The Contention (26 page)

*****

Garret summoned his blessing quickly and saw those near him that his brother had blessed do the same. Everything was happening so quickly there was no time to regroup. There was no time to make a new plan. There was no time for anything except to react and Garret did the only thing his conscience would let him do; he called a retreat. If his army attempted to stand their ground as they were now they would be decimated. Garret could not have that on his hands and as such he watched as the common troops turned and fled the battlefield as fast as they were able. Garret pulled his sword from the scabbard upon his back and began to stride forward as Borrik, the twisted monster of his brother’s creation, leapt into the air. It was a sight that sent shivers running down Garret’s spine, and they were on the same team. With nothing to lose but everything, Garret waded into the enemy carving a path of blood and gore, hoping against hope that Linaya fared better than he at this present moment. With a final prayer to Gorandor to protect his people, Garret’s vision turned red as he began to chuckle, a madman born of blood and death.

*****

Borrik soared above his enemy, a giant creature seemingly summoned from some abyss too dark to name. He was a frightening vision, of that he was sure; a man turned wolf who managed to sprout two extra arms, and wings as well, who could now summon fireballs and was big enough to squash men beneath his feet. What a wonderful world it was.

Diving into the enemy, Borrik landed in the middle of the ground troops and began cleaving through the small men as if they were insects, throwing fireballs haphazardly, snapping his teeth and growling, a monster among men. So this was how those blessed by the gods felt, Borrik thought. No wonder they were mostly all uppity, thinking themselves better than common men. How easy it was for one blessed by the gods to slaughter those who were not. It almost seemed unfair, he thought, but that was until he witnessed the odds beginning to even out.

*****

Sara twirled through the first few lines of the enemy troops, her blades lashing out again and again as she sprang into the air to penetrate deeper into Sigrant’s forces. Each stroke of her blade siphoned life from those she killed or injured into herself, making her feel more and more alive with each strike. The euphoria that overtook her from the power rushing into her body again and again made her feel invincible, and made her lust for things unholy and unnatural. More and more she slew, dancing away from blows that would kill slower people, and jumping over those she could not duck. Again and again she brought a foe to the ground, her enchanted blades filling her with unnaturally long life, pleasure and lust. Sara fought on, but it was a constant struggle to stay focused on the task at hand with the scents of fear and blood so strong upon the air. It was not until she severed a man’s head and blood sprayed across her armor, some of it into her very helm, that Sara lost control of the thirst. Though the day was overcast, stray rays of sunlight fell to the ground, making the battlefield that much more dangerous for Sara, but so lost was she in her desire for blood that she stripped her helm from her head and began dancing anew through the ranks of the enemy. Those who fell before her blades bled out upon the ground, but those she found the chance to sink her teeth into, even momentarily, were left behind, marked as they were for death by sunlight, to fall wherever the sun struck them.

*****

Seth felt more than actually saw the first assault as it came from his right, a ball of ice the size of a boulder. Reaching up without so much as looking, Seth reduced it to nothing with a pillar of wicked green and yellow fire. But that was only the first of many attacks that all seemed to come at once on some unheard command. Fireballs, arrows, ice, lightning and even water were thrown at him by magical means in such quantities Seth had no viable means to retaliate, at least not by himself. Seth simply absorbed those attacks he could, and avoided or thwarted those he couldn’t, wanting to gather as much power as was possible. As ground troops drew near to him, Seth obliterated them with a thought, filling the air with ash and coating the ground in it as well. His blessed troops were faring well, and so far as he could tell he had lost no more than a handful of werewolves after the initial attack. Seth could not believe that Sigrant had risked putting his mages at the front of the battle lines. It had been effective, but it was a huge risk with such valuable troops.

Then Seth realized the error of his thinking. All troops were valuable; that was why Garret had called a retreat, sending the majority of their force to flee back to the city. Seth recognized in that moment that the longer this battle raged, the more lives would be lost. The more power would return to the gods and ultimately no one on Thurr would win anything. This was simply a game to the immortals. It was a game in which some pieces were given more moves than others, and a game that could only be won by the players, not the pieces. In this battle Seth was simply a piece as was everyone else. Seth needed to end this battle before it got too bloody, but before he could even play his last card, the enemy came forth with a surprise move of their own.

*****

Garret watched as men dressed in black in several locations throughout the enemy army began to move at incredible speed, each of them running into another, then doubling in size before combining with yet another and then another. Within minutes more than forty of the giant black horsemen had risen from the masses of enemy troops. They varied in size and girth, but Garret knew that those attributes mattered little. These men were willing to sacrifice themselves to destroy the enemy, and Valdadore was the enemy. Garret had seen these men in action before and could think of only one way to effectively take them out.

Looking around the battlefield, his head swiveling this way then that, Garret sought out his brother to find him a few hundred yards away, blasting down hundreds of enemy troops, a wasteland of charred and desiccated flesh in his wake. Shouting above the battle, Garret called out to Seth. Gaining his attention, he gestured to the large warriors clad in black leather armor that approached from seemingly all directions. Seeing his brother nod, Garret turned back just in time to deflect a blow from one such horseman’s large sword.

*****

Borrik watched in fascination as two men became one larger man, and then two of those combined to become yet a larger warrior near equal in size to himself. Finally feeling he had found someone worthy of his attack, Borrik leapt into the air propelling himself forward using his wings to glide in closer to the foe. On landing Borrik summoned a fireball into each of his lower hands and raised his swords with his upper. He did not, however, expect the warrior to move so fast. Like lightning the warrior clad in black leather lunged towards him, lashing out with a thin rapier-type sword. Borrik did not even bother to dodge, knowing his armor would protect him from such a light blade. Enchanted as his armor was, not even Borrik expected what was about to happen to the leather clad warrior. With lightning dancing across his armor, as soon as Sigrant’s knight landed the blow, lightning raced up his blade burning holes through armor and flesh alike, killing the giant of a warrior instantly, smoke curling up from his hair and clothes.

One down, Borrik turned to seek out yet another of the fascinating enemies to try his blades against. Luckily for Borrik there were plenty to be had, near to fifty in his estimation.

*****

Though the warriors of Valdadore were valiantly trying to hold off the enemy so their unblessed comrades could flee in relative safety, they were so few that they were like islands in a river that simply flowed around them. At this rate there would be no turning the tide, and as such, Seth knew that the only option they had was to frighten the enemy into fleeing, or flee to the castle themselves. Knowing it was now or never, Seth shouted to Jonas who remained nearby, and in return the great mottled werewolf barked a quick reply. Yelling for Jonas to relay orders to his men, Seth repeated a task he had been practicing for weeks. Instantly Seth reached out and connected with the auras of his men. Since these auras were sworn to him, they were somehow tied to him and therefore easy to locate. Pouring all the energy he could afford to spare into all of his men, Seth was thrown from his feet by what ensued.

Like some great explosion a thunderous boom shook the ground beneath the battlefield. The frozen lake began to crack and split as great sheets of ice began to shift, spilling Sigrant’s troops beneath them by the hundreds. Though the explosion had been tremendous, the shockwaves that followed it were by far the worse of the two, as hundreds of walls of concussive air lent power to one another and men and women were either thrown to the ground or into the air. Only those who were blessed in size by their respective gods were left standing and more than two hundred of them were great wolfmen sworn to Seth. For weeks Seth had practiced locating his men, and for days he had drawn upon them with symbols formed of magic for this very moment. Though he did not have power enough to sustain them permanently, each had enough power in their blessing now to remain in their blessed form for greater than two hours. What was even better was Seth’s plan.

For the entirety of the battle thus far, Seth’s werewolves had been spreading themselves thin through the enemy lines, fighting in small packs, seeking out the targets that Seth had commanded them. He had told them that they would know when to strike, and they had taken the hint. Like the wind of a tornado, a giant roar tore across the battlefield as Seth’s troops to a man became blessed and sprang atop their chosen targets. They did not strike out at the blessed knights commanded by Sigrant, but at all those mages who had targeted Seth; all those mages who now lay upon their faces or backs, thrown by the massive wolven transformations. They were easy targets, and within seconds more than a hundred mages died, those blessed by gods, those pieces of high value.

Just as soon as the mages were felled, the hundreds of giant werewolves lent themselves to the fight against the giant black knights as everyone of normal size fought to regain their feet. It would not be a fair match by any means; two hundred giant werewolves versus fifty or so human knights dressed in leather armor.

*****

Garret dove aside, kicking out at his attacker’s leg, effectively breaking the horseman’s knee. So long as the man did not go suicidal in his means of attack, Garret could defeat him. But even with a broken knee the man stayed upright, at least until the blast happened. With a force like being smacked with a stone wall, Garret’s attacker, already off balance from his injured leg, was thrown backwards to topple upon his own troops, crushing several beneath him. Garret was unsure just what had exploded, but not daring to take his eyes off his foe, ignored the deafening ringing that was now all he heard and regained his own feet to finish this fight.

Approaching his foe, Garret wasted no time and leaped upon the man from a distance, driving his blade down through the horseman’s throat before he could even do so much as sit up. Pulling his blade from the soil, Garret looked this way and that, seeking his next opponent, but instead he discovered the source of the blast. In all directions, Seth’s wolf troops stomped through Sigrant’s army, all of them now closing in on the giant black knights. Garret could not believe his eyes. Never would he have believed that Seth was capable of such a feat, but just as Garret began to get his hopes up with odds better than favorable, the tide was turned yet again.

*****

Seth watched his men closing in on their enemies as he himself turned a few hundred common men and women to ash, replenishing a small amount of the power he had just expelled. As he watched he witnessed as one of the giant knights split back into four normal people who became lost among the thousands of other common troops. A second later a giant fireball in the shape of a skull smashed a giant werewolf in the chest, tearing a hole straight through the giant beast. He collapsed without so much as a muscle spasm upon the ground. Then it happened three more times from that same vicinity, and Seth recalled how the knights under his brother’s command had been felled by such an attack. His realization was too late as all of the giant warriors of Sigrant’s army disseminated from one another into ordinary men once more and skull-shaped fireballs were cast in all directions causing dozens of Seth's giant werewolves to fall in battle. Seth reached out as quickly as he was able and began severing the umbilical that connected the blessed warriors of Sigrant with their chosen god, several per attack. He dropped them where they stood. Within less than a handful of minutes Seth destroyed more than eighty of the common sized knights, but it was too late; by that time the damage had been done as more than forty of the knights had split into fours and half of those had landed a target. Seth had lost half of his men in just a few moments, and though wondrous power flowed into him in droves, he felt no pleasure from it. Though Sigrant had lost over a hundred mages, and all of his knights, his army kept coming. They marched ever forward, bent on the destruction of Valdadore, spilling by the thousands from the shore of the frozen lake, its once broken surface already mended.

Seth was out of tricks. He still had over a hundred men, each of them currently blessed with size and strength, but only for a limited time. In only an hour or so, they would return to average size and then all would be lost. However, with the deaths of half of his troops he now had the power to sustain their blessings for significantly longer if he wished. Seth dared not try anything big, not like at the battle with the black horde. He could not bear to kill those who stood with him on the field of battle again. He would not risk being teleported halfway across the world. With nothing left up his sleeves, Seth relayed a message to Jonas who made sure it would reach the king’s ear. As Seth expected, a few seconds later, his brother’s booming voice echoed across the battlefield calling for full retreat.