary yet wrathful warriors, the Dwarks died in droves – and the dwar-Durka that did not die came to know dread and doubt and darkest regret. For the most ferocious adversary in all the Three Worlds was a trapped and injured mother defending the lives of her children.

  Nevertheless –

  “My Lady! The right flank is broken! The enemy has punched through and begins to assail the reserve!” Unspoken but understood: The children. “We must fall back and seal the gap before this trickle becomes a flood!”

  Cerriste jerked the Seer’s spear free of a dwar-Durk’s torn throat. Her staff whirled and came down upon an urthvennim-empowered oppugnant with an explosion of energy. White fire negated red. Blood spurted in black founts like jets of oil bursting from the earth.

  “Go, Watchcaptain! Lead our folk! Fall back and reform!” She wiped sweat from her eyes, smearing the war grease over her cheeks. “I will hold the foe for a time. May the Teller tell it in his Tale that I do so long enough.”

  “Long enough, Lady?”

  Cerriste stared straight ahead, and in her Eyes of Doom was a gleaming, a gleaning of what could only have been hope.

  “It is in my heart and in my soul that our friends have learned what happens here this morning. Forsooth, foul tidings are the fleetest of words.”

  “Lady, you are weary. You risk – ”

  “I risk nothing, Watchcaptain. Delay no longer. Do as I say.”

  Emanthe fisted her rillagh, spattering blood that was not her own. She called commands to the Signallers behind her. Coloured flags flew. Quickly and effectively, the gap in the right wing was closed. And as one, the entire Fiannian formation locked shields once more and executed an orderly retreat.

  As one… save one.

  The Lady of the Deathward threw wide her arms and lifted her voice in a shrill ear-shredding shriek. Pure Light burst from her, bright and white, a shining wall of power stretching both left and right to the colossal cliffs of the canyon. All the dwar-Durka caught in the burning energy barrier were instantly ignited and somewhat more gradually consumed, wriggling and writhing and withering away in the wall of white fire, their death throes the most explicit and exquisite expression of excruciating agony. On the far side of the barrier the Dwarks bellowed and howled, sounding so much more like beasts at bay than predators robbed of their prey.

  And all the while the Lady sang, for her screech was a song of primal rage, of revulsion and repulsion. Of arrant refusal. A solitary scream in the wilderness, at once a rejection of oppression, a statement of solidarity, and a covenant of exceptional endurance. A promise and a threat. A rebel yell against tyranny, opposing disorder and injustice. A roar of reason in a world gone horribly mad. But as the wall of flame flickered, flared and fell away, the last sharp rasps of her shredded throat sounded like little more than a whimpered cry for help.

  But there was no help to be had. Not there. Not then.

  The Lady of the Fiannar stumbled, her shoulders sagged. Her chin dropped to her chest. She leaned heavily upon both staff and spear, remaining upright by sheer force of will alone. The night and the flight had been long. The fight had seemed exponentially longer. She was exhausted. And she could sing no more.

  A sound came to her, muffled and distorted, as though her ears were filled with water. However, it was not water that hindered her hearing so, but blood. Her blood. And the sound, she realized, was a frantic chorus of shouted warnings and calls of alarm.

  Wearily, Cerriste raised her head.

  Directly before her, no more than five feet away, stood the Drone.

  To the west, on the right flank of the reserve, the Dwarks that had broken through the Fiannian lines were met by Noldarion, Heir to the House of Cilcannan, and a number of older youths. The combat there was fierce and vicious – skill, speed and raw courage versus cruel rage and brute force – and the first of the Fiannian children were brought down beneath a barrage of chopping khurlur. One, two, three were slain, a pair of strapping boys and a slender blonde girl, none of whom had seen more than seventeen summers, all of whom were hacked beyond any possible recognition. But Noldarion stood his ground and neither wavered nor faltered, and bold Deathward youngsters rallied to him. Upon his command, the children broke ranks and swarmed the dwar-Durka, thrusting and stabbing, slicing and slashing, and when they were done fourteen of the creatures lay dead to but a further four of their own. Noldarion threw back his head and roared like an angry bullock, and in that cry was fury and loss and desperate defiance, both triumph and tragedy, and an inviolable vow of vengeance. Above the lad, the Raging Bull snapped in the face of the dead god.

  Caelle watched as the Drone cut her Lady down.

  She saw the whitewood staff splinter. She saw the Seer’s spear knocked aside and kicked away. She saw a fusillade of missiles bounce uselessly away. She saw the wicked khurl rise and fall. She saw blood spatter and steaming entrails spill upon the stony ground. She saw the horde of dwar-Durka surge and charge the re-established formation of Fiannian women, as the Drone remained behind, maniacally chopping Cerriste’s corpse to pieces. She saw and shed no tears. Her face betrayed no emotion whatsoever. Her eyes were as chips of ice, cold and hard and bright. Within her breast, the beat of her heart was slow, steady. The hand upon her sword’s pommel was still. But beneath her small silver shield the skin of her forearm burned.

  Unbind me, sister.

  The Shield Maiden heard the voice in her head, in her heart, in the wilds of her warrior spirit. Nevertheless, she heeded it not, dismissing the insistent vociferation as delusion, delirium. Sarrane was dead, and could to speak to her no more than ashes might discourse with wind. A lone bereavement may make a raving madwoman of the sanest soul, she knew, and her own losses had been many and grievous. That she heard the ghostly voice of her slain friend was neither surprising nor alarming.

  A babbling sound came to her, and she looked down into the wide round eyes of Aranion. She wondered if the babe had somehow sensed his mother’s death. But the infant’s grey gaze was unreadable, inscrutable, as it met and held her own. Strangely, the Shield Maiden felt a certain steel straighten her spine and stiffen her sinew, and a surge of strength suffused her soul. She gasped inwardly and stared at the babe. But when the Lordling only sighed and shut his eyes again, she thought no more on it and looked away.

  The throng of dwar-Durka fell upon the frontline once again, and the fight there did not favour the Fiannar. Yes, the Dwarks were dying in greater numbers than were the Deathward defenders, but the fiends also far outnumbered their valiant foes. And as the Drone held not the least regard for the lives of his savage spawn, he did dot care how many were slain, how many were slaughtered, as long as the Fiannar were destroyed. All the Fiannar, regardless of gender or age. Eradicated. Obliterated. Forever.

  Amid a cacophony of crashing arms, shattered songs, poisonous pulses of urt
hvennim and howls of dreadful dismay, the left wing of the Deathward formation buckled, bending badly backward. Many brave Fiannian women fell, fighting unto and often beyond their last bitter breath. When the breach came, Caelle comprehended all too clearly, it would be there. On the left flank.

  The Shield Maiden pressed her heel and calf upon her mirarran’s own left side. The splendid steed nickered, turned and started walking. Wordlessly, Watcher Chelyse followed upon her own steed. A dozen other mounted warders of the Green Watch and Mundar of Dul-darad moved with them. To the right. Away from the pending breach. Leaving behind the women and children and mirarra on the left. Forsaking them. Abandoning them.

  Release me, sister.

  Caelle ignored the voice. She pretended she had not heard it. And realistically, she could not possibly have heard it. Her friend was dead. Dead and burned. Nothing more than ashes and dust now. The voice in her head, in her heart – wherever – was not real. She perceived this. She believed this.

  She had not gone completely mad. Not yet.

  Soon, perhaps, but not yet.

  Chasing a frown from her face, the Shield Maiden halted her mirarran in front of a strongly built boy on the right wing of the reserve. Despite the northern morning chill, the lad was perspiring profusely. His breath bounded from his breast in billowing white clouds – not for weariness, however, but in excitement, in exhilaration.

  The youth grinned, grave and brave, and punched his rillagh.

  “Hail, Shield Maiden!”

  Caelle regarded the lad for a moment. He was sullied and bloodied, but remained free of injury. There was an aura about him, radiant and powerful. His eyes shone with the ardent after-lust of battle. His unwhiskered face verily glowed in enthusiasm, in fervour. He bore himself with the concrete confidence of one who until quite recently had doubted himself, but did so no longer. Indeed, the deaths of a few dwar-Durka had changed him. Utterly and irrevocably. For the Heir to the House of Cilcannan had come to Allaura a churlish child. And there he had become a warrior.