by B. V. Larson
The greatest of his creations he approached last. These were barely functional masses of tangled flesh and limbs. Thirteen or more elves formed each, and he added more flesh liberally, even throwing in oxen for strength in the lower regions.
The fusion of limbs was required in this case. Every three normal legs or arms formed a single, massive, knobby limb. Even with only four arms at the top and ten or so feet churning below, the monster was impressive. Heads were plentiful, and squinting eyes looked everywhere at once.
Normal weapons could not be used to arm these goliaths. Instead, he had them rip trees from the ground, or beams from farmhouses to use as mauls. Swung with terrific force, these weapons could kill a man with a single stroke—or destroy a Dead thing.
The hound lapped furiously, and Oberon worked his magic until sweat ran from his body and formed a slick gel mixed with stray blood. He was soon coated in it, like a man lathered in soap.
When he was finished, he took his position at the head of his new army. His groaning, wheezing abominations shuffled and dragged their misshapen forms after him. Oberon turned them to face battle. He did not like what he saw ahead, but he was compelled to join in the melee.
The Great Tree had reached them at last.
* * *
Myrrdin loomed over the village outside the castle proper like a mad god. He shambled forward, making his final charge. Massive roots erased cottages as they went, crushing them down and obliterating all sign of human habitation. There was no heed taken of livestock, fences, fleeing citizens or enemies. In the tree’s wake, it left behind only scraped black earth, dust and rubble.
Myrrdin had a fever that consumed his mind and body alike. He was mad, but that was not all of it. He’d pushed himself too far. For years, he’d lain dormant beneath the earth, kept alive only by his plots for revenge. Now, at last, he was free to do his worst.
He cared not one wit for Brand, humanity, nor even the elves. He only wanted to hurt his sire anyway he could. As he could not see the scampering elf, nor make him out apart from the others, he was determined to stamp out every last one of the little blighters before he was done.
His fleshly body was hot in its encasement of tubers and greenwoods. He knew he had only a short while to live. If he’d decided to go off somewhere and hide—perhaps for a week or more, he might have recovered. But he never even considered the idea. He was consumed with the need to lash out at his father, the elf that had made him, raised him, and then mocked him for a thousand years as an inferior creation. His mother had died so long ago he could no longer recall her sweet face. But his father remained exactly the same as the first day he’d laid eyes upon him as a child.
Myrrdin understood that Oberon had been old when Myrrdin was born, and he was much older now. An elf so weary of life could no more care for a half-human child than a snake could kiss its young goodnight. For a time, Myrrdin been able to accept this, but his sire’s base treachery of late had been too much. His mind had snapped and had only righted itself partially when he created the Great Tree.
There had been a project worthy for a man’s lifetime! He’d been happy for a brief spell, nurturing the tree, bringing it back to life again. But then Trev and Brand had seen fit to make him remember Oberon and he’d fallen back into his madness—and become again an elemental force bent upon destruction.
Now he drove the tree like a drunken rider that flails his horse until its heart fails and it falls into the cold mud. Part of him knew the tree wasn’t ready for battle, but that was a thought that required judgment and reason to act upon, and he was beyond that now.
He caught those he could and crushed them down. Seeing the elves and humans alike escaping his wrath, he turned toward the castle proper. There stood the Rainbow, beating on the gates.
A broad grin overcame him. He saw the Rainbow as a terror from his past. His father had commanded it for long centuries, and in Myrrdin’s mind he commanded it still.
He turned and extended a dozen claw-like branches, each as big as a tree in its own right. The Rainbow was a gigantic creature, but it looked like a child when confronting the Great Tree.
Myrrdin’s branches raked the Rainbow, and it reeled back and fell to the ground. Chunks of gauzy multi-hued material glistened from Myrrdin’s claws. The Rainbow flailed, stunned, then it loosed a strange, deafening howl.
The sound was of such volume and weirdness it rang in every mind that heard it and set every man’s teeth on edge. Kicking and churning its limbs, the Rainbow regained its feet and charged the tree.
Myrrdin laughed and spittle flew from his face in strings. Here was good sport! A pygmy dared to challenge the greatest of all living things!
But when the Rainbow slammed into him, Myrrdin was shocked to feel the tree shudder. Branches crackled and layers of bark were stripped from the lower sections, falling in sheets to the ground.
Even in his fevered mind, Myrrdin knew in an instant what was wrong. The tree was too immature. It was hollow inside for the most part. He was driving an empty shell. It still had fantastic weight and power, but nothing like what it should have had. With another year to sup upon the ground and rainwater—but no, there was nothing for it. He would have to take this attack seriously.
Using four of his lowest branches, he reached down and scooped up the Rainbow, lifting it off its feet and into the air. He lifted the struggling elemental up and up, passing it arm to arm as it went. At last, it passed by the opening to his enclave and for a brief moment, their eyes met. The creature’s gaze was equally as mad as his own. For a fleeting second they studied one another—and then Myrrdin threw the Rainbow down, casting it upon the ground.
The creature seemed to know his plan, for it reached a groping set of fingers into the opening, seeking his flesh. Like a child thrusting its hand into the mouth of an ogre, it was an act of desperation.
Myrrdin tried to will the tree to clamp down upon the wrist, but could not. It was not a creature of flesh, but rather a construct of living wood. It could not move all of its parts. Many were as stiff and immobile as any tree.
All he could do was try to shove the Rainbow away from him, to cast it away as roughly as he could with his branches.
Relief spread over him. He managed this trick and escaped the Rainbow’s grasp. The shimmering giant was cast down. Summoning what strength he had left, Myrrdin crawled to the edge of his sanctuary. Gasping and choking on his own phlegm, he grinned so widely his face seemed to be in danger of splitting apart.
There was the Rainbow far below, smashed upon the rubble of the castle gates. It was as dead as a cod on a dusty road! The creature’s fall had crushed the gatehouse and had been ripped apart like the magical mass of fluff that it was. The sight was glorious.
And it was one of the last things Myrrdin ever saw. For, in his excitement, he leaned out too far over the lip of the Great Tree’s mouth, such was his urgent need to see the Rainbow broken and defeated.
It was the stuff of the melting Rainbow itself that finished him. There was a residue of the material that made up the Rainbow left in the opening which led to Myrrdin’s sanctuary. It was slick, like a slurry of soapy water. He slipped on it and fired out into open air.
Twisting and howling as might a falling cat, he tried to grasp any branch, but failed. He willed the tree to save him—and for a moment, it did.
By accident, he fell with a woofing sound, wrapped around a branch fifty feet down from the yawning mouth. He was still far above the ground and he clung to the leafy weakly. But this respite was only temporary, because the tree now had no rider, no mind—no creature to guide its actions and cause it to balance. It could not think to lean back and right itself.
The Tree tipped farther and kept tipping, and Myrrdin lost his hold on the leaf. He fell. The wind whistled in his hair and made his beard whip around his head at the end. The tree was so large it cut out the sun above him before he struck the stone battlements and was shocked to realize he still lived.
Broken in mind and body, with every joint snapped and every organ ruptured, he laughed. He cackled with glee. Here, at last, was release. And no one would again forget about Myrrdin, leaving him in a hole to rot. They would speak of him and his tree a thousand years hence.
The falling tree smashed down upon him then, like a thousand-ton hammer landing upon a small nail of frail flesh.
* * *
Morgana was not happy. She stood with what remained of her Kindred army just outside the wreckage that had once been a village. Before her, instead of a line of obedient Jewel-wielders, was a scene of utter destruction.
She’d considered Castle Rabing to be one of the greatest prizes awaiting her. With luck, she’d hoped Brand would join her and serve her. When he stood resolutely opposed, she believed she could defeat him with superior strength of arms.
But what had transpired so far was not what she’d envisioned. The Jewel-wielders were destroying one another. They all seemed half-mad and difficult to control. The battle had been chaotic from the start, and now it seemed like it could only end with the death of everyone present.
She had half a mind to turn her remaining slaves around and retreat. After all, what good was a victory if they destroyed the entire place? Already, the gates were broken, the walls were breached, and when the Great Tree fell it managed to knock down two towers and carve a hole in the keep itself. Stone usually withstood the weight of falling wood, but not so much wood.
Raving in frustration and striking blows upon any underling that dared stand near, she marched around in a circle. She did not hear her own words and curses, and the zombie-like Kindred only smiled faintly at her, ignoring her blows other than to blink and bleed when she struck their leathery faces. She soon stopped, as her own knuckles were bleeding too, and all her nails were broken.
Breathing deeply to calm herself, she tried to understand what was happening on the battlefield. It was midday, it was hot, and there was so much smoke and dust she could barely see the struggle that continued in the rubble. With her luck, she suspected Brand and Oberon would meet and strangle one another to the death, turning themselves into corpses rather than useful subjects.
“I need to know what’s happening. I’ve lost control,” she growled at her smirking captains.
She did not know why the Kindred tended to smirk and grin when she controlled them, but she found it irritating. They looked witless and evil, as if they dreamed while standing upon their feet. The thought of retreating with these leering fools and remaking all her plans was painful to her.
Morgana shook herself and took a deep breath. “Attend me! All guardsmen, close ranks and follow. We’re going to finish this today—one way or the other. Look smart for your Queen!”
As she began her march, she passed by the spot where she’d had the Rainbow drop Gudrin to the ground. To her surprise, the ancient hag still squirmed weakly. She shook her head and considered pushing the point of her dagger into the witch’s eye socket—but then she thought the better of it.
“Bring Gudrin’s broken body along with us. Perhaps the old fool will be of use yet.”
Morgana marched toward the village then, and hundreds of troops in clinking mail followed her. None of them spoke a word nor voiced a query. Their wills were her will, as if they were marionettes on strings and she a puppeteer with a thousand fingers.
* * *
Oberon’s elves and abominations had escaped destruction when the Great Tree fell. For the most part, it had toppled forward, smashing down the gates, damaging the battlements and the keep itself.
Seeing his opportunity, he rallied his forces in the dust and rushed forward. They crawled over the fallen corpse of the tree—which had shattered into a thousand chunks of splintered white wood when it struck the ground.
Ahead of them, they saw figures rising to oppose them. Oberon was surprised. Humans were often panicked and broken by less terrific events. But this group did not seem frightened—quite the opposite.
They stood in the dust, smoke and swirling debris with perfect aplomb. They had no qualm, and did not ready themselves in crouches or shout battle cries. They were silent, and resolute.
Sensing something he did not understand, Oberon hung back and sent forward his largest abominations, tottering on bleeding feet and crackling, fused leg bones. They could not last long, these monsters of misshapen flesh, but while they stayed whole they were powerful and no normal man could stand up to them.
But when the two lines met, amongst the tumbled stone blocks of the ruined gatehouse and walls, the men there did not shrink back nor cry in terror. They rushed forward instead, as if eager to meet their dooms.
And as they did so, dozens more sprang up behind them. It was then that Oberon knew the truth: he was facing the sorcery of the Black.
* * *
If it had not been for the powerful influence of Ambros, Brand felt sure he would have quailed from this fight. In front of him charged a thundering squadron of abominations. These creatures of unnaturally-shaped flesh and bone were terrifying to look upon. Each had a dozen eyes or more and as many limbs. They dripped blood like butchered animals, but seemed not to be troubled by it. Behind these horrors came another wave, a line of raving elves. They didn’t behave as elves usually did. They weren’t teasing and circumspect. Rather, they charged and howled like witless barbarians.
Worse still than the enemy were his own troops. He was surrounded by the Dead. They stood with ghastly wounds fresh upon their bodies. They held swords in numb fingers and stared with dry eyes that would never again need to blink.
When the two lines met, however, he lost himself to the battle. He hacked and burned and hewed. He sang songs of battle and laughed when an enemy was cut down.
Still, the sheer weight of the abominations drove his Dead farther back, into the ruins that had once been his lovely keep.
He suspected that, should he survive this day, he would weep for the stone keep he’d worked most of his lifetime to build—but not now. Today there was no room for grief, only for slaughter.
As the battle progressed, it seemed clear they could not win. His troops felt no pain, and never gave up—but they were smaller and each abomination they cut down cost them a dozen crushed corpses that could not function, even in death.
But when they were pressed back into the walls, into the dust, smoke and rubble—Brand saw the battle shift. When an elf was struck down, it soon after rose again and rejoined the battle—on the side of the Haven.
Even the abominations were not immune to this effect. Clever, clever Slet! He moved behind the lines, doing his best to not expose himself. His hand snaked forward to any spot where a fresh elf corpse flopped down and a shimmer of blackness followed. Then the corpse moved again.
Oberon could be seen behind his lines, doing the same. In his case, he used the wounded to feed the living. When an elf fell, or an abomination had its legs cut away to the bone, he had others fuse with it, forming a new monstrosity of living flesh. It was a strange fight, the most nightmarish Brand had ever seen.
A figured loomed at his side then, and Brand wheeled, expecting to meet an abomination that had somehow made it through his lines. But instead, he saw it was the ogre, Ivor, in full battle-dress.
“You’ve come to join the fight?” Brand asked him.
Ivor lifted a gory maul to show he’d been in the thick of it. Brand grinned and slapped him on his massive shoulder.
“I think we might win this struggle,” he told Ivor. “The power of the Red doesn’t work on things that had been revived by the Black. Look there! See Oberon? He’s trying to assemble the flesh of the Dead, but it won’t work. Try as he might, he can’t turn a Dead-thing into fuel for the hound. The math is simple: we must destroy his abominations faster than he crushes our Dead.”
Ivor nodded, and charged with a roar. He engaged an abomination, one of the middling-sized sort, and the two strove and traded blows. Brand took this moment of the monster’s distraction to slip close
and cut its legs out from under it. After another dozen strokes by both Ivor and Brand, the bloody mass stopped thrashing.
Slet dared to come forward and try something new. He touched his Scepter to the fresh-killed abomination, and he managed to rouse it before Oberon could heal it by pumping fresh blood into its empty veins. The towering creature rose, an amalgamation of a dozen people, and now turned upon its maker. It was no longer alive, but now a creature of Dead, insensate flesh.
Thinking about it in a brief moment of clarity, Brand realized he should win this battle. It was, after all, two Jewels against the power of one.
But then the Kindred army arrived, marching in formation with the witch leading them, and Brand felt all hope was once again lost. As great as the Amber and the Black were working together, he knew the White was greater with hundreds of minds in its grasp.
* * *
Trev sat upon Fafna’s back. The dragon’s wings were flapping and they hung a thousand feet above the turmoil of battle below. Together they gazed down upon the awful battle.
Trev was uncertain what he should do. He’d gotten Myrrdin to charge in with the Great Tree—but that had caused as much destruction to the keep as anything else. He knew that his next mission was to assassinate Morgana—something he didn’t want to do, but which he could see the necessity for.
The trouble was that she was always with a large group of soldiers. He had spotted her from time to time, but if he plunged down on the back of his dragon, leapt from the saddle and thrust his blade into her back, he was certain he would be set upon by hundreds. He felt it unlikely he could even reach her before he was cut down.
His stomach was twisted into knots, and he felt unprepared for this moment. He supposed that all warriors felt that way their first time at war. But this was the wildest mess he’d ever heard of, even when compared to the fantastic battles on the shoulders of Snowdon in history lessons.