The Willbreaker (Book 1) (44 page)

              The thousand members of the Flame Legion held the much larger lizard men army at bay. As the lizard men fled away from the flames, the fire benders summoned another stock of molten fireballs. Hands lit ablaze, flashing orange light across their faces. Then in an instant, it vanished. The fire benders stared at their hands as their magic failed them. The looks they gave each other  showed the utter confusion within the group.

A crossbow bolt slammed into the eye socket of the front standing maiden. It stopped with a skull-dampened thud. The benders stared in shock as the wounded woman stood still, green foam frothing from her eyes. She leaned forward and then fell stiff to the ground. A second bolt plunged into another’s chest, then a third into the stomach of the sister next to her. Two more whistled by, missing their targets. The lizard men closed in like wolves as the women of the Fire Legion turned and fled away from the onslaught of fired ammunition.

              Hronlin smiled as he looked up to see the fleeing magic users flood across the battlefield; more targets for his aggression.

              Brandon could feel the anxiety of the moment. He watched as the tides of battle shifted from one side to the other, then back again. The remnants of the Flame Legion scattered across the field, fighting hopelessly against the pursuing lizard men. The wild men spilled into the remaining groups of Blade Maidens, and now the King advanced with The Heart of the King.

              In an urgent whisper, Brandon spoke to Blue. “Now, get us in those gates.”

              Without a moment’s reluctance, Blue moved forward, wrapping his arms around a three-foot thick hardwood tree and with a grunt and flex of his muscled body, he uprooted the tree and carried the thirty-foot high, fully blossomed tree onto the field towards the city gates. All six of his arms gripped the tree tightly as he ran towards the gate. The sweeping of the leaves through the air muffled the loud smashing of his feet against earth. The guards at the city gates moved with urgency, lining up on the arrow walls as they shouted amongst themselves.  Bows and crossbows tipped above the wall as Blue closed the distance between them.

              “We would be struck down before we made it halfway there,” Brandon whispered, holding his hand back towards Jasmine.

              Razor-tipped arrows and crossbow bolts let loose from the wall, spraying everything within ten feet of the charging six-armed beast. Bolts and arrows stuck into the tree he carried and into the ground but harmlessly bounced off the dense skin of the Guardian. Blue roared as he neared the gate, tipping backwards as he put momentum into the swing of his tree club. It swept through a group a helpless gate guards and then exploded into splintering bits as it crushed the right tower. The tower crumbled under its own weight, filling the air with stone and mortar. The gate guards on top of the tower fell down to the hard earth from forty feet up, and the archers on the wall fled as it too broke apart. The women screamed and Blue roared.

              Blue stepped back, now free of the tree, as the entrance collapsed in front of him. A group of armed guards exited the wall from a port door on the opposite side of the damaged tower. They screamed with the rage of battle, determined to stop the monstrous threat at their gate, but before they could engage, Blue leapt into the air, bringing his clenched fists down on the middle of the group. Bodies disappeared as the ground caved underneath the tremendous weight of his smashing fists, and those not directly beneath Blue were thrown outward, some smashing into the city walls and others flying into the moat. Blue turned his attention on the port door.

              “Come on, let’s move,” Brandon said.

              Brandon, Jasmine, and Edward rushed towards the city gates.

              Empress Aurora climbed the steps to her tower, arms held by her Lash Lords. Her legs felt weak and she was light-headed. As she neared the top, she released her arm from Princess and shooed them away from her. Princess and Flower halted, but did not leave the hallway.

Aurora closed the door and turned towards the window, but before she could take a step, the light from the room faded, sucked away by some magical force as if day had quickly faded into night. A chill in the air made the fine hair on her arms stand up and silence swept over the room.

              From the corner of the room, Aurora noticed movement. Her attention focused as she stared.

              “Watcher?” she whispered.

              A small figure, draped in a thick black cloak that covered its head and hung past its hands, moved from the corner, dragging his over-sized cloak along he floor. He moved out of the pitch-blackness, towards Aurora.

              “Where be your Guardians?” The Watcher’s voice, like an icy wind, came from nowhere and everywhere at the same time.

              Aurora relaxed her posture, but never took an eye from the Watcher.

              “They are guarding the south gate as Reinhold battles his way at the north. I fear moving them in case he has more forces ready.” She paused as the little man scuttled around the room, looking at the vases and other knickknacks on the tables with some unknown interest.

              “We are losing this battle, Watcher.”

              He turned quickly and raised a bony finger into the air from his left hand.

              “You fight and fight to your dismay; you lose your sisters this bloody day. You seek the help which I provide, but your lovely elephant has broken and died. There’s something else that I would trade, something you bore, something you made.” He titled his head slightly to the right, staring at Aurora.

              Aurora eyed him suspiciously. “Why must you speak in riddles, troll? Tell me what it is that you want.”

              “I seek that which you do not use, once a month you rid and lose. I want something so nice and fair, what I want… is right there…” he said, pointing his finger at Aurora’s belly.

              Aurora’s eyes slowly opened to full exposure, realizing what the Watcher asked. Her breath became short as she yelled at him. “Never, beast! I will never lay with you!”

              “You think of such things by touch, humans think of sex too much. For what I want I’ll use my mind, you won’t know what’s left behind. In just a moment it’ll all be done, with the Kella’Dune, this war will be won. Just say the word and we’ll make the trade, just consent the egg and the deal is made.”

              Aurora looked at the little man with a glare on her face. The Watcher’s head twitched and he turned and scuttled over to the dresser, where he picked up a small ornate mirror and examined it as if he had never seen one.

              “No more riddles, Watcher. You want one of my eggs. Why? What would you do with it if I agreed? I do not know if I trust you enough with a part of me, and how exactly do you plan to retrieve it? I will not allow you to put your hands anywhere near me.”

              The Watcher stopped turning the mirror in his hand, then briefly paused for he set it down carefully on the table. When he spoke, his words were slow and precise, like death on the wings of a raven.

              “Give me the egg, and I will give you a hundred Guardians. I will withdraw it from inside of you with magic. What I do with it is not of your concern, for that is what I request if you wish to save your glory. Your enemy is moments away from clearing the battlefield of your minions, and before the sun sets beyond the hills, he will have sacked your entire city. There is no doubt about the power you hold, but your arrogance and pride have united the nations against you. You are too weak to remove this threat before it takes you. Without my help, you will fall under the power of your enemy before nightfall.”

              The Watcher had his back to Aurora, but as he finished talking, he slowly turned around and faced the Empress. She gazed at him with studying eyes, the myriad of thoughts and decisions that ran through her mind were evident across her face.

              “A hundred Guardians. Right now.” Although it seemed a statement, she actually  questioned the Watcher.

              “Yes, Empress, they will be on the field before the King takes another step towards your city.”

              “My,” she paused, “egg. You will take it by magic. Will it hurt?”

              “There will be some discomfort,” he said slowly, “but it will be over shortly, and you will be back on the battlefield with a hundred of the fiercest creatures to ever walk this land.”

              Aurora watched the little man, unblinking and thinking.

              The sandworm once again sunk into the depths underneath the ground along with the giant scorpions, and the remaining Blade Maidens and Gifted of the Flame Legion scattered and fled from the victorious forces of Lord Cedric Reinhold. The wild men of the mountains and the Horsemen of the Sand regrouped and joined with the remnants of Reinhold’s army in the center of the battlefield. Cedric’s small reserve group, about fifty men, stayed back in the tree line with the artillery and the Avatar of war, still locked up in his wagon-cage.

              Reinhold reigned in his anxious mount, glancing over his shoulder to check the status of his remaining army. The lizard men and the wild men moved forward toward the gates of Orlimay, just ahead of Cedric and the rest of the Templars.

Aurora obliterated most of Cedric’s elven force, reducing them from a hundred-thousand down to a meager six thousand, but they were ready to finish the job they started. This would be the day that the righteous brought down the evil queen; they just needed to secure the city.

“Let’s finish this,” Reinhold commanded. Janga, covered in blood splatter and dirt, moved up besides Cedric’s mount and placed his hand on the King’s leg.

“I’m still with you old friend.”

Cedric looked down at Janga with a genuine smile and then nodded. As he looked towards Orlimay, a distortion in the air appeared between him and city, ten feet off the ground. It warped the view of Orlimay like looking through a wall of moving water. From the center of the distortion, a void in light appeared, blacker than night and empty as death. It grew outward, getting bigger and bigger, in a pulsating shimmer of blackness and incandescent green light. The void spread to a hundred paces wide and twenty paces tall.

The lizard men hissed aggressively, backing away from the evil that bloomed in the air. Hronlin and his men stepped in front and watched the spectacle in wonder. As the void stabilized, an absence of sound absorbed noise across the valley. The brief moment of silence seemed to last an eternity before the first Kella’Dune Guardian dropped out of the magical darkness. The Guardian fell to the ground, landing on his feet, crushing the blood-soaked earth beneath him, followed by a second and then a third. Two more, then three and then ten more. As they continued to pour out of the portal, the Guardians already on the ground roared and charged towards the army of man.

Cedric stared at them for a split second before his eyes went wide, yelling, “Run! Run!” Out of instinct, the ringing of the Heart of the King burst free as the sword went skyward. Cedric quickly glanced down to Janga.

“Run, friend, do not die this day. We must release the Avatar.”

Janga looked solemnly at the King and nodded his head, turning and moving back towards the tree line.

Hronlin looked at the massive, six-armed monsters in full run, in wonder. His expression of awe changed to determination as he withdrew his battle-axe. Hronlin and the wild men yelled their battle cries in unison as they released their hounds and ran to embrace combat with the Guardians.

Hronlin headed for the Guardian in the lead, planting a foot in the earth to stop his advance just before reaching it, as the Guardian swung one of his giant fists towards Hronlin’s head. The swing fell short, giving Hronlin a chance to bury his axe in the chest of the beast. He twisted his hips, putting all of his momentum into the end of the axe. The axe hit hard and steady but rebounded off, not even scratching the beast. Hronlin’s confidence shattered. That hit would have buried any other of his foes. Hronlin had never mistaken the outcome of an attack. As Hronlin’s eye rose to meet the beasts, he saw the two raised fists of the monster swinging downward towards him. He saw his own death coming.

Rage smashed into the face of the Guardian, his jaws engulfing its entire head. The Guardian tipped backwards, all six arms moving to grab the hound that had its head in lockjaw. The Guardian roared out in pain as the hound of the mountain snarled and shook his bite from left to right. Blood spewed from his mouth.

As the Guardian wrapped all of its hands around the beast, it quickly squeezed the hound. Rage released its bite as it whelped out in pain, the muscular hands clenching and tightening around its body. Bones snapped and blood spurted out from the Guardian’s fingers as all of the remaining air in Rage’s lungs released in a final whelp, until the loyal hound went limp.

Hronlin screamed, tears filled the lower lids of his eyes while he watched his best friend taken by death. Hronlin jumped to his feet, unaware, as the solid hand of the Guardian behind him smashed down upon him, breaking him and crushing his body down into the earth. Hronlin’s vision went blurry and he exhaled his last breath, looking into the broken face of his hound. The roars of Guardians rang free.