Keeper of the Realms: The Dark Army (Book 2) (38 page)

‘Are you sure?’ asked Marsila.

‘No, of course I’m not sure!’ retorted Charlie. ‘But we’ve got no choice. Look, if you and E’Jaaz just start doing whatever needs to be done I’ll watch and see if I can learn.’

E’Jaaz shrugged. ‘That’s worth a try.’

The gargorillas on either side of the small party glowed with a warm reflected light as both adults summoned their Wills. Golden fists raised, they turned to face the east.

Charlie blinked. She could feel it. Something that tugged at her. A sense of wanting filled her and, not knowing quite what was happening, but realizing that she had to go with the flow she stepped forward and added her dark light to the Keeper’s warm glow.

‘Feel it?’ asked E’Jaaz, a smile of delight wrapped across his face as he revelled in the shared power.

‘Yes!’ said Charlie. The fine hairs along her arms and the back of her neck stood up as arcs of Will crackled round her. ‘Yes!’

‘Sylvaris! We have to open a Portal to Sylvaris!’ shouted Marsila as she struggled to be heard above the growing hum of energy.

The three were encompassed by a halo of light, predominantly yellow and gold, but in places dark and almost black as Charlie’s Will interlaced with the others’. The rain evaporated as it came into contact with the sphere of power. The gargorillas on either side of the three Keepers cast odd shadows and the Treman guards had to stagger back with hands held high to shield their eyes.

‘Got it!’ acknowledged Charlie as she felt a shared consciousness.

With a great crack a Portal shimmered open. It was far larger than Charlie had expected and stretched for metres in each direction. Bright daylight sheared into the gloomy rain and with it came the sounds and terrible sights of a rampaging battle.

‘Mount up!’ snapped Marsila.

Charlie, copying the other Keeper’s movements, scaled the back of one of the gargorillas and wriggled her way into the saddle.

‘Now what?’ asked Charlie.

‘You’re the one in control!’ snorted E’Jaaz.

‘I know that!’ said Charlie, ‘but what are we going to do? I’ve never been in a battle before.’

E’Jaaz cleared his throat. ‘I believe the traditional word is “charge”.’

Charlie gave him a dirty look. Standing in her stirrups so she could be seen she shouted, ‘LISTEN TO ME!’

The gargorilla army lurched upright and even though they had no ears they gave the impression that they were paying attention.

Charlie opened her mouth to issue her final commands, but as she looked through the Portal at the massed ranks of Stoman soldiers intent on tearing Sylvaris to the ground, she paused. The darkness in her chest pulsed. Anger, now a constant in her life, began to surge, filling her veins with tempestuous warmth.

‘Charlie,’ began E’Jaaz with a concerned look. ‘Don’t let that darkness consume you. You musn’t –’

‘This is a war, is it not?’ said Charlie, riding roughshod over his worries. ‘What better place for anger? Look at that – look!’

She pointed through the Portal to the backs of the armoured Stomen. Shades snaked through their feet in their eagerness to be the first to kill Treman children. Rhinospiders danced across spears and shoulders in their haste to carry their riders forward. Arrogant Stonesingers strutted about, urging behemoths to inflict more and more damage on the once beautiful city.

‘I can think of no better place for my anger. I will wipe Bane’s army from the face of this realm!’

‘Charlie –’

‘No!’ Once again Charlie cut E’Jaaz short.

The Keeper was shocked by the commanding tone in Charlie’s voice. He was twice as shocked to realize that he was obeying her.

‘E’Jaaz, you will take a third of our forces and push back all that you find in Deepforest. Marsila?’

‘Yes, Charlie?’

‘You’re with me. We’re taking the other two thirds up into Sylvaris.’

Marsila tried to say something, but Charlie turned to the Treman captain. ‘What’s the quickest route up to the streets?’

‘There’s a ramp about half a mile from here. It’s in that direction.’ He pointed past the Stomen still wriggling and churning like a mass of maggots fighting to be the first to chew on decomposing flesh. ‘Just stick ta the road when ya find it and it’ll lead ya there. It’s a main thoroughfare inta the city. It should take six of these big beasties marching abreast.’

Charlie leaned down to shake the man’s hand. ‘Thank you. Stay safe and survive today.’

‘Ya too, dangerous lady.’

‘Charlie –’ began Marsila, trying one last time to be heard.

Charlie, fuelled by the rising rush of bleak anger, ignored her elder. She fixed her army with an intent gaze. The long lines of stone soldiers, realizing that the time had come, stood even straighter.

‘Go to Sylvaris and drive out Bane’s soldiers!’ shouted Charlie. ‘Crush them and send them reeling back to the Western Mountains! Do not stop until Sylvaris is free. Go! Go! GO!’

She was almost jolted out of her seat as her gargorilla lurched into motion. Heaving forward on all fours, it was the first to leap through the Portal. A thunderous rumble accompanied Charlie as the rest of her army followed.

Accelerating to a gallop, the gargorillas erupted from the rift and exploded into Deepforest. Kicking up a flurry of leaves they charged towards the Stoman ranks. Several Shades turned to shriek in horror, but most never got a chance. With an almighty crash Charlie’s army struck and didn’t slow at all. Shades were flung through the air, armoured Stomen trampled underfoot, behemoths crushed to dust and the swollen abdomens of rhinospiders squashed with a squelchy ‘pop’.

‘Left! To the left!’ screamed Charlie as she saw the road.

The raging torrent of stone soldiers swerved round tree trunks and pounded their slab-like feet along the road. Seeing the ramp approach Charlie waved at E’Jaaz. ‘Good luck!’

E’Jaaz, powered with Will to the point where even his mount glowed, waved back. ‘Luck be with you!’ he hollered.

As Charlie and her troops clattered up the ramp, the tattooed Keeper angled off with his third of the army. The last Charlie saw of E’Jaaz before the trees hid him from sight was him and his gargorillas spreading out in search of further combat.

Charlie turned to Marsila and nodded. Not certain that she could be heard above the din, the fierce lady returned the gesture. As they crested the top of the ramp, Sylvaris swept into view. Shattered towers, flames and smoke filled the skyscape.

‘On!’ screamed Charlie, determined to save what she could of the city. ‘Onward!’

Fo Fum remained hidden on the rain-swept plains. Ducking behind the last line of gargorillas he patiently waited as the Keepers charged through the Portal. He hesistated for several additional minutes to ensure that there was no chance of being spotted. During that time many thousands of the stone soldiers thundered through the Portal, the combined weight of their footfall causing the ground to shimmer and shake.

Fo Fum, holding the brim of his hat low over his face, rode the tempest calmly. Then, judging the moment to be right, he grabbed the shoulder of a passing gargorilla and leaped on to its back. Cloak streaming behind him, mercenary and gargorilla punched through the Portal into a chaotic world of war.

Stomen and Shades shrieked as they were pummelled into the ground, soldiers panicked and Stonesingers tried futilely to battle Charlie’s dark army.

Fo Fum ignored it all. Using his mount’s head to haul himself upright he bunched his legs beneath him and … jumped. Landing lightly on the shoulders of another gargorilla he repeated the motion again and again until he had built enough momentum to
run
across the backs of the stone soldiers. Gathering speed, he began to move in front of the army. Focusing on what lay ahead, he was finally rewarded with a glimpse of Charlie’s messy hair as she rode the lead gargorilla.

His empty grin growing wider and meaner, Fo Fum continued to push his way ahead. He was determined to grasp his elusive prey while she was unaware that she was being stalked and the advantage was his.

52

Battle for Sylvaris

At each junction a steady stream of gargorillas split from the main force to engage the enemy. Street by street and bridge by bridge Charlie’s army swept clear the Stoman army, leaving a carpet of armoured corpses, broken behemoths and writhing scraps of Shades.

But not everything went their way.

Gargantuan behemoths stamped, gnashed and thumped their way through great swathes of Charlie’s soldiers before they in turn could be brought to their knees. Shades working in wriggling, writhing packs pulled gargorillas beneath their shadowy embrace, never to rise again. Stomen fighting for their lives smashed clubs into stony heads, axes into barrel chests and maces into rocky backs.

Bit by bit the enemy was forced back, but in return Charlie’s army was diminished, leaving nothing more than a pile of shattered rock or a trail of fractured limbs to mark their passing.

‘The Jade Tower!’ called Marsila.

Charlie, sheathed in a dark cloud of tempestuous Will, turned in the direction of Marsila’s outstretched finger. The tower was a hive of activity. Rhinospiders clambered up the
walls, Shades tried to slide into windows and Stomen pounded at the lowered portcullis with a battering ram. The tower’s defenders fought back with great ferocity, but were gradually being overwhelmed.

‘Go!’ shouted Charlie. Heeling her mount round she urged what remained of her army towards the tower.

Something suddenly yanked her from her mount. Cartwheeling through the air Charlie landed in a heap. Scrambling to her feet, she went white in shock as Fo Fum appeared, bigger and larger than ever, dancing towards her across the backs of her stone soldiers.

Marsila dragged her gargorilla to a halt.

‘No!’ said Charlie. ‘I’ve got this. Clear the Jade Tower.’

The older Keeper paused. The screams coming from the Jade Tower spurred her decision. Tight-lipped and with a scowl marring her beautiful face, Marsila made for the tower.

Fo Fum raced across the gargorillas then leaped lightly to the ground as the last few ranks converged round the Jade Tower. Still wearing his hideous little half-smile on his burnt and blistered face, he turned to Charlie.

‘Fe-fi –’

‘Fo Fum, better watch out,’ said Charlie, finishing the mercenary’s chanted ditty, ‘cos the bad girl comes.’ In a gesture of defiance she raised her shadow-wreathed hands.

Though Marsila had concerns about leaving Charlie to fight the blindfolded stranger alone, she had no choice in the matter. The Jade Circle had to be saved.

She leaped clear as her mount and the others slammed into the pushing, swearing, bloodthirsty mass of Stomen that until now had been preoccupied with forcing their way into the Jade Tower.

Squealing in pain and rage they turned to face their new attackers.

Stonesingers commanded behemoths to punch and pummel at the gargorillas. Shades twined their way past rocky feet, tripping and trapping the stone soldiers then tearing them to shreds when they tried to struggle upright. Stoman soldiers cracked warhammers against arms, chests and legs and, bit by bit, tore gargorilla after gargorilla into piles of shattered stone.

But this was not a one-sided battle. The last of the behemoths was heaved off the walkway and disappeared beneath the smoking canopy of Deepforest. The battering ram was dropped as the Stoman soldiers were forced to aid their brothers-in-arms in defeating the gargorillas. Rhinospiders that had been scaling the sides of the Jade Tower were forced to abandon their siege in order to drop down and attack their foe.

And then the gargorillas were gone, with nothing to show for their passing other than trails of stone and mounds of shattered limbs and cracked heads.

Marsila was left to stand alone. Behind her red warpaint her eyes widened then calmed. A smile even teased across her lips.

‘So it’s like that then?’ she snorted. ‘Well, if you’ve got to go, you’ve got to go …’ Raising her blazing fists she started to stride forward, keen to close the gap between her and the enraged Stomen who had ringed her in.

Screams of shock arose from the back of the crowd. Several of the more experienced Stomen turned to see what the confusion was. When they saw the cause of the unrest they cursed and hastily turned to meet the new threat.