“You must work faster. No sleep. No rest. Drive the smiths to death if you must. The Midgaard assault must proceed within the next three months.”
“I will do as you command, great lord.” She bowed, the air stinking of mold around her.
“Do the resurrected witches obey your command?” Asebor turned to Alena. They would need the dead witches and the strength of their false gods.
“It…” she swallowed hard, “has been challenging. Many do not return, but those who do fight as strong as the day they defended against our glorious siege. I must say,” she tapped a golden fingernail to her lip, “they’re formidable weapons. All of their earthly powers seem to return when they survive the resurrection.”
“This may be just what we’ll need to turn the tide,” he conceded. “Stay at it, Alena. If either of you find the dual-wielding boy, Walter of Breden, bring him to me and you will be justly rewarded. Preferably living, but skinned, dismembered or burned is fine too.” Asebor’s wounds had healed, but the pain still lingered. It coursed through his stomach and up and down his spine. He rose up, glad for the mask of shadows obscuring his wince. “Alena, you have sent the armies to the Great Retreat and for Helm’s Reach?”
“Yes, great lord. The horde should be arriving at the Shaman’s gates within days. We are prepared to crush the last cornerstone supporting Midgaard.” She punched her gemmed fist into her open palm. “As instructed, a small group was sent to Helm’s Reach, likely razing the city as we speak. Their defenses were in an abysmal state. It should provide a place for the horde, enough men to feed them for months.”
“If you fail at the Great Retreat, Alena, do not return to me. It would be wise for you to take your own life. And do be wiser than your peers. Do not try to run from me, for I will find you.”
The corners of her eyes drew down, lips curled into a frown. “I will not fail, master. If I do, I will die fighting our enemies, this I guarantee.”
He almost smiled at her, but she didn’t deserve that. “Your loyalty is appreciated. It seems to be a dying notion in this age. Your loyalty will be proven by your actions.” He swept from the room, retreating to the highest room in the only remaining spire. He would have to rest, lick his wounds, and pray to the Shadow god for the strength to slay his enemies.
Chapter 2
A Victorious Day
“Hope can be a force of nature. It is not imbued by the gods, but hope is a light stronger than any magic.” -The Diaries of Nyset Camfield
“Hold!” Nyset roared. Her sinewy arm held her Breden stamped short sword overhead. It shone with a dull light, the sky obscured by a blanket of gray clouds. The sleeve of her blood red silks collected in a ruffle at her shoulder. A line of sweat trickled down the center of her back and slid down the crack of her ass. “Hold!” she commanded. Her stomach was rigid with tension, every muscle braced for war.
The defenders lining the walls were mostly the Helm’s Reach guard, a few of the surviving armsman from the Tower, and Grimbald’s Falcon soldiers. Interspersed between them were apprentice wizards, and between those, the few veteran wizards she had recruited. Nervy faces exchanged unsure smiles. Bow strings were tested with buzzing twangs. The fingers of soldiers drummed on newly wrapped leather coiling around sword hilts. The scarlet plumes atop the Falcon soldier’s heads swayed in a gentle breeze.
The mass of Death Spawn swept across the desert’s sands, kicking up a curtain of dust thick enough to cast them in shadow. Their shrieks carried over the scrubland, penetrating the heavy silence on the wall. They had broken off into three separate groups, each with the biggest and ugliest Cerumal leading the charge. Some were as wide as Grimbald, their ghastly mouths fixed open with their horrible screams.
They ran with an insatiable fury, smashed their spiked shields with the weapons of nightmares. Some held scythes, barbed spears, twisted swords, hooks to pull riders from their mounts, broad machetes, and wicked axes. She would never get used to their war cry. She would never forget the first time she heard it in Breden during the Festival of Flames. It was an easier time, but she never asked for an easy life. She remembered Walter, letting him beat her at knife throwing. Men had such fragile egos. The thought would have brought a smile to her face any other time.
“Hold!” she bellowed again.
“They draw near, Mistress,” Senka said, stating what was all too clear. She wore what she’d always worn, an unadorned cloak covering padded leather armor. On her hips were a pair of daggers secured to a belt of Fire Lizard skin. That was only what you could see. On her person were countless hidden weapons.
Claw stood to her left, his mouth grinning with rapturous glee. His hands were pressed onto the battlements as he leaned over the wall and stared out. “A glorious day draws upon us,” he whispered. A gust drew over the wall, pushing his white hair over his shoulders.
“They’re too close. We can shoot them from here!” an archer cried.
“On my command, damn it!” Nyset shouted.
“Yes, Mistress,” the man grumbled.
The center group of Death Spawn broke off from the other two. The two slowed to cover their rear flanks. But why? There weren’t any ground troops to fight. “Keep coming, keep coming damn it,” she hissed.
There was a wide swathe of hay about one-hundred paces out, about as wide as a couple cars and brushed with enough to earth to blend it well enough with the ground. “Hold!” she screamed again, her voice cracking. They would come. It would work.
She caught the shocked expression of a gaunt-faced Cerumal as the ground gave way under it. It fell with a scream. A spear plunged up through its gut and out its back, the tip tearing through its armor. They were falling into the spear trap. The hay dropped away and the lethal ground invited them into its embrace. The group behind the first fallen ten or so tried to stop, but their mindless brethren plowed them in.
Shrieks of agony carried out from the trap, bodies squirming and writhing on top of each other. One Cerumal stepped on another to avoid a spear, driving it deeper into his kin. The one being stepped on grabbed onto the leg and dragged the body down into the den of spears. The floor and all the walls of the pit were covered with the deadly blades, tipped with Senka’s poisons. The spears jabbed at their bodies, a slippery mess of mud and blood. The point of one inched through a Cerumal’s neck, pushing down as it tried to free itself, bodies crushing it from above. They pushed on until the entire group was swimming in the pit, bodies struggling to get out and dragging each other down before escaping.
A few made it out with minor wounds, but only stumbled about ten steps before collapsing onto their snarling faces. It was a miracle no one in the city had fallen through. She thought for sure even with all the warning posters, someone would get curious and find their way in there. The people had finally listened to her.
The two groups at the rear went wide of the pit, leaving their dying kin behind. Their screams thundered with hate when they saw what happened. They leaped over the low fieldstone wall, naught but an annoyance to their powerful legs.
“So fast,” Senka said with awe. A hand lazily scratched the back of her short hair.
“Wizards! Fire!” Nyset roared, chopping down with her sword to give the signal.
There was a series of red painted sticks lining the ground for their targets, marking where the oil had been spread last night. A spark was all that was needed and all most of these wizards could conjure. Fireballs and sparks flew, some striking Cerumal, forgoing the targets, but enough striking near the wooden stakes. Flames burst alight from the ground and spread like lightning in a wide arc about fifty paces before the gates.
One group was caught in the molten arc. Flames burned through boots and superheated armor, cooking them like raw meat. Some were wise enough to try removing their armor, but not getting out of the conflagration first. There was a Black Wynch at the back of scorched monsters, darting across the grounds in great leaps to join the other group. Cheers erupted from the battlements and she
felt some of their tension turning into bloodlust. More Cerumal clawed their way out of the spear pit, staggering on wobbly legs before crumbling to the ground.
“Archers! Everyone! Shoot at will!” Nyset yelled. Arrows zinged and spears were hurled down from the battlements. The sky burned with trails of fire, some striking true, most going wide of their targets.
The Death Spawn closed the gap between the fire and the wall, not more than ten paces away. Arrows thudded into chests, one struck an eye, another hissed through a throat. A spear landed through a Cerumal’s boot, pinning it to the ground. Nyset watched with grim expectancy as it jerked its foot free, splitting it down the middle and painting the earth with its blood.
She was hoping to conserve her powers in case one of Asebor’s generals arrived, a Lord of Death, or even worse, Asebor himself. It seemed the time for conversation was at an end. The Death Spawn slammed into the main gates, their armor screeching, the walls rattling with their tremendous force. Massive rocks were dropped over the wall’s edge, splashing the contents of an armored head onto the cobbles. Senka was loading darts into her gun as fast as she could, hissing as they slipped between armor and into flesh. The buzzing of Claw’s bowstring stung her ears.
“Leave this place, creatures of the dark world!” Nyset roared.
“Die beasts of shadow!” Senka yelled.
The bottoms of Nyset’s silks fluttered open with hot air as she let the Dragon fill her. Her yellowy hair whipped up into the shape of a horn. Balls of fire sprang to life in her hands, casting her sharp cheeks in their incredible glow. With both hands, she hurled them down into the dark mass hammering at the gates and watched as one took an arm, another splitting a heavily armored beast down the middle.
The stink of rotting meat made her wince. Twenty darts of fire sparked to life, drawing into a line along her head and stacked up into the sky. She thrust her arms over the wall and splayed her fingers, amethyst ring glinting. The darts hissed down towards the screeching mass, curling through the air, each following its own flight path. They thudded into their gnashing bodies. Some skipped from the hard edges of armor, others bit through shields and tore through helmets. This was good, they would survive this day with few casualties.
A few Black Wynches were scaling the wall, their talons finding easy purchase in the crumbling mortar. Two reached the top at one side, working together to carve and whirl through the defenders. One ducked a blow and rammed its bladed helm into an apprentice’s stomach, sending her screaming and blood streaking the air as she tumbled over the wall. She fell into the remaining Death Spawn. Gray skinned legs rose and fell, stomping the life out of her.
In a continuous snake-like movement, the other Black Wynch sliced through a neck, another’s thigh, and opened the guts of a man foolish enough to have not donned armor. Spears stabbed and swords darted at its writhing body, always in motion and curving around their blows, as if fighting children. One of them wore an ugly, satisfied grin and the other’s lips curved down with hate. The two Black Wynches worked in tandem, as if a single being. When one struck low, the other stabbed high, ravaging through defenders and leaving a trail of broken limbs and bleeding bodies. She had to get to them.
The memory of the Tower’s gates ripping apart came back in a flash. The white glow that had blinded her eyes and left her stunned. “Not again,” she stammered, watching them rip through her new apprentices. “Not again!” she screamed it this time. “Claw, Senka, get them off the wall.” They ran as if they had been eagerly waiting for the order. “Be careful!” Claw pushed through defenders aiming for the mass at the gates, unaware of the battle waging on the wall.
“Now, for you.” She narrowed her eyes and a Cerumal with a pig’s nose and a toothless mouth stared up at her. Its wrinkled brow drew down, speckled with tufts of white hair. The beast’s black lips curled back into a snarl and it hurled a spear up at her. Nyset jerked her head back, but the barbed spear grazed her face. It cut a line up from the bottom her jaw, along her cheek and forehead, thankfully missing her eye. Blood spattered onto her shoulder and trailed along her neck.
“Burn!” she screamed.
The pain spread across her face, making her wince and driving the pain deeper. She flared the Dragon in her chest, willing its fire into the horde below. The gate would be likely ruined, but she couldn’t give them a chance to get through. It would not happen again.
The ground erupted in a wall of fire, shrouding the mass in its licking flames. They shrieked and stumbled away, pushing past each other and rolling on the ground. A few that had stood their ground had their flesh burned to chars, their armor melting into pools of molten iron.
Whooping and screams of victory roared from the battlements. She extinguished the fire as quickly as she could to avoid causing additional damage to the gate.
Most of the Death Spawn lay screeching on the ground, their limbs blistered and bleeding. Bone showed through a twisted leg in the tangled mess. A charred arm rose out from the bodies, one finger left unburned and twitching.
“The Arch Wizard will destroy all of you bastards!” someone shouted.
“Lady Camfield!” another added. The cheering spread across the battlements, all but on the left side where the defenders struggled to kill the pair of Black Wynches.
“Open the gates,” a soldier called. The order was echoed down the wall and wheels started turning, clinking as the heavy chains began extracting the portcullis from the singed earth. They were still working, that was good. Men standing behind the gates, the last bastion of defense if they were to fall, slithered under the portcullis. Some cried out as they were burned by touching the heated metal. They bellowed out with a war cry as they made their way out, ramming spears and blades into the dying Cerumal. Mercy or the desire to kill? The latter, she guessed.
Everyone wanted to be remembered as a hero when the worst of it was over. It was easy to brave when death was a far off possibility. It took true courage to fight when you could feel death’s icy breath on the back of your neck.
Nyset worked her way over to Claw and Senka, tried to get a view of them between all the gleaming heads. Defenders parted to let her pass and eyed her with curiosity. They shuffled along to get away from the Death Spawn cutting down the men on the wall. “Damn it!” she yelled, her voice swallowed in the din of cheers. “Why aren’t you helping them?”
“Get them! Don’t let the bastards run!” A man with swords in each hand yelled.
“Kill those fuckers!” a woman added.
A group of six Cerumal, who had escaped Nyset’s fires, were sprinting from the wall, squawking and shrieking. She realized the defenders weren’t letting her pass to get to the Black Wynches, but moving so they could get down the stairs to chase the routed Death Spawn. The battlements emptied in minutes and a swarm of men and women poured down the steps out of the front gate. It didn’t feel right, but she couldn’t see a good reason to stop them.
No matter, it made it easier to reach her friends. Two more soldiers swept past her. She met the emerald eyes of an apprentice, her eye color stark against her ashen face. The pungent stink of fear hung on the air behind her.
Claw tried to hack into a Black Wynch’s pyramid helm, but it parried with its bladed hands, counterattacking with a diagonal slash. Claw got his blade up without a second to spare, their blades resounding with a clang. He chopped down and the Black Wynch dropped like its bones had turned to dust. It shot up with an uppercut of slashes, a few talons catching under his chin and snapping his neck back. He stumbled backwards and righted his unsure legs. “You’re a fun one!” he snarled and raised his dull blade over his shoulder.
“Claw! Duck!” she commanded. He fell to the ground, loyally or stupidly abandoning his sword mid-strike. She had to be precise, oh so incredibly precise to avoid hitting them. Could she live with herself if she accidentally killed a friend with the power? She wasn’t sure, but she had faith in her control of its direction. Nyset’s whirling discs of fire cut in from eit
her side of the wall, one severing through its wiry neck and the other splitting its head in half. It’s misproportioned head halves rolled off the edge of the wall like stones. Its body crumpled against a shield, neck spurting blood over its embossed image of a sun, the symbol of Midgaard.
Senka had been backed into a corner, daggers twirling in her small hands. The Black Wynch was covered in cuts and knicks where armor left exposed flesh, none mortal. “Fall,” Senka urged. The Black Wynch seemed unsure, its talons flickering with a fraction of their usual zeal. The beast raised its talons for another strike and its arms fell by its side, its body rigid, as if crystallized in a block of ice. The Black Wynch fell and teetered towards Senka. She grinned and stepped aside as it seesawed over the wall’s edge, armor squealing on the limestone.
“Wha-what did you do?” Nyset smiled at her.
“Silver Leaf, Mistress. Stops the heart muscle when it enters the bloodstream.” Senka shrugged her daggers into her Fire Lizard belt, scales the color of tangerines, and peered out at the defenders chasing the fleeing Cerumal. “Where are they going?”
“To release their pain upon them, I’d say. That’s an incredible skill you have there. Are you alright?” Nyset breathed.
Her charcoal cloak was shredded at one shoulder and the bottom had a section that was torn into tattered strips. Blood oozed from wounds that cut from her shoulder and across her chest. “The shadow one could withstand an incredible dose, more than any man. I am fine, Mistress.”
“They’re powerful creatures. That doesn’t surprise me. Claw, can you heal her? Are you well?” Nyset regarded him.
A mix of old dirt and sweat congealed into muddy droplets on his face. He snatched his curved blade from the ground and frowned down at it.
A New Light (The Age of Dawn Book 5) Page 2