The Southern Trail (Book 4) (2 page)

Chapter 2

Marco led the men from Nappanee into the streets of Athens, and found those western-facing streets lightly defended.  The forces of the Docleatae army were on the eastern side of the city, where Iasco’s larger force, the men from Marseals, the Lion City, and Barcelon were carrying out the invasion from the seaside of the city.   Marco’s force was small; the army from Nappanee had shrunk during the trip to Athens, as men deserted every night, but those who remained were the most loyal and willing to fight, and the lack of real resistance for the first twenty minutes of their push into the city gave them confidence, until they reached the city walls, where Docleatean soldiers raised the alarm over the arrival of new forces.

Walking through the unguarded streets outside the city wall had been simple.  The native Athenians had been delighted to see liberators appear, as the Nappaneen army had filtered in through numerous streets, several squads assigned to each street.  There had been no resistance until they arrived at the narrow street that ran along the exterior of the city wall; as they followed the exterior of the wall to find its gate openings, they were spotted by sentries who shouted the warning about the new force on the west side of the city.

That’s when the men of Nappanee received their first taste of battle, as the thin-spread Docleatean archers atop the wall had fired their arrows at the men below, and driven them back into the protection of the alleys and doorways where they hid.  A few began to shoot back, but not many, and not well.

Marco was with a pair of squads that heard the shouts of others, before his own group was fired upon.  He had been leading men towards the gate in the city wall when arrows flew upon them. 

Marco heard the man behind him shout in pain, and he turned to see an arrow protruding from the man’s shoulder.  He gathered the man up and carried him to safety within a shopkeeper’s doorway.  As he glanced around the corner of the doorway, he saw the gates slam shut, cutting him and his men off from their goal of entering the city and attacking the Docleateans from the rear.

More and more archers were appearing on the top of the wall, and more arrows were falling among his men.  He could see some wounded men lying in the streets, suffering, and he knew he had to take action to change the situation – as the leader of the forces, and as the person who had demanded their involvement, he felt obligated to do something.

The Docleateans were wearing black and red uniforms as they fought to slaughter the Nappaneen men.  Marco focused on a segment of the wall near the gate, where several archers were visible, and he pointed his hand as he focused his energy, then released a fireball of energy that struck the wall and exploded it inwards, tearing open a way to enter the city.  He pointed at the section of the wall directly in front of his own position, then did the same thing.

He was immediately engulfed in a cloud of dust from the destruction of the wall.  Knowing that he was momentarily safe, Marco left the shelter of the shop door and ran into the open air, where he could see his next target.

“Sorcerer!  They’ve got a sorcerer!” he heard shouts coming from inside the city.

“In!  Let’s get in now men!  Come on soldiers of Nappanee!  In we go to the Acropolis!” Marco shouted.  “To the Acropolis!” he repeated.

“The Acropolis!” he heard others shout, and he saw men starting to emerge from their safe spots.  He set an example and ran up onto the rubble of the blasted wall.  He could see chaos inside the city, as fallen Docleateans rose, confused, while a few remained still on the ground.  Others followed Marco, and they quickly had a score of men inside the wall, protecting the opening as more men started to scramble in.

The Acropolis was visible, rising overhead less than a mile away.  Even though the skies overhead were cloudy, the white marble buildings on top still appeared bright, standing out in the gloom.  “Let’s go up this road!” Marco pointed with his sword at a broad avenue that offered the opportunity to swiftly penetrate deep into the city.

"Station men here to protect our rear, my lord," one of the officers suggested.

"Good advice," Marco told the man.  "You select the squads, while I start leading the others forward."

There were people cheering, distracting Marco to look at what might be happening, until he realized that the people were more of the native residents, cheering for the appearance of the Nappanee forces.  It would be ironic that the purple, red, and yellow uniforms of the corrupt nation of Nappanee would be considered the colors of heroes by these people, Marco thought to himself, but such was the situation.

Then again, perhaps these men, having been part of a noble cause, would go back to their homes and no longer be satisfied with the course of life as usual in the Grand Prince's corrupt realm.

Marco waved his arm, and the mass of men who had gathered at the breach in the wall began to follow as they started to trot forward.  His goal was to seize control of the Acropolis.  His forces were late in their arrival at the city because of their slow travel; they had originally been expected to draw the attention of the Docleatean forces away from the sea to provide an easy arrival for the main force, but instead they had become the forces with the easier way.

There was the sound of an immense explosion on the far side of the city, and then another.  Marco and his men continued to move forward, as they saw a column of smoke start to rise on the east side of the city.  It was the likely work of sorcerers, Marco assumed.

A flight of arrows suddenly appeared, coming from a side road, and heading towards Marco and the other leaders of the Nappanee forces.  Panicked, Marco waved his hand to throw up a shield of energy that blocked all the arrows; each shaft struck the translucent barrier and bounced to the ground.

Marco felt someone slap his back in thanks, while he saw some of his own men aim their bows at the ambushers.

He dropped his shield and shouted, “Fire!”

A staggered flight of arrows left the Nappaneen bows and flew towards the Docleatean targets, wounding many of the soldiers who formed the line of attack there.

“Now, charge them!” one of the officers called, and Marco watched as a group of the men in the purple uniforms began running towards the attackers, who began to retreat down the side road.   Marco prepared to go after them, as they chased the city’s defenders south, when two events raised noise at once, distracting his attention.

Behind him, to the west, where the breach in the city wall was being defended as their potential escape route if they were forced to withdraw, shouts and screams erupted when a large mass of soldiers in the Docleatean black uniforms appeared and overwhelmed the rearguard of the Nappanee army, forcing them into the city toward Marco.  At the same time, there was an explosion immediately to his north, blowing the top off one of the stone buildings that lined the boulevard, and crushing a handful of Nappaneen soldiers with debris from the collapsing structure; a sorcerer had come to join the battle against Marco’s forces.

Chapter 3

“Pull those men back!” Marco shouted at the officer who was following the Nappaneen chase southward along the side street.  “Pull them back and keep our men together!  We need to set up our defense at the Acropolis!  Go get them!”

“What about the sorcerer over there?” a foot soldier shouted, and pointed at where a man in a black robe was stepping out into the street near the blasted ruins of the building, only a score of yards away from Marco.

“I’ll fight him!  You get everyone headed east to the Acropolis,” Marco urged, as he pushed his way past the soldier and towards the sorcerer.

The man seemed to know Marco was his main adversary, for he immediately pointed his hand at Marco and released a bolt of green energy.  It traveled faster than the arrows had, faster than Marco could react to, and it struck him in the chest, directly upon the small flower mark on his chest.  Marco was flung to the ground, his shirt burnt and blisters upon his skin, but unharmed otherwise.

Marco rose to his feet and created a shield dome, but dropped it down around the other sorcerer, isolating him and his powers within the dome as the Nappanee soldiers began to flee eastward towards the Acropolis.  There were still a great many of them on the move, gladdening Marco’s heart to know that the men he – in a sense – had recruited were still in good shape and still moving forward. 

There was the sound of an explosion beside him, and Marco jerked his head to see that the dome over the sorcerer was filled with smoke, and the man lay on the ground.

“What happened there?” Marco asked out loud.

“That sorcerer shot some fire out of his hand, and it bounced off that magic of yours and struck right back at him!” an excited soldier next to Marco said.

Marco closed his eyes and focused his will to dissolve the shield around the sorcerer, then strode over to examine the man.  His head and shoulders were blackened and badly burned by whatever energy attack he had intended to aim at Marco.  There was a shout down the road, and Marco looked up from the horrific sight.

The black outfitted soldiers of Docleatae were marching towards Marco from the direction of the blasted city walls in the west.  Their numbers were strong; too strong for Marco to even consider leading his forces against them.  He took a small bit of comfort in knowing that the attack by his Nappanee forces had drawn so many soldiers away from the battle on the harbor side of town.

Marco focused on the air overhead, remembering how he had manipulated it to defeat the sorceress in the Lion City.  He raised his hands as he thought of the energy in his golden hand, and he began to pull the atmosphere overhead downward, then directed it to blow directly westward, into the faces of the attacking forces that were approaching.

The Docleateans’ progress slowed down as the wind blowing at them appeared, then strengthened into a brisk breeze that made them shield their eyes and grab onto their cloaks.  Marco focused on adding energy to the wind, and the black-garbed men ceased to make any progress against it at all, as the last of the Nappaneens passed Marco.

“Come with us, young lord,” one of the officers called as he gathered up the last of his men.

“Go on, take them eastward,” Marco told the man without looking away from his object.  “I’ll catch up in a minute.”  He knew he could add one more level of strength to the wind, and disrupt the other army completely if he focused for just a few moments more.

Marco looked upward, and saw a puffy cloud approaching.  He prepared to reach for it, and once he did, he watched in amazement as his column of air began to pull it downward, turning it into a plummeting column of fog that then spewed outward upon the attackers, not only knocking them over as Marco raised the velocity of the wind, but soaked them with moisture, painfully striking their faces and exposed skin with the droplets of cloud water.

The Docleateans were falling to the ground, and the attackers’ advancement was halted thoroughly.

Pleased, and tired from his use of so much power for so many purposes so quickly, Marco ceased to pull the air to the ground.  He turned and saw that he had a half dozen men waiting behind him, acting as a body guard for him.  He grinned at them, then motioned for them to head towards the Acropolis, trailing behind the rest of their army.

“That was a heck of a job!” one man told him.  “I don’t think you even need us along, do you?”

“More than ever,” Marco answered.  “We need good fighters who can keep fighting; I’m pretty worn out from that,” he admitted.

“Don’t you worry; we’ll take care of you,” another man promised, and they all hurried their steps to reach the stragglers of the main army body.

Within two minutes they were back among their fellows, and the Acropolis was visibly closer, but they could hear the sounds of shouts and swords clashing up ahead.  “Let’s go see what we’ve run into,” Marco told his followers, and they raced up towards the front.

There were two problems, Marco saw.  The column of men had been ambushed once again from a force stationed on a side street, one that was aided by archers who stood atop an adjacent building and fired down in deadly fashion upon the Nappanee forces.  The other problem was that the boulevard was growing narrower as it approached the center of the city, and men were being crammed together, unable to move freely.

Marco darted to the side of the street, and called his self-appointed followers to join him, as he ran into the building that was the nest of the attacking archers.  He and his men raced up the stairs and burst onto the roof top; the archers and their guards turned to look at the new arrivals, and a pitched battle immediately ensued.  Though they were outnumbered, Marco’s forces carried the victory, as Marco’s enchanted sword helped him take on an over-large share of the bloody work.

“Put those bows to use!” he told his followers.  “Start firing down into the side street!” he ordered.

The men willingly took up the cause, and caught the Docleatean attackers off guard as the arrows from above sudden began to claim victims dressed in black instead of purple.  The men of the Nappanee army in the street, seeing their assailants distracted, rallied and forced the black-dressed soldiers to retreat.

Marco and the others on the roof grinned at one another.  “Now, everyone downstairs and back with the army,” Marco directed.  He followed the others to the stairwell, then stopped to look around.  There were several columns of smoke rising to the east, but not so far away, he noted, as if the fighting in the other part of the city had moved closer, hopefully because Iasco’s forces were making progress.  And the Acropolis now loomed virtually overhead, so close was his own force’s destination.

Marco followed the others down the stairs, and they resumed heading east towards their next engagement.

The soldiers at the head of the column fought a battle at the foot of the Acropolis before Marco even caught up with them.  They were gathering in a square, one side of which contained the restaurant where Marco and Ophiuchus had danced.   It had been his only dance with the spirit, and it had been her only dance ever, before she had surrendered the right to have a physical body anymore.  He thought about the sacrifice the spirit had made to allow him to make the journey to revive Iasco.  And in bringing the high priestess back to life, Marco had set in motion the chain of events that now placed him back in Athens, at the foot of the Acropolis, once again.