The Black Tower (26 page)

The day was lost.

Hajir knew it before he’d even joined the battle.  The Iron Count’s army was simply too big and too well armed, and it was clear to Hajir that Colonel Blackhall had been sent on a fool’s errand.  He cursed himself for allowing his forces to be drawn down from higher ground to try and lend aid, especially when it would prove to be so pointless – Blackhall had too little magical support and not enough knowledge of Vossian weaponry.  Worse, he didn’t have the willingness to sacrifice men, and that would cost him.

But a promise is a promise
, the Den’nari warlock captain thought to himself.  Malik had promised his friend Toran Gess military aid, and though he didn’t want his involvement or support made pubicly known Emperor Krag had volunteered Hajir to lead 800 seasoned Scorpion Legion soldiers into a battle no one knew was being fought.  Normally that many men would have been more than enough to assure victory, but this was not a normal day.

Today the field belonged to Ghul, the dreaded Voss exile, legendary in Den’nar’s criminal underworld for his unsavory appetites and obsession with acquiring the darkest black market arcana that money could buy.  Hajir never would have taken the giant for a military commander, but it was hard to argue with what had happened there on the field.

The Scorpion Legion’s arrival had seemed to help for a time.  They’d taken the Black Army completely unaware from the south, cut them off as they tried to emerge from the valley and outflank the Jlantrians. The falchion wielding cavalry had ridden through Tuscars like they were wheat, and Hajir’s dozen Veilwardens bombarded the black-clad enemy with fiery rain and sharp missiles of ice and stone.  Those Veilwardens were also well-trained with the blade, and they proved more than capable of finishing off opponents with their scimitars, when necessary. 

Hajir rode at the head of the column, his dappled steed moving with it’s usual sure and thunderous gait.  Broken hills stretched to the southwest, at the edge of the dried-out swamps; it was sometimes easy to forget the Bonelands hadn’t always been desert, especially in regions sparsely populated even before the Vossian war machines had reduced the region to ash.  His silver-black armor was covered with a thick cloak, and he wiped sweat from his beard and brow as he looked up and down the front lines of the battle.  Hajir kept his mind focused, and maintained an icy grip on the Veil. 

The archers were just behind the cavalry, with the rest of the infantry at their backs.  The Veilwardens were spread through the ranks, not decorated with any sort of insignia or dress that would draw enemy attention and fire, but all of Hajir’s men knew them by sight, and the mages usually communicated via
sendings
when the need was dire. 

They’d driven back the first wave, but Ghul had a veritable legion – not all of the Count’s army had been marching through the valley, and now another thousand mixed human and Tuscar soldiers approached from the east across wasted streambeds and plains of pure red sand.  Hajir watched them from a distance, a roaming mass of armor and reptile mounts, black banners flying high and clouds of choking dust kicked up by their approach. 

As much as he disliked the notion of facing the enemy on level ground it was better than the alternative, and he was glad that the ridge around the southern end of the valley was all but impassible, because it meant Ghul’s legions couldn’t outflank them.  Unfortunately, with the valley entrance at their backs it meant they still had to face threats from two directions, since Blackhall’s forces were having difficulty holding the northern line.  His Scorpion Legion had repelled the enemy units from the valley floor and sealed the way with magic – a barrier of skin and smelted metal sat like a crude wall across the face of the pass, and the steam of sizzling bodies filled the air – but he knew those blocked forces would attempt another attack, wall or no wall.

Hajir breathed deep as orders were passed down the ranks.  The air stank of blood and rumbled with the groan of metal and marching.  He tasted iron and sweat, and his heart pounded from the nearness of the conflict. 

His eyes went to the brutal melee taking place up on higher ground at the west end of the valley.  As much as he wanted to deploy some of his men to help Colonel Blackhall hold the line he knew he couldn’t afford to spare a single soldier, not with this new force approaching from the east. 

They were just a roaming mass at that distance, a growing wall of armored bodies.  His men shifted all around him, their eyes ahead and their minds on the coming fight.  He’d led them into many battles, largely against pirate fleets out of the Moon Sea or Tuscar barbarians from the south.  Never anything like this.

The Legion is in your blood
, he reminded himself.  His father had been an officer, and his grandfather had been a soldier during the Rift War.  For that moment of calm before the storm, as he sat there on his horse and looked out over the tide of his men, Hajir traced his fingers along his arm, followed the concealed line of tattoos which held the history of his family line, the tale of his lineage back as far as was known.  He sensed the protective charms and oaths set there by his parents and grandparents, and he knew that many of his men were doing the same. 
This day, we do our families proud.

By the time Hajir ordered the archers to fire hexed arrows upon the advancing force the Jlantrians to the north were already in trouble. 

Arrows soared like fiery birds through the blank sky, and trails of deep smoke followed the missiles like the plumes of a fuming bird.  As each arrow came down it detonated with a small explosion, enough to blast apart a Tuscar or human and knock others back from the concussive force.  A second volley rained down, striking at the heart of the Gorgoloth
drad’mont
and
nek’dool
cavalry, but the explosive bursts weren’t nearly as effective against those fast-moving and heavily armored warriors.  Edged shields bore the brunt of the attack, and the hides and discipline of the mounts were too great to be put off track or distracted by the Veilcrafted artillery.  Small fires spread across the plains as the black army continued its advance, roaring with blood lust and rage. 

Hajir ordered the cavalry forward while he tried to get some idea of what was happening with Blackhall’s forces; when he couldn’t get a clear enough vantage he summoned a runner to head that way and learn what he could. 

Meanwhile, the Tuscars and their mounts thundered on.  Another volley of arrows, this time bound within caustic spheres of acid light, sailed high and came down on the enemy in a barrage of black flames, but the beasts carried on undeterred, only a handful and their riders sent down by the waves of burning power. 

The earth trembled, and the rumble of enormous hooves grew louder.  The open space between the two armies was being swallowed up fast.  Hajir steadied his hand and his steed.  Despite Ghul’s losses the valley and the eastern ridge were still crawling with black-clad troops both human and inhuman, a swarming tide of armor and steel.  The ice cannon had been disabled, but the blade tower still decimated the Jlantrians from the opposite ridge, and a pair of enormous iron catapults shifted south, doubtlessly maneuvering to gain a better field of fire on the Den’nari forces.

The sky seemed to break with explosive noise as the cavalries thundered into each another.  Bodies cracked and flew forward, and horses and reptiles buckled beneath lance and spear blows and folded down in quick and violent motions, smashing their riders to the ground.  Metal and blood blasted up and out.  Men were skewered and trampled, and the air filled with muffled screams and the snapping of bones. 
Nek’dool
and
drad’monts
were fierce creatures with armored shells or leather-thick hides and ravenous appetites, and when they were suddenly free of their riders they launched themselves onto Jlantrian soldiers and horses.  Claws and fangs flashed, blood sprayed, men were crushed beneath enormous feet.  Screams echoed into the bloody sky.  Grey and white and blue armor crashed, and the ground turned red with blood. 

Hajir ordered the infantry forward.  More shouts, and the air around him was suddenly electric with motion.  Booted feet trod sand and cracked earth.  The shift of armor filled the Veilwarden’s ears with metal song undercut by the subtle hum of battle chants.  Scimitars and
raak’ma
held high, the Scorpion Legion surged forth.

The Veilwarden’s link buzzed in his brain.  Hajir focused from atop his steed.  The infantry moved in to help the cavalry eliminate the Tuscars. 

Fire
, he said with his mind, and his Veilwardens, scattered around the battlefield, responded.  Veil energies burned the air.  A churning sound built high in the atmosphere, a storm without clouds.  Everything turned crisp and sharp with the tang of metal and ozone.  The magic built, and kept building.

He sensed more power than what he and his men had summoned.  Something else was coming, a heavy and dissonant sound like the grind of an ancient wheel.  Hajir kept part of his mind focused on maintaining the storm so he could turn his horse about.

Great black spheres appeared from nowhere, burrowing up through the earth at his army’s back and flanking them from underground.  The vehicles were scorched metal, each the size of a wagon, covered with nicks and scrapes and thousands of glittering silver runes.  Small ports and gaps in the outer shells housed weapons of every terrifying manner, flame launchers and acid sprays and wide, jagged blades. 

The Iron Eggs came into view, one, then two, then six. 

Men and horses were crushed beneath the rolling spheres or cut to pieces by the blades which sprung from their sides.  The Eggs wouldn’t be slowed, and they moved in a jagged but precise line from one end of the field to the other, weaving in and out of the lines, releasing gouts of acid and fire, immolating soldiers who then died screaming in napalm clouds. 

Panic surged across the ranks.  The air was filled with blood and exploding skin.

Hajir felt a bolt of fear run through him.  The air snapped with the groan of metal, and great shadows appeared overhead, growing larger by the second. 

His eyes went skyward.  Massive iron stones wreathed with spikes sailed down from on high, artillery launched from the bastardized Veilcrafted catapults.

The first missile landed in the Den’nari infantry and turned twenty men to bloody stains.  Waves of fire rolled from the face of the burning rock even as the men who’d survived the first missile rose and tried to flee, and as the other stones crashed down the flames spread, fanned across the ground as if propelled by some vile breath. 

Men fell, reduced to screaming slag.  Heat flared over Hajir’s face.

Blood pounded in Blackhall’s ears.  He brought his blade up and deflected a blow from a morningstar, then thrust the tip of his bastard sword forward and shoved it through the attacking Tuscar’s face. 

The air drowned in noise.  Men screamed and died, metal crashed against metal.  Everything was in motion, a constant barrage of howls and pain.  He took down another Tuscar before a human mercenary emerged from the wall of armored bodies.  Blackhall backed away, only to trip on a fallen soldier and lose his footing.  Pain lanced through his body as he landed on a broken-off longsword which protruded from the ground like a stake.  Thick red ran from between his clenched fingers, and it was all he could do to keep from passing out.  The edge came free, and Blackhall stumbled and rolled onto his back, trying to stem the flow.

The attacking soldier cackled with glee and rushed forward with a short sword.  Blackhall watched the flailing tide of bodies, felt himself sinking like he’d tumbled into a swamp.  He somehow deflected the blow as it came at him, then reached up and took hold of his attacker’s throat and smashed his face against a stone, threw the man onto his back and brought his sword around to finish the job with a chop to the throat.  Blackhall pushed the body away and tried his best to rise before someone else attacked him. 

Steel rang like song.  Blood and blades, disemboweled soldiers, throats jetting red.  Thrashing metal and loosed arrows, bits of hair and clumps of skin.  The sand had gone wet with gore, the footing uncertain.  Men careened from one end of his vision to the other.  Monstrous roars echoed into the sky. 

Blood continued to pour from his side, and more flowed from a shoulder wound he didn’t even know he had.  Deafening booms thundered across the plains and down into the valley, and he saw the shadows of metal shards as they launched from the far ridge and flew into the ranks of both sides of the battle.

Another Tuscar came at him, slashing and cursing in its guttural language, it’s
shek’taar
brandished and aimed at his heart.  Blackhall cracked the weapon in two and pushed it aside, then ran the grey-skinned brute through.  He ducked as another blade came at him, no longer really seeing or hearing but moving on instinct, that fabled battle sense men never realized they’d acquired until it had already saved their skin a dozen times.  He dodged, deflected, swung, sent another man to the ground, all while his own body was slowly being drained of its strength.  His vision was blurry.  He waded through a mire of armored dead, moved deeper into a brutal cacophony of pain and combat.

Someone tackled him from behind, and the wind blasted out of Blackhall’s lungs as he fell forward.  He fell on top of a mercenary ruffian and kneed him hard in the groin, pounded his face, then drove his blade into the man’s eye. 

Something hard landed against his back, cracking his ribs and blinding him with pain.  He fell forward as the shadow of a Tuscar loomed over him.  He twisted, rolled onto his back, hacked sideways and severed the brute’s leg at the knee. 

Blackhall pulled himself to his feet for what felt to be the hundredth time.  The fighting continued unabated, a dance of blood and madness.  Jlantrians fought viciously, their weapons and bodies caked with gory dust, their eyes sunken with fatigue.  The hordes seemed endless, a blur of metal and bone. 

Everything was fading.  The world grew distant, and suddenly quiet.  A sense of calm washed over him, loosened his muscles and slowly dissipated his pain.

He saw Cassandra.  She couldn’t be there, now now, but there she was, stepping through the field, ignored by the spatters of blood and grime and armored bodies.  Her dark hair and pale face were redolent in the murk, and she came towards him like an avatar of the One Goddess, immune and beautiful.  He tried to get closer to her, to reach out and take her hand as he pushed his way through the tangled web of soldiers.  His heart swelled with joy and fear.

He didn’t feel any pain as the
shek’taar
pushed through his back and came out through his stomach, just a strange sense of detached queasiness, like he’d eaten something bad.  Suddenly he couldn’t feel his arms or legs.  Blood dripped from his stomach, and he slowly stared down and saw the edge of the lance-sword dripping with his insides.  He sank to his knees, rasping through a mouthful of blood. 

A shadow fell over him.  Blackhall didn’t hear it approach, didn’t hear anything but his own labored breaths and the dull and slowly fading beat of his heart. The behemoth war wagon came, grinding wheels and jags of steel, bladed fans and dark smoke, drawn by a massive
drad’mont
covered with armor plates.  The vehicle blocked out sight of the sun.  Soldiers from both sides of the conflict struggled to get out of its way.

Cassandra stood before it, watching Blackhall.  Her grey dress rustled in the dank breeze.  She seemed oblivious to the chariot’s presence.

Move.

Please move.

He blinked, and she was gone.

“It’s time,” Cassandra said.  He closed his eyes.