“You called for bandages?” asked an older gent who came to check on Brand. He eyed him, looking for injury. Brand looked at the man, thinking he was a barber from Riverton, but he could not recall his name.
“See to the wounded horsemen. I’m fine.”
The barber nodded, but eyed him strangely. He carried a roll of fresh white linen bandages and a large bag of medicines. “Aye, Lord Rabing.”
Brand mounted his horse, got together the infantry and ordered them to march forward. Before they had moved out, however, Jak came hustling up to him. The look in his eye made Brand call a halt and he bent to speak with his brother.
“Brand,” said the other. “There are ghosts behind us. Hundreds of them!”
Brand looked down from his roan at Jak, clearly suspecting his mind.
“No, no brother. You have to come look. They are sneaking up behind us, on the ridge.”
Brand tried to think. The axe wanted to decapitate his foolish brother and charge the elves. The Rainbow, he could see now, was about to reach the foot of the Starbreak Fells. Once it climbed to the top, they needed to strike the elves with it, to grind them between several forces with no escape. With luck, the Kindred would sally forth and join in.
But at the same time, he could not allow an unknown force come up behind them and strike them from behind.
“You have two minutes,” he told Jak.
His brother nodded and hustled toward the rear of the column, pushing through the infantry who followed Brand’s orders and marched north toward the battle.
There, at the rear of the column, Brand climbed from his horse and followed Jak, who he believed had quite possibly had lost his mind. He came to crouch beside him, peering through a slit between boulders.
“There, did you see that?”
“See what?” snapped Brand. His axe twitched violently. The battle was the other way, and this fool wasted his time!
“There! In the grasses, and amongst the puddles. See the splashing? What splashes, where there are no feet?”
Brand finally saw it. Something—yes, something, was splashing in puddles behind them. Something crushed down the wet grasses. It was as if feet, scores of feet, passed over the land, but the owners could not be seen with the eye.
“Are they ghosts, Brand?” asked Jak with a quaver in his voice.
Brand looked at him, and the splashing puddles. Whatever they were, there were a lot of them, and they were following closely.
“Call up your archer company, this instant. Order them to fire, pepper the road with arrows.”
“What are we shooting at?”
“Tell them the road is haunted. Tell them anything. Just fire, now!”
Jak hustled off, and in less than a minute, arrows began to loft. Soon crossbowmen came up and dutifully fired into the puddles of the road behind the army.
It was only a half-minute before the first scream went up. It was high-pitched, enraged, inhuman.
Brand smiled widely. He had Ambros in his hand. “Goblins!” he roared. “Fire around me. Try not to shoot me in the back, men!”
Baffled, the company of archers nodded and watched him lurch up with eyes possessed. He charged downslope into the invisible ranks of the enemy, commanding Ambros to flash.
In that single flash of Amber light, a hundred goblins, each bearing two daggers, were lit up. The archers had time to mark their targets and snapped off a volley. The goblins, caught by surprise and without cover, fell by the dozens.
Worse, Brand charged among them, axe aloft, eyes insane and as filled with a yellow light as Ambros itself. Heads flew off and arced over the cliffs. Ambros flashed again and again as he struck, revealing the goblins to everyone.
The enemy panicked. Few things are worse for a stealthy group, confident in its unaware prey, than to be caught by surprise. Not known for their stalwart qualities, and distrustful of Hob’s magic in any case, they broke. Hob had clearly flown them to the southern peak and made them into rippling shadows. But now the axeman was among them, slaying with abandon. Brand’s archers showered them with arrows and blood was everywhere. Some threw themselves screaming off the cliffs to escape the sweeping axe. Others made it over the next ridge. Many died to the axe or the endless stream of bolts and arrows.
Within two minutes it was over. Brand scanned the area, but there was no sign of old Hob himself.
Then, he saw something. Footprints exploded into being in the mud, splashing hugely. Something was moving fast, with massive feet, running away from the battle southward.
Brand lurched after him, only Hob could have feet so large, but he stopped himself. He had no time. He looked back and saw that the Rainbow now climbed the Starbreak Fells. The battle would meet soon, and he had to be there. He must command the infantry. They would grind away the elves.
At a dead run, Brand went to his roan and mounted. Panting, he managed to get Jak’s attention. “You did well. Stay on station here. If you see any more puddles splash, or shimmering, or anything, lay a volley upon the road. You are our rearguard.”
His brother shouted a reply, but it was lost to Brand’s ears. He was already galloping northward, toward Snowdon.
* * *
When the gates of Snowdon gave way finally and completely, Gudrin stood ready. Fresh cold air tinged with dust and the smell of rain blew into her face in a sharp gust. If she had had hair, it would have been ruffled and left fluttering down her back. She waited until the tremendous din of falling masonry subsided, then shouted a guttural warning to her troops, a whoop that they knew well. It was the sound any sergeant of the Kindred might use to awaken the slovenly amongst his squad. This was the moment. The battle for Snowdon was at hand.
The first in, unsurprisingly, were a croaking wave of hapless merlings. She let a shower of crossbow bolts disperse them. Dozens fell, a few threw their deadly darts, but the weapons clattered harmlessly upon stone. Gudrin and her troops stood behind the first tower, with the portcullis firmly down.
At first, the merlings dared to creep further into the red lit cavern. Dust filtered down from overhead, with sifting earth falling upon their oily skins. The scouts stationed above them in the battlements that had served for the last several days as Gudrin’s headquarters waited. Once the merlings drew close to the tower wall, the archers opened fire. Caught with bolts flashing at them from above and in front, the enemy wavered, and then broke.
Looming up behind them came the first real wave of combatants. Abominations, a dozen of them, tottered forward. They snatched up merlings: dead, wounded and fleeing alike. Gudrin’s lips curled to see these monsters in person. They stripped the merlings, living or not, of their limbs. They stuffed the limbs appropriately into their vast shambling bodies, adding to their own mass. Torn off legs were placed beneath to keep the churning feet moving. Newly added merlings arms were given fresh darts to wield. Merling heads were planted on top of the mass, to croak and roll their eyes, gasping to drag breath into lungs that were somehow affixed within the central lobes of flesh.
It was these last, the lobes of wet flesh, into which were stuffed the bloody torsos. With each merling thus subsumed, the abominations grew in strength and size. Relentlessly, they lumbered forward.
At a single shouted command, scores of crossbows snapped, targeting the leading abomination. The rippling impact shook its flesh, staggered it back upon a squad of heels. It did not fall, however. Although the bolts drilled into flesh so deeply as to vanish, the mass of the living creature could not so easily be halted. How do you find the vitals of a monster with a dozen pair of flapping lungs and perhaps a score of thudding hearts? The abominations were unstoppable, and left behind smears of blood on every surface, as a snail might leave a glistening trail on garden bricks.
Gudrin watched them advance in alarm and disgust. If they were to reach the portcullis, they might well rip it free, such was the berserk strength in those grasping, unfeeling arms. She was loathe to order her troops to engaged the monsters, they woul
d surely slay her Kindred and add their mass to their bulbous bodies.
Heaving a sigh, she gave her orders. The crawlers would sally forth to meet the abominations and she would give support. The crossbows were to seek to blind every head they could. The heavy infantry were to stay in reserve, and sell their lives as dearly as possible, should matters go poorly.
The portcullis rattled upward, chains clicking. Six crawlers, driven by nervous, grim-faced mechnicians, clattered forward like metallic spiders. Gudrin followed them, stumping out onto the cobbled road that already ran with blood, dust and broken bricks.
For a frozen moment, the crawler pilots and abominations regarded one another. Both were monstrous, in their own way. The Kindred machines of clockwork, elemental magic, brass boilers and killing tines thrust forward. The abominations of flesh and blood, work of the Red, tilted their mass and charged with a dozen warbling battle cries erupting from their community of throats. They had in them, perhaps, less of nature and sanity than the clockworks themselves, each of which at least boasted a single thinking driver.
The clockwork crawlers rippled forward, tines upraised like lances. The first meeting was uneven. Twelve lengths of spine-like metal pierced the flesh of their opponents. Gouts of gore spilled, shrieking. Heads died and raved. Arms strove with the tines, the legs, even the cupolas that protected the drivers. Gushing flame and steam, the crawlers burned and stabbed. They were outnumbered, but metal is always harder than flesh. In most cases, the flopping monstrosities were cast down to be burned and stabbed unto a final group death.
Not every fight went well, however. A crawler was lifted by two abominations and tossed unceremoniously over the edge of the road to smash upon rocks a thousand feet below. Another crowd of hands managed to pry off a cupola, and the driver was plucked into the air and torn apart.
In each of these cases, Gudrin stepped into the fray. She directed both arms upward, forming two brilliant points of light with her fingers. Firing thin beams so bright and white-hot she herself had to avert her eyes from them, she cut down those abominations that were victorious. She cut their legs from under them with beams of heat so intense they were like blades of light and heat fifty feet in length. Cauterized flesh stank, filling the area with billowing greasy clouds of smoke. She slashed the monsters time and again with her beaming fingers, burning them down to slag. The goblins fell in thrashing heaps of cooked flesh.
She had just begun to let herself believe they would hold, that with Pyros and her machines, they would win through. Then a blow struck her head from behind. She felt a number of dagger points stabbing viciously, desperately, at her spine. It was a tribute to Kindred skills at forging that none won through and bit into her flesh.
She fell, however, stunned. A puff of orange flame blew up from her mouth as she roared in rage, surprise and frustration. That puff of flame illuminated her attackers. Goblins. A dozen of them at least. They knelt to stab out her eyes, and she screamed. More flames gushed up, as if she herself had become a wurm. They cast themselves away from her, grasping at their burning faces and hissing.
How had these bastards snuck up on her? She blinked once before she had the answer. Hob must have brought them, wielding Osang with its mastery of light, shadow and sound.
The pack lunged again, pinning down her arms and throwing a boulder down into her face. She felt her armor dent, her face was wet with blood. If she could not blow flame or direct her fingers like wands of brilliant death, they could kill her if only by crushing her limbs and stripping off her armor if they had to. Even the best armor could not halt an icicle-thin point worked between the links.
She struggled, but they held her and she knew it was over. She willed her hands to gush and run with flame, which they did, and the goblins shrieked with new pain. Large stones began to buffet and bruise her body. They were beating her to death.
Suddenly, everything changed. A figured loomed over her that was not goblin, but she had trouble seeing it clearly through her blood-filled eyes. She raised a finger, and only an act of will kept her from burning away the face, beard and all.
It was the beard that stopped her. Goblins didn’t have beards. This single fact saved the life of the captain that had rescued her. She was borne aloft by a dozen Kindred hands. They carried her at a run toward the portcullis, which now stood open again.
She spat blood and was soon able to speak. “You disobeyed me, captain,” she managed.
“Yes, my queen. You may flog me after the battle.”
She snorted, and would have chuckled, could she have managed it. Pain lanced through her in a dozen places. Her ribs were broken, she surmised. From the sensation, they all were.
Once safely back behind the tower again, she took count with one good eye. Most of her regiment of heavy troopers had survived. Of her squad of crawlers, only two had made it back.
Inside the breach, where sunlight poured through the dust clouds, no more attackers came at the moment. She wondered why the attacks had halted. Did they not know how close they were to victory?
Chapter Twenty-Two
The Rainbow
The Rainbow scaled the Starbreak Fells with what looked deceptively like slowness. Each glimmering hand of gauzy, insubstantial flesh gripped great spires of rock and dragged the titanic form upward. Now that the gates lay in ruins and the assault was underway, the elves turned their bombards, tilting them downward. None but two were in position to fire. They spoke, booming with an incredible sound at short range. One missed, but the second furrowed a great line of shimmering flesh from the Rainbow’s back.
The alien creature arched itself in response. The mouth yawned and loosed a warbling, otherworldly cry of agony. The elves clapped their hands over their ears, more disturbed by the sound of impossibly deep pain than by the roar of the brass-bellied bombards themselves. The Rainbow’s eyes spun with colors. The legs flexed and the knees straightened. Each heaving effort brought the monster a hundred feet closer.
Oberon screamed for his elves and the last surviving merlings to drag back the bombards that had expended their loads. He ordered the next two to be rolled forward into position.
The Rainbow reached, and heaved. Another step closer. Then another, and then a fourth. A tremendous hand came down out of the mists that rose from the steamy bombards. That huge hand, looking like a gel of many-colored raindrops, grabbed up a one of the brass guns and swept it up into the skies.
Together, the hand and the bombard, still clung to by screaming crewmen, came downward with whistling speed. The bombard, freshly loaded, boomed. The force of it blew off the Rainbow’s hand that held it. Falling away into space, the brass gun and the cart wheeling bodies of its screaming crewmen spun away and off the cliff.
The Rainbow drew back its lost hand in a spasm of pain. The maw yawned open again, and the elves gritted and bared teeth, squinched eyes, clapped hands to their heads. But the roar was so great that no barrier could stop it. The sound so filled their skulls that many dropped to their knees, bleeding from their ears.
The Rainbow climbed the rest of the way up onto its knees atop the ridge. The cobblestoned road was nowhere near wide enough for an army to share footing with such a monster. Troops scrambled to get away, pushing one another. Only the abominations, oblivious to anything but rage and a protective instinct for their master, rushed to meet the Rainbow.
Another of the bombards boomed, blasting away a goodly portion of translucent leg. Crippled, the Rainbow thrashed upon the ridge, kicking elves and bombards in every direction. Many elves spiraled down to their deaths, bodies twirling end over end for several seconds before the sharp spikes of rock ended their hopeless cries.
The abominations grappled the Rainbow, and strove with it. A hundred hands, bolstered by the strength of berserk madness, dug their collective fingers into the yielding flesh of the Rainbow, and tore great chunks from it. Where it kicked and thrashed, lighting flashed, but it was dying now. Writhing in the final agonies, it went mad, and Tomkin
, over a mile southward, went mad with it. He slid from the spire of rock he had chosen to make his stand upon and lie on his back, kicking in the muddy puddles, eyes as lost and full of spinning color as were the Rainbow’s.
The abominations finally stilled the Rainbow, but only after losing half their number. The bombards were gone, all smashed upon the cliffs of the Starbreak Fells. Hundreds of bodies lay strewn over the cobbles and the fells. And into all this chaos Brand charged at the head of his Riverton infantry.
Blue cloaks fluttered. Banners rippled in the screaming winds. A thousand throats roared until they were raw and kept roaring as they charged behind Ambros, who drove them into a killing frenzy with its flashes of golden light. The elves looked to the charging humans and knew a new fear, because there was yellow, gleaming madness in those eyes. Centuries of idle amusements were about to be avenged.
Oberon screamed for his archers to fire their bows. Some did, standing their ground and loosing a deadly stream into the maddened infantry. Many went down and were crushed beneath the churning feet of their insensate comrades. Others twirled, caught themselves and staggered forward, coughing blood, but still marching.
The column of River Folk followed Brand directly into the mass of disintegrating flesh that was the Rainbow. A thousand puddles of dripping, sticky, multi-hued liquids slicked the cobbles.
Oberon sounded the retreat. Silver horns rose and pealed. Elves ran back to their master with light fast steps. The abominations that had survived the Kindred and the Rainbow lurched forward eagerly to meet the humans.
Brand, at the front of the infantry now, threw himself from his saddle. With a broad grin and a long-forgotten song on his lips, he rushed into the bloody monsters with their flapping feet and screeching heads. He lopped off limbs and flashed his axe to blind countless eyes. All the while he sang, and men who knew nothing of battle, who had never done anything more violent than gut a fish, now slashed and thrust at his side.
Haven 5 Blood Magic BOOK Page 23