A cunning strategy, save for one flaw.
Ragnachar had the sword of the Destroyer, and he would crush anyone in his path.
He took a deep breath. All his life, he had held himself in check. His mother had tried to turn him into a model Tervingi thain, and for a time she had succeeded. But he had found his own path in the worship of the Urdmoloch. Yet even that had not been satisfying, and he had been forced to hold himself in check.
And now, at last, he could kill until even his tainted blood was sated.
“Send word to the thains,” said Ragnachar, voice calm and hard as iron. “Begin the attack.”
The orcragar bowed and ran off.
A mighty roar went up from the host, and the Tervingi began to sing a hymn of battle, one of the songs of Tervingar and his companions.
The mammoths lumbered towards the wall.
###
Tymaen Highgate gazed at the plain below.
From the top of Night Sword Tower, the armies maneuvering outside of Sword Town looked like so many ants, even the mammoths.
“Lucan,” she said, “I think the battle is beginning.”
“Yes,” murmured Lucan, “I know.”
He had been busy.
He had written sigils of green fire upon the top of the turret, dozens of interlocking rings of them. At the center of the spiraling sigils the Wraithaldr hovered, floating a foot off the ground. The staff of black crystal turned slowly, green flame flickering in its depths.
Lucan stepped to her side, put his hand on the small of her back. He wore that black diadem in the shape of a dragon, and the Glamdaigyr rested in his left hand, its sigils pulsing and glimmering in time to the fiery glyphs upon the floor.
The sound of shouting men reached her ears, and the Tervingi host moved toward the walls of the town.
“Lucan,” she said. “I don’t want to see a battle. I don’t want to watch men die.”
“I know,” said Lucan. “Neither do I. But it is necessary. From the fires of this battle will rise a new world, a world free of the Demonsouled.”
Tymaen managed to nod. Lucan knew what he was doing.
“Don’t interrupt me, once I begin,” said Lucan. “It’s important.”
She nodded again.
He kissed her, and walked to the edge of the tower, bracing one foot on the ramparts.
Then he lifted the Glamdaigyr and began to chant.
###
Power thrummed around Lucan.
The might of the Wraithaldr poured through him, linked by the sigils written upon the floor. The well of Demonsouled power filled him, enhancing his strength further.
But even that was not enough to begin the Great Rising.
Lucan cast a spell, channeling power into the Glamdaigyr, extending the sword’s aura over the battlefield.
He felt the battle's first death through the Glamdaigyr. The sword sucked up the life energy and poured it into the sigils around the Wraithaldr.
Then another death.
Then another, and still another.
Chapter 33 – The Battle of Swordgrim
“Stand fast!” roared Mazael.
Lion’s fire burned brighter. Whatever source of dark magic the sword sensed was coming closer.
But for now, Mazael was more concerned about the Tervingi.
Two dozen mammoths thundered towards the eastern wall of Sword Town. Arrows hissed from the ramparts, but the mammoths' heavy armor easily deflected the missiles. The Tervingi had even fashioned grills of metal to protect the mammoths’ eyes.
Around Mazael the knights, armsmen, and militiamen braced themselves, shields and spears raised.
“Archers!” shouted Mazael. "Release!"
The bowmen could do little against the mammoths, but the Tervingi would prove easier targets.
###
Romaria heard Mazael’s shout and looked over her shoulder. The militiamen of Sword Town stood in ranks around her, bows ready, quivers hanging at their belts.
“Ready!” shouted Romaria, raising her own Elderborn bow. The archers in the lifted their bows, hundreds of them, with more archers standing in the street below the walls.
The creak of strained bowstrings filled her ears.
“Release!” shouted Romaria.
Hundreds of arrows shot overhead in a black blur, arcing over the ramparts and the mammoths to fall like steel rain among the advancing Tervingi warriors.
“Again!” shouted Romaria.
The archers drew and released, sending volley after volley of arrows over the battlements.
###
Mazael watched the arrows slam into the Tervingi, saw dozens fall. But the charge did not stop, did not even falter. The archers could not keep the thains from reaching the wall.
The mammoths lumbered closer.
“Brace yourselves!” said Mazael, lifting Lion. The blade burned brighter, the azure fire throwing harsh shadows over the battlements. He looked over the advancing army, expecting to see Malrags or zuvembies, or perhaps a spell unleashed by a necromancer Ragnachar had found somewhere.
But he saw nothing but thousands of Tervingi thains.
That was bad enough.
The mammoths reached the ramparts, and the sides of the towers upon their backs fell open. The falling walls landed upon the battlements, creating a ramp onto the ramparts.
Tervingi thains raced out, screaming their battle songs.
Mazael leapt forward, Lion a burning blur in his fist. His blade took the first spearthain in the leg. The man lost his balance and fell from the ramp to bounce off the ground below. More swordthains and spearthains charged down the ramps, and the knights and armsmen held fast.
Yet Mazael saw dozens of the mammoth-carried ramps crashing onto the ramparts of Sword Town, hundreds of thains storming upon the walls.
And rope ladders dangled from the mammoths' flanks, fresh thains scrambling up to the platforms and the ramps.
The Demonsouled rage boiled up in Mazael, and he gave himself over to it, bellowing as he faced the next wave of thains.
###
Ragnachar watched the melee upon the walls, Tervingi thains struggling against knights and armsmen. Chaos spread over the ramparts as the Tervingi attacked, but the defenders held. Their lines wavered and rippled, but they held.
Ragnachar scowled. The defenders would eventually break from the sheer weight of numbers, but he would lose a lot of men in the processes. Their lives did not concern him, but if he lost too many, he would not have enough left to destroy Toraine Mandragon when he emerged from Swordgrim.
And if the Tervingi saw too much of the slaughter, the craven fools might break and run before Sword Town even fell.
Then Ragnachar glimpsed the flash of blue flame atop the wall, and the rage within him burned hotter.
Mazael Cravenlock fought on he ramparts, and the Tervingi melted away from him. Any thain who faced him perished, and many others shied away from him in fear. Damn Aegidia and her prophecy! For years she had asked everyone she could find about the man in golden armor and his sword of blue flame. Now he stood atop the walls of Sword Town, butchering Ragnachar’s men.
And like Ragnachar, he was a son of the Urdmoloch, a warrior of might and power. Little wonder he held the destiny of the Tervingi nation in his hands.
A destiny that Ragnachar would claim. For he was the Destroyer, and he would trample the realms of men beneath his boots.
“The ram!” he roared, and the orcragars hurried to obey him.
###
Lucan's hands tightened against the Glamdaigyr's hilt, the blade pointed at the battle below.
A haze of shadow swirled around the weapon, the green glyphs shining within the gloom. His magic extended the sword’s draining aura, and he felt the power of the deaths below, more and more of them, pouring through the sword.
And into the Wraithaldr.
The black staff glowed, brighter and brighter, until it seemed like a shard of frozen green fire. The sigils on the
floor burned hotter, until it seemed as if the entire top of the tower had been built of ghostly emerald light.
And still the Glamdaigyr drank more death from the battle below.
That was good. Lucan would need every last scrap of power he could gather to cast the Great Rising.
Tymaen stared at the battle, eyes wide, hands covering her mouth. He regretted that she had to see this. She had a kindly heart, and could not face horror unflinchingly as Lucan could.
But the horror was necessary. The deaths of the men on the walls of Sword Town would free the world of the Demonsouled.
The swirling shadows around the Glamdaigyr grew darker.
###
Mazael sprinted along the ramparts, a cluster of armsmen following him.
Flights of arrows hissed overhead, falling into the Tervingi outside the walls. Yet everywhere the Tervingi swarmed down the ramps and over the battlements. Inch by bloody inch, the defenders fell back. Reserve companies waited in the streets below, ready to close any gaps. Yet if the Tervingi gained a hold on the wall, they could pour enough men onto the ramparts to make the entire defense collapse.
And Mazael saw one such hold forming ahead.
A fist of Tervingi swordthains jumped upon the wall, cutting down the militia fighters, and more swordthains scrambled down the ramp behind them.
“Attack!” roared Mazael, racing forward.
He crashed into the thains, bashing one across the face with his shield, and killing a second with a quick swipe from Lion. A spear darted past his guard but bounced off the golden scales of his armor. Mazael thrust, taking the spearthain in the throat. The man fell, choking in his own blood, while the armsmen attacked, swords and axes rising and falling.
“The ramp!” shouted Mazael, catching a sword blow on his shield. He stepped forward and counterattacked, his own strike bouncing off a swordthain’s chain mail. Yet the man staggered back, stunned by the force of the strike. “Get the ramp off the wall!”
Two heavy steel hooks secured the ramp to the wall. The armsmen rushed forward, hammering at the ramp with their axes. The ramp splintered and fell away from the wall to slam into the side of the mammoth. The beast grunted in pain, turning away from the wall despite the angry blows from its driver. Mazael grinned, the battle rage pouring through him like a river of molten iron. No more Tervingi would get onto the walls over that mammoth.
Though at least twenty more of the massive beasts stood against the walls, Tervingi warriors climbing over their backs.
“Ram!”
Mazael turned his head, saw Sir Tanam standing over the gate, pointing with a bloody sword.
“Ram!” shouted the Old Crow. “My lords, a ram!”
Mazael ran to Tanam’s side and saw the ram.
It was a massive iron fist topping a thick bundle of logs. The thing rolled on wheels, bouncing with every bump in the ground. Ragnachar’s orcragars pushed the ram towards the gate, dark shadows in their ragged black cloaks. Lion burned hotter as they approached. The orcragars had some dark magic in them, some source of dark power.
“Archers to the walls!” said Mazael. “Stop that ram!”
###
Romaria sprinted to the ramparts, Elderborn bow in hand. The militia archers ran behind her, grim-faced and sweating. They spread out into a line over the gate, bows raised. Fighting raged along with ramparts, but hopefully the knights could keep the Tervingi from reaching the archers.
Romaria saw the ram moving closer to the gate, a massive bundle of wooden shafts topped with iron. Orcragars pushed it, while others moved forward, shields raised to ward off any arrows.
Romaria drew her bow. “Release!”
The archers loosed a volley, and Romaria picked an orcragar and released. Her arrow shot across the distance to the ram and hammered into the orcragar’s chest, punching through his armor. The man staggered, grabbing at the ram.
But he did not fall.
He glared up at her, eyes flaring with red light beneath his helm, and kept pushing.
Gods. Just as Mazael suspected, the orcragars had been infused with Ragnachar's Demonsouled blood, like Corvad and his Malrags. Romaria loosed another arrow. The shaft punched into the orcragar’s throat, and the man fell to his knees.
But still he did not die.
“Mazael!” shouted Romaria. “They’re infused!”
She caught his gaze, saw him nod.
The archers poured arrows into the orcragars. Some fell and did not rise again. But most of the wounded got back up, and many did not fall at all, despite taking a dozen arrows or more. Hundreds of orcragars waited behind the ram, swords ready.
Once the ram reached the gates, the orcragars would storm into the town. And if the orcragars were anything like Corvad’s infused Malrags, they would kill everyone in sight.
The ramparts shuddered beneath Romaria’s boots as the ram slammed into the gate.
###
Ragnachar watched the struggle at the ram.
Arrows fell like rain, but not enough to stop his orcragars. Ragnachar should have relied on his orcragars from the beginning, rather than the weak, flawed Tervingi thains. Once this was finished he would create an entire army of orcragars and wash the world in blood.
The boom of the ram echoed over the battle.
“Once the gate falls,” said Ragnachar, “we put every man, woman, and child within the town to the sword.”
“We, master?” said an orcragar.
Ragnachar lifted his burning greatsword. “I will accompany you.”
At last he could kill as much as he pleased.
The orcragars roared a battle cry.
###
The ramparts trembled beneath Mazael’s boots.
He heard boards splintering and iron hinges screaming as the ram slammed into the gate. Mazael pushed away from the battlements, intending to order the knights and armsmen to the square, to receive the charge when the ram broke through.
Instead he froze, gazing at the black mass of orcragars behind the ram.
Ragnachar himself strode in their midst, clad in the black plate armor of Old Dracaryl. In his hands he bore a massive greatsword of crimson steel, the pommel sculpted in the likeness of a snarling demon's head. Crimson flames roared up and down the blade, an inferno the color of blood.
Mazael had seen that sword before.
Or, rather, one like it. Amalric Galbraith had carried it as he marched toward Knightcastle, leaving burned villages and staked corpses in his wake.
The sword of the Destroyer, the Demonsouled prophesied to bring an end to the kingdoms of men.
"To the square!" shouted Mazael. "To the square! Hasten! The enemy will break through the gate! To the square!"
He sprinted down the stairs to the street below, knights and armsmen clattering after him. The reserve companies rushed to the square, men shouting commands. Some of the archers still stood in ranks below the gate, sending volleys over the wall.
"To the ramparts!" said Mazael, pointing Lion. "Shoot anything that comes through that gate!"
They took one look at his burning sword and hastened to obey.
Mazael set himself, shield raised, Lion ready. There was a good chance, he knew, that he was about to die here. He had survived the San-keth, the Dominiars, the Malrags, and a dragon, but now he and his men were trapped in this town. Reinforcements might be on their way, or they might not.
But he doubted they would arrive in time to turn the tide.
A moment later the gate exploded in broken shards, wood and twisted iron clattering across the cobblestones.
Orcragars charged through the gate.
###
"At last," said Ragnachar as the gate collapsed into ruin.
He lifted the sword of the Destroyer, his voice thundering over the battle.
"Into the town! Leave none alive!"
His orcragars bellowed, while the Tervingi thains swarmed over the surviving mammoths, driving the defenders from the ramparts.
#
##
Mazael met the first orcragar that came at him with Lion's blade. The orcragar managed to parry the first blow, then the second.
The third took the orcragar's head from his shoulders.
But many more swarmed through the ruined gate, their ragged black cloaks billowing behind them. They crashed into the lines of knights and armsmen, sword and axes hammering at shields. Soon the square filled with struggling men, the shouts and the screaming of the dying filling the air.
Mazael took the arm from one orcragar, the head from another. Blows hammered against him, but his dragon's scale armor absorbed most of it, and the strikes that penetrated left only minor wounds that his Demonsouled nature would soon heal.
Unless the orcragars killed him first.
Step by step the orcragars pushed the men in the square back. Dozens of orcragars fell upon the ground, their tainted blood soaking the ground. But the orcragars tore into the defenders like ravenous beasts, and swordthains and spearthains began to pour into the town.
And through the gate, Mazael saw the crimson flare of the Destroyer’s sword.
###
“Gods,” said Molly.
The Tervingi host filled the plain below Sword Town's eastern wall. The mammoths acted as living siege towers, and the gates had been smashed, a black mass of orcragars pouring into the town. The defenses were crumbling, the Tervingi gaining footholds on the wall.
“We have to charge at once,” said Sir Hagen, making a fist.
“We have only two thousand men,” said Molly. “There must be at least fifteen thousand Tervingi.”
“But the town's walls are still holding,” said Hagen. “And if we hit the Tervingi now, we’ll trap them between the walls and our men.”
Soul of Sorcery (Book 5) Page 39