The Vitalis Chronicles: Steps of Krakador (50 page)

Now the First Cavalry forced their own way along the wall, their wedge not meant to break the enemy line in the center but to force a gap at its flank. Their commander was already scraping past the last of the Tenth against the stone and rounding into the gap that was left by the slowly retreating Knobacks. He splintered his lance on the first he came into contact with and then led his men along the outside of the unit, sword swinging overhead as he shouted his challenge.

More arrows flew overhead as the archers above held the Brenlucks at bay. The difference in the range of their weapons and the wind at the backs of his own archers made all the difference now. He turned to check his right flank, holding steady but gaining no ground against Knobacks and now two Dunmar that had moved forward to join the fight. They let their whips sail out a few more times before they dropped them in favor of their crude, square blades.

The First Cavalry curved back along their own line to eat more at the right flank of the enemy. They were on the verge of breaking, but his own right flank wasn't doing well either. The men there were giving way to the Dunmar, who stepped forward confidently and grabbed at the soldiers, tossing them back or hacking them up with such ferocity that soon they had made a hole into the ranks of the spearmen.

They hacked off the heads of the spears that stabbed out at them, ramming their square blades through fully-armored spearmen and hammering them so hard that helmets caved in from the impact. Beldin worked his horse along the rear of the infantry, shouting for the light cavalry to join him. There was no room in this press for armored horses, but he needed something to stop the Dunmar.

One was wounded now, but ferocious in its response to the strike that drew blood. It swung its blade so hard and with such untempered rage that soon it was in a frenzy, blood and sparks flying in its wake as it forced its way farther on. By the time they had killed it, the monster was at the back of the final rank of spearmen.

Beldin could sense his men wavering as he pressed forward at the head of the light cavalry, shouting to encourage them. The second Dunmar toyed with its own death now, surrounded by spearmen, but the wake it had left was filled with Knobacks. They were in his ranks,
No...
Beldin turned in the saddle to call his cavalry forward. “Now! Get in there!”

But as he plunged his horse forward to mend the gap in his troops, he heard what sounded like heavy rain on a metal plate. He turned to look at his left flank where the Tenth and First Cavalry had pressed the Knobacks to the breaking point, only to discover they were being showered with darts. The red plumes blurred against the walls of the canyon, but they were finding their marks and driving his soldiers to guard from above rather than attack from below.

“
No.” His eyes grew wide as he realized what was about to happen, but he was committed to this strike and could do nothing to save his men.

The Brenlucks had carried shelter up the mountain in the form of wooden planks and crude shields. They had been able to cover their advance and now fired not only their short arrows but threw stones at the soldiers below. The impact from the hundreds of feet of freefall was enough to kill a horse on impact.

Beldin pressed forward, his anger turning to fury as he neared the Dunmar amidst his men. The monster saw him coming and roared, its massive head tilting back from its jaw like it rotated on a hinge. He kicked his horse forward the instant he saw it lean forward, and caught it in the throat with his sword before it had finished its cry.

He brought his sword back around and down, severing its head clean from the shoulders in the motion.

“
That's what I need from you right now!” He looked at his infantry in the midst of battle as if there was nothing on the field save himself and his students. “If you aren't going to kill these bastards, then get out of my army!”

He turned his horse to move back through the lines. “Fill that gaping hole with troops or I'll fill it with your corpse!” he yelled at the cavalry commander as he passed him.

He turned back along his line, his stomach churning to think of his left flank. It was withering under the storm that unleashed itself upon them, and the Knobacks were moving back in against their weakened foes.

Beldin called for a unit of archers to follow him as he passed. He arrived at the left flank where the Seventh worked hard to press forward and relieve the Tenth.

“
Archers!” He shouted as the checkered men ran forward and threw their quivers on the ground. “Kill those ugly goblins before they kill your countrymen!”

Their arrows could just reach, but were too little too late. The left flank crumbled. Beldin watched as the cavalry were separated from the Tenth by a resurgence of the Knobacks, and then suddenly they were trapped in a shrinking wedge of ground as the column behind them pressed in to remove their advantage.

He was about to lose his best units and in the process faced losing his line. “Twelfth!” He rode over to the unit next to the Seventh Infantry. “Support your left flank!” He turned to find the commander of the Second Cavalry. “Do we have more infantry in reserve?”

“
Everything is before you, my lord, save the King's men in the other canyon.”

The King's men...
How they were faring hadn't even registered in his mind since his own men had closed with the enemy.
God help us if they falter.

“
Press forward to support the line,” he said as he turned to look back towards the right flank. The spearmen were rejoining their comrades as the light cavalry supported them, but too slowly and at too great a cost. “But don't be foolish! Keep away from those cliffs until the archers have cleared them.”

“
Bloody archers,” the cavalry commander scoffed as he waved for his men to come around the right flank of the archers to the line.

But the soldiers were backing up, the spearmen were thinning as his entire line lost ground; he could see the rear ranks looking to run.
I need a miracle.

As if his prayers had been heard by the Trench himself, the Chaplains burst into the canyon just a half-mile on. Beldin felt a surge of hope as the heavy white cavalry burst into the midst of the rear ranks of Knobacks in the fourth column and didn't stop moving even as they churned through it.

“
The Chaplains!” He shouted, hoping that morale would raise with their appearance.

The holy knights made good headway through the left column, but suddenly the earth shook to a different rhythm as Beldin could make out something red rise just behind the final ranks of Knobacks and Dunmar. Ten warriors of glowing red covered in lines of black, razor-sharp spines rose from the ground and began making their way towards the Chaplains.

Beldin's heart dropped as he suddenly recognized them for what they must be. “Daemons...”

T
HIRTY-
F
OUR

T
HE
T
RENCH SWUNG HIS WAR HAMMER LIKE A WHIRLING PROPELLER, CRUSHING THE SLOW
K
NOBACKS LIKE CLAY POTS AND RELISHING EVERY KILL
. The Knobacks were the main body of their enemy's army, strong and slow and stupid, but effective for locking up an opposing force at close range. They were, however, useless against the might of the Chaplains. Their simple magic coursed through them and covered their horses, giving them the energy they needed to maintain their momentum as they carved a hole through the rear columns of the Relequim's army.

The Trench hurled insults along with the death he dealt, laughing at the creatures he trampled as his horse kicked and bit its way along. There was penance to pay, he shouted, and the penalty was most certainly death.

“
Relequim!” He shouted as if the Demon could hear him over the carnage. “Show yourself you bloody worm!”

His laughter died in his throat, however, as the ground shuddered, and ten red warriors rose from behind the column he was eating alive.

“
So this is what you send in your stead?” He called out. “Your forsaken Daemons?” He pulled on the reins as he reached the far side of the column of Knobacks, correcting his course and making north between the columns as the Daemons stepped into the space themselves.

“
Well then,” he said as he slowed to allow his men to join him. “Let the game finally begin.”

The Relequim's Daemons were the champions of his army, and the Trench had been led to believe that all of them had been destroyed at the final battle of the Magi. The Relequim's dark and twisted religion gathered many adherents, followers from every corner of the Truan Empire, but the ritual and the exercise of the magic corrupted most. It left them crippled, wretched, and dying. Daemons were the few whose minds had not been broken by the power, whose bodies had not deteriorated but had been reborn and rebuilt into something cruel and mighty.

Now they stood eight to ten feet tall, armored in glowing red with serrated swords and the Relequim's own magic at their beck and call. There were nearly two hundred men of the Chaplaincy with the Trench that day, and for all of his cocksure bluster, he knew they were just evenly matched.

“
Come then.” His booming voice carried well above the din of the battle. “Forge your fate, my Chaplains, and restore your righteousness with your sacrifice. For this is the greatest chance at glory the Creator will ever bestow upon you!”

His horse moved forward at a trot, saving his fire for the final charge. The mighty warhorses of the Chaplaincy were no normal beasts, but they required rationing of their energies just like any other. The Trench pulled out an amulet of his own, a heavy crystal between long sharp silver wings that rose along its sides. The sparkling white gem glowed brilliantly in the low light of the waning sun. He fixed it to the crux of his war hammer at the base of its head and spoke low words that made it shine like he had captured a star on a staff.

He howled his challenge as his horse launched himself forward into a gallop. The Daemons ran for them now too, closing the distance so quickly that they alone were clear amidst the blur of the world through the visor of the Trench. Their swords flamed an ethereal red in unison as they left the ground, their leap giving them the advantage of height over the charging Chaplains.

The Trench was expecting it though, and swung up to meet the downward strike of the largest Daemon, who had picked him out. His horse swerved to the right without needing him to beckon, and the tight ball of fire intended for his head flew wide as a result. The Trench turned quickly then, bringing his brilliant war hammer over his head and striking down hard at the Daemon. It caught the hammer on its blade, the jagged wave of the serration holding the weapon as the monster's silent stare bored into the Trench's soul.

For a split second his spirit wavered in the face of such deeply-concentrated evil. This had been a man once. A man with a soul and a family and the ability to love, yet he had cast it all away for a slim chance at the transforming power of the Relequim. He had attained it, but now he was a mere shell, a conduit for all of the Relequim's spite and hatred and malice.

And power
, the eyes seemed to say a split second before a shockwave of force emanated from its core and sent the Trench spiraling off of his horse. He collided with the ground to the sound of a thousand pans clattering to the floor. The intention of his armor's design was not for lying down, and it took a concerted effort to get his feet under himself.

The Trench roared in anger as he spun to face his enemy, but the Daemon was already upon him. Its spiked boot shot out to catch him in the chest, the sole sticking to him with the grip of an earth metal, and threw him on his back into the ground. The strap to his helmet broke as they slid to a halt, the helm rattling and clanking away as the Daemon pressed down with all of its weight, threatening to cave in the white breastplate as the metal groaned against the intrusion.

Its vacant black eyes took on a sharp red glow at their core as it breathed in the scent of the Chaplain's soul. The Trench reached for the blade at his side but was confounded as the Daemon shoved him farther along the ground with a shift of its weight.

The Trench roared in defiance as the Daemon swung its massive blade and severed his head clean from his shoulders.

“
Thank God the Knobacks are stupid.” Theddalt reined in alongside the king. “Had they pressed the advantage, they could have broken our left flank.”

“
I'm grateful they seem to have run out of Parnithons,” Blassen said flatly. “Their presence would change far too much on this field.”

“
Move the archers forward again,” Rendin said as he turned to make his way to his other line. “Clear a path for those engaged with your men to retreat.”

Theddalt shook his head at the sheer confidence the king exuded. “Just like his father,” he said quietly as he turned to find his archers and give them the King's orders.

“
Blassen.” Rendin pointed along their path at the cavalry reserve that stood ready to move to whichever side should need them most. “Where is the courier I sent to the north?”

“
He hasn't returned yet, Sire.”