The Dark Glory War (41 page)

Lord Norrington raised his sword, then slashed it down. “Launch!”

The husky whisper of logs and stones being hurled through the air sounded impossibly low compared to the exhortations from thesullanciri. A hail of calthrops arced through the sky, jingling and jangling like a pouch full of coins. Even the harsh clack of catapult arms against stop-beams didn’t have a martial quality, though the sounds of men cranking the arms back into place for another shot certainly did.

As did the results of those first shots.

I saw a log vanish in the fog, then bounce up once and flick off a bloody vapor before disappearing again. Banners snapped and fell in its path and screams erupted in its wake. A huge stone likewise rolled through the Aurolani formation, flinging broken bodies into the air behind it. Then the calthrops sowed more pain.

The enemy cut loose with their siege machines, launching rocks and flights of arrows. I ducked down behind a merlon as arrows rattled off the wall around me. A tremor rippled through the wall as a stone struck solidly below me, but it rebounded and rolled into the fog to crush one of the enemy. It was a good thing, too, because we had underestimated thesullanciri‘ s craftiness.

The banners had all been in the front of each company, but as they entered the fog, the warriors ran forward while the banners marched on slowly. As we shot into the thick of things, we did hit a few running warriors, but they were all from ranks further back. The lead gibberers had sprinted forward, boiling up out of the fog to come at us.

I drew and shot, spitting a vylaen. Other archers shot as well, sinking arrows into running gibberers and vylaens, but they were coming too fast for us. They headed for the breach in the wall created by the dragonel’s shots. The rubble on the outside formed a perfect causeway. Clutching longknives in their teeth, they scrambled up on all fours, leaping over the bodies of arrow-stuck comrades or sliding them off into the fog.

The Aurolani horde poured into the breach without hesitation. Unthinking beasts that they were, they did not wonder why we had no warriors rising to oppose them. They crested the ragged gap in the wall and started down the other side, which is when Lord Norrington gave the order for the ballistae to shoot.

Lanyards were pulled, catches slipped, and torsion-bars twisted, propelling a broad, flat hammer against the ends of spears which had been mounted in racks of tubes. The spears hurled out and would normally have arced through the air to impale soldiers, but here found their targets before much of their force was spent. Many spears ripped through one gibberer to become lodged in one behind him. Because the ballistae had been positioned at a variety of angles, they raked the breach with missiles, clearing the inside and top of the gap.

Still they came, a motley rabble yipping and howling. Vylaens clapped off spells that washed the walls in brilliant green flame or splashed gouts of reeking acid on defenders. I nocked arrow after arrow and shot, knowing I could not miss a target in the roiling mass of creatures below. An arrow would hit, a gibberer would sink in the crush of his fellows, and the ranks would close again.

When I found myself down to my last arrow—a gift from Faryaah-Tse—I started harvesting others from the battlements and shooting the Aurolani’s arrows back at them. Quickly enough I ran out of those missiles, so I slung my bow across my chest and drew my sword, which was just as well as the swarming gibberers had climbed up the walls and were near-ing us.

Seethe stepped forward to engage them and was magnificent. Her surcoat of silver-washed mail glowed with what little sunlight made it through the clouds. She wore a winged helm that had a spike mounted in the crown and her black hair flew from beneath the edges. Her sword slashed and stabbed with unerring accuracy. Gibberers reeled away from her clutching shattered faces, blood spurting from split arteries and gaping chest wounds. She spun and cut, whirled and lunged as if she could see all around her at once. Bodies toppled off the battlements near her and a bloody circle described the range of her lethal reach.

Nay and Leigh had taken up positions below, defending one of the ballistae while its crew reloaded it. Nay fought with a savagery that challenged the gibberers in their own domain. His maul landed heavily, crushing limbs, denting heads, driving armor back through fur and flesh. Rents opened in his mail and in the padded leather jerkin beneath it, but no gibberer got a chance to press a deadly attack. Beasts that got close enough were hideously wounded, whether by a jab with the spike, a poke with the butt-cap, or a bone-shattering strike from the maul’s heavy end.

While everyone in that place fought valiantly, there was no equal to Leigh. As if inspired by thesullanciri, Leigh and Tem-mer glowed gold and Idid feel a heat coming from the blade. Gibberer flesh sizzled as Leigh lopped off limbs and popped heads from bodies. One cut would be enough to send any of the Aurolani soldiers to the ground, but Leigh was so quick that he could get in two or sometimes three cuts on a body before it fell. Blood stained Temmer for only a second before combusting into a ghastly choking cloud. Leigh laughed aloud, beckoning gibberers forward, nattering at them about his contest with Nay, beseeching them to come to him and die, which many of them did.

Down below us, the Aurolani warriors flowed into a corridor constricted by buildings and piles of rubble. Archers, both elven and human, shot at them from upper-story windows. Okrans spearmen defended piles of rubble, jabbing and poking and stabbing the gibberers that tried to break past. Elsewhere, further down the corridor, Oriosan Guards armed with sword and ax fought fiercely. Grudgingly men gave ground and the Aurolani host pressed forward in a thick stream of bodies.

Fighting raged everywhere and I was forced to do some serious cutting. Gibberers came up over the wall and I slashed at them. I traded blows with one, then dodged aside, letting his lunge at me carry him off the rampart. Another gibberer’s cut sliced me just above the right knee, but I gutted him and pitched his body back onto the ground below.

Trumpets blared outside the walls and the last of the Aurolani forces started to move forward. One of our trumpeters blew a blast announcing that fact. I spared a glance in toward the advancing troops, but couldn’t see thesullanciri. An immediate chill sank into my guts and the happy yips of the gibberers below told me where it was.

Thesullanciri leaped from the depths of the fog to the top of the breach, its hooves scattering rocks that felled gibberer and man alike. Leigh, whose magickal blade had scythed down countless gibberers, had hacked a swath in the enemy formation and through it the Dark Lancer launched itself. The gibberers retreated at thesullanciri’s shrill command, opening an arena around the paired combatants. Raising all four of its arms, the Aurolani leader shrieked a challenge.

A low laugh rolled from Leigh’s throat. His blade trailed smoke and hung loosely from his right hand. Leigh moved easily, almost clumsily, as if he were drunk, and casually waved thesullanciri forward with his left hand. Though his mask hid his expression, the light in his eyes blazed wildly.

Thesullanciri charged, slashing at Leigh with the blades on its right arms. Leigh ducked beneath the upper blades, then swung his blade low and to the left as he moved in that direction. His parry caught the lower blades with the sound of steel ringing on steel, then Leigh leaped into the air, tucking his legs beneath him and hopping over the Dark Lancer’s lower arm. Temmer came up and around in a blazing golden arc that swept through thesullancirfs low right wrist, and Leigh bounced off to his left.

The blade-bearing fist rolled into the gibberer ranks, causing the first one it touched to burst into flame. Molten metal dripped from the stump, bubbling up the pools of blood into which it fell. The Dark Lancer screamed in pain and spun to face Leigh. My friend, in turn, flicked his blade toward the Aurolani horde, spattering them with their leaders’ incendiary blood.

Hugging the wounded limb to its chest, thesullanciri again came at Leigh. It slashed at the man with the upper right arm, making the cut a diagonal one that should have sundered Leigh from left shoulder to right hip, but Leigh danced back out of range easily, then darted forward. He lunged up with Temmer, driving the point into the Dark Lancer’s side. Molten blood gushed. Thesullanciri squealed, then struck.

It backhanded Leigh with its lower right arm, catching him in the ribs below his sword-arm and spinning him back toward the breach. Leigh stumbled and fell, but did not lose his grip on Temmer. He clutched at his right side with his left hand and I could see a cough wrack him with pain. He was far enough away that I couldn’t tell if there was blood on his lips, but I knew he was hurt more seriously than ever before.

Thesullanciri keened triumphantly, raising its three good arms. It slowly stalked forward and looked around, daring any of us to interfere. Men shrank from its hot gaze, then its eyes met mine.

In mine, it could see my soul.

In its, I could see it had none.

Casting aside my blade, I brought my bow to hand and nocked that last arrow. I held thesullanciri’s gaze as I drew my silverwood bow. I stared at it past the broadhead and aimed for its chest. It smiled at me mockingly, working its jaw to show me how it would eat my heart when it was through with Leigh. I shook my head ever so slightly in reply, then let fly my last arrow, the one I had been saving.

That arrow, the one that had been cut free of Faryaah-Tse’s flesh in Okrannel, flew straight and true. The magick that had been worked on it by the othersullanciri had not abated— whether because it had not killed the urZrethi for which it was intended, or just because that was the nature of the enchantment, I do not know. The black arrow took thesullanciri high in the chest, between both pairs of shoulders, and when it screamed, burning blood cascaded from its mouth like molten lead being poured from a crucible.

It leaped forward blindly, yet still almost crushed Leigh beneath its hooves. It landed in the gap, then dashed beyond the walls. Its hands clutched at the arrow, trying to break it off, but it remained whole. It pranced angrily, hopping back and forth in evident agony, its torso and back high enough to rise above the thinning fog.

It moved from trying to break the arrow to pulling it out, but it defied thesullanciri in that as well. Chytrine’s creature smiled, a most horrible thing to behold, and looked up at me. Its smile broadened as it pounded a fist against the end of the arrow, driving it deeper into its body. The pain that action caused made it shift and dance, twisting it around enough to let me see the arrow’s tip protruding from its back. Another blow extended it six inches more, then the Aurolani leader reached a hand back and started to draw the arrow from itself.

More blood flowed, coursing down its back and belly, and ran from its mouth as it laughed. I had no idea how long it would take it to recover from its wounds, but I did know that as long as it had the spark of life in it, it would heal. It might be vulnerable to Leigh’s sword or that one arrow, but once it was whole again it would destroy us.

Fortunately, it ran out of time to heal.

The trumpet blast alerting us to the commitment of the Aurolani reinforcements had long since signaled others among us to act. The tunnels that would allow the Durgrue River to flood the lowlands were opened. Water burst through the grasses in great muddy brown gouts, pitching turf and stones, corpses and debris into the air. Water pounced on the fog, churning it into tan froth, then rolled forward in a wave that crashed into thesullanciri.

Steam hissed from it in great sibilant clouds. What had been white hot dulled to red, then grey and black, then cracked. A torrent swirled around it, splashing over its face, cooling blood into black icicles hanging from its chin. The Dark Lancer sat back, as if preparing to rear up, but its hind legs collapsed. Its forelegs disintegrated as they came up out of the water, then it toppled over onto its side and exploded.

The flood swallowed it in an unmarked grave and rolled on, sweeping through the swollen ranks of gibberers and vylaens. A few temeryces squawked and clawed at gibberers to try to rise above the flood, but their dying perches sank. The frostclaws nipped at the water as if they could drive it away, but it pulled them down and rolled them over, mixing them with the struggling, sputtering Aurolani host.

The trumpet blast also summoned our reinforcements from the stronghouses. Crossbowmen and archers filled the ranks of spearmen. Their shots ripped through gibberers and broke the tide of the Aurolani advance. More archers flanked the column and newly reloaded ballistae cut down dozens. Nay and an Oriosan company surged forward, driving a wedge into the Aurolani flank. They reached Leigh, who had already gained his feet and, despite shifting Temmer to his left hand, had killed a few more gibberers.

Both of the towers located on either side of the gap started the flow ofnapthalm, covering the water with a burning coat. Gibberers striking for the surface and those swimming in retreat suddenly found the lowlands impassable. Further along the wall one of the siege towers began to topple as the rising water softened the land beneath it. It splashed down grandly, casting archers from the top, and began to burn as flaming water hit it.

In less than an hour we had broken the army of the north and sealed our breach with a fiery lake. The other battles still raged in the city, their outcome yet to be decided. It was our job to compound our victory with theirs, and to accomplish that task we grimly set forth.

All of our troops, save the garrison we left to hold the breach, swept south and slammed into Chytrine’s right flank. Her force, which had been channeled into the city much as the northern army had, began to crumble. To counter our attack she loosed a flock of grand temeryces. Sporting brilliantly colored plumage, these frostclaws were a bit bigger than those we’d seen before. Their attack on our central formation was nothing short of suicidal, but they broke our momentum and blunted our drive to nip off a portion of her force.