This time only two squad leaders shared the driver’s bench with Eril. He told everyone to hang on, invoked his spells, and they left. Since he knew time was of the essence and he had no officers he flew more aggressively, only slowing when he heard the supplies shifting. They made it back to the top in half the previous time, though several of the soldiers looked at the point of vomiting.
As before, he used his zdrell to empty the wagon and was already flying back less than ten minutes after he’d arrived. This time Zask was ready with a final, even larger, group of soldiers as they’d gotten all the supplies on the previous runs.
The soldiers loaded apprehensively. They had opted to put up higher sideboards on the wagon bed so that the soldiers could stand packed together. They ended up with twenty-eight soldiers in the back, with Eril, captain Zask, and two other squad leaders crammed onto the driver’s seat.
This time Eril deliberately flew more smoothly as there was real danger of the soldiers falling out the back if he moved too violently. The trip took longer, but they still arrived at the ridge with this load in less time than what they had thought it would take for only two trips.
Chapter 64
Eril flew from the wagon directly up to the ridge where he could see Turek and the General standing.
“Good work, young man,” the General said, as he saw Eril land. “You got these troops up here more quickly than I would have believed possible. And just in time too. The leading elements of the enemy are just reaching trebuchet range.”
Eril could see the troops loading the trebuchet with bags filled with a mix of rock and the incendiary powder he had brought up previously. As he watched, the first load was fired. The bag landed slightly wide of its mark, the leading column of troops advancing up the hill road. As it landed, the entire bag exploded violently spewing rock and burning powder.
The column came to a halt, which was both expected and a horrible thing for the troops as a second bag impacted right in the middle of the bunched up soldiers, felling at least ten and knocking down another score.
The soldiers manning the trebuchet were obviously well drilled in their craft, and the four different teams alternated their targeting to devastating effect on the massed troops. In less than ten minutes the advance had stopped and was forced to retreat out of range. The troops on the ridge cheered and shouted their defiance to the enemy soldiers below.
“That was a credible showing, General,” Turek said. “I’ll leave the main defense of the ridge in your capable hands.”
He turned to Eril, “Come on, Eril. We need to see what we can do about convincing that attacking army that they really don’t want to be here.”
They walked to a higher point on the ridge where the entire sweep of enemy forces was visible. The wind whistled in their faces. Eril could see that while they had stopped the initial elements of the force that was coming up the pass road that there were many more coming behind them. Soon, they would have so many troops coming up the road that if only one in twenty made it past the defenders, they would soon overwhelm them.
“So, Eril,” Turek said, waving his hand at the situation. “What do you think is our best bet for winning this hopeless battle? I’d say they outnumber our current forces five hundred to one. Most any would say there is no winning against those odds.”
Eril looked out on the vast forces. He didn’t feel at all threatened himself, so he wasn’t scared, but he still felt daunted at the enormity of the challenge.
“I guess we need to find some way to change the odds. Mostly I guess we need to do what you said to the general. We need to convince the soldiers down there to leave instead of attack.”
“I am in complete agreement, Eril. How do we do that? Consider this part of your education in strategy.”
“I’m really not sure,” Eril said, hesitating. “I guess we need to find some way to convince them that they can’t win and that they’ll die if they try?”
“Indeed. You are correct again. See, I told you strategy was mostly common sense. But, how exactly should we convince them, since they outnumber us so overwhelmingly?”
Eril paused, thinking, scanning the entire enemy force. “What if we convince them that there is nowhere they can hide from us? Those troops below turned back when they saw that they were being destroyed by the trebuchet. Maybe we can do the same thing with the main body of troops down there?”
“Right again,” Turek said, grinning grimly. “And exactly how do we do that? What will convince those thousands below that they’ll die if they don’t retreat?”
Eril racked his brain for ideas. “We could use several of the really large blue globes directed into the middle of those troop blocks.”
“That’s a good start, and we can likely kill a few thousand that way. How do you think the opposing wizards are likely to react?”
“I would guess they’ll summon a demon or two.”
“I agree. That is almost certainly what they will do. Notice how those four tents are still set up in the command area. I would bet a great deal that the wizards are there right now, waiting to see if they need to use their demons.”
“Why don’t they already have demons out?” Eril asked.
“My guess is their advance scouts did not feel there would be any significant resistance from the pass, since there were no troops here yesterday. Also, now they’re unsure. We might have demons of our own deployed, they don’t know, and they’re unwilling to risk it for some time more until they know how it will go. Those wizards won’t risk a summoning if we might have a powerful enough demon in play that they might lose.”
“And when they figure out we don’t have demons?”
“They will almost certainly summon two or three, and then our fight here really is done,” Turek said grimly.
“So, what do we do?”
“I’d say our best bet is to convince them that we have a powerful demon, and do it quickly.”
Eril was completely confused. “How can we do that?”
A fierce gleam shone from the hirsute face of the diminutive wizard. “Why, we have you. You can masquerade as a cloaked demon. That should put the fear in them.”
“How?” Eril asked, stunned.
“Look, you just need to fly out there with your shield and invisibility active and throw energy balls like you already said. Those wizards will see you as something invisible, but won’t be able to tell what you are exactly, and they’ll assume you’re a cloaked demon since you’ll look much like one. You can do that spell while you are flying, right?”
“I’ve never tried it before, but I know that spell well enough to cast it in my sleep, so I should be able.”
“Great. Then you better get out there soon. Oh, and don’t forget to activate the portal detection amulet too. If you sense a portal opening up, attack that location with all you have. That should keep a demon from coming through and ruining all our fun.” He patted Eril on the shoulder. “Make sure you pay attention to the communicator if it buzzes. We may need you back here. Also, I’ll be launching my own energy balls, but with rocky cores. If you get the chance, send them out further into the crowds.”
Eril shook his head. This was all happening so fast. He hadn’t had ten minutes rest since they left Jull this morning. It was now just about noon, and the bright sun illuminated the scene. He could smell the smoke from recently extinguished campfires below and the acrid stench from the incendiary powder explosions. He really didn’t feel like he was ready, but what he saw told him he had no time to waste, so he activated his amulets and took to the air.
§ § §
Eril flew out over the valley, getting oriented and deciding the most effective place to attack. Looking back behind him he saw a glowing blue energy ball launch into the air.
He smiled and took control of the flight of the ball and pushed it further and further out until it was headed into the middle of a large concentrated group of troops. The force of the impact was shocking. Literally, hundreds of soldier
s and horses were either blown to the ground or destroyed outright. An enormous crater marked the impact point.
The effect on the entire army was also significant. Up to this point, all the troops had been moving in a cautious orderly fashion towards the road to the pass. Now confusion took hold. Some units moved forward more quickly while others stopped entirely. A few seemed to be turning in circles.
Eril looked back and saw another ball soaring from the ridge. He was further out and pulled harder on the sphere and sent it into the middle of a large unit of cavalry and support troops that had speeded their march to the pass. Again, the impact’s effect was devastating. The few horses still standing reared and shed their riders running off in panic, while most lay dead and wounded on the ground.
Knowing he had a few moments before Turek could send another orb his way, Eril decided to find out if he could conjure his own energy ball while flying. It turned out to be as easy as thinking about it. He had cast this spell or its variant so many times it was nearly reflexive.
The sun was burning bright, and Eril drew power from it and all the other ambient sources of energy. He created a large ball and sent it into another knot of troops. The effect wasn’t as dramatic as the previous ones. This left only a small crater and didn’t have nearly as large a blast radius. Still, tens of troops died instantly, and many others were blown off their feet.
For the next half hour, Eril continued to attack and sow confusion. He alternated between conjuring his own balls and using those initially lofted by Turek.
What had started as regimented masses of troops dissolved into a field of confusion. The most organized units had hunkered down into defensive positions and tried to use their shields to provide as much cover as possible. Several had found gullies or ravines and were trying to shelter against their sides. This might have worked against random projectiles, but every shot Eril landed was carefully aimed. He had spent years preparing for this, and his accuracy meant that each ball landed where it would create the maximum amount of devastation.
Until this point, he had not attacked the command tents, as he was trying to act like a demon. But, then, as predicted, one of the wizards must have gotten sufficiently desperate, and he felt the tug indicating that a portal was being opened.
By now, Eril was mad. He hated that he had to kill hundreds if not thousands of people. He felt no joy in what he was doing, in fact, it made him feel sick, but he knew he had to keep going until they retreated.
Eril took all this anger and focused it into an attack on the tent where the portal was being opened. In rapid succession, he sent three different balls at the tent and those near it. When he saw figures fleeing the burning structures, he used the enhanced missile spell and mercilessly wiped out anyone who moved.
Within seconds after he attacked the command tents, he felt the portal collapse, indicating that he’d injured or killed the wizard responsible for creating it. He took advantage of the next ball Turek sent his way and slammed it with even more force into the center of where all the command tents had been. The explosion was the biggest yet leaving a crater at least twenty feet across and nothing standing within fifty yards of the impact site.
Just then, Eril felt the communicator vibrate in his waist pocket. He flew higher and touched the communicator to be able to hear.
“Get back here now, Eril!” he heard Turek’s high pitched panicked voice. “That charzen has cut its way through to the ridge. It’s already killed half our men. I’m barely keeping it occupied.”
Eril turned and flew back as fast as he could go. As he flew, he could hear curses and grunts as well as snatches of incantations as Turek tried to fight or at least distract the charzen.
He arrived at the ridge to view a sea of blood. Just as at castle Kord, the charzen, wielding two curved magically enhanced blades, had carved its way through the ridge defenders. It did not seem to be much bothered by the missiles and rocks that Turek was continuously throwing at it.
Eril couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t attacking Turek directly, but it might have been slowed by the wizard’s shield spell and happy to concentrate on the other more vulnerable targets. It was a whirling vortex of death as it spun, sliced, and moved at four times the speed of any of the defenders.
Even as he watched, Eril saw Captain Zask launch an attempted sneak attack only to have his sword bounce harmlessly off the charzen’s skin which then turned and slashed with both swords nearly cutting the man in half.
Eril knew his zdrell was the only weapon with any hope. He landed, and the charzen immediately spun to face him and charged. Eril didn’t have time to react, so he leapt straight into the air. To his shock, the charzen jumped up to follow. It reached for and would have grabbed his leg, but the still active shield spell rebuffed the grab, and the charzen dropped the twenty feet back to the ground, landing with ease.
Eril stayed forty feet above the ground while the charzen tracked him and looked for another chance to jump. Eril had lots of practice lifting other things while he was flying, but this charzen seemed even more slippery to his zdrell than the one he’d encountered at castle Kord.
The only good thing about this fight was that it was giving the soldiers on the ridge time to re-group. The general and one other lieutenant appeared to be the only officers still standing. They were both directing soldiers to try and hold the ridge and the now mostly undefended road from the valley. Eril doubted they currently had enough men to hold the pass.
Turek, for his part, was continuing to harry the charzen from a distance. The problem was that the man-beast could dodge nearly all of the attacks Turek threw. Worse, those few that landed had little if any effect.
As Eril was still invisible to normal eyes, he guessed the charzen, though able to perceive him could not do so clearly. Eril tried hitting the charzen with a small concentrated blue energy ball. It bounced off the creature’s skin with no visible damage.
He then used a head-sized piece of rough rock. It took three tries before he managed to land a blow that would have killed most men. The charzen staggered briefly and appeared to have a slight break in its black scarred skin. It howled in rage at its inability to jump high enough to get to Eril.
The slight scrape in its skin seemed to diminish its slipperiness to his zdrell, and Eril was finally able to lift the abominable thing into the air. It twisted and thrashed and began to curse in Herglish and at least two other languages.
Eril came to ground, while keeping the charzen some thirty feet in the air. The charzen then threw one of its curved blades at Eril. The blade deflected slightly, but passed through his shield, missing him by less than an inch.
It threw the second blade at Eril, but this time Eril was ready and dived to the side to avoid it. As Eril got back to his feet, he felt a sharp pain in his left shoulder. A rune inscribed metal spike was embedded in his flesh. Now it was his turn to scream out in pain.
Just as he was about to pull the spike out, Turek yelled to warn him of another attack. Eril dove forward, only to have another spike bury itself into the heel of his boot. How many weapons did this thing have?
Each one of the attacks had distracted him and nearly caused him to drop the charzen. He decided it was time to get some more space and ensure that if he did drop it, the thing would feel the consequences. He pushed it up another hundred feet vertically, but also a couple hundred feet horizontally past the edge of the ridge so that it was now hanging more than one thousand feet above the valley floor.
Once he had it there, he carefully reached over and extracted the spike in his now throbbing shoulder. He was pretty sure the thing had been poisoned.
Growling in frustration, Eril accelerated the charzen at the valley floor. For the first time since he’d seen it, he saw something like fear, just before it impacted the ground.
Eril sat heavily on the nearest boulder and turned his attention inward to neutralizing the poison. He didn’t know what kind it was, but it was rapidly clouding his thoughts. Once
again, he thanked Master Dorull for having him practice overcoming the effects of various poisons. He sat, using all the sight his Master ring would give him to stop the further spread of the venom. His teeth chattered as he felt the poison try to attack his vital organs. He pulled energy straight from the master ring to fight the damage the poison was doing.
He managed to push it back and restore normal function to his organs, but he was so faint his vision was tinged in red. He made a final push of energy to cleanse all the toxins from his system and felt the healing warmth spread through him. Then he felt nothing.
Chapter 65
“Eril, wake up!” Turek yelled in his ear. He rolled onto his side and felt the beginning of another blackout, but took a deep breath and pulled power from both his power ring and master ring. This had the desired effect. He felt much better, but as he opened his eyes, he saw Turek standing anxious before him.
Without waiting further, the hirsute wizard continued. “We have big problems.”
Eril got gingerly to his feet and looked around. He could feel that the poison had left his system, but his body was still recovering from the shock of the fight. He saw few soldiers anywhere on the ridge.
“You’ve been out for twenty minutes. I’d have let you rest longer, but we have no time. The forces below are starting to re-group, and at least one large force has figured out that we don’t have the same number of defenders we had earlier. They’re pushing up the road cautiously, but they’re already halfway here, and we have nowhere enough remaining troops to stop them.
“I’ve managed to slow their attacks with missiles and energy balls, but without teams to man the trebuchet I can’t do it on my own. And that’s not the worst of it.”
Eril groaned. They were about to be overrun, but there was something worse? “What?” he asked tiredly.
The Journeyman for Zdrell Page 38