Dark Magic (43 page)

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 would 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.

One abomination went down, gut open and mouths collectively gasping. The second was pushed over the side of the cliff to the west, its grasping hands gripping the hair of six shrieking men and taking them all with it.

The third Brand burned blind, then ordered his men to take off the limbs together. The legs went down with methodical efficiency. The archers were coming up behind both sides now and exchanged volleys. The humans always got the worst of it, but at least the withering fire was kept from the knots of infantry that struggled with each of the monsters.

Silver horns pealed again, and the elves withdrew, running up to a rise and over, vanishing. Brand and his men made the quick work of the last monsters among them.

Glad for a respite, however slight, his troops sagged down in exhaustion. Many fell to the ground, dying on the spot. Others fell unconscious once the throbbing light of the Amber Jewel no longer gripped their minds with battle fever.

Brand himself fell to one knee and his sides heaved. Every breath hurt, and he supposed he may have taken another cursed weapon into his belly. He looked around for Corbin, but didn’t see him. Had he fallen? He did not know.

“What of the cavalry?” he gasped to one of his sergeants.

The sergeant shook his head. “I think they joined us, they dismounted at the rear of the column.”

“Any word of the goblins behind us?”

The man looked at him with a mix of concern and surprise. “Goblins, lord?”

“Never mind.”

Brand struggled to his feet. It would not do to have his men see him kneel into a puddle. He decided to advance. Time was not on their side now. He suspected that Oberon would use the carnage to form new abominations. They could not defeat them all without slaying the elf lord himself. As well, there were the cursed weapons to consider. Dozens of his troops choked and coughed around him. Some foamed blood like horses ridden too long and hard. Their eyes showed whites all around. They would be dead within hours.

“Advance!” he cried, and his men rose up to follow their champion. To their credit, few moaned aloud.

When they reached the top of the rise, they found no resistance. Instead, the final stretch of ground showed the way to the blasted gates of Snowdon. The sight saddened Brand’s heart. How fared the Kindred? Had they been taken? Was he too late? What hells, he wondered, went on inside that brooding mountain?

Along the slopes all around the crown of Snowdon elves perched. They thronged the mouth of the broken, dusty gates as well. Brand chewed at his lower lip as he gazed upon the scene.

Corbin came up to him then. He stood yet, but with an arm wrapped around his chest as if it hurt him a great deal.

“I’m glad to see you, cousin,” said Brand. He felt an intensity of emotion. He had watched too many fine men die this day.

“Milord,” gasped Corbin.

“Here, lean your back against this rock. Look at our enemy and tell me what you see.”

Corbin did as he asked. He eyed the elves carefully.

“They are hurt,” he said, “badly. But so are we. I suspect they still outnumber us.”

“I agree with all that.”

“What are your orders, Lord Rabing?” Corbin asked formally.

Brand looked at him. His jaws were tight. “Corbin, you are most loyal. None were ever more so.”

Corbin did not reply.

“We must think,” said Brand. He considered putting away the axe, as that always helped clear his mind, but he worried that he might sag down unconscious if he did so. “The elves have pulled back. They broke the gates, but seem to be regrouping. They look defensive. They are not assaulting the entrance, I see no one going inside.”

Corbin nodded. “What’s it like inside? Do the Kindred have a strong defense?”

Brand snorted. “The most fantastic series of towers and castles guards every inch downward into their stronghold.”

“Then it would seem that the elves are up to one of two things. Either they are gathering their strength for the final push, or they are trying to take up a defensive posture.”

“A little of both, I suspect. Oberon will use the Red to heal his troops and form fresh abominations. Possibly, Hob will fly his troops to join him. Maybe there are other allies coming.”

“In that case, milord,” said Corbin. “We should attack at once. They grow stronger, while we weaken.”

Brand nodded. “You are right, of course. We gain nothing by sitting. Do you think we can take them?”

Corbin shrugged. “If the Kindred are able to sally forth, even weakly, we will catch them between us and they will have nowhere to retreat. But...”

“Yes?”

“It will likely be very bloody, milord.”

Brand nodded. “I’m loathe to see us all die here. I will try another approach first. Give me your undershirt, will you?”

Corbin eyed him, then did as he asked. Brand put the fluttering white, stained with blood, upon the head of his axe. He marched down the stony cobbles, still slick with blood and fresh raindrops. He held the axe high, and none of the elves who raised their bows fired at him.

In a few minutes, Oberon marched forward to meet him. His bloodhound trotted faithfully at his heels. Brand had to wonder if it had ever, in all its existence, feasted upon so much blood as it had this day.

“Lord Oberon.”

“Lord Rabing.”

“Will you treat with me?”

“Speak,” said the elf, making a smooth gesture with his white hands.

“We have you at an advantage. I suggest enough elves have reached the end of their very long lives this day.”

Oberon blinked at him. “I had thought you might want to settle matters between us.”

“A duel?”

“Crudely put. But yes.”

Brand nodded his head. “What would you say to such a suggestion?”

Oberon laughed. His laugh, despite the terribleness of this long day, was light and full of easy joy. How could he, in the face of such horrors, laugh like nothing was wrong? Brand knew he would never understand the Shining Folk.

“That’s your answer? You laugh at me?”

Oberon tilted his head and gazed at him. “I would deny your request. If you attack me now, I will prevail. Each battle we have, I grow respectively stronger. I shall use the bodies of your own troops against you. I have only to wait for midnight, and half your men will fall dead. You have no chance, River-boy. Go back to your Haven and wait out your few remaining years. You should not be here, amongst your betters.”

Brand’s mind flared. The Amber Jewel throbbed, and almost, he launched himself at Oberon. But he checked himself. Perhaps this was exactly what the other wanted. If he broke the parlay first, the elf archers would pepper him with arrows. He was too far from his lines to make it back.

With great difficulty, he nodded and smiled. “I see you are afraid.”

Oberon’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. Clearly, this was not the response he had expected. “Whatever do you mean, child?”

Brand nodded, as if with growing certainty. “Gudrin prepares to push out and finish you. We stand at your rear. There is no escape, so you try to trick me into breaking the parlay. A desperate gambit, well-played.”

Oberon made a gesture of annoyance. “If that is all you came to say, then be off with you. Attack or not, as you will.”

“We will attack then. Tomkin will have his new Rainbow up here soon, and we will finish the pack of you. Perhaps the Kindred will help, perhaps not.” Brand shrugged.

“You have no new Rainbow. Tomkin could never have mastered Lavatis so tightly.”

Brand shrugged again and turned to go. “Believe as you will. May the River allow us all to sleep soundly tonight, dead or living.”

“You would be mad to attack. We will fight to the death.”

Brand turned back around, and smiled with half his mouth. “Exactly. Many of us will die, and just as many of your folk. But, our folk grow back at an astonishing rate. In a dozen years, I’ll be back here with an army just as big. My heir will carry the axe if I can’t. Your people will be broken, too few to matter. The world will know new masters.”

Brand turned his back on the elf then, and marched away. He managed to make it a dozen paces.