Light of Epertase 01: Legends Reborn (23 page)

Clunk!

The Tek commander, Zaffka, overlooked the carnage of the Lithia battlefield from his transport’s window with pride. His soldiers had performed well, as always, and the civilization known as Lithia didn’t stand a chance. He cracked his door and called for his wheeled transport to meet him at the bottom of his mechanical castle-like fortress. His sparkling, jet-black suit of armor rested on his command table and he rubbed his fingers proudly along the red stripes painted on the neckpiece.

He wore only his undergarments as he slid his legs into the boots; the soft insulation was warm against his flesh. The next sections of his armor clamped around his knees, thighs, and groin, fitting like a puzzle against each other. Then he lowered the chestpiece over his head and onto his shoulders, meticulous to fasten every clamp and leave no gaps. He took a step; his legs hissed, his arms hissed. He smiled, satisfied, and lowered his helmet onto his head. The tubes from his chestpiece clicked into his helmet and the vascular system of black blood was complete.

Zaffka turned to his prized possession – a magnificent work of art encased in glass. He unlocked the case’s gold clasp. He opened the lid, coiled his metal-coated fingers around the hilt of his masterpiece, and lifted it from its cushion. The first time he held the weapon, he knew it was unlike any sword ever made. The blade was thin, not brittle, and weighed less than a sparrow. It cast a faint blue glow and was said to cut through anything made by man. At least that was what its previous owner had bragged before Zaffka removed his head. Legends said the sword was created by two parts man and one part witchcraft. Zaffka didn’t care how it was made, only that he now possessed it.

The proud commander slid the work of art into its sheath and strapped the sheath to his back.

The time was near.

He was ready.

Except now he had to piss again.

General Rayles met him at the fortress base. “Their castle has been surrounded. Shall we invade?” he asked in Tek.

“No. Wait for me to arrive. I will lead the assault,” Zaffka answered.

“Very well, milord. Your transport awaits.”

A band of Tek bodyguards accompanied Zaffka and Rayles to their transporter and the group crossed the bloody battlefield to the Lithian castle.

A soldier with a single red stripe at his neck greeted Zaffka at the castle’s main entrance.

“No one has left since we arrived, milord. We believe the King is still inside.”

Zaffka nodded. “Very well,” he said in Epertasian. “I find them.”

The Tek officer tilted his head with a squint.

Rayles grinned and whispered in Tek, “You have been practicing. Very good.”

Zaffka’s bodyguards led him and Rayles through the castle’s main entrance. The walls were bare. Empty boxes were strewn on the floor, giving one the impression the castle had been robbed. Epertasian words were painted on the walls and Rayles asked Zaffka what they read.

“Die, Tek demons. There is nothing for you here.”

Rayles smirked. “When will these fools learn we care not for their possessions?” he asked no one in particular.

Zaffka ordered the soldiers to clear each room and line any survivors along the front wall. He and Rayles climbed the dark staircase into a long, bright hallway.

At the opposite end waited a lightly armored man. He wore a sword, a shield, and the arrogance of a man who knew how to kill.

“My turn,” Zaffka whispered. Rayles backed into the stairway.

“Who you?” Zaffka asked in Epertasian. “Are you King?”

The man replied. “I am Carver. And this is as far as you go.”

Zaffka drew his sword.

Carver did the same while raising his shield.

Zaffka took a deep breath, huffed a bored sigh, and then charged.

Carver responded in kind.

Zaffka pointed both of his arms at Carver and flinched. Thunder shot from the cylinders along his forearms, first from his left, then from his right. One blast missed its target by a squank hair. The other slammed into Carver’s shield, knocking him to his backside. He leaned his head around his shield, stared for a moment at the smoking hole in its center, and then tossed it aside.

“Why not face me head on, coward, instead of using your witchcraft?”

“Oh, my friend, that wasn’t witchcraft. It is called gunpowder.”

“I don’t understand your filthy language.”

Carver dusted himself off and rose to his feet. Zaffka leaped and swung his sword. Carver ducked. The sword sliced through the hallway stone wall with ease. Carver’s eyes bulged like all of the previous warriors who had seen the sword’s power right before they felt it.

Zaffka chuckled. “Now, that’s witchcraft.”

Carver shrugged his shoulders as if unimpressed. He lunged with his sword. The blade ricocheted off the Tek’s armor. He dropped to a squat. In one fluid motion, he swept Zaffka’s legs while shoving him to his back. The impact slid Zaffka’s sword from his hand along the hall floor. His armor hissed and spurted as he scrambled to make distance between them. Carver dove at him, heaving his sword at his head. Zaffka jerked to the side, impressed with Carver’s skill.

The brave defender of the castle lunged at the Tek again but struck only armor. Zaffka put his knuckles against Carver’s leg. Carver’s eyes briefly told Zaffka he knew his mistake. The Tek flinched. A concussive boom let loose. The Lith warrior fell to his back, clutching the fresh wound on his thigh. Though his armored thigh plate now wore a bloody, smoking hole, Carver didn’t make a sound.

Zaffka strolled past to retrieve his sword. He turned back to Carver and stood above him. He removed his helmet to better see his fallen foe. “Not bad,” he said. He took a couple of deep, agitated breaths. “Where King?”

Carver tried to lift his heavy sword but Zaffka stomped his arm back to the floor.

“You’ll never find him. He is far away by now.”

“No matter,” Zaffka said through clenched teeth. He raised his blue sword with both hands. “We find him. Eventually.”

Carver shouted, “Basta …” but Zaffka drove the blade down through his chest, silencing his scream. The blade lodged in the stone floor beneath him. With an air of arrogant pride, he watched as Carver twitched. Slowly the life left the Lith warrior’s body. Once the twitching had ceased and Zaffka could gain no more sick pleasure, he grunted and wiggled the handle of his sword until it pulled free of the stone and armor and bone. Zaffka sensed Rayles standing behind him.

“Round up everyone.” he ordered. “Locate the tunnels and send search parties through. Find the rest of the royal family and execute them.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You and I will leave for the area known as Havens Ravine in the morning. That is where the real battle will take place. These Epertasians will fight hard to protect the land they call Thasula. Our armies should be in position soon.”

“It’s all coming together, milord.”

“Of course.”

Aidric opened his eyes to the bright cloudless sky. He tried to sit up but winced and grabbed his side. His blurry pupils slowly focused in the light until he could look around. The broken and battered bodies of his men surrounded him. They never stood a chance. A battalion of Epertase’s finest soldiers were slaughtered in an instant and he had led them to the slaughter.

He breathed through his nose because his jaw hurt too much to move. The air was thick and putrid. Vultures, too many to shoo, pecked at the flesh of his men. He gagged, spraying vomit and blood from his nose and through the gaps where his front teeth once were. Some of his men writhed and moaned in pain, too weak to fight off the scavengers. He willed himself to his feet.

I’ll find help, I promise,
Aidric silently vowed to his brave, dying comrades who still drew breath.

As he straightened, he froze, waiting for the ripping pain in his lower back to subside before he could start up the same bloody, mud-covered hill that began the fight.

He was partially up the hill when he realized something that made him more nauseous. Not the rivulets of blood oozing from the many wounds on his battered body, not the pools of blood from the day’s battle flowing down the hillside, but what he heard over the ringing in his ears. Or more accurately, didn’t hear. The Lithian battlefield was as quiet as a tomb beyond the hills.
Surely the battle is not over so soon.

By the time he reached the top of the same hill where he’d felt so confident before the battle, the suns had risen and fallen. The cries of his men had become fewer and weaker. As he peered over the crest of the hill, he saw smoke rising from the villages of Lithia. The sight told him what he didn’t want to accept.

Tens of thousands of Lith soldiers lay bloodied in the matted, chewed-up grass. Women and children who had refused to evacuate searched the impossible sea of carcasses for their husbands and fathers and brothers and sons. The wounded crawled, trying to do what they could to help their friends, while others sat and sobbed in the face of such annihilation.

Mammoth craters unlike any he had ever seen created by man, large enough to bury five or six horses, marred the ground. Body parts and torsos and burned grass surrounded the holes.

Aidric wobbled at the sheer magnitude of his failure. He puked again. There was more blood in his vomit than before.

Most of the day passed before he reached the bottom of the hill. He was exhausted and weak and had lost too much blood. He collapsed onto his back near a small puddle, no bigger than a footprint, that burned beside him. He winced and bit his tongue so he could roll to his side and get a better look at the fire that floated on the dark water. Something was familiar about the black gunk. And then it hit him. It was the same dark liquid that had sprayed from the Tek’s neck several nights before.

He looked past the burning puddle to an old woman who approached, her dress, arms, and face smeared with red. She mumbled something but Aidric couldn’t hear. The ringing in his ears must have gotten worse. She crouched in front of him. “Can I help you?” she mouthed.

He nodded weakly. She was a big woman, strong, and she lifted his arm over her shoulder. Together they walked to a horse-drawn wagon full of dying men. An elderly man, maybe the woman’s husband, helped Aidric into the wagon. A lifeless soldier lay next to him and the elderly man mumbled something to the woman before the two of them pulled the dead soldier from the wagon to the ground.

Aidric whispered, “My men are on the other side of the hill. Help them.”

He strained to hear the woman’s reply. Her lips said she knew about his men, that others were helping them. She gently brushed the back of her hand along his cheek. “You’ll be alright,” she said. He closed his eyes.

Simcane knelt in the high grass of the Great Plains as the blades tickled his thick calf muscles. He turned toward the castle walls from the edge of the forest of Concore. His instincts argued with what he expected to find. The clumped dirt at the forest’s edge stunk of dried blood and crumbled between his fingers.