Of course, that wasn’t even counting the enemy mages. From what I’d seen an army this size would have hundreds of them, and while they weren’t as powerful as the Conclave’s wizards they were still a serious threat to normal troops. Their insect swarms and poisonous fogs were perfect for attacking a fortified position, and the spells of decay they’d used on Leo’s golems would deal with both armored knights and closed doors. Yeah, I could see why Steelbinder had decided to pull out the big guns instead of fighting these guys normally.
“Gaea has been planning the extermination of humanity for ages,” Brand said. “Spells that war wizards have been using for hundreds of years are not going to catch her by surprise. Do you see that altar, between the two giant beasts?”
Maybe half a mile down the road a pair of four-legged dinosaurs trudged through the snow with a large object suspended between them. I didn’t recognize the species. They were huge, even bigger than a triceratops, with short necks and a back covered in bony armor. But their tails didn’t end in the big spikes of a stegosaurus, or the bony mace of an ankylosaur. Some related species?
The wooden platform between them was like a miniature castle, with a dozen or so ape men stuffed inside. A few warriors, but most of them wore elaborate headdresses of feathers and were busy chanting around what looked like a stone altar. There was a bloody human body laid out on the altar, but it didn’t seem to be moving.
“I see it,” Prince Caspar said, squinting into the distance. “No doubt these creatures are working more of their foul magic. Is that how these giant lizards are moving in the cold, instead of going dormant?”
“They aren’t actually lizards, Your Highness,” I said. “They’re dinosaurs. Primordial beasts that died out on Earth long before the rise of man. I assume someone must have preserved them in another realm, or perhaps Gaea recreated them. They actually have more in common with birds than lizards, and it looks like they’re warm-blooded.”
Fighting the things had settled a lot of old debates about the nature of dinosaurs for me. The ones I’d seen were active, fast-moving creatures that were surprisingly agile for their size, although still a bit ponderous compared to mammals. The ape men had draped blankets over the ones they rode, so they weren’t completely immune to the cold. But they certainly displayed none of the sluggishness you’d expect of an ectotherm in these conditions. I still wasn’t sure how intelligent they were, but the fact that the enemy had managed to train them argued that they were smarter than lizards too.
Brand gave me a bemused look. “Yes, that’s right. Gaea’s domain is full of the creatures, and her children use them as beasts of burden. They don’t like the cold, but it isn’t going to kill them fast enough to do us any good. No, the altars that each army carries have a different purpose.”
There was a deep rumble from the direction of the Iron Citadel. I turned to look, and saw a black cloud rising from one of the towers of the Conclave’s fortress. Flashes of sullen red glowed from within the roiling cloud, which spread towards us with startling speed.
“Gaea’s children sacrifice men on their foul altars,” Brand shouted over the growing roar. “In return, she grants them protection from the works of human wizards.”
The cloud passed overhead like a dark river, headed towards the enemy position. But its rushing advance suddenly stopped halfway to their lines, the dark clouds piling up along the perimeter of an invisible dome. A concerned muttering spread through the men around me.
“Fear not, men of valor. For today, the gods are with you!”
Brand raised his spear, and a titanic bolt of lightning speared down from the heavens. The protective dome over the enemy army was outlined for a split second by the actinic glare, before it collapsed. The flash was blinding, and the men around me all shouted and covered their eyes.
I blinked the spots away, and saw that the altar was gone. The dinosaurs that carried it had been reduced to charred corpses by the blast, and there was nothing left at all of the priests or the wooden platform in which they’d ridden.
Cerise stared at the scene with wide eyes, unaffected by the flash. She shivered, and pressed herself against my side. I think that was the first time I’d ever seen her intimidated by anything, but I couldn’t blame her. That was a hell of an attack spell, and I hadn’t even seen Brand cast anything.
Was he really that powerful? Or maybe he hadn’t done it himself. For all I knew Odin was watching this war from somewhere on high, and tossing down fire support when his people called for it.
The dark cloud poured down onto the enemy army as I watched, rolling over their lines with a rumble like a freight train. Panicked shouts and screams of pain rose from the ape men, mixed with the roars of dinosaurs.
A riderless triceratops broke from the cloud, its hide pocked with burns. Others followed, racing in all directions in a blind attempt to escape the destruction. But one after another they collapsed to the snow, with black smoke pouring from their nostrils.
A cheer rose up around me as the gathered nobles regained their vision, and saw what was happening. The black cloud moved on, following the road with unnatural precision as it engulfed the troops still marching towards the city. It left behind a sea of blackened corpses slowly sinking into a slush of half-melted snow.
“So that’s the true power of the Red Conclave,” I muttered to Cerise.
“Yeah. I think Gaea’s going to need a new army,” she replied.
The more distant enemy troops saw what was happening, and some of them tried to scatter. But the cloud of death was hundreds of yards across, and it moved as fast as a galloping horse. It carved a path of bloody destruction through the heart of the enemy army, and only the most fleet-footed of them escaped.
“Organize a pursuit,” Prince Caspar ordered. “Send all of our light cavalry companies to give chase, and the Griffon Knights to harry them from the air. Don’t let the survivors regroup within sight of our walls.”
Messengers were dispatched, and horns blew. In a matter of minutes there were griffons flying overhead, and the gates of the Military District opened to allow a stream of cavalry to emerge.
“A wise decision, Prince,” Brand said. “But today is only the first battle, and they won’t all be so easy. How many of those spells do the wizards have to unleash? Three? Four? Perhaps half a dozen, if they’ve hoarded their power tightly this past generation?”
Prince Caspar’s eyes narrowed. “You’re saying there are more of them, Exalted One?”
“Gaea has opened nine passages from her hidden realm into the lands of men, and an army like that marched out of each of them. Your father is fighting off an assault on Wiersberg as we speak, and other cities will soon be under attack. Their plan is to kill every man in Europe, starting with the cities where the High Temples stand.”
Caspar clenched his fists. “It would take weeks to march an army to reinforce them in this snow, and we’d lose half our men to weather and monster attacks. Is that why they called down the Fimbulwinter? To pin us in place, and cut us off from our allies?”
“In part,” Brand answered. “Although you’d get little help from the southern kingdoms regardless. The Franks have three of Gaea’s armies to deal with, and there are Great Beasts rampaging through Greece and Italy. Naples fell to a devourer just last night, and the army of demons it breeds will be a lot harder to stop than these monkeys.”
Brand turned, and waved towards the Iron Citadel. “But Gaea has made a fatal miscalculation. Your wizards have all the greatest works of the Bloody Archmage locked safely away in their citadel, and I believe one of them is the perfect solution for our little mobility problem. Come, let us speak with them.”
He strode off towards the Iron Citadel, the prince and his retinue trailing along behind him like flotsam caught in a tidal wave. Leo went with them, and after a moment of hesitation I decided to follow along. But I let them get a bit ahead of us.
“Bloody Archmage?” I asked Cerise quietly.
“Be
nito Runesage,” she clarified. “The guy that built the Iron Citadel. They say he was the greatest wizard since Aristotle. He invented a lot of modern wizardry, although some people think he was just rediscovering lost Atlantean magic. He was also a real bastard. No friend to any of the gods, and the Conclave started out as his bound slaves. He carved out a kingdom and ruled with an iron fist for about two hundred years, until one of his enemies finally managed to assassinate him and make it stick.”
“Hmm. Any chance of him coming back? Guys like that tend not to let a little thing like death keep them down.”
She smiled. “I love it when you talk like that. No, he died hundreds of years ago. If he had a way to come back from it he would have used it by now.”
“I suppose that’s probably a good thing. Why don’t you head home and let everyone know what’s going on? It looks like the fighting is over for now, and you don’t want to hang around these guys any more than you have to.”
“I guess. I feel like I’m about to pass out on my feet, anyway. But we need to see about getting you a real honor guard, okay? I don’t like leaving you alone with these people. You should have a team that goes with you to these things, in case someone tries to stab you in the back one day. Maybe a couple of wolfen and some of Corinna’s girls.”
“They’d draw attention,” I objected.
“That’s kind of the point,” she countered. “Nothing says badass wizard like a bunch of magical minions. We just need to set it up right, so people make the assumptions we want them to.”
In other words, make it look like I’d enslaved them. I really wasn’t happy with doing that kind of thing, and not just because I don’t like slavery. It would be just my luck if we made the act good enough to fool magical beings that otherwise might have become allies, but not good enough to convince the Conclave. Besides, I’d rather not make a habit of doing things that would make people lump me in with them.
But she had a point. Even Steelbinder made a habit of taking an escort whenever he left the Iron Citadel, and my defenses were a lot less thorough than his. I needed some bodyguards whose presence would actually matter if things unexpectedly went south someday. For that matter, just presenting an appearance of having powerful servants would make trouble a lot less likely.
“I’ll think about it,” I told her. “Actually, we need to get with the girls and have a strategy meeting sometime soon anyway. We’ll make that one of our topics, alright?”
“That, and moving them somewhere safer,” she said firmly. “Alright, then I’m out of here. Be safe, Daniel.”
She kissed me on the cheek, and slipped away.
Someone must have raced ahead with news, because High Adept Steelbinder was waiting for us in the entrance hall of the Iron Citadel. The hulking forms of war golems lined the walls of the chamber, and four Adepts stood with him. Three hard-faced men I vaguely remembered from the one council meeting I’d attended, and one woman I wasn’t likely to forget. Tova, the wizardess who had offered to sell me her daughters for the secret of my unlimited magical power supply.
Interestingly, High Adept Ward wasn’t present.
“Welcome to the Iron Citadel, Exalted One,” Steelbinder said. “What business does a son of Vali have with the Red Conclave?”
If Brand was put off by the cold reception he didn’t show it, but I didn’t miss the way his men and Steelbinder’s wizards were sizing each other up. Tova’s gaze skimmed over the crowd of officers and military staff behind him, and came to rest on me. One eyebrow rose fractionally.
I deliberately stepped to one side, out of the line of fire. If this came to blows for some reason I wasn’t getting involved.
But Brand just smiled. “The Allfather has need of your services, wizards. Gaea’s children have returned to bring an end to the age of man, and the works of the Runesage are the key to stopping them.”
Steelbinder frowned. “No living man can command the Skyhammer, Exalted One, and the Sleeping Giant is as dormant as ever.”
“I know. But someone here can operate the Dark Portal. You used it to send scouts into Tartarus not long ago.”
“Yes,” Steelbinder admitted reluctantly.
“Well, then. There’s your answer, Prince Caspar,” Brand said. “The portal can deliver an army anywhere in Midgard in the blink of an eye. We can use it to send reinforcements to cities that need them, and evacuate hopeless positions. More importantly, we can gather the best warriors in the realm and harry the enemy wherever they are.”
The prince scowled at Steelbinder. “You had something like this all along, and kept it secret?”
“The Dark Portal runs on souls, Caspar,” Steelbinder explained. “One death for every ten minutes of operation, more or less. How many condemned men do you have in your dungeons? Not enough to supply the city, I think.”
“Then we’ll capture our enemies, and feed them to it,” the prince declared.
“That’s the spirit,” Brand said. “This is Ragnarok, men. The time for caution and long-term planning is past. The doors of Valhalla stand open, and the Valkyrie fly in search of heroes! Those who stand with me will fight at the Allfather’s side in the final battle, and that day is fast approaching.”
The nobles looked ready to march off to battle right then and there, but not the wizards.
“I’m afraid it isn’t that easy, Caspar. We’ve tried goblins, trolls, faerie folk, even demons. The portal will only run on human souls.”
The prince hesitated. But then his gaze turned to Brand, and his expression firmed.
“Dozens of folk die every day in this city, and any man who doesn’t fall in battle simply adds to Hel’s forces,” he said. “Their deaths may as well serve some purpose.”
“Very well,” Steelbinder said gravely. “Bring us the fuel the portal needs, and we will send you wherever you wish to go. If you intend to campaign against Gaea’s children I’m sure some of our war wizards will be eager to accompany you. But the portal is only eight feet wide, and the chamber around it will only hold so many men. You’ll have to limit yourself to moving a company or two at a time, if you want to keep the option of a quick retreat open.”
Brand clapped the prince on the shoulder. “We’ll have to plan out a campaign, but I suggest we see to Wiersberg first. Two companies of heroes and wizards should be more than enough to turn the tide there. Muster your best men, Caspar, and we’ll be off to rescue your father.”
“We need to maintain a strong defense here as well,” Steelbinder pointed out. “Especially if we’re going to invite the enemy to target Kozalin like this. But the Conclave can send a squadron of war golems and six adepts to assist the King.”
“A good start,” Brand boomed. “What about you, Daniel? Those ancient magics of yours will make short work of the enemy.”
I shook my head slowly. “No. I’ll be one of the ones who stays here, to make sure the city is still standing when you return.”
Prince Caspar scowled at me. “That’s just like a wizard, turning coward at the moment of truth. You won’t be seeing Valhalla’s halls with that attitude.”
“My soul is already spoken for, Your Highness,” I told him. “I’m not going to see Valhalla regardless. But that’s beside the point. I am not going to use an artifact that’s powered by human sacrifice. I don’t care what the justification is, that would be a betrayal of my own honor.”
Caspar started to turn red. But Brand gave me a shrewd look. “So, you consider yourself a guardian of all men, do you?” He asked.
“Yes.” And women. And children, and dryads and nymphs and satyrs and anyone else who was willing to work together like sane sentient beings. But there was no way these people would get that.
Brand nodded. “I thought so. I’ve seen magic like yours a time or two, and it explains a great deal. We’ll leave you to consider Kozalin’s defense, then.”
Prince Caspar gave him an astonished look. “But, Exalted One, why…”
“Some explanations are best lef
t unspoken, young Prince,” Brand interrupted. “Come, we have an operation to plan. Let’s have a look at this mustering chamber, and consider which of your men to bring.”
Steelbinder nodded to one of his men, who led them away into the bowels of the Citadel. Most of the crowd went with them, leaving only a handful of Steelbinder’s people behind. The canny old wizard caught my eye, and nodded me into a side chamber where we could speak for a moment without an audience.
“He thinks you’re one of those reincarnating wizards from the Atlantean age,” he told me.
“Is that what he was getting at?” I replied, trying to pretend I had some idea what he was talking about.
He nodded. “I know better. But far be it from me to instruct a godling in his mistakes. Do you have something for me?”
“Ah, the power sources. Yeah, I thought I might run into you. Here.”
I pulled a simple disk of copper out of my pocket, and handed it over. He examined it closely, and frowned.
“This isn’t a self-contained enchantment,” he pointed out.
Well, I figured he’d probably notice that. I’d wrapped it in a concealment effect to make it harder to analyze, but Steelbinder had a lot more experience than I did.
“Yeah, the more I look at the actual power source enchantment the more ways I find to make it go horribly wrong. If you want a completely self-contained version for your own use I can do that, but this is the version I’d offer to the rest of the Conclave. Obviously they only work within a few miles of the power source, but that way the dangerous part of the system can stay locked in a secure vault. It also means that if an amulet falls into enemy hands we can turn it off.”
He frowned thoughtfully. “The power source is really that dangerous?”
I shrugged. “As long as the enchantment is intact it’s perfectly safe. But if it gets damaged it’s likely to start emitting energy other than raw mana, and the output governor is one of the more fragile parts of the thing. Best case it just melts itself and stops working, but it’s more likely to start leaking deadly energies this language doesn’t have words for. Same thing if someone who doesn’t understand how it works makes an imperfect copy of one, and you know that’s going to happen if more than a handful of adepts get access to them.”
Extermination (Daniel Black Book 3) Page 5