Chronicles of Gilderam: Book One: Sunset (15 page)

“You sure?” he asked.

“I’m sure. Let me have it.”

“As you wish.”

Havlah wound up for a full-force slash and swung with all his strength. He had no sooner unleashed the blade before Gezia was spinning around, his desert robes flying in the air. The glint of two daggers flashed for half a second in Havlah’s eyes, one in each of his hands, but where they had come from he could only guess. He felt the weight of his sword being pushed along its path by one of Gezia’s daggers, only by now its target was on the other side of it. Havlah’s blow completed its arc, and he felt the cool, sharp tip of the second dagger poking him at the base of his neck.

He froze, too shocked by Gezia’s swiftness to contemplate that, had this been an actual engagement, he would already be dead. He gaped stupidly as the dagger withdrew from his neck.

“Good,” said Gezia. “You are better than I had imagined.”

Havlah tried to say something but could not speak. A low horn sounded from nearby. Havlah felt adrenaline surge through his body.

“Relax,” said Gezia. “That is only to signal the Disciples. The horde is not yet here.” He put a hand on Havlah’s shoulder. “But don’t worry, my young friend. You are clearly a skilled swordsman. Whatever Jerahd has not taught you in technique you have inherited in talent. May Votoc watch over you.”

He saluted Havlah once more before turning to leave.

“Wait,” said Havlah. Gezia did. “Tell me, was my father –
is
my father… a good warrior?”

Gezia scrunched his eyes at the boy, as if the question had been blatantly ridiculous.

“A
good
warrior?” he echoed. “Jerahd? In my estimation your father is the greatest Disciple ever to serve.” He could tell that this was news to Havlah. “You mean he’s never told you…?” Havlah shook his head. Gezia looked off into the night, to where the horn had signaled. Then he smiled kindly at Havlah.

“A story for another time, perhaps,” he said, and a second later he had disappeared into the shadows. Havlah stood still in the dark, holding his sword, paralyzed.

Another voice called his name from behind. It was Jerahd, and Havlah came to him.

“I must go with the Disciples now,” his father said. There was intensity in his eyes. “You will join with the regulars under
Rariji
Nibqah.”

Havlah nodded. Jerahd put a hand around the back of his son’s head.

“My boy,” he began, but then he lost his words. His eyes softened and shone in the heavenly light, brighter than normal.

“Son…” he started again. “You know I love you very much.” He gulped. Havlah had to focus every fiber of his being not to rip himself away and run into the night. He felt like something was exploding inside his body, but his eyes were locked with his father’s and they entranced him.

Jerahd’s lips pinched together and he drew in a deep breath through his nose. Havlah felt the hand tighten its grip on the back of his head before it let go.

His father turned to leave.

He watched Jerahd vanish into the shadows and wished from the very bottom of his soul that he were back home on the dunes. He felt out of place here, like the other regulars he had seen – so incredibly young and inept. He felt like he had betrayed himself with his bravado, and that his life was now out of his control. But, much worse than that, he felt like he had pained his father.

Havlah’s lower lip began to tremble. He griped the shamshir as tight as he could.

Rariji
Nibqah divided his army into units based on experience. Since the majority of those under his command were about to fight their first battle, sorting them from the veterans was crucial. Val rarely needed an organized army, relying instead upon the harsh conditions of the desert to protect her from enemies. As a result seasoned soldiers were in short supply.

Anyone with any military experience was ordered to rally due north of the Crater, and the remainder was split between the northwest and the northeast. The veterans would lead the charge into the bowl and the rest would make up either flank. The Disciples were to engage from behind, a choice that Nibqah had not supported and believed was nothing short of suicide. Fahi, however, had insisted upon it. The front of the horde, Nibqah had argued, would need every soldier of Val to confront it.

As his captains assembled the men, Nibqah overlooked the camp from atop the Crater wall. He was fairly tall with long, dark hair neatly confined under a simple helmet. He stood erect and strong, a rigid statue in the night. The only light came from Aelmuligo and the stars, so the sight of his soldiers forming ranks was little more than shifting shadows on the desert floor. The shouts of his officers doling out orders were indistinct from this height.

“
Rariji!
” someone called from below.

“Yes? What is it?”

“Latest report: the horde is only five
itthum
away to the south.”

Nibqah wheeled around, forgetting to dismiss the soldier. He looked past the far rim of the Crater and into the blackness beyond. He could see them – just barely – marked by a floating carpet of torches in the distance. The horde was wide and deep, a flood consuming the desert, and it was coming straight for them. The sight made Nibqah’s heart fall into his belly.

Havlah had been assigned to the eastern flank and found himself huddled shoulder to shoulder inside a tight crowd of soldiers. They stood idly awaiting the order to storm up the Crater wall and spill over to the other side into the fray. In the meantime, their captain had said, they were to remain absolutely silent. Any noise at all and the element of surprise, really their only strategy, would be ruined. Despite that order, those around him whose nerves could not stand to be quiet in such a situation whispered to each other anyway.

One of those people, a grandfatherly man beside Havlah with a bald head and white beard, said to him, “Aren’t you a little young for this kind of thing?”

Havlah didn’t feel like talking but the words found their way out of his mouth without his effort.

“You’re never too young to die for the Book,” he said.

“Oh?” The old man chuckled, and Havlah wondered how anybody could chuckle at a time like this. “Those are pretty brave words.”

Then another voice spoke out from Havlah’s other side.

“I wish I felt as you do,” it said. Havlah turned to see a much younger boy than himself standing beside him, almost Qali’s age. He looked completely stricken with fear – bulging eyes and sallow cheeks. He was a skinny boy too, and Havlah could almost hear the bones rattling in his skin.

“I don’t want to die,” he said, staring right at Havlah.

“Don’t worry, son,” said the bearded man. “Votoc will look after us all tonight. This is his country after all, and he’ll give us the strength to purge our enemies from it.”

Havlah looked ahead, ignoring everyone around him. They stopped talking to him. After a moment he bent over to vomit on the ground. No one seemed to notice. After that one of the officers came around to hush everyone, giving them the signal to stand ready. As the army fell silent the sound of distant war drums reached them through the cool night air. He sensed everyone holding their breath.

Nibqah and his attendants crouched low atop the ridge. They stared at the south end of the Crater, waiting for the enemy to surmount the rim and come marching into their trap. The echoing rumble of their drums sent shivers down their spines.

It was a steady cadence, low and simple. The variety of drums formed a dissonance characteristic of Geldr’thal, unearthly and unsettling. Nibqah, who had heard them before, was particularly unnerved by their sound. His prior experience was the justification for his leading this army, yet he thought to himself now that it might actually make him a worse candidate.

A messenger scrambled up the rim behind them.

“
Rariji!
” he said, whispering as loud as he could. “We are in position. We await only your order.”

“Good,” said Nibqah. “It will not be long now. Tell the captains to follow my charge into the Crater.”

“Yes sir!” he said, and hurried back down.

“
Rariji
, look!” said an officer. He was pointing south, to the other side of the bowl.

It was the first glimpse of the enemy. A shifting blackness, speckled with torches, poured over the rim of igneous rock. Almost at once the southern half of the Crater was overcome by the horde. Then it began, slowly, to slide down into it.

“Votoc protect us…” someone said.

The Valan army listened intently to the horde on the other side of the bowl. Their drums were growing steadily louder, steadily nearer. Havlah wanted to vomit again but could only dry heave. He felt the hand of the bearded old man on his back.

Their captain, situated halfway up the escarpment, held out his arm towards them, signaling them to hold position. A messenger ran to him and whispered something, then ran away again. Now the marching of over thirty thousand pairs of feet could be felt through the ground with a gentle, rhythmic throbbing that accompanied the drums.

The desert army was completely still – frozen to its very core.

Nibqah fought the impulse to sneak down the safe, shadowy side of the Crater as enemy torchlight filled the bowl. The horde was rapidly expanding, and still more of them were spreading across the wall. The first to make it to the stump of stone in the center encircled it, and behind them some kind of procession filed inward. It was made distinguishable by an unusual concentration of torches, and it cut through the horde like a river of firelight.

Those inside the procession were not like the surrounding warriors. They were dressed differently, in colorful robes instead of iron armor, and traveled with several chests lofted overhead.

“Should we charge, sir?” asked an officer, his voice dripping with fear.

Nibqah’s eyes were locked onto the procession.

“Not yet. We must wait for the exact moment.”

“But the horde will surely surround the Crater very soon, inside and out, and then we’ll lose the high ground.”

“We need as many of them in the Crater as possible….” Nibqah looked to the flanks. Sure enough, the reach of the horde was widening, and they now covered more than half the rim. With each passing second their numbers expanded, overtaking more and more of the wall.

“We must charge now!”

“Wait!” ordered Nibqah. “Just a moment longer….”

The bowl was nearly filled to capacity by the time the Disciples reached the back of the horde. The invasion force was sloppy, moving in one great disordered mass rather than rank and file, and it consequently spanned a tremendous amount of ground from end to end.

The dry earth behind the horde was beaten and mangled by an armada of heavy, stomping feet. Debris, garbage, and the occasional trampled body littered their wake. But all eyes were forward, locked onto the Crater as they marched.

The Geldr were a grotesque, monstrous race of subhumans, believed to be the bastard offspring of ancient orcs. The shortest among them stood easily a whole head taller than any desert native, and was twice as wide. According to legend they were cursed with an unnatural hunger for raw meat and preferred their prey to be freshly killed, or – better yet – still alive during consumption. Battles were therefore more like buffet dinners for them, as the Geldr embraced cannibalism and were known to stop fighting only to eat the slain right on the field.

They were brutish, drooling animals with low brows and meaty jowls. Typically quite fat, Geldr were incredibly strong, and covered with wiry, matted hair. Their skin was a rugged armor of grey flesh, the color of a stale corpse. But they were also a cognitive species, possessing a simple culture of relentless warfare and strict loyalty to their kin, their lords, and to their god – Thuldarus.

But all their fearsome strength was no match at all for the fighting skill of the Disciples. Slinking up behind them like phantoms, the tiny force of warrior monks crept near the beasts one at a time, targeting the ones who lagged too far from the horde. The second they fell behind the periphery of their comrades, the hand of a Disciple would close around their slobbering mouth and a razor-sharp blade would slice their throat. Dead in seconds, the Disciple would then guide their descent carefully to the ground so even the fall was noiseless.

The four hundred Disciples fanned out along the rear of the horde and quietly picked off the brutes one by one. Their abilities were so finely tuned that any Geldr to notice them was dead before they could alert the others. Their stealth was absolute.

The Disciples were methodical, efficient and ruthless. It was clear that if only given the luxury of time, the few hundred of them would eventually dispatch the entire invasion force, working from the rear all the way to the vanguard.

On the stone altar in the center of the bowl, the ritual was beginning. Grey-skinned priests were arrayed along the altar. A few fussed with the chests. Something burned in braziers set on the ledge, perhaps incense, and white smoke billowed in milky waves into the night sky.