Heart of the Maiden: (Lords of the Deep Hells Book 3)

by Paul Yoder

The sun had long since begun its descent to the horizon, and Hathos, along with the rest of the Hyperium, were mounted and awaiting the signal that was promised would come in the western sky to signal the charge.

  “Horsemen approaching,” a voice called from the rear of the company, causing all to turn to see the Rochatan cavalry head towards them at a casual gallop.

  The horses seemed to stretch along the dunes for miles, hundreds of stomping feet angrily trying to find purchase in the soft sand under hoof, making the large shape of the army look like a giant centipede carpeting its way slowly across the bright-orange sands.

  Hathos turned to eye all his centurions.

  “Naldurn, Eilan, keep watch of the western skies for the signal. Kissa, eyes on the negotiations. If things go poorly…order the men to retreat. Tau, Undine, with me.”

  The three men split off from the rest of the Hyperium, rushing ahead. By the time the large company of horsemen slowed to a halt, only a dune away from them, and the Saadir and his seven chiefs came forward, the Hyperium leaders were already almost to them, Hathos keeping as much distance between the opposing force and his troop as possible.

  The two groups of leaders cautiously approached each other, an older gentleman, dressed in crisp Rochatan military garb, took lead, riding up to Hathos, looking down snidely upon the man. He could see from the start, negotiations were not going to be easily navigated.

  “I am talking with the captain of the band known as the Hyperium, I presume?”

  Hathos nodded, agreeing with the man even though he had undervalued his proper title, not caring to mince words at that time with one already in a displeasurable mood, issuing a quiet, “You assume correct. And who are you?”

  “Saadir, Captain of Horse. You are responsible for the recent reduction of men under my command,” the man abruptly announced, placing the onus of blame firmly upon the opposing leader.

  “We…,” Hathos began, wanting to state the facts of the matter, that they were simply defending themselves from Set’s merciless assault, but he knew that would get them nowhere, opting to go another route with his answer. “We were attacked, and we defended. Yes, it was by our hands that they are now dead.”

  “A crime that will not be forgotten after our current engagement, I assure you,” the tightlipped man declared, eyeing both Tau and Undine as he let the threat linger.

  “But we have other matters before both of us now,” he continued, collecting his passions before tersely asking, “You received the communique last night of the temporary alliance?”

  Hathos nodded his affirmation.

  “Though I protest on principle to the idea of an alliance with an enemy of the state, I will serve where duty calls, and Captain Durmont declares it so.”

  Hathos sat in his saddle silent, knowing the captain shared rank with Durmont and could simply protest the orders if he wished.

  His calculation must have showed in his features, as Saadir further explained shortly, “Captain Durmont is not one to issue orders or make military moves without reason, his record is impeccable. If he deems this alliance a necessity, then it is a necessity.”

  Hathos simply continued to hold eye contact with the captain, allowing him to continue, having nothing to say to the man.

  “Do you agree to a temporary truce between troops?” the captain asked.

  “Yes. When the flare is seen in the western sky, we ride to overtake the ruins and kill Sha’oul,” Hathos firmly agreed.

  The captain eyed the western mountain front, letting a gust along the dunes play itself out a bit before again speaking.

  “We will ride at your side this day—but not by personal choice,” the captain sneered tightly, putting an abrupt end to their communications as he, along with his chiefs, headed back to their divisions.

  Hathos watched the men leave, grateful they did not have to deal with the large force just then. Though the captain had a vendetta against him and his men, he did get the sense that a truce would be honored, at least during the battle. Where that left them afterwards…he would need to deal with hostilities and diplomacy once the arisen threat had been taken care of and his mission completed.

  Turning back to his company, the three men rode at a fast clip, the sun slowly making its way towards the mountains in front of them.

  “Primus! Look!” Tau shouted as they rode, pointing to a spot low in the sky, a burning white light crackling along the mountain range, hanging in the air as it sparkled brilliantly, showering the range with pops and sparks of phosphorescent light.

  Though they were each battle tested—undisputed veterans of war—the sight of the light, the signal flare that marked their charge, sent chills down their spine, their heartbeat shooting up as they rushed back to their divisions in preparation of the charge.

  “What of the talks?” Kissa asked as Hathos rode back into formation.

  “Our allyship is secured, at least until this is all over,” Hathos quickly explained, both of them looking to the flare in the sky.

  “It seems it is time,” she said, her tone reverent, respecting the moment that marked the final chapter in so many men and women’s lives come the evening of battle.

  “That it is. See to your post. I’ll have word with the Hyperium shortly before we charge,” he replied, looking down the line of his company, ensuring all were ready to move out.

  It pained him to see such a diminished Hyperium, roughly half remained with him, though they had Reza’s small company, and he suspected they would prove a hearty group and a pillar of reliance in battle.

  He trotted out before the gathered company, raising his voice to reach all surrounding him in the light of the flare.

  “This task that has been placed before us—some might consider impossible. But you are part of the Hyperium. We have overcome the impossible time and time again. We have proven ourselves; defied the odds; cheated death; and outwitted and outlasted our enemies. Never once has our company failed an assignment our sultan has commanded us to fulfil—and we will not fail this evening.

  “Though our numbers are few in comparison to Sha’oul’s, we will not flinch at the first blades crossing, and neither as the last blades cross. Their deaths plunge them to hell, while if our day does come this evening, we pass on to a place of refuge and eternal peace, to be with those great warriors that stood strong in their final hour. We will be with our gods, and our loved ones.”

  As he spoke, he saw the hope, determination, the readiness, and even the fear just below it all. He knew his men and women needed his assurance now more than ever. Never had they faced such a foreign foe, one so corrupted, one so evil.

  He raised his sword and shouted, “Bannermen, ready our colors! All flags, unfurled! Ride now, in the name of our sultan! In the name of our people! In the name of our loved ones! Drive our enemy back into the ground from whence it came!”

  A cheer erupted, and though their numbers were less than sixty, even the Rochatan horsemen that were on their way already to the ruins, turned in their saddles to view the war cries.

  Black and gold banners came out, tied to light frames of a few of the companies’ backs, the triangular flags flipping and snapping in the desert wind.

  Hathos snapped the reins of his horse, charging forward, his leaders’ dolingers digging into the clay-cracked ground, carving slices in it as they bounded forward, the Hyperium in a sprint over the few dunes that separated them from the ruins.

  At the crest of the highest peak, he could see the battlefield. All Tarigannien contingents were converging, as planned. The ruins remained dark, a shadow cast upon it, but he could still see the vast horde within and stretching out beyond its borders.

  The desert sun seemed in a hurry to lower below the mountain range to avoid the sight that was about to unfold along the Tarigannie sands, light already beginning to wane.

  Shouts and battle cries echoed throughout the valley as all charged forth to meet their destiny.

  37

  Clash of the
Living and the Dead

  The arisen, once outside of the perimeter, slowly backpedaled, consolidating behind the city’s boundaries. The Tarigannie horse riders rushed forward, just ahead of Hathos and his Hyperium, galloping in through the sections of downed wall and leaping over the low parts that still stood, breaching the perimeter of the forgotten ruins in chase of the scared foe.

  A line formed, roughly stretching across the whole southern side of the ruins, and those arisen that had spears held them level, pointed at the riders that were about to run them down in a calm phalanx.

  The riders collided ferociously with the line of the arisen dead. A few were violently ripped from their horses by the spears, others thrown to the sands as their mounts were skewered, but most plowed through the front line, battering down rows of walking dead, slashing and hacking into the soft skulls of those that were unprotected by armor.

  The charge broke down the front lines in an impressive display of gore, the Rochatans slashing through the feeblest of front-lined arisen, diving their ranks deeper and deeper into the horde, but the momentum slowed as they started passing stranger, more lively arisen shoving through the other listless arisen to make their way to the riders.

  The riders began to lose speed and mobility, the greatest assets to the cavalry unit, and as their pace slowed, more and more hungry dead tore their way into the ranks of the riders, beginning to rip them from their mounts.

  The Hyperium heard the bloodcurdling screams, men and women getting ripped apart on the battlefield, but they kept their focus straight ahead on the two hundred walking dead that were clumped along the northeastern ruin walls.

  Hathos ordered the charge, though when they arrived at the line, they glanced through, weaving back out of the fray after a strafing run, slicing the weak arisen down with impunity.

  A few crossbow bolts from the Shield Company sunk into the arisen group to their left, aiding their struggling allies, the cavalry having a hard time brute-forcing their way through the ranks of the dead.

  Hathos shouted orders to his company, watching as two hundred more horsemen rushed in a ways down the wall through an open spot along the ruin’s border.

  “Press the attack! We make to flank with Captain Durmont’s men!” he yelled into the fray, seeing how instantly outnumbered the two hundred riders were as they charged into a horde of five hundred or so arisen, and not all were humans either. Some were mutated, others, creatures that looked straight out of hellish nightmares.

  Dolinger’s plowed into walls of standing flesh, easily ripping off limbs as they raked their way forward, their riders slashing and piercing with their spears and swords as they waded through the sluggish ranks, slowly making their way to the golden tabards of the Fort Wellspring soldiers.

  Massive beasts burst through a line of shambling arisen, flinging corpses out into the crowd as they smashed through a wall along the mound that led up to the two pillars at the center of the ruins.

  Three giant ape faces, deep in a state of decay, turned to the golden tabards of the soldiers of Gunnison and Fort Wellspring, the angry orange rays of the sun gleaming upon their armor, causing them to glow valiantly, seeming heaven-touched.

  The apes rushed towards them, trampling and battering all arisen that were in their way.

  “Shields, crossbows; Shadows, arrows; fire on those giants! Blood, press forward along the wall!” Hathos barked as the group as a whole fended off the walls of arisen along their left flank while the troops at the center of the group focused on firing upon the charging apes.

  The arrows and bolts did land, but had little effect, the quills not even seeming to phase the massive juggernauts.

  As the apes got closer to the group of two hundred riders, the men in golden thread began to take note, backing up their front line from the sluggish arisen to prepare for the hulks that charged towards them.

  “Spearmen out front!” Scars ordered the Gunnison militia, the other chiefs yelling the same command to their Wellspring divisions behind them.

  Spearpoints thrust through the front of the lines as soldiers rode up, having only moments to lead the point to their target as the first of the mountain apes smashed in, slapping the last of the arisen out of its way, ten spears tearing into its flank, chest, and head, ripping chunks off its side, gouging straight through, oozing black gore out onto the spearmen as they impaled it.

  The giant slammed its club arm across the front line without regards to how badly it had been skewered, sending man and horse flying out of its way as it stumbled through the front line, the other two apes impacting the other line of awaiting spearmen with a similar devastating effect.

  “Cease fire!” Hathos yelled, looking to Reza, seeing that they were not nimble enough a force to make it to the apes in time to help the broken line of allies.

  “Reza—” Hathos started, but Reza was ahead of him, seeing the issue the fifty plus of them were having making headway through the ranks of the dead before them. She had an answer to the problem at the ready.

  “Zaren, Jadu, Arie, Naldurn!” Reza shouted out, calling the four of them to her side against the ruin’s walls away from the frontline.

  “Zaren and Jadu, break through the gap in the wall ahead and make your way to the Tarigannie force. Deal with those apes or those riders will lose the north flank. Arie, Naldurn—protect them.”

  “Anything to get out of this crowded mess,” Zaren griped, Jadu giving Reza a thumbs up as he sat behind his master, clutching onto his robes as the enchanter rode forward, Arie and Naldurn charging off to keep up.

  “They’ll handle it,” Reza confirmed to Hathos, who seemed concerned for the small measure Reza had offered to solve the devastation happening fifty yards ahead of them, the apes having broken through the rider’s line, scattering their formation as they slammed the ground around them, grabbing any fleshy contraption they could, ripping bone and limb apart as they hungrily sought more meat to rend.

  He did not have time to second guess Reza’s actions as a rumbling from the ground around them staggered everyone to a halt.

  “Sinkhole!” some of the frontline Blood troops called out, everyone stepping back as the ground fell in on itself in front of them, the sand swallowing up the dead they had been engaged with.

  “Back! Fall back!” Undine ordered, their front line of dolingers back-treading as the hole widened, a large, desiccated worm mouth breaching the sands, plucking a mounted Blood soldier and their dolinger from the front line, swallowing them whole as it returned to the liquid sand beneath.

  “Waste worms!” came shouts from the Blood Company, the new development forcing Hathos to change his immediate plans of coming to the aid of their allies up ahead, to pushing up the slope of the ruins to the center sprawl of buildings that cluttered about the central pillars.

  “Up the slopes! Press past the dead! Into the rubble!” he ordered over the chaos of the opening sinkholes forming closer and closer to them, threatening to engulf the whole attachment.

  The Blood soldiers took more risks, slamming the dead down, slashing through their ranks hastily as the rearguard attempted to help, firing arrows and bolts into the crowd ahead, shining spears sticking into the arisen that got past the Blood line.

  They were in the thick of the horde, but the old streets ahead looked to offer them some hope as the scathing corpses that crowded the outer perimeter thinned out amidst the rubble of the old ruin’s many buildings.

  The dolingers had kept most of them up high and safe from the clutches of the dead as those that got close were sure to be received by sword, spear, and shield from the riders, or the claws and teeth of the mounts they rode.

  A few had fallen though, and the dead were quick to swarm to the downed Blood riders, ending them quickly in a ripping torrent of grabbing hands and gnashing teeth. To dismount to help a fallen comrade would have sealed both soldier’s fate, and the company moved quickly through the sea of bodies, slaying when possible as they made their way onto the sand-cove
red cobblestone paths, fallen portions of walls and debris littering the way, making it difficult for them to traverse as Hathos led the group into the husk of a larger structure that gave them at least two walls to place their backs to as they regrouped.

  “Shields, take the front line and give the Bloods aid! Shadows, up on walls, fire at will! Find me Sha’oul!” Hathos yelled over the snarl and bark of the dolingers ripping the arisen that rushed in at the company’s rear guard, waving for his company leaders to come to him for further orders as the rest of the soldiers got to work at their duties.

  “Henarus, a blessing upon my scouts’ eyes. We need to find Sha’oul and end all this. We stand little chance winning this battle any other way,” Hathos entreated of the prophet, the holy man nodding readily, ordering his priest to speak a blessing upon the leaders as he took care of the scouts along the walls.

  A droning chant began as both men began a prayer, reaching out their hands that glowed a light blue, chanting words that were lost in the din of war as Hathos continued to call out orders, the blessing of Hassome beginning to clear out the exhaustion and chaos that had been mounting since the start of it all, sharpening everyone’s thoughts and perception of the scene around them.

  Hathos, looking to Reza, asked in a much calmer tone, “Once we locate Sha’oul, will you be able to lead the assault? The Hyperium will secure the perimeter for you. We’ll hold the line for your strike force. Take whomever you need to get the job done.”

  Reza, who herself now felt the calming presence of Hassome, immediately called out, “Gale, Jasper, Eilan, Kissa, Cavok, Terra, Henarus, all with me. We end Sha’oul as soon as he shows himself to us.”

  The pillars that loomed high above them flashed, the runes that were painted in blood along the stones flashing a bright red, so bright that it caused all to recoil momentarily as a rumble of shockwaves crackled through the husks of the buildings the group was bunkered against, shaking the rickety structure, threatening to collapse it all along the soldiers huddled by it.