Extermination (Daniel Black Book 3) (5 page)

I landed among another group of enemies, and laid into them with Grinder. Cerise appeared at my back with her silver blades flashing, and together we made short work of them. The moment we were no longer in melee I expanded my force shield into a dome around us both, and sent my earth talisman flying towards the gate. It sprouted into a thicket of iron spikes just behind the force wall, and began growing to block the gateway.

All around us was a furious melee. Cries of “For Asgard!” filled the air, along with the shouts of the ape men and the roars of their beasts. Whoever these newcomers were, they were damned tough. But the ape men who’d been guarding the gates seemed to be the elite of their army, and they were deploying a lot of magic.

I’d barely made that observation when a bolt of blue energy slammed into my shield, and it fell apart. Ape men with armor and weapons made of blood rushed Cerise and I from all directions, and then we were fighting back to back.

I was unhappy to discover that their blood armor actually offered some resistance to Grinder’s blade, and my rather minimal swordsmanship was no match for professionals. I was stabbed twice in as many seconds, but fortunately the blows just bounced off my coat. I swept a plasma jet over my opponents, and smiled grimly. Their weapons and armor boiled away like butter under a blowtorch, and they weren’t nimble enough to dodge the cone of destruction.

The force barrier I’d thrown across the gateway collapsed, but the iron barricade was four feet high and growing quickly. A few bold troops scaled it to get into the city, but that was a lot slower than marching through in formation. I played Grinder’s beam across the iron bars briefly, making them too hot to touch, and then glanced back to check on Cerise.

She’d finished off the enemies who’d tried to melee with her, but she’d picked up a nasty cut on her left arm and now she was trading spells with a group of mages. One of our allies was too close to them for anything big to be safe, so I switched my revolver to normal ammunition and started shooting them.

That was quite effective. One of the fringe benefits of force sorcery was an instinctive understanding of movement that greatly improved my marksmanship, and at this range I didn’t miss very often. The spells these guys used to protect themselves from arrows weren’t strong enough to work against large-caliber bullets, and three of them dropped in short order. The fourth was being strangled by his own shadow while desperately trying to fend off the curses Cerise flung at him, so I left him to her tender mercy and went on to the next target.

The fight wound down pretty quickly after that. The enemy still couldn’t find an attack that would penetrate Leo’s enchanted plate armor, and his glowing blade disintegrated everything it touched. Whenever a group of enemies tried to get organized I’d break them up with explosive rounds, and Cerise cut down anyone who tried to get close to me.

But it was the big guy leading the paratroopers who really made the outcome inevitable. He had to be seven feet tall, built like an Olympic weightlifter and swinging a four-foot bar of steel like it weighed nothing. He cut his way through the ranks of the enemy with supernatural skill, killing one leader after another while laughing at their efforts to stop him. His blade lopped off heads and arms with ease, shattering blood weapons into clouds of fragments whenever it struck them. Even the best of the enemy champions could barely slow him down, and I think that was what broke their morale in the end.

Finally a troop of mounted knights arrived to reinforce our position, and the garrison began to recapture the wall above us. Then the giant strode across the plaza to offer his hand with a huge grin.

“Well met, sir wizard!” He boomed. “I am Brand, son of Vali, and I commend your fighting spirit!”

“Daniel Black, wandering adept,” I replied, taking his hand reluctantly. Damn, this guy had a grip like a steel vice.

“The foreign wizard?” He replied knowingly. “Good, you can introduce me around. I need to speak to Prince Caspar at once.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. Fear not, heroes, for the Allfather has sent me here to save this city.”

Well, crap.

I frantically wracked my memory, trying to remember why the name Vali sounded vaguely familiar. From the look of his magic I was pretty sure Brand was a demigod, like Mara. If that was the case knowing his parentage could tell me a lot about him, but I’d never been an expert on mythology. I knew the big names in the Norse pantheon, but not the obscure ones. Damn it, times like this really made me miss the internet.

Brand’s gaze fell on Cerise, and he frowned. “What is that doing here?”

Cerise sheathed her daggers, which had to take guts considering that the Aesir were her mortal enemies. “I am bound to Master Black,” she said evenly.

He looked her up and down, taking in the sleek curves that her tight costume showed off. “Hah! Well, I can’t blame a man for taking risks over a prize like you. Riven Covenant?”

She smiled slyly. “My master is smarter than that. Only he can command me, and I can’t be claimed or traded away.”

I put an arm around her shoulders, which incidentally allowed me to reform my force shield around us both. “Yeah, you’ve probably noticed my magic is a little different from what the wizards around here use. But don’t worry, my little badass bitch isn’t going to wiggle free of her bindings. Are you, Cerise?”

“Fuck no, Master,” she purred. “Being bound to you is the best thing that ever happened to me. I don’t ever want it undone.”

Brand chuckled. “It sounds like your magic is getting the job done. Alright, just don’t let her cause trouble.”

“No killing Aesir worshippers,” Cerise recited plaintively. “Only steal power from monsters. Don’t desecrate temples, don’t curse people and don’t summon anything without specific permission.”

I patted her on the head. “It’s for your own good, Cerise. So, what were you saying about saving the city?”

Leo came over about then, which made for another round of introductions. I gave a mental sigh of relief at the distraction. Brand seemed to be buying the act, but I made a note to keep Cerise away from him in the future. There was no telling how good his arcane senses might be, and if he realized that the magic between Cerise and I was a coven bond rather than a slavery binding there would be hell to pay.

Brand took charge of the situation as easily as breathing, and the garrison troops never thought to question his orders. He led a quick clearing action to retake the gatehouse while I set up a more permanent barrier to replace the destroyed gate. Since there was an army just outside the walls I settled for blocking the opening with a thick wall of stone, rather than trying to build a new set of gates while under enemy fire.

“So, any idea who this guy is?” I asked Cerise as I worked.

She shrugged. “Vaguely. Vali has six sons, and I think he’s somewhere in the middle. Only a couple hundred years old, but he’s dangerous. Vali is basically a divine assassin. The kind of guy who works out what your powers are and sets the perfect ambush to kill you, instead of just walking up and punching you in the face like Thor would. There’s a story that Vali’s sons were being trained as generals, to lead humanity against Loki’s monsters when Ragnarok comes.”

“So he may be sticking around? Great. The thing with the prince was bad enough.”

“Hey, you knew what you were getting into when you hooked up with us,” she replied.

“I suppose. Well, with any luck he’ll focus on killing the enemy instead of hassling us.”

We might be able to take him, if push came to shove. But him and his band of heroes? Doubtful, and that wasn't even considering that he’d have the rest of the city at his back if it came to that. So I’d better make damn sure it didn’t.

“How about his men? They don’t exactly look like normal people.”

“Einherjar. Most of the warriors in Valhalla just stagnate, farting around on the training fields during the day and fucking their way through the serving wenches at night. But some of them get pretty scary with hundreds of years of daily practice, and start turning into something more than just skilled warriors. The young Aesir choose the best of them for their personal war bands.”

Right. Note to self, if I have to fight one of those guys use lots of firepower.

Once the gatehouse was cleared Brand left one of his men in command to make sure the enemy didn’t break in again, and we set off in search of the local authorities. Things still seemed to be pretty confused, but we eventually found Prince Caspar on the roof of a tower just a few blocks away.

He was up there with a group of nobles observing the enemy with his own eyes, instead of sitting back in a command post where messengers could actually find him. Considering the size of the city that seemed like poor planning to me, but then again I’m not exactly a general. Maybe there was a reason they didn’t do things like that in this era?

It was interesting to watch people’s reactions when Brand announced himself. I’d expected a bit of skepticism, but everyone in the prince’s command group bought his story immediately. They mostly seemed in awe of him, although the prince was a little annoyed at his announcement of his mission.

“I believe we have the defense of the city well in hand, Exalted One,” he said stiffly. “These savages caught us off guard with their weather tricks, but I’m informed that the Conclave is preparing to unleash a grand working on them.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Brand said easily. “But take a good look at what we’re facing.”

He stepped to the parapet, and looked out over the forces assembling outside the wall. It was an intimidating sight, to be honest. There were several thousand andregi forming up just outside of bowshot, and more of them stretched out along the road all the way to the horizon. There had to be tens of thousands of them, enough that they outnumbered Kozalin’s defenders by a comfortable margin.

I picked out a formation of triceratops cavalry, and a trio of tyrannosauruses surrounded by a swarm of handlers. None of the dinosaurs were going to be a threat to the wall, but the gates were another story. The ones I’d seen were all made of wood, and an animal that big could easily smash its way through. I could probably keep them away from one gate, but if they attacked several locations at once that would be a problem.

Companies of infantry were lining up between the cavalry. Burly ape men in leather armor, with big shields and bundles of javelins on their backs. Most of them carried axes as their main weapon, but about one in ten seemed to have one of those blood weapons. They were obviously organizing for an assault, although not a conventional one. The ones with blood weapons were turning them into something like a pair of giant claws, while the rest prepared long lengths of knotted rope. Were they planning to just scale the wall, and drop ropes for their buddies to climb?

A dozen enemies trying that would be laughable, but a thousand was another story. Bows aren’t nearly as good at killing people as guns, and as far as I knew the city garrison didn’t have anything impressive in the way of magical weapons. So most of the enemy would survive a charge to the base of the wall, and I’d seen how easily they scaled normal buildings.

If the enemy got in among the garrison that would go badly for us. They were substantially bigger and stronger than humans, and that’s a big advantage in melee combat. A group of them was probably worth two or three times their number of regular troops, although the superior equipment of our knights would probably tip the balance the other way where they got involved.

Of course, that wasn’t even counting the enemy mages. From what I’d seen an army this size would have hundreds of them, and while they weren’t as powerful as the Conclave’s wizards they were still a serious threat to normal troops. Their insect swarms and poisonous fogs were perfect for attacking a fortified position, and the spells of decay they’d used on Leo’s golems would deal with both armored knights and closed doors. Yeah, I could see why Steelbinder had decided to pull out the big guns instead of fighting these guys normally.

“Gaea has been planning the extermination of humanity for ages,” Brand said. “Spells that war wizards have been using for hundreds of years are not going to catch her by surprise. Do you see that altar, between the two giant beasts?”

Maybe half a mile down the road a pair of four-legged dinosaurs trudged through the snow with a large object suspended between them. I didn’t recognize the species. They were huge, even bigger than a triceratops, with short necks and a back covered in bony armor. But their tails didn’t end in the big spikes of a stegosaurus, or the bony mace of an ankylosaur. Some related species?

The wooden platform between them was like a miniature castle, with a dozen or so ape men stuffed inside. A few warriors, but most of them wore elaborate headdresses of feathers and were busy chanting around what looked like a stone altar. There was a bloody human body laid out on the altar, but it didn’t seem to be moving.

“I see it,” Prince Caspar said, squinting into the distance. “No doubt these creatures are working more of their foul magic. Is that how these giant lizards are moving in the cold, instead of going dormant?”

“They aren’t actually lizards, Your Highness,” I said. “They’re dinosaurs. Primordial beasts that died out on Earth long before the rise of man. I assume someone must have preserved them in another realm, or perhaps Gaea recreated them. They actually have more in common with birds than lizards, and it looks like they’re warm-blooded.”

Fighting the things had settled a lot of old debates about the nature of dinosaurs for me. The ones I’d seen were active, fast-moving creatures that were surprisingly agile for their size, although still a bit ponderous compared to mammals. The ape men had draped blankets over the ones they rode, so they weren’t completely immune to the cold. But they certainly displayed none of the sluggishness you’d expect of an ectotherm in these conditions. I still wasn’t sure how intelligent they were, but the fact that the enemy had managed to train them argued that they were smarter than lizards too.

Brand gave me a bemused look. “Yes, that’s right. Gaea’s domain is full of the creatures, and her children use them as beasts of burden. They don’t like the cold, but it isn’t going to kill them fast enough to do us any good. No, the altars that each army carries have a different purpose.”

There was a deep rumble from the direction of the Iron Citadel. I turned to look, and saw a black cloud rising from one of the towers of the Conclave’s fortress. Flashes of sullen red glowed from within the roiling cloud, which spread towards us with startling speed.

“Gaea’s children sacrifice men on their foul altars,” Brand shouted over the growing roar. “In return, she grants them protection from the works of human wizards.”

The cloud passed overhead like a dark river, headed towards the enemy position. But its rushing advance suddenly stopped halfway to their lines, the dark clouds piling up along the perimeter of an invisible dome. A concerned muttering spread through the men around me.

“Fear not, men of valor. For today, the gods are with you!”

Brand raised his spear, and a titanic bolt of lightning speared down from the heavens. The protective dome over the enemy army was outlined for a split second by the actinic glare, before it collapsed. The flash was blinding, and the men around me all shouted and covered their eyes.

I blinked the spots away, and saw that the altar was gone. The dinosaurs that carried it had been reduced to charred corpses by the blast, and there was nothing left at all of the priests or the wooden platform in which they’d ridden.

Cerise stared at the scene with wide eyes, unaffected by the flash. She shivered, and pressed herself against my side. I think that was the first time I’d ever seen her intimidated by anything, but I couldn’t blame her. That was a hell of an attack spell, and I hadn’t even seen Brand cast anything.

Was he really that powerful? Or maybe he hadn’t done it himself. For all I knew Odin was watching this war from somewhere on high, and tossing down fire support when his people called for it.

The dark cloud poured down onto the enemy army as I watched, rolling over their lines with a rumble like a freight train. Panicked shouts and screams of pain rose from the ape men, mixed with the roars of dinosaurs.

A riderless triceratops broke from the cloud, its hide pocked with burns. Others followed, racing in all directions in a blind attempt to escape the destruction. But one after another they collapsed to the snow, with black smoke pouring from their nostrils.

A cheer rose up around me as the gathered nobles regained their vision, and saw what was happening. The black cloud moved on, following the road with unnatural precision as it engulfed the troops still marching towards the city. It left behind a sea of blackened corpses slowly sinking into a slush of half-melted snow.

“So that’s the true power of the Red Conclave,” I muttered to Cerise.

“Yeah. I think Gaea’s going to need a new army,” she replied.

The more distant enemy troops saw what was happening, and some of them tried to scatter. But the cloud of death was hundreds of yards across, and it moved as fast as a galloping horse. It carved a path of bloody destruction through the heart of the enemy army, and only the most fleet-footed of them escaped.

“Organize a pursuit,” Prince Caspar ordered. “Send all of our light cavalry companies to give chase, and the Griffon Knights to harry them from the air. Don’t let the survivors regroup within sight of our walls.”