“We don’t need surprise,” Haern said, blood covering his golden hair. “We have strength they can’t dream of.”
The orcs entered the gateway with their arms crossed and their weapons held in defensive positions, but it did no good. Jerico waited even later, hurling the magical shield into the gateway even as the orcs swung at his body. They flew back, screaming in pain. The ground became a tangled mess of limbs as they fell atop one another. Instead of charging, the orcs behind them retreated, wanting no part of that chaos. Lathaar and Haern attacked, giving them no quarter. Antonil raised his hand and held his army back, in case the orcs tried to assault. They didn’t. Glowing swords and sharpened sabers slashed through those who tried to stand and fight. Even those who lay in pain found steel piercing through their throats and eyes.
Lathaar reached the end of the gateway and stared out at the giant mass sent to kill them. The orcs glared and howled, but dared not move. The paladin raised his swords high, and he laughed despite the blood that soaked his armor.
“Is this the great army of Karak?” he shouted. “Is this the legion that will wipe life from this world?”
His words carried, and one man amid the host of orcs heard and was made furious.
“That damn pally just won’t die,” Krieger spat on the ground and drew his scimitars. Beside him, Carden drew his giant sword and watched the black flame surround it.
“Leadership through action,” the old man said. “Let us show our brethren the strength of Karak.”
Side by side the two dark paladins pushed their way through the orcs, the flame of their weapons filling all who saw it with fear.
T his is it?” Harruq shouted as he slammed the body of a hyena-man against the wall. Condemnation hacked off his head. Meanwhile, Salvation buried deep into the gut of another. The creature yipped and clawed the air. A twist of the sword finished it. All around him, men with shields charged forward, slashing at their enemies before falling back. Only Harruq remained where he stood, a bloodied behemoth towering over them. Claw marks marred his face and covered his arms, but their pain was insignificant. Side to side his swords swept, his long arms covering every inch of the gateway’s width. His swords glowed brighter from the blood that stained them.
The orcs were the only thing keeping the hyena-men fighting. Many tried to turn and flee, but a wall of flesh and swords pushed them on. Many never even fought back as Harruq slaughtered them. He didn’t care. He felt no guilt. His home was under attack, and he would defend it. Two claws slashed across his cheek. He tasted blood. In return, he slashed out the creature’s throat and spilled its intestines along the gore-slick ground. Another leapt onto his swords just so he could bite his neck. The others charged, thinking him vulnerable. Harruq screamed, louder and crazier than the dying hyena-man. He flung him away, his vision red and his pain distant. Those that thought him vulnerable found their claws cut from their hands, their teeth smacked from their jaws, and their lives rent from their bodies.
“Pull back, brute!” Sergan yelled to him from behind the wall of shields. “Pull back before you get your sorry ass killed!”
The half-orc kicked a body off his sword, knocking down two more behind it. He roared out in mindless primal fury. Soldiers stormed past him, locking together their shields so Sergan could grab and pull him further into the city. Harruq pushed the general back and walked inside, wiping some gore away from his eyes with his thumb. When he neared Tarlak and Aurelia, he sheathed his swords.
“How many?” Tarlak asked.
“Lost count,” Harruq said. The ground suddenly shifted on him, as if it was rumbling and bumping, but he was the only one to drop to his knees while the others looked on. He heard the other two talking, but their voices were strangely distant.
“He’s lost a lot of blood,” he heard his wife say.
“I’m fine,” he said.
“Where’s Calan?” Tarlak asked.
“I said I’m fine!”
The half-orc staggered to his feet and drew his swords. He knew it was morning, but the sky was darker, the city dark as well.
“We need more time,” Aurelia said. She ran to the gate, lightning crackling on her fingertips. Tarlak pulled on the back of Harruq’s armor. He tried to resist, but the ground betrayed him again. Salvation and Condemnation fell from his hands. The wizard sat down on his knees in front of him and took off his hat.
“Drink this up like a good little boy and we’ll let you kill more baddies, alright?”
Tarlak pulled a vial out of his hat like a petty magic trick. He popped the cork off the top, pried open Harruq’s lips, and shoved the silvery liquid down. The taste reminded him of somewhere, but he couldn’t place it…couldn’t…
He slipped into unconsciousness, still trying to remember.
A urelia watched as the last of the hyena-men fell to the swords of the Neldar troops. Orcs tried to drag away the dead, but the archers above fired volley after volley. The piles of bodies grew larger. In the momentary reprieve, Aurelia stepped just inside the shield wall.
“Kneel down,” she said. Sergan, recognizing her for who she was, ordered the front to their knees. “Keep them off me,” she said as she began her spellcasting. She had a small window in between the shoulders of the men to either side of her. She’d have to be careful. The orcs funneled into the gateway, ready to bury them in their numbers.
A bolt of lightning tore through their center, killing seven. A second took five more. Her hands stretched over the men’s heads, and from her fingers flew a hundred arrows of fire. Those that avoided her spells hurled their bodies at her, but the soldiers had seen her power. Three shields pelted one orc’s body as he tried to hack off the sorceress’s fingers. Another had two swords pierce his belly and hold him back as Aurelia flung a ball of fire through the gateway and into the mass of orcs. It exploded over fifty feet in diameter. Orcs shrieked and died.
“Roast ‘em!” one shouted beside her. The elf smiled amid her concentration.
“Sure thing,” she said, ten black orbs dripping from her fingers. She flicked her hands, and the orbs flew into the charging orcs. Each orb exploded when it struck flesh or armor, engulfing the hapless victim in fire. Faster and faster her spells came. She hurled a ball of ice over the wall, crushing two poor orcs underneath. Magical arrows buried into gray throats. Lightning blasted huge lines of them to the ground, but still they came. The soldiers pushed them back, one even flinging his arms in front of an axe strike so the elf could complete her spell.
“There’s too many!” Sergan shouted to her.
“Trust me,” Aurelia said. Her head pounded, her back ached, and her fingers felt made of lead. “I know!”
She made a ripping motion with her hands. A wall of fire stretched from the ground to the top of the city’s outer entrance. She cast the spell again, forming a second barrier of fire on the inner side. A few orcs howled as they were pushed into the fire to test its strength. Blackened and dead, they rolled out the other side.
Aurelia grabbed the shoulders of the nearest man and pressed her head against his chest. With eyes closed, she tried to gather her strength. She had used so much magic, it felt as if her eyes would melt out of their sockets and blood would seep from her ears.
“Well, hello,” the man said. “Always knew I’d sweep you off your feet one of these days.”
She opened her eyes to see the soldier she had collapsed against was actually Tarlak.
“Comfy?” he asked with a grin.
“You sure know how to ruin a good thing,” she said, pushing away from him. “Did you find Calan?”
“Aye, I did,” he said. “And I must say, they know how to have fun.”
Aurelia raised an eyebrow, but the wizard just shook his head.
“Either you’ll see it or I’ll tell you about it later. For now, how are things here? Nice fire walls, by the way.”
“We’re holding,” she said, rubbing her eyes with her fingers. “But once you and I are exhausted, a
nd Harruq’s bled out every bit of strength he’s got, what then? They’re so many…”
“At least we have the archers,” Tarlak said.
“Yeah,” she said. “At least.”
V elixar said not a word as he watched the assault progress. Qurrah found it difficult to read his face, for every second the chin shifted higher, or the cheeks sunk lower, or the eyebrows changed color. His anger, though, was loud and clear.
“Ashhur has done well,” Velixar said. “Guided the strongest of this world to his side and then brought them to fight against us. But I have done the same, have I not?”
“We are ready to obey,” Qurrah said.
“I know,” Velixar said. “Kill the archers.”
Qurrah raised his hands and went over the words of a spell he had learned from Velixar’s journal. He had become a master of manipulating the bones of the dead, but the spell he was about to try was far beyond anything he had attempted before. Just before beginning the spell, he tried something new: prayer.
Aid me in this? Karak, he prayed. Prove to me your allegiance, and I will prove to you mine.
Words of magic poured from his lips. Hundreds of dead lay piled beside the two blasted gates of the city. Every single one was an entity he felt in his mind, their death lingering in anger. He harnessed the power of that death and then turned it on their broken bodies. His hands hooked and curled. The words came faster and faster. In the dark recesses of his mind, he heard the growl of the lion.
In one giant explosion, the bones of the dead tore into the air, numbering in the thousands. There they hovered while beneath them blood poured down like rain.
“Let death ride along the walls,” the half-orc whispered.
The bones swirled together, a storm of white and red. It started at the west. Like a floating meat grinder, it descended on the archers atop the walls. The bones pelted their bodies, tore across their skin, and shredded their flesh. From there it traveled south. Many archers leapt from the wall, accepting the broken bones in their legs or arms to the carnage they witnessed upon their brethren. By the time it reached the second gate, half of the archers had fled down ladders and steps. The other half died.
Qurrah was not done. He pulled the bone tornado higher, letting the blood and gore within it fall across the city. The tornado sucked in on itself, collecting into a giant grotesque ball of bone.
“Death is rain,” Velixar said, seeing what was about to happen. “Let them learn it.”
Qurrah slammed his fists together. The ball of bone exploded. The pieces pelted the city. The effect was dramatic. The stench of fear rose high from the city, and the necromancers drank it in with pleasure. Tessanna kissed Qurrah’s lips, giggling madly as she did.
“Do it again,” she said. “Break their buildings. Knock down the walls. Bones, Qurrah, the bones!”
The half-orc kissed her twice. “Perhaps later,” he said.
“One of the gates will fall soon,” Velixar said. “When that happens, the entire city will collapse.”
“What if too many die before then?” Qurrah asked. “You have the strength to sunder the walls, so why don’t you?”
The man in black laughed.
“Those who die will serve me in death just as well as they would serve me in life. Does it truly matter?”
“No,” Qurrah said, staring at the western gate and wondering if his brother was inside. “I guess it doesn’t.”
“As for the walls…the soldiers are here for a reason. They are to fight, and they are to die. I would not deny them their right. Besides, we must save our strength. Breaking Celestia’s will to open the portal to Thulos’s world will require everything, Qurrah, and then even more.”
Velixar gestured to the combat, his anger gone.
“Enjoy the battle. Enjoy the death. We have sown these seeds for centuries. Let us enjoy the reaping.”
T he smell of blood was overpowering as they neared the west gateway of the great wall surrounding Veldaren. This should have excited him, but the blood was not the intermixed carnage of battle. No, it was the stench of a massacre, and even worse, it was his army suffering the great loss of life. Worst of all to Krieger, the pathetic paladin Lathaar helmed the defense.
“This is no time for private duels,” Carden said to Krieger as they approached. With the archers dead or hiding after the bone tornado, they approached the sundered gate without worry. “The paladin’s death proves our strength, regardless the circumstances.”
“Then my failure to kill him showed Ashhur’s strength,” Krieger said. “Or does it not work both ways?”
Carden turned, his eyes burning with anger.
“You are the High Enforcer now,” he said. “Act it. Our enemies are strong and clever. We will overcome them by sheer faith and will, not by assumptions and ego. Draw your swords, paladin of Karak.”
Krieger did. Beside him, Carden raised his enormous sword, the dark fire visible throughout the battlefield. All around orcs gathered. Their bloodlust was high, and the sight of the fire heightened it further. If only they could get inside. If only the gateway defenders could be broken.
“Paladin of Ashhur!” Carden shouted. “Your kind is dead. Your god is fallen. Do you weep for your souls, knowing no arms wait to embrace you in death?”
Lathaar emerged from the line of shields inside the city, the glow on his swords strong. Krieger felt his blood boil at the sight of him. He should have killed him when he had the chance, he realized. He could have slaughtered him as a faithless, broken man in a backwater village. That was the fitting end for him, not some heroic last stand in the greatest battle of his life.
“Ashhur be damned,” Carden said, stirring him from his thoughts. “You were right. There is another.”
Jerico stepped beside Lathaar, and together they raised their holy armaments, their glow combining into an awesome display. Carden held his sword near his face, letting its dark fire absorb the painful glow.
“His name is Jerico,” Krieger said. “They are the last. We can eliminate their kind right here, right now.”
“We cannot draw them out,” Carden said. He turned to the orcs around them. “So we must meet them within. Orcs! Your cowardice ends now! You will charge, you will fight, and you will slaughter. Let the name of Karak sound from your lips!”
The force of his voice whipped them into a greater fervor. Krieger felt the authority in Carden’s voice and realized just how much he still had to learn and grow in his faith.
“Fight hard,” Krieger shouted, determined to fill the role he was given. “Break through the guards and you will have an entire city waiting. Pillage! Rape! Every sin, every vice, you can have it all!”
The orcs were screaming now, ready to tear apart their own kin to engage in battle. Krieger slammed his sabers together, the sparks showering around his enormous frame. As one, the dark paladins charged, the orc army hot on their heels.
“Let’s see how tough you are,” Jerico said, hurling another giant shield of light. Carden raised his sword and bellowed out the word ‘Felhelad.’ His sword became a blade of pure fire, its color darker than the night. When the shield of light approached he slashed the air, cutting it in two. A force struck the two dark paladins but they were not harmed and they were not held back.
“Ashhur be with you,” Jerico said to Lathaar as he stood to fight.
“You as well,” Lathaar replied. “Elholad!”
His swords became pure light, the counterpoint to the black fire that bore down upon them. Jerico raised his shield as Carden’s sword slammed against it. He had never felt a blow he could not withstand. He had never tried blocking a Felhelad. He screamed in pain, needing every bit of strength to hold back the sword. Anger fueled his determination, and then it was Carden’s turn to experience something he had never felt in all his long life: the holy retribution of Jerico’s shield. His Felhelad jerked back, pain stabbing his hands, shoulders, and stomach. The struggle had been mere seconds, but each one stared at his oppo
nent with newfound respect.
Krieger bore down on Lathaar, his weapons also Felhelads.
“Did you miss me?” he shouted as his sabers connected with Lathaar’s swords. Crackling power swirled between them. Lathaar winced and pushed back.
“How’s your back?” he asked. He parried a thrust, stepped aside, and then blocked a vicious chop. Behind him soldiers of Neldar readied their shields and stepped forward. The orcs had arrived, howling bloody murder. They filled the gateway, pouring around the paladins. The formation of shields wavered. Antonil shouted and urged them on, wading deep into the river of gray, but his valiant efforts were nothing compared to the hundreds pressing in.
Jerico parried a sideswipe with his mace, whirled his weapon around, and struck Carden across the chest. He was strong, but the power from his faith was in his shield, not his weapon. The mace recoiled, the enchantments on the armor too tough for his weapon to break. The dark paladin saw this and laughed.
“Those who cannot kill will be killed,” he said, slamming his Felhelad against the glowing shield. Again they both recoiled, wounded by the exchange. Two orcs ran past Carden and leapt at Jerico, their axes swinging. Jerico blocked one, clubbed the second in the jaw, and then slammed his shield against the first. Three more moved to attack Jerico but Carden cut them down with one giant swing. Despite his lecture with Krieger, he was determined to finish off the stubborn paladin without interference. Black fire leapt around his fist, and shouting the name of Karak, he punched Jerico’s shield.
Jerico knew what Carden was doing. Several of the stronger paladins of Karak could harness their faith into a single blow that could shatter stone and fell trees. The stronger their faith, the stronger the blow. He knew Carden’s faith was immense. When the fist connected with his shield, he knew immense didn’t come close. The center of his shield bowed inward, the metal cracking and melting. His arm shook in spasms while his fingers locked open. His mouth opened in a scream that felt unending. The pain stretched beyond intolerable.
When Carden’s fist pulled back, Jerico collapsed to his knees.
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