Incarnation: Wandering Stars Volume One (47 page)

“
Horfa!  Horfa!
”
he commanded.

As his soldiers backed away from the wall, cheers rose
up among the enemy force.  The ground forces
raised their spears and shields high in the air, while the humans laughed and made crude gestures.
  The winged angels hovered in the air above the gate, while the holy Iryllurym backed away, covering the retreat of their counterparts on the ground.

Danduel shook his head in frustration, then turned to lead his army down the road, away from the gate.  Trying to maintain some semblance of order, his
Anduar
ym
lined up and began marching. 
Within minutes, the retreat was in full force.  The Fer
-
Rada quickly made his way to the head of the retreat
and led them around a sharp bend.

A smile came to his lips as he saw
Ananel
standing to the side of the road, waving to him.  Danduel marched toward the newly formed hole in the side of the eastern-facing cliff.

“Are you ready?” he asked the Myndarym as he approached.

“They’ll
punch
through as soon as you’re
in position
.”

Danduel nodded, the
n
ducked into the cave.  Without anything to light the way, he held his shield in front of him and marched as quickly as his legs would carry him.  Luckily, the tunnel was level and smooth, having been
s
h
aped
by the Myndarym.  If it had been dug by any other method, the debris alone would have made it impassable.

Semjaza will never be expecting this!

“
Fer
-
Rada?” came a voice from the darkness.

“I’m here.  Just wait until the tunnel is full,” Danduel replied, coming to a stop.  He felt another presence behind him as his
soldiers
packed themselves into the passage
beneath
the mountain.  “Come in and make room for the others,” he commanded.

Though completely dark, he could nevertheless hear a change in the way sound traveled through the tunnel.  After waiting patiently for several minutes, he heard the message being relayed from the back of the line.

“We’re ready,” the soldier
behind him s
tated.

“Go ahead,” Danduel told the Myndarym.  “Make it as fast and wide as you can.”

After a moment’s pause, a low note sounded, accompanied by another, then another harmony.  The music filled the tiny space until the very rock seemed to resonate with it.  As each harmony was layered onto the growing force of sound, Danduel had to cover his ears to keep from losing his balance.  His head
began to
ache and his hand
s shook
.

A
sharp pulsing sound threatened to burst his eardrums and he wondered how a
n angel could produce such a noise
.
 
The pulsing resonance
increased in volume and tempo until the very earth beneath them rumbled.  Finally,
t
he
rhythm
merged into
a single note and the
Myndarym shouted with a violent burst.

Instantly,
morning sunlight
flooded into the passage as the rock in front of Danduel seemed to flee in fear.  Large boulders, dirt, and small rock
s
alike, flew away from the Shapers with such force that the air was filled with a cloud of debris.
  Danduel removed his
hands from his ears,
and stared out in fascination.  He could now
see
the whole
of Sem
j
aza’s city at a glance. 
A great tower stabbed upward from the surface of the water.  Its height was beyond anything Danduel had ever seen, and was clearly a monument
to
Semjaza’s pride. 
A
road traversed
the descending terrain before him.  One
direction le
d
west along the bay toward Semjaza’s fortress
.  The
other le
d
east
to the
back side
of the
entrance
that
they
had
unsuccessfully
attempted to infiltrate
.

Danduel rushed forward.

The
Anduar
ym
followed, emptying
from the tunnel beneath
the mountains as
a chaotic mass.

“
Ad a tarn! 
Delas!
Foran
a
r
a
s
!  Aftan varnir
!” he yelled to
his
soldiers.

The
Anduar
ym quickly assembled into a formation with half the soldiers facing forward and half facing to the rear.  Then, they moved as one to the west
, heading for the peninsula leading out to Semjaza’s fortress. 
A feeling of excitement came over
the Fer
-
Rada
as he saw his
objective
in such close proximity.
Somewhere inside the tower
, cowering in fear was the disgraced Pri
-
Rada.  No doubt he realized that the odds had just shifted.

To the east, Semjaza’s Anduarym were just realizing what had happened and were abandoning the gate, while the Iryllurym were advancing quickly along the road in Danduel’s direction.

As their dark silhouettes moved closer, Danduel
brought his shield up high and held his
vandrekt
tight.  “
Iryllur
ym
!
” he yelled to his soldiers.

Semjaza’s defense was playing out just as he wanted.  Looking now to the still waters of the cove, he could already see the smooth surface being disrupted.  A loose grouping of triangular waves was coming quickly from around the peninsula. 
His V
i
dir
ym
were already inside the cove and moving into
position
to cover the rear of his advancing formation.

This time, he
allowed himself to smile.

T
he water
continued to swirl and the wakes grew in depth.  But gradually, they changed direction and began to come straight at his soldiers
on the shore. 
Danduel’s momentary feeling of superiority evaporated
as he realized what was happening.

“
Varnir! 
H
alda
!
Snua rett!
”
he commanded.

The
sixty
Anduar
ym
quickly
stopped their forward movement and morphed
their
frontal attack
formation
to a defensive posture, aimed toward the water. 
The
right side of the column now became the
front line
,
interw
eaving
their shields to form a barrier along the shore line, while the rear line
s held their shields overhead.

The first wa
ve of
Iryllur
ym
arrived
.  With a flurry of win
gs
,
the
air
borne
enemy dove and
rammed into the shields of the two rear lines.  One
of Danduel’s soldiers
went down, while another lost his shield.

As soon as the
formation
passed overhead,
the water along the
shore
bulged upward as massive shapes came from the depths. 
Instead of Danduel’s underwater soldiers, it was Semjaza’s V
i
dirym who broke through the
once
tranquil surface
.  Their sleek,
aquamarine
bodies
glistened in the morning light, as the water slid from their skin.  The angel
s’
upper bodies
rose above the
surface,
supported
and propelled by the long appendages still under the water. 
They were all armed with
v
an
s
pyd
at their sides, which they quickly transferred into an overhanded grip.  In one fluid motion, they loosed their spears and sent them flying through the air with deadly accuracy.

“V
i
dir
ym!
” came a cry from the rear of his forces.

At the
left side
of the front line, Danduel was nearly pushed over by the force of
a
spear
hitting
his shield.  His arm twisted violently, trying to maintain his grip on the protective barrier.  Three of his
Anduar
ym
went down—two from the same spear
which
had gone
clean
through the first soldier.
  The third fell forward out of formation when the
V
i
dir
pulled on the cord that attached his barbed
v
anspyd
to the metal
gauntlet
on his forearm.

Danduel had never seen this use of the famous V
i
dirym weapon and struggled to think clearly in the chaos of the moment.

“
Varnir!  Skyv vinstri!
” he yelled.

His soldiers maintained their formation, but began
side-stepping
along the road to the west. 
As Semjaza’s sea and air forces took turns at the invading army, Danduel’s company pressed on, slowly losing one soldier
after
another.  By the time they reached the peninsula, his
force of
sixty
had been reduced to
forty-three
. 
And n
ow that he faced a narrow strip of land with water on each side, his optimism
was all but depleted
. 
It was a gauntlet and the casualties were sure to be severe.  His own V
i
dirym were nowhere to be found, and he knew he would need additional numbers to reach the fortress alive. 
Looking
up to the southern cliffs, he
thrust
his spear
into the air
and gave the signal for half of the
Iryllur
ym to join the fight.

Semjaza’s winged soldiers
must have seen the signal, because the next attack came not in unison, but as random individual assaults.  The
soldier
s
of the water
quickly followed this change in strategy
,
and now it was impossible to predict where the next attack would come from.

Suddenly, the soldier next to Danduel lost his shield to a diving
Iryllur
who carried it away, nearly ripping the
Anduar
’s arms off.  In the next instant, a long spear
punched through
the soldier’s chest.  The
Anduar
turned to
his Fer
-
Rada a
nd grasped at hi
m
,
with
a pleading look on his face.
  Then he was violently
wrenched
out of formation as the enemy retracted his weapon.

Danduel pulled his own shield tight to his body and simply watched, helpless
while
the soldier
was dragged into the water.

*   *   *   *

Clinging to the
shadowy
cliffs above the southern side of the bay, Sariel watched as Danduel’s forc
es below were taking
a beating from the air and sea.  And at any moment Semjaza’s ground force would reach them, as well.

“
…change of plans,” Nuathel said, looking down at the signal from his commanding officer.  “It looks like he needs half of us.”

Sariel nodded.

“You stay out of sight
,” the Fim
-
Rada continued. 
“
Wait for the signal.  Then go for the tower…fast
!
”