Rise of the Fallen

by Robert Stanek

  “Kurhren da’mer se nurrem var ma’hddri,” his soldiers shouted out in reply.

  Ten leagues distant from the walls of the eternal city the fight began. His armies clashed with the vanguard of the Drakón defenders. “Estygin ma’hn var der’x gher,” he commanded. His commanders relayed the order. His armies dug in.

  By the time pre-dawn twilight began to reveal the landscape, trenches extended back to the mountains and stretched in every direction across the valley as far as the eye could see—every direction except ahead, because in that direction lay the great city with its ten leagues of rank-and-file defenders.

  The dance of war was constant. Thousand-member lines of defenders marched on his trenches; the armies clashed. His soldiers poured out of the trenches; the armies clashed. Through it all, Nük T’nyr’s soldiers greeted the defenders with laughter—laughter that boomed and echoed to the mountains and through the valley to show their scorn as they fought the slave armies of a hundred enslaved worlds.

  As the sky cracked and lightning fell through, Nük T’nyr turned his eyes to the heavens and cried out, “Kurhri da’m te trerrin sur umdeh’n,” and his armies prepared for death to rain down upon them. Death came in the form of the Drakón—a thousand score Drakón, breathing so much fire and death that the air tasted of brimstone, smoke, and copper, and the trenches ran with blood.

  The survivors—and there were many tens of thousands—rose up, riding waves of will and force and attacking with the full ferocity of the Jurin peoples. Fhurjurin retaliated with earth and rock. Empyrjurin purged the skies with living flame. Styrjurin raged with lightning and storm. Monsjurin and Hylljurin turned their war machines away from the lines and to the skies.

  The defenders surged ahead, moving into the forward trenches. Time slowed, as it often did for Nük T’nyr in battle. He could feel the sacred eum flow to his blade, feeding the living flames, as he cut a wide swath through a line of defenders. At his side, his hand-selected Slaedwa, clad in crimson, fought.

  He called out in tribute to a fallen comrade, “Kurhri se mo’rren sur Ghul Rwern.” His voice roared above the din of war. For many long beats, it seemed the fallen general fought beside him, lending strength to his cause and blade. He did not mourn Ghul Rwern. Empyrjurin did not mourn righteous passing. They celebrated it in word and deed.

  Cutting his way through a line of scaly Gnogish pikers, he found himself facing lines of goblin charioteers and dragon soldiers. The goblin charioteers were accompanied by packs of dogs. The soldiers riding the wingless dragons wore thick plated mail, wielded great double-bladed swords, and defended with triangular shields with long curved spikes on each corner and on the faces of the shields. The dragons, a smaller, witless race of their distant cousins, raced on two legs, attacking with their shorter forelegs while breathing fey fire.

  Kha’el D’erth hadn’t yet noticed these new adversaries, for the general was commanding the catapult squads and focused on the far lines and the skies, but Praefect L’kohn was facing the oncoming forces. His face was slowly transforming from annoyance to fury, for the targets of the goblin charioteers and dragon soldiers were the machines of war, not the Jurin lines or the Scarabaeid. Their attacks, at right angles to the catapults and ballistae, in preparation for the strike known as the pincer, aimed at breaking the Jurin defenses and making wreckage of their wooden support platforms.

  In a long, slow moment of calculation, Nük T’nyr considered the possibilities. Praefect L’kohn and his Scarabaeid could not turn their focus away from feeding and guiding the machines of war. If they did, the enemy’s deep ranks would reform and come crashing at them. If the attackers continued without pause, he would never stop them, for he could only reach the left flank and not the right flank.

  The goblin charioteers and dragon soldiers did not pause, but their steeds did, seeing Nük T’nyr and his Slaedwa bearing down so fast. A brief hesitation, less than a pairing of heartbeats, but it was enough.

  Nük T’nyr and his Slaedwa crashed into the dragon soldiers, striking from the side with such force that it carried them through the ranks to the far flank of the pincer, where they met the incoming charioteers. For this, Nük T’nyr’s blows flew with fury while he defended against dogs with boot and shield. The forces met with the sound of mountains being rent and sundered.

  Then there was a tangle of bodies and a haze of blood fury. He did not know how long the intense fighting lasted, but it seemed an eve, because the sky overhead sank to darkness and then back to light.

  He emerged from this driven state to find his battle sword was no longer in his hand. In its place was his shield, which he used to crush, maim and kill, but even this rose and fell with decreasing fury as he found himself with fewer and fewer foes to counter.

  Felling the last rider in a bloody field, he took in a few even breaths. He did not know how long he stood there, taking account of himself, but it could not have been long, because behind him the catapults were just releasing another volley and before him the next small rise brimmed with enemy.

  His sword, by good chance, rested with its point buried in a great Drakón some ten strides away. Less fortunately, it lay in the direction of the oncoming lines.

  He weighed the odds of getting to the sword before he was overrun. Somehow, inexplicably, Kha’el D’erth was at his side, handing him a flask. He took the liquid fire gladly and drank deeply as the two worked their way forward.

  “Glory waits for us,” he said, his eyes on the sleek, ebony walls of the eternal city some eight leagues distant.

  “She does indeed,” Kha’el D’erth replied as he retrieved his king’s sword from the lifeless Drakón.

  Neither got their blades up before the crush of their foe was upon them, and both had to take the first blows on their banded thighs and forearms. The heavy blows were not enough to shatter bones, but they were enough to give both pause. The force of the strikes lit lightning up their legs and backs.

  Time resumed its slow crawl. Nük T’nyr saw every movement around him from the sweep of a blade to the raising of an arm in exacting detail. He moved within the sweep of blades yet outside their grasp. He swept right, rending flesh from bone through armor. He crushed back and down with his banded elbow, knocking a warrior from his mount. He took more blows straight on, stepped back, used the edge of his shield to decapitate the onrushers.

  He heard shouts behind him, too full of rage for any but his Slaedwa. A hundred Empyrjurin clanged their way forward.

  He cried his outrage into the dark sky. His great battle sword ran with blood and his scorn-filled laughter gave his armies renewed hope. The Jurin peoples would rise again.

  —

  By the eve of the battle’s twelfth day, the black walls were but a half league distant. Nük T’nyr, surrounded by his Slaedwa, led the charge toward the gates. Praefect L’kohn and his Scarabaeid followed. To the east and south, Kha’el D’erth’s forces held back enemy reinforcements who emerged from waygates that disappeared as suddenly as they appeared. Their force of a hundred and fifty thousand proud Jurins was halved, but they were no less determined.

  Once they were within the shadows of the walls, Fhurjurin began tunneling as Styrjurin kissed the heavens with lightning and storm. Monsjurin and Hylljurin kept their places to the rear and continued to batter the city’s great structures with their machines of war.

  Nük T’nyr spoke a blessing to the sacred eum and to G’rkyr the Merciless, namesake of his heir. Those who defended the space between his forces and the gates were Drakón. While the flyers were his greatest concern, those who walked, crawled, and slithered were no less treacherous.

  To his right, Stutk, the Slaedwa Commander of Crims, took a blow that would have sundered any lesser. Nük T’nyr retaliated on the other’s behalf with a deep thrust past thick scales to the heart, felling the Drakón even as its great wings beat upon the air seeking escape. Stutk in a blood rage cleft the Drakón’s head from its body then raised the severed head with both hand
s and hurled it over the wall. The dragon’s blood was still hissing in the flames of Stutk’s flesh when he set upon the next in the line.

  Shouting out in glee and praise, Nük T’nyr did likewise. He had only taken a few steps in his charge when an unnatural shift between the heavens and the earth caused him to break off. He looked upward expectantly, and when he did, Praefect L’kohn set upon him. So certain was he of betrayal that his blade was buried in flesh before he could stop himself. An instant later, the heavens shattered as curtains of fire rained down and the earth quaked as it was rent and torn.

  It seemed as if Tenhol itself would break. Nük T’nyr steadied himself by digging his blade into the earth and holding on with both hands. Rifts in the earth opened and widened, even as they were filled by burning curtains of slitrain. Blackwind of a thickness and type he had never seen followed, choking and strangling as it went.

  “More damned Drakón trickery,” Stutk said as he hunkered down beside his king.

  Nük T’nyr cursed in rage and frustration, and the blackwinds and slitrains came even harder. “Da’m te nurrin,” he said to honor those who died by the hundreds, for even the mightiest of the Scarabaeid could not push these magics aside completely.

  He wondered that he and those close to him were untouched only for the quick moment it took him to find Praefect L’kohn and stare into the other’s dying eyes. There was a certain satisfaction in those eyes, a smugness that Nük T’nyr understood. “Hurren var de’trod. Kurhri, kurhri, kurhri,” Nük T’nyr chanted. Words of the ode to the last free king.

  Stutk, matched by Rwenwik, Slaedwa Commander of Kals, stood and took up his king’s words. Others followed. Soon the fields were alive with the sounds of the ode lifting over the sounds of death. The Drakón waiting to charge in after the storm ended were met by Jurin with blood and fire racing in their veins.

  The fighting continued through the long tolls of the night. Morning found Nük T’nyr with the taste of blood in his mouth. He spat fire as he sought to rally his people. “My father’s father lived and died enslaved to the Drakón,” he shouted. “Soon we will know freedom and the Drakón will atone for all they have done.”

  Rwenwik to his left replied before Stutk, even as both matched slitherers fang for fang with their swords, “And we will win. And I will be honored to stand at your side.”

  “G’rkyr willing,” Stutk grunted.

  Rwenwik lashed out as he spoke, “I am my own master and the Merciless will have nothing to do with it, though perhaps D’rk’r the Dark will.”

  “Indeed,” Nük T’nyr shouted as he moved between the two, his blade dancing in his skilled hands.

  Kurl’k, L’kohn’s former second, was close behind. He paved a path over the rifts and kept stray magics away as the group made their way toward the gates. “L’kohn saved the last,” he said quietly to his king. “Your steel, our magic, together as it should be.”

  “I am more a believer now than ever before,” Nük T’nyr said, to settle an old matter between them.

  “I am doubly blessed then, and I pledge to you as L’kohn pledged to you.”

  Nük T’nyr dug in to a particularly large slitherer. Blood and flesh flew as it was hewn. “I accept your pledge, though I still wonder at the need for it.”

  “Scarabaeid do not go to war with our kings. We choose freely.”

  Nük T’nyr threw his head back and laughed. “And yet you do. And yet you have for millennia.”

  “By choice, not by burden of duty.”

  Stutk shook his head. “All are here by choice, not by burden of duty.”

  Rwenwik blinked at him, at his boldness. Nük T’nyr voiced approval before the other could speak. “I see how it could seem otherwise given L’kohn’s ways and his service with my father. But really—” He stopped, for a sudden exclamation had gone up among the Jurin, a mass cry of rejoicing that moved oddly from the rear.

  Nük T’nyr could not see over the black walls, but he could guess at the turn of events that brought such cheers. The tunnelers had broken through—or so he hoped. Hardly feeling his fatigue, his belly light and his thoughts clear, he led another push toward the gates. The press of bodies closed as the Drakón surged forward, and Nük T’nyr’s own Slaedwa, eager for more killing, slammed into him as they made their way forward.

  Seeing smallfolk now among the Drakón, Nük T’nyr took Grækor in his right hand. With his left hand he drew a short blade from his belt. He worked his way forward with the smaller blade thrust back and angled down to keep the smallfolk from stringing the tendons in his legs, occasionally sweeping it forward to clear a path before his kneecaps.

  Suddenly something hit his head so hard his ears rang. Thick claws knotted his hair and his feet were no longer on the ground. He kicked the air as the Drakón drew him up by the scalp. Thinking quickly, he hurled his short blade heavenward, then with Grækor in both hands he thrust up with all his might.

  Bellowing, the Drakón dropped him. Nük T’nyr hit the ground, rolled to his feet, and came up with his blade. He killed the beast and went on.

  The moment stretched out. He saw every detail, felt every shifting of the air around him. The Drakón slithering before him had teeth as long as his forearm. They glistened white.

  He shouted at the repulsive beast, blocked a blow, gave back with his blade. The creature was dark gray, almost black. Its hide was as thick as the best Jurin armor. Its eyes were as big as his fists.

  He wrenched his sword from the hide, drove the blade in again and again, trying to work it between the overlapping plates. He grunted satisfaction as hide and scales and flesh parted.

  The beast toppled. He ripped his sword free, prepared to move on, but realized there were no more foes between him and the gate. All he could hear were his own heavy breaths.

  Everything seemed to stand still. There was a sound like the dry wind that blew through his mountainous homeland. A new tide swept up from behind him, a wall of shouting Jurin, thousands racing forward, and as he looked on, the gates swung open.

  He realized he could no longer hold his arms up for more killing, and as his legs gave way, Stutk and Rwenwik caught him.

  “You’ve done it,” Stutk said. “The city will be ours by day’s end.”

  “The great ones flee,” Rwenwik said, pointing out the mass exodus borne on wings and air ships.

  “Not him,” Nük T’nyr said. “He will not flee. You’ll find him in the lower keep. Go now, take the glory.”

  —

  Stutk and Rwenwik found the Drakón lord just as Nük T’nyr said they would. Nük T’nyr prepared for their return by cleansing himself of blood and sweat and donning his ceremonial armor. They came for him in the middle tolls of the night.

  “He waits for you,” Stutk said. “You should have been the one to take him. The honor and glory should have been yours.”

  “Such was not mine to take,” Nük T’nyr managed as he stood. “Not just for the one, for the many, for all Jurin.”

  Nük T’nyr raised his glass to Kha’el D’erth. Kha’el D’erth stood and raised his glass in return. “Strength and resolve.”

  “Indeed,” Nük T’nyr said, emptying his glass. He took his sword from the smith who had cleansed and oiled it, then dismissed those attending him. “Her ladyship?”

  “Dead, by his hand I’d expect.”

  “I’d expect so too.”

  He left his pavilion with his Slaedwa commanders on either side and Praefect Kurl’k a step behind. He crossed the distance to the inner keep quickly, almost methodically. It was a path he had not forgotten in a thousand cycles. He walked it with his head held high, a sword in his belt and a crown on his head. It was a stark contrast to how he had walked it before at his father’s side.

  He climbed the bloody steps, entered the keep. Inside his people were making way for him. Having cleaned up the worst of it, they pulled away carcasses to be hacked and hewn. He felt the power in the halls, so much so it was as if they were bathed in magi
c and not in blood.

  Nük T’nyr felt victory in his heart, and knew it was not just a whispered thought when they came to the great hall and saw the great one lying prone on the floor. He was free now no matter what happened from this day forward.

  Though he had not spoken, the dragon lord must have sensed his presence. In the hall was writhing and screaming like to wake all the gods. But the sounds did not come from the great one—they came from his sequestered servants.

  Nük T’nyr could have brought silence with steel, but instead used words. “Your power is broken, your army is scattered, and your great city is in ruins. I offer exile in place of death.”

  The Drakón lord fought to a sitting position despite his captors’ efforts to keep him prone. He spoke words like a viper swooping in on its prey. The sound that catches you unaware just before deadly jaws snap and venom pumps. “I offer you the chance to be raised anew,” he said, “A choice for life instead of death.”

  Nük T’nyr threw back his head and laughed. His laughter echoed throughout the whole of the great hall and beyond. “I am amused at your impudence. At my gesture, you are dead. I will think of you no more than you’ve ever thought of me or mine.”

  “Oh, you’ll think of me. You’ll think of me and you’ll curse this day to the end of yours. What you’ve set in motion cannot be undone. You were born slaves. You will die slaves. You have merely to embrace your new masters.”

  “I am my own master from this day forward,” Nük T’nyr said, and then with his sword he took the thing he had long sought.

  The Drakón lord convulsed in response. He did not speak again, though his was a slow death.

  Near the end, Nük T’nyr carved out the other’s table-sized heart and watched it beat its last beat. He turned to regard his commanders and the praefect with the heart gripped in both hands.

  Stutk and Rwenwik fell to their knees. The dozens behind them followed. The hall fell to silence. Only Kurl’k dared to meet Nük T’nyr’s gaze.