Bones of the Empire (59 page)

Then, the whole fight changed as magic came down across Raeln’s back and shoulders, forcing him to the ground. He had been paying too much attention to the zombies and failed to notice Liris, who had stopped and held a hand toward him. All of the tricks he had been hoping to use, all of the practice with the Turessians in his camp were for naught if he was not even watching the person who was trying to kill him. Liris grinned and let her sword vanish as she came over. Zombies packed in around him, giving him nowhere to run, even if he could.

“The dryad will be the next to die,” Liris warned, kneeling beside Raeln as he struggled to get out from under her magic. It felt as though a tree had fallen across his shoulders, pushing him down under its weight, no matter how he struggled. “I will rip every leaf off that woman and then light her on fire. Only then will I go after the rest of your pitiful army. You, I will watch be torn apart by these mindless savages that we use as tools.”

Raeln roared, forcing himself to ignore pain as he pulled himself up to his knees. Blood ran across his shoulders as the magic pushing down on him tore into his body, but he would not let it win. All he could see in his mind was the bear’s death—a wildling he would never know the name of—slowly replaced by Greth. He had no intention of letting Liris anywhere near Dalania.

The zombies bore Raeln to the ground between the weight of the magic and their own efforts. They did not try to kill him, though their broken fingers dug so tightly into him that they could have him without much effort once he was unable to move. There was nothing he could do to even fight back, aside from the occasional kick when he managed to free his leg. Growling with frustration, he clawed at the ground, trying to reach Liris without managing to budge an inch. She continued taunting him, but he no longer cared. He needed to get to her, to find a way to kill her before she hurt anyone else.

Raeln
, said a voice within his head, startling him enough that he froze. He had only met one creature in his life that could talk to him that way, though the voice did not belong to the dragon Nenophar. Still, it seemed familiar.
Make yourself as small as possible. I will be sure you survive mostly intact. Any limb you wish to keep, you will put under your body.

Doing as he was told, Raeln wrapped his arms around his head and curled up as best he could as the entire area warmed. With a deafening boom, he could feel the area abruptly cleared of anyone else nearby. It felt as though a tornado had landed on his head, leaving him safe at its center. Even Liris’s magic hold on him vanished.

In the distance, a bestial roar shook the ground. To his own surprise, Raeln laughed.

“Heart of the Maelstrom”

For nearly five years now, I have harbored a desire to attack the Turessians at their head, to exact vengeance for all those who have died. It is not in my nature to seek revenge, nor my breed’s, so far as I can tell. Still, from the time I watched Varra be killed by that first puppet of Dorralt, to the day I scribble these words in the dim candlelight of a tent within sight of the temple of Turessi, I have craved getting my claws into someone I could convince myself was responsible for all the pain and suffering around me.

Now I find myself less than a day from that very reality. Throughout the army, I can see the resolve of those who have suffered the same as I have. They want this chance, no matter how remote. That is why we all march, knowing we have little hope of victory, but willing to risk it all to put a face to our anger. We all have the burden of hatred, and within the next day, we will be able to finally stop feeling helpless.

We all know we will die here at the temple. No one has voiced it, but we know. Any force powerful enough to conquer nations for hundreds or thousands of miles in all directions will not be unseated by a few hundred misfits from the crushed nations. We may have resolve, but resolve alone cannot win a war.

They are expecting us.

This last entry I have bundled with the previous ones and am sending away with a small group of those who have chosen not to enter the temple. Most of them are good people, who had followed friends and loved ones this far and now see they cannot go farther unless they take up arms. Out of hundreds, we are losing no more than twenty. The scouts believe if they are quick, they can get to one of several shifting gaps in the mists and leave this area as the mists concentrate on the temple itself.

I, like many others, am sending my last words with them in some vague hope that my children will somehow receive them. Perhaps then they will know their parents gave their lives for the slimmest chance that the world could be brought back to enough stability that they might enjoy their lives, far from warfare. We must fight this battle so they do not.

Your mother and I love you all. Know that, and do not ever come looking for our remains in the far north. The Turessians do not bury their dead, and I doubt we will even receive so much as a kind word when we are gone. There will be no grave to visit and no marker for where we fell. If we are lucky, we will be lost to the deep snows, but if we are unlucky…I do not want my children to find what I would have become.

“We need to know why they fell back,” Turess told the few assembled leaders of the army. Among them were Linn, Feanne, Estin, and a dozen men and women who represented some of the crushed cities of the south. “Undead do not flee, and Dorralt certainly would not relent without actually losing a significant force.”

“Five hundred yesterday and another two hundred today is not significant?” Linn asked, his heavy armor jingling as he crossed his arms.

“Not hardly,” Feanne interjected. “He has hundreds of thousands.”

“Spread across half of Eldvar,” Linn reminded her. “What leader would bring them all back here when he has so many other places to defend? He’s probably fortifying the temple with what reserves he has left and using the small groups to slow us. I say we push forward.”

A dark elven woman in a delicate dress, which Estin was impressed had survived so far into their travels, spoke up. Her soft voice and odd accent drew attention far better than Linn’s volume. “The scouting people confirmed tens of thousands. They were moved before we arrived. Whether he has a full force here or not, he has more than we have encountered. Perhaps he pulls them back to guard his temple as Master Linn suggests? I would certainly bring whatever I had in the region to my home if a foe was so close. However, I would not allow them so close in the first place, unless I had a plan. I would sacrifice many men to ensure they had not gotten nearly so close.”

Turess shook his head. “No. My brother always hated the north. He would not use this place as a last line of battle unless there was another reason. He would have held Altis or Corraith before choosing the temple.”

Estin’s fur stood on end at the mention of Corraith. He had been trying not to think of the war being anywhere near it for his own sanity. He lost part of the conversation as his thoughts drifted to the kits, wondering if they were even still alive and whether his letters would reach them too late.

“Quite simply, this is too easy,” Linn finally admitted, relaxing somewhat. “Against a general of the south, I would say we are being lured into an ambush. Turess keeps telling me that his people don’t like the idea of ambushes, but that’s what I’m expecting. How long do we have until we can see the temple clearly to know what we’re up against?”

“A few minutes after dawn,” Turess replied without looking up from the map that lay on the ground between all of them. “We only need to cross the remainder of these woods and we see all six roads to the temple, as well as the entire region around it. If he has army left, they will be there. Temple itself is too small to hold more than a hundred soldiers. I would assume he keeps his favorite troops there. Generals, if you will, yes? Those he trusts most will wait at those doors. If we get inside, we face only those he trusts, which will be very few.”

Feanne looked over all of the people assembled there. “I want us marching before first light. When that sun rises, we need to already be clear of the woods. We’ll be marching across open plains from then on, and I do not want to waste time.”

A distant boom reverberated through the ground under Estin’s feet. Only he and Feanne seemed to notice at first, but a second rumble got the dwarf and two dark elves looking around as well. Seconds later, a horn cried from somewhere to the east.

“Perimeter guards,” Linn said, grabbing his shield from the ground at his feet. “We’re under attack. Everyone, get to your people and start them moving! Secure the edge of the camp and hunker down!”

Estin checked his swords and turned to Feanne for direction.

She hesitated, eyeing the southern part of the camp where the lycanthropes and larger animals were dwelling. Not one of them had been willing to speak to her after Rishad’s death, and Estin got the impression that Arella was being shielded by her people from any interaction she did not expressly request. Feanne seemed to be weighing whether to approach that group anyway, but then noticed Estin watching her.

“We will go to the front lines with Linn,” she said, as Turess hurriedly gathered up the maps. “So long as we can hold our ground in the trees, we should be able to handle whatever they send our way. Estin, I am giving you control over the wildlings until our lines solidify. Get them to work together. I need to keep the werewolves focused or this could go badly. Linn will handle the furless. I will take over the wildlings once the lycanthropes are following.”

“And what of me?” Turess asked, shoving the rolled maps under his arm.

“You need to live until the temple, no matter what,” she replied matter-of-factly. “Help how you can without risking yourself. Largely, I want you healing the injured and keeping the lines from breaking. Save your strength for when we reach the temple grounds.”

Turess bowed his head in acknowledgement, glancing at Estin sideways. Estin knew there was likely nothing Turess would be able to do, but he had promised not to pass that along. With luck, Turess could at least apply a bandage with some skill.

Moving to Feanne’s side, Estin tried to take her hand, but she pulled away and stared him down calmly.

“Now is not the time for emotion, Estin. Now is the time for bloodshed.” Raising her hand in front of herself, Feanne’s fingers and claws thickened and lengthened until they each could have been knives. As Estin watched, her muscles tensed and become more pronounced under her fur. She was gearing up for battle with her magic the same way Linn was likely piling as much metal over his body as he could. “Once they break, we push to the temple,” she told Estin. “No more rest until we are inside its walls. This may be the longest day of our lives.”

Feanne turned and left, followed by Turess, leaving Estin alone in the simple canopy they had used as the heart of military planning. Before he could decide where to go first, Alafa and Barlen came clomping into the secluded wooded area, watching him for instruction without saying anything.

“I take it you heard all that?” Estin asked over his shoulder.

Alafa nodded vigorously. “Lihuan said the first rule of scouting was to already know what’s happening before your leader asks you to find out. The wildlings are all gathering. For some reason, the kobolds and goblins wanted to be with us, instead of out with Linn’s humans.”

“The stinky dead people are fighting with the furless at the edge of the woods,” Barlen added. “Lots of them…dead people, not furless.”

“Let’s do this, then,” Estin said, following them toward the part of the camp where the wildlings had mostly gathered. “How many do we have?”

Alafa blinked a few times before answering cryptically, “All of them.”

Sighing, Estin asked another way. “What breeds and how many families of each? Guesses are fine.”

“Wolves, bears, a couple badgers,” Barlen said, counting on his fingers, despite not giving any numbers. “Lots of deerfolk. I saw some scaled lizard breeds…don’t know about them. The ravens, the otters, the—”

“Ravens?” Estin stopped midstride. “How many other birds and treefolk do we have?”

“Lots,” Alafa answered, staring wide-eyed. “Why?”

“Because now we have a plan.” He set off again. “Get the treefolk and anything that likes heights up into the trees. The trees will shelter our archers and allow us to pack in more troops in an area. I want the wolves leading strike teams of their choosing across the enemy lines. The bears are to pick their own teams to hold the camp’s perimeter walls. Anyone else, bring to me.”

Alafa and Barlen looked at each other and then split and ran in different directions to deliver Estin’s orders. From that look, Estin gathered the two deer were able to communicate as well as he and Feanne, without the need for words. They knew each other’s thoughts well enough to not waste time speaking them.

Coming up over part of the hilly terrain they were camped on, Estin could make out much of the eastern slope of the woods through a gap in the trees. Below and farther east, he watched explosions of flame and lightning along the edge of the forest. Shouts and clanging metal echoed up to him. The wall of spikes they had set up as a fence ended near those trees, so the battle was already to the edge of the camp.

Spread across the gap between the woods and the faint silhouette of a tall building far off to the east were many thousands of undead. Among them were Turessians, their bolts of energy flying from random spots, crashing into the tree line. Even with his better-than-average night vision, Estin could not make out much detail. The zombies appeared to be one writhing mass. It was still another hour until dawn, and by then most of the army might already be dead.

Estin turned the other way, surveying the camp as it readied itself. Less than a quarter of their troops would have already been at the lines, with the others resting in the tents. All of those people were now racing out into the torchlight, pulling on armor and drawing weapons.

As Estin watched, a single man caught his eye. Dressed in old rags that hinted at having come from Altis or nearby, the middle-aged elven man was neither running nor arming himself. He stood alone as people ran past him, as though he did not even see them.

Crinkling his brow in confusion, Estin looked around the camp and saw another person—this one a dwarven woman—standing the same way, right in the middle of where people were trying to prepare. He continued searching and found a human man doing the same thing. They were spaced evenly within the camp. After listening to Linn for days talking about tactics, all he could see was the perfect placement of those three to maximize their access to the people in the camp.

“Spies!” Estin shouted, catching the attention of a dozen soldiers, who looked to him for guidance. He frantically pointed out the three people. “Take them down right now!”