by Dan O'Brien
Elcites moved toward her and touched the opposite side of the cavern wall. “We will fight until the last soldier. We have always known that it would be that way, did we not?”
T’elen shrugged. “That was always the understanding, but I harbored some hope that it wouldn’t turn out that way. I did not wish to die in some cramped, dank cavern with the rotting corpses of my enemies.”
Elcites sighed and pulled his hand away. “We may not.”
The Field Marshal laughed, moving out of the way as the soldiers placed the last of the bodies in place. “Perhaps we at least gave them something to think about.”
ⱷ
Kyien
Kyien, despite the suggestions of several officers along the way, refused to get off of his horse as they wound their way along the cliffs. The hooves of the steed cracked ice and snow underneath as he negotiated the trail.
That was until they reached the narrow edge that overlooked the ground below, and even the horse snorted in disbelief that Kyien planned on moving forward. A colonel of the fourteenth legion of Culouth who was right behind the High Marshal was the one to pay the price for Kyien’s vanity.
The steed walked out as prompted, taking each step carefully, snorting at each crack of rock or ice that sounded around it. But it was the whistling of the soldier directly behind the horse that eventually startled it.
Kyien’s eyes went wide as the steed reared.
Kicking its front legs into the air, the steed struck a panicked soldier in the face, toppling him off the edge of the cliff. His dying scream echoed as he disappeared into the snowy mist below them. As the steed set its front legs down, it kicked out with its back legs and caught the whistling fool across the chest, knocking him back. Falling, he pulled four more Culouth soldiers over the edge; their screams echoed even after they had breached the wall of mist.
Kyien pulled on the reins and the steed shot forward, mowing down each soldier in succession. Another twenty or so soldiers took a plunge from the whistling of one man and the utter idiocy of another for bringing a horse through a narrow pass.
ⱷ
The Tundra People
Higald moved out in front of the legion of tundra people. They had followed the land south until they came upon the war-racked lands east of Illigard. They had wandered for days until they came upon a small group of dying soldiers.
A dark red stripe adorned their clothes.
That pointed them toward the Eddies, where they now stood at the base. Arile had already scouted out ahead. He blended into the snow-covered rock formations.
“Huntsman Higald, what do you see?” called S’rean.
He wore dark gray furs and carried a wicked-looking axe. It was curved to a point like a sickle, but along its other edge were several dozen spikes of varying shapes and sizes; some curved where others were jagged.
Higald craned his neck to look at the ebony chieftain of the Utiakth. “Thousands of soldiers. They are carrying rifles and edged weapons. Arile is out ahead. He may do something foolhardy,” cautioned Higald.
S’rean smiled. “Do not worry about the last of the Re’klu’hereun. The White One can handle himself. My concern is the army before us. Can we defeat such a force?”
Higald sat against the stone, his features contemplative. “On terrain like this we have a very good chance. They are marching on the beaten path. If we scaled the rock, we could ambush them with archers and boulders from above. Once the trail evens out at some point, we may have to fight them from a less defensible position. They have weapons that we do not,” reasoned Higald with a distant look.
The fading lines of the tundra people were hidden in plain sight. Many of them had already scampered up to higher ground, for it was a natural defense for them to be able to see their prey from above.
Higald watched them sadly.
They were so far from home, yet they remained strong. He wondered how long that could last. The wind howled over them, whipping snow and ice all about them. A rolling mist crept from below, riding the sides of the cliffs as if it were a chariot.
S’rean sat beside him, his brow furrowed.
“We do not have a choice. The Believer said we were to seek out the Mother, or the one called T’elen, which was the name the dying soldier used. He said that the enemy would bear a yellow stripe. These men match that description. The terrain and weather are to our advantage. Many of these southerners have never taken a life, animal or otherwise,” reasoned S’rean.
His thicker, deeper voice calmed Higald.
The Fallen chief could not shed his doubts. “It all seems too easy. They point us in a direction of a foe and we carry out their execution without thought. Has the tundra taught us nothing?”
S’rean sighed and pointed out into the distance.
“We have come a great distance, Huntsman Higald, chieftain of the Fallen. Traveled many miles in order to do what was told to us by the Ai’mun’hereun.”
Higald nodded. “Indeed, we have.”
S’rean smiled mirthlessly. “No one could have known of our coming, for we have told no one who we are. We have encountered no one who could have connected us to the Believer, or the north. We are alone and outnumbered, but we have the element of surprise.”
Higald nodded and chuckled. “Your words are true, S’rean, chieftain of the Utiakth. I was a fool not to believe our good fortune.”
“What then is our course of action?”
Higald stood and pulled himself on top of the rock formation above him. “We attack them from above.” S’rean smiled and joined him. In a matter of minutes, the tundra people had taken to the rocks once more.
*
Kyle, son Michael, had been a soldier for exactly one hundred and forty-seven days. His last thought before he exited the world was of a warm bed above a hostel in a rim village beyond the deserts to the south. The knife entered his chest without a sound, except the coughing gasp that he uttered as he reached for it. Letting his grip on his rifle falter, he spun and fell to an icy death.
The White One leapt down from his place on the rocky walls and settled into the spot that the dead soldier had occupied seconds before. His spear flicked out like a whip as he rotated back and forth. Slamming it into the face, and then the legs of those all around him, he brought it down on top of a soldier’s hand, deflecting the rifle before it discharged.
He moved up the ranks of the Culouth soldiers. Using one of them as a springboard from which he launched himself back onto the wall, he disappeared just above the soldiers’ vision. Hurried words were exchanged after he disappeared, but the march continued.
There were just too many of them in the way.
Meanwhile, Arile crouched again.
Higald and S’rean were right behind him. The trail itself was rather long, perhaps a mile or more. This made the movement of an army sluggish. The journey up the rocky wall was a straight line, no more than several hundred feet.
“That was interesting,” spoke Arile breathlessly.
A dark mark appeared along his left arm.
“Are you wounded?” queried S’rean without looking at him. Instead, he looked down at the endless line of soldiers cascading off into the distance.
Arile ran his hand over his shoulder and a smear of blood accompanied his fingers. “Just a scratch, nothing serious,” he murmured as he crouched down on the snow-covered rock formations.
Higald had already drawn his sword and waved it over his shoulder as the archers crawled toward where the chieftain of the Utiakth and the White One sat watching. They lined up on their bellies along the top of the cliff side; bows pulled tight, arrows already notched. Higald lay down beside the last living member of the Re’klu’hereun and S’rean.
“Two sets of a hundred archers,” whispered Higald as he stretched his blade out in front of him. “We can go maybe three waves before they catch wind and return fire. That should be enough to clear a path for us to go down. The rest are back behind the yellow-striped soldiers and w
ill move forward once the archers have let loose.”
“Sounds like a plan,” whispered Arile, glancing sidelong at Higald.
Higald stared back. “Still at least forty to one odds.”
Arile smiled ferociously. “My kind of odds.”
Higald looked to the archer, who in turn looked at the Fallen chieftain, his sword raised into the air. As he turned back to the Culouth soldiers, he dropped the point of his sword and the arrows flew.
Startled screams flooded the trail.
As the first line of archers fell away, the second line let loose, doubling the horror that echoed from the frozen cliff side. The bluish-white flash of the discharged weapons in the cold ruptured over the top of the cliff. Higald, as well as Arile and S’rean, flattened themselves against the frozen rock. Arile smiled despite the sudden lightshow and drew his spear from around his side.
“Seems we got their attention.”
Higald nodded, meeting the smile of the white hunter, and motioned with his head for them to go over. S’rean had already drawn his axe and had moved himself close to the edge. The bursts of plasma fire subsided for a moment as the cliffs grew silent in expectation of retaliation.
The wind howled desperately.
Arile pointed to himself and then farther ahead of where they lay. Higald shook his head, but it was S’rean who the white hunter was looking at. They held their gaze for a moment before the aged chieftain of the Utiakth nodded slowly. The white hunter was on his feet and moving before Higald could protest. By then the archers had begun to peel from their places on the cliffs and down into the narrow pass. The Fallen chief was the last to descend into the battle.
ⱷ
Kyien
Kyien dismounted and brushed past the soldier who held the reins of his steed. He took long strides toward the mouth of the cave, passing through ranks of meandering soldiers who had gathered.
The rank bars of the soldier closest designated him as a lieutenant. Kyien stood next to the man, not bothering to announce himself. Clearing his throat, his tone was filled with annoyance. “Lieutenant.”
The man turned, his pale features had a light blue glow from the constant assault of the winds. His yellow stripe was faded and laced with light brown splotches. “Lieutenant Carlyle,” he finished and then looking down at the High Marshal’s lapel, realized who he was addressing. He stammered, trying to cover up his egregious error. “Lord Kyien, I did not know that you would be joining us here.”
Kyien approached the mouth of the cavern, peering into the darkness. “I have come because I wish to oversee the death of these traitorous fools myself. What is the status of this siege?” He waved his hand in circles at the lines of soldiers moving in and out.
Carlyle fidgeted.
The news was not good.
Illigard soldiers had retaken the second level without as much as a single fatality on their part; this was not a good day to be an officer of Culouth. “I am afraid that we have lost the second level in a rather heinous attack. They used the dead to orchestrate a tactical maneuver,” he iterated slowly, unsure of what to expect as a reaction.
He had seen the High Marshal draw his weapon on previous occasions only to take the heads of those who had failed him. Kyien nodded slowly, his eyebrows raised in suspicion. “Then the woman is in there? T’elen of Illigard has joined them?” queried Kyien, moving into the cavern.
The sound of machinery was juxtaposed with the conversation: weapons being fastened; makeshift fortifications being created; water purifiers and portable generators situated in order to facilitate a prolonged siege.
Carlyle had not yet thought about T’elen. “There was a woman spotted leading them into battle. It could very well be T’elen who leads them,” he answered, trying not to sound as incompetent as he felt.
The High Marshal nodded as he delved deeper into the caves. The farther he progressed, the stronger the sensation of sweat and urine coupled with rotting flesh washed over his senses. He pulled a dark cloth from the pocket of his armor and placed it over his mouth as he peered into the mass of soldiers who were huddled near the far end of the cave.
“How many have they lost?”
Carlyle stopped and motioned for the soldiers near him to disperse. “We cannot be certain of their losses. They did not leave behind their dead, High Marshal.”
Kyien turned. The half-light of the cavern made his eyes appear red at their centers. “How very interesting, and what our losses, lieutenant?”
Carlyle shuffled uncomfortably. “We lost nearly two thousand men in the initial wave. There have been two per hour, on average, from subsequent injuries, and several more from the cold. We are short on rations…”
Kyien looked at the lieutenant sharply before approaching him despite the overwhelming smell of sweat. “I did not wish to hear of your hardships, lieutenant. I asked how many are dead.”
The lieutenant swallowed hard and nodded, his hands shaking as he spoke. “Four and a half thousand, sir, another hundred within the hour from injuries,” he answered as calmly as he could.
Kyien shook his head and brushed past the lieutenant, reemerging out into the open area in front of the entrance. The cloth he had used as a mask was tucked back into his pocket once more. “That is an unacceptable number, lieutenant, considering we do not know how many they have lost. Has a counterattack been launched to reclaim the second level?”
Carlyle nodded. “We are working on it, sir.”
Kyien turned and stared back over the cliff as a disheveled soldier plodded toward him, his tan face marred with cuts and his suit smeared in blood. He fell to his knees before the High Marshal. Panting, his weapon was nowhere to be seen; no one followed him from the pass. It remained empty as the High Marshal looked up, his features darkening in irritation.
“What has happened?” he roared, pieces of a possible scenario already flooding his thoughts.
The man looked up at him, his features so wracked with violence that his uniqueness had been was stripped away. He breathed out, and as he did he coughed hard, blood spilling from his mouth.
“Ambushed––from above.”
Carlyle stepped forward to help the man. Kyien brushed him back as he knelt in front of the injured man, pulling on his chin so that they faced each other. “Who attacked you?”
The man shook his head slowly. He drooled, blood and saliva dripping from his lips as he spoke. “They came––from above, couldn’t…”
The soldier fell to his side, his arms wrapped around himself, and began to cough violently again. His eyes went wide and his hands clenched again his own body. His glassy eyes ran with tears; mouth open wide and tongue hanging aside. Blood flowed freely from it as the officers watched, Carlyle especially, in horror. Kyien looked down at the man without pity as the lieutenant waved in two white-clad soldiers. Their yellow stripes had black lines along the edges that signified them as field medics.
“She must have found an opening that led back out from deeper within the Eddies,” muttered Kyien as he stared back into the barren pass.
There had been more men, he knew that. Something had ambushed them and taken several thousand men by surprise. Where could this attacking force have come from?
“Lieutenant Carlyle, ready your men immediately. I want you to personally lead a thousand of these men back through that pass and find out what happened there,” commanded Kyien.
The High Marshal pushed past him and left the lieutenant alone with the cold winds to tend the dead. He soon would be much like that soldier; his death sentence had just been served.
ⱷ
E’Malkai
The terrain of Dok’Turmel had undertaken a dramatic shift in the course of E’Malkai’s flight from the aptly named shadow panther. Night had lifted and given way to a miasma of frightening colors; such that the skies appeared as if the clouds swam in blood, undulating in crimson refuse that would not give way to anything other than pain. Even though it seemed like a brief time that the shado
w panther was following him, the reality was much different. It had been pursuing E’Malkai for decades, the memories a jumbled mess.
The white sands of the desert had ended. Melting into jagged cliffs that climbed at a rather distressing forty-five-degree angle, it provided little shade from the blistering red skies or the relentless pursuit of what hunted him.
His mind wandered as he climbed.
The youth’s exposed body was cut with each outcropping onto which he pulled himself. The points of the wall were razor sharp in places and served only to draw blood, making him that much easier to follow. The fear that raced through him was due in part to the pursuit of the creature, but as well the apparition’s words. His intention could shape him into a monster, a creation of pure evil capable of bringing darkness and despair to everyone. The call of the creature had pursued him through the strange transition of the skies.
He had neither slept nor eaten. The organization of time in this place had begun to wear on him; years slipping through his grasp as he looked out upon nothingness.
He felt as if there would never be a reprieve.
The words of the Shaman seemed ages ago. The image of the Fallen siblings, Arivene and Mete, were a distant memory.
He spied the smooth piece of rock several feet from where he leaned against a wall of stone. A shout of joy erupted within him as he scrambled to it, ignoring the scrapes that marred his arms as he did so.
Food and water were no longer a necessity, for they were not available in Dok’Turmel. There had been no sign of any other creature except for the shadow panther and Darien since arriving in this strange place. He did not understand how it was possible that he no longer required food.
The laws of this dimensional rift were strange to him, foreign in a way that he could not comprehend. He sighed as he lay back on the smooth stone, his belly against the surface.