The Eight Walls of Rogar: An Epic Fantasy Adventure Series! (The Lost Kingdoms of Laotswend Trilogy--Book One) (27 page)

***

Guessing what Gaven was thinking, Andaris frowned.  He had not meant to remind him of Ashel.  The big man felt far too guilty as it was.  He didn’t need him going and making it worse.

“All right then,” Gaven said, his voice thick with grief.  “We’ll both go.”

Anthem

At the heels of our king we ride,

In rains of liquid fire,

And seas of clashing swords.

We tramp on the dead and dying,

O’er the crumbled walls

Unto the breach…..

Oh for a day of peace,

Where the only blades that surround me,

Are made of grass,

Where the smoke drifting on the breeze,

Bears only the scent of the hearth.

King Laris watched with a heavy heart as another long, breathless night faded into another painfully dreary dawn.  Dark clouds blanketed the sky.  Tendrils of mist snaked across the ground and, in places, slithered over the tops of the walls.  Sometime after dark it had begun to sleet—and it was sleeting still.

Trying to stay warm, they’d cut half moons out of the sides of some tin lined barrels, the type used for transporting perishable goods such as butter and milk, placed them every few feet along the wall, filled them with kindling, and started some fires.  The men huddled around the barrels with clasped cloaks and outstretched arms, expressions bleak, eyes weary.

They feel it too,
Laris thought.  The morning had brought with it a sense of dread that had little to do with the weather.  There was an ill omen on the air that knotted his stomach and tightened his throat.  Something was about to happen….

Gooseflesh rose on Laris’ arms as a low harooom came drifting through the mist, its call sounding muffled, lost, and heavy with gloom. 
My God,
he thought. 
They’re here
.

“Your Majesty,” Ironshield asked, “shall I give the order?”

Laris noted the eagerness in his eyes, his self-assured stance, and expectant tilt of his head.  After all the days of preparation, it came down to this.  It was finally happening.  He knew this moment would live in his mind forever—the smell of the wood smoke in his nostrils, the sleet pinging against his armor, the sickly sweet rush of adrenaline.

A young woman with an infant cradled in her arms ran to the top of the steps and called out, “Joseph!  My love!  You forgot my bracelet!  Joseph!”

A chill shot up Laris’ spine, and then he nodded to Ironshield.

“Companies!  Form up!” Ironshield yelled.

The trumpets carried his command from one end of the wall to the other, each note ringing out bright and true, filling their hearts with righteous might.

“Pikemen!  Stand ready!” one officer called.

“Shield wall!  Tighten your line!” cried another.

“Archers!  Ready your bows!” yelled a third.

When the watchtower horns sounded, Laris closed an eye and peered through his scope.  At first he saw only mist, then his eyebrows rose in surprise, for instead of the great seething mass of an army, there was a single man dressed in a long black robe, reminiscent of a priest, hood raised, heading directly for them—or rather floating towards them.

His feet aren’t touching the ground,
Laris thought.  And what’s more, his body was flickering in and out of existence, vanishing and reappearing almost too fast to see.  It reminded Laris of a picture book he’d had as a child.  Each page of the book was illustrated with a woodland scene, complete with trees, a creek, a bear, squirrels, and an owl.  In order to make the animals move and the creek flow, all one had to do was flip through the pages.  That’s what it looked like to him.  Except now, instead of a book, it was as though someone were flipping through the pages of reality.

The man glided to a stop some twenty yards from the gate.  A brisk wind was howling in from the west, and yet his robe remained motionless.  All present felt a sharp tingling sensation.  Only a few, like the king, knew what it meant, knew that a spell was being cast.

“Ready cannon!” Laris yelled.

“You are hereby commanded to open your gates or be destroyed,” the man said in a calm, tinny voice.  Those on the wall heard him as clearly as if he were standing right beside them, whispering into their ears.  His mouth, however, never moved.

King Laris’ blood boiled. 
What arrogance,
he thought. 
Open our gates indeed!
He turned to Ironshield and, with a twinkle in his eyes said, “Let’s teach this fool a lesson, shall we?”

Ironshield grinned and shouted, “Fire all cannon!”

“One through eight,” yelled the cannoneer’s commander.  “Vertical twenty six—horizontal thirty two to eighteen—graduated scale!”  On down the line, the cannon boomed out their response, sending shot after shot to explode at the man’s feet.

At first the soldiers on the wall cheered.  But as the smoke cleared they fell silent, for above the blackened earth, the man still stood, untouched.

“You will not live to regret your decision,” he said into their ears.  And then, with a dramatic wave of his arms, he vanished.

“Magic!” Laris spat.  “Have someone go fetch Elkar.  Tell him his
talents
are needed on the wall.”

“Seems he heard you, my King,” said Ironshield, voice betraying a touch of uneasiness.

A shadow passed over Laris’ face, but was gone by the time he turned around, replaced by practiced poise.

Elkar wore his finest turquoise robe, the material shimmering from top to bottom as he walked.  A silver amulet in the shape of a star hung from his neck, and in his right hand he carried a staff.

Laris’ eyes widened.  “Minorian,” he whispered.

The staff was a remnant of a bygone era, created by an advanced society called the Lenoy, a race of manlike creatures who once ruled unopposed in an age of boundless magic.  For reasons unknown, the Lenoy’s great civilization had ultimately fallen to ruin, and was now remembered only by a scholarly few.

Many wonders had been lost to the press of time, and yet somehow, through the ages, Minorian had survived.  Loosely translated, Minorian meant “New Light.”  How Elkar had come to possess the staff, the king did not know.  Until now, the wizard had kept it in a locked case in his study, speaking of it rarely and in reverent tones.

Laris nodded to Elkar as he approached…and then his eyes gravitated back to the staff, drawn irresistibly to its pale shaft of purest ivory, held captive by its rainbow hued gems.  Below each gem, burned deep into the skin of the ivory, was the same rune—a circle within a circle bisected by a vertical line.

  As far as the king knew, Elkar had never used the staff.  Laris had asked him about it once, asked him what power it contained and why he kept it locked away.  Elkar had laughed hollowly and said, “My King, I promise you, when I discover a way to fit an ocean into a thimble, you will be the first to know.”

Laris had never brought it up again.  It did no good to talk to the man about such things.  He’d have better luck out-coiling a serpent than making sense of one of Elkar’s infernal riddles.

The king cleared his throat when he realized how long Elkar had been standing there, and forced his eyes from Minorian to the wizard’s overly youthful face.  “Minorian,” he said, sounding sterner than he’d intended.

Elkar’s thin lips tightened.  “It is by necessity, not preference.”

Laris pointed west to where a sea of luminescent mist was forming, billowing forth from the clouds to the ground, roiling up and out towards the wall.  “I hope it has the power to summon the dragons of old,” he said, “for the time draws near.”

Elkar winced as though struck, and for several seconds neither moved nor spoke.

“Do you require assistance?” asked the king.

The wizard took a deep breath and, with what looked to be a considerable effort, regained his composure, face once again a blank page.  “If only that were all,” he replied in a low voice, “I would be grateful.  But alas, the circle cannot hold.  The cycle begins anew.”

Laris watched with growing concern as the color drained from Elkar’s cheeks and beads of perspiration popped out on his forehead and upper lip.

“Even now it calls to me,” Elkar whispered, “but I must wait.  If I am early, I might as well be late.  And if I am late….”

The wizard was clearly in pain, almost more than he could bear.  Unfortunately, it was not the sort that could be relieved with herbs and bed rest.  Whatever forces he struggled against, he would have to struggle against alone.  Such was the fate of all who walked his path.

“I want you on the wall from this point forward,” Laris told him.  “By my side.”

Elkar turned his eyes west.  “It would be an honor to die with you, my King.  Perhaps between Minorian and the Alderi Shune, we will put a thorn in the Lost One’s foot that will give the other kingdoms more time.”

The king scowled deeply at the encroaching storm.  “I’ll hack that foot off!” he vowed.  Once again the watchtower horns sounded, so Laris pulled up his scope and saw, marching from the curtain of mist to the steady beating of drums, the foremost ranks of the shapeling army.  “The time has come,” bellowed the king, drawing Onoray and holding it high, “for Rodan’s children to defend the motherland!  We must not fail!  We must stand firm!  We
must
hold this wall!”

And so it was, for the first time in more than two centuries, that the Alderi Shune stood braced for the attack, summoned to war by their sovereign, as well as their god, the call resonating through them, awakening within them the blood of their ancestors—the blood of warrior kings.

Hundreds of plate mail clad soldiers stood in an uninterrupted line behind the battlements, holding triangular shields as tall as their bodies, each with Rogar’s flag painted upon it.  “Shield wall!  Bare your teeth!” ordered their commanding officer.

“Yes, sir!” they cried, and as one drew their swords.

Chain mail clad soldiers wielding long spears stood behind the shield wall.  “Pikemen!” their commander called, “make ready to shore up the gaps!”

They clacked their heels together and yelled, “Yes, sir!”

Three tiers of steps, each with the breadth to accommodate many scores of men, ran along the back of the wall.  “Archers!  Nock arrows!” their commander shouted.

“Yes, sir!” they cried.

The men positioned between the archers and pikemen represented the bulk of Rogar’s military force—the common soldier, the active reservist—a hodgepodge collection of men wielding everything from clubs to long swords, clad in everything from leather shirts to plated mail.

Each wall had, situated above and behind the archer’s steps, eight cannon.  The cannon sat atop round platforms within dome frameworks, protected by thick metal plates to the front.  Using a series of wheels and levers, the domes could be pivoted ninety degrees to the left or to the right, be lowered to the top of the wall, or raised ten feet above it.  At the moment, they were as high as they could go.  The armored plating had numbered slash marks beside the firing slots and floors, enabling the domes and the barrels of the cannon to be adjusted with complete accuracy.

The cannoneer’s commanding officer had detailed topographical maps of the area in front of each wall.  These maps had horizontal and vertical lines on them that coincided with both the distance marks on the cliffs and the slash marks in the domes.  If an enemy were spotted on the field, the cannoneer’s commander would refer to the proper map, estimate the enemy’s vertical and horizontal location, then refer to the firing key at the bottom of the map, which in turn would give him the coordinates for each of the eight cannon.  The domes were relative newcomers to the walls, considered an engineering marvel to some, an overly complicated, not-yet-battle-tested eyesore to others.  Time would decide which.

“I know you will make me proud!” the king shouted.  “We will be true to our blood!  And to Rogar!”  The shield wall struck the hilts of their swords against their shields.  The pikemen pounded the brass butts of their spears against the flagstones.

“Rogar!” he yelled.

“Rogar!” they answered.

The shapeling drums stopped beating and, from the curtain of mist, six lumbering shapes emerged, six hulking monstrosities.  These had to be the creatures Kindere had described, the ones they had prayed didn’t actually exist.  The beasts walked forward on all fours, looking to weigh several thousand pounds.  From the bottom of their tear-shaped hoofs to the tips of their curved horns, they were more than twenty feet tall.  Coarse black quills stuck out from their legs like swords, providing a formidable defense against attack.  Above their legs they were hairless; but their skin was thick as tree bark, black as pitch, and crisscrossed by deep cracks.  Atop their backs they wore wide saddles with high side rails—each with a ladder rising from its center, and each teeming with shapelings.