Warlord (23 page)

“Druids,” Cyrus said, “you know what to do.” He felt his feet lift off the ground a moment later. He had held there a moment to give the others time to get into position and make ready. Now he floated up and looked to the south. The watch tower fires were burning brighter against the sky than they had appeared to when last he checked.
So, we’re ready, then, so long as the ones to the west are burning … and I have to assume they are.

“Forward,” he hissed and sprang forward out of the grass at a dead run, heading straight for the wall ahead, not daring to use Falcon’s Essence to rise, not yet.

Cyrus ran, pumping his legs and letting the strength of Praelior take him ahead of the others.
The longer the army is exposed on this run, after all, the more likely the titans see us and start to sound the alarm … and we can’t have that.

When he reached the wall, with all its rough-cut timber, bark still patchy and present, he started to run upward in a spiral once again, just below the tower.
I hope the others caught the sight of my motion … they should if they were watching at all, and they’ll be moving on all six now …

He reached the topmost section of the spiral and came up behind both the titans. One of them, the one nearest him, had his head down, peering at the ground. He started to speak, and Cyrus sprang forward and rammed Praelior into the exposed base of the titan’s spine.

The titan did not even cry out; he had no chance to. Instead, his weight took over and he slid off the point of Cyrus’s blade, toppling against the wooden rail and slumping to his knees, limp as a boned fish.

The other titan looked left to watch his companion’s fall, somehow missing Cyrus’s dark, shadowed movement in the corner of his eye. Cyrus, for his part, did not fail to take advantage. He moved in haste and shot forward to jab Praelior into the titan’s exposed temple. It prompted a sharp cry as the pain started to hit home, but before the titan could fully react, Cyrus stabbed once more, and deeper this time, running his blade along the front of the skull in a hard line, dragging his sword down just above the nose.

The titan jerked, spasmed, and lurched backward. He hit the rail with his lower back and made a scraping noise as the metal armor met wood. Then the titan went over backwards, unbalanced, and Cyrus watched him land on his head and shoulders, his neck breaking at an unnatural angle.

“Showoff,” Vara whispered as she joined him atop the tower. Others from his group were moving up now to stand with them. There was movement on the tower directly opposite theirs, and Cyrus squinted but could not discern what was happening, merely that one of the titans was already on the ground and another seemed to be swinging wildly at something he could not see. “Terian,” Vara said, nodding in that direction. “He’s making mincemeat of them with that axe of his.”

“Good,” Cyrus said. He let his eyes trace over to the nearest tower to his left, where the titans still stood, but they faced inward now, toward the interior of the fortress, and a small figure stood between them. He peered over and realized it was Cora, plainly in view of her enemies. “She’s charming them,” he realized as the titans moved to climb down the ladder into the fortress.

Cyrus made a quick sweep of the fortress with his gaze, confirming everything he’d suspected about it from a distance atop Ehrgraz. Two enormous barracks were built across the southern wall on either side of the gates, big enough to quarter a few thousand titans each, he guessed. The building against the northeast wall had the flat, bulky look of a storehouse, without much in the way of windows.
Burning that will put a crimp in the titan supply lines.
He shifted his gaze to the northwest corner, and there he found a smaller building. In the middle of the fortress was muddy, open ground.
Parade grounds,
he thought.
And that smaller building must be the command post—and possibly the officer quarters,
he thought as he let his eyes dance to the building connected to the command post.

“Well, what do you think?” Vara asked, her gaze darting about to each of the towers where fighting was still—quietly—going on.

“I think I had the right of it from my first impression,” Cyrus said, nodding as much to confirm for himself as for Vara. “The plan is sound.”

“Well, good,” she said, “because it’s about to be executed.”

“So are the titans,” Cyrus said grimly, and with a last look over the Fortress Returron, he charged over the walls, and saw the rest of the army, at the six points around the fortress, mirror his motion as he led them into war.

“Fire the corners!” Cyrus shouted, breaking the quiet he’d imposed on them before. Here in the heart of the savanna it would not matter, surrounded as they were by their enemies already. Cyrus heard the noises of alarm in the barracks, the sound of a titan army stirring to wakefulness as he charged down into the parade grounds.

Cyrus had scarcely made it to the ground when his order was taken up. Flame spells sprang up at the doors to the nearest barracks; he looked and saw the same happening at the other barracks.
This is the tense part; if the buildings burn, it will be both good and bad, and it’s hard to say which it will be in greater measure until we see how it all plays out …

The door to the nearest barracks was ripped open first, and a half-asleep titan stumbled near-naked through the flames of a waiting wizard spell. He screamed, agony piercing the night as the fire burned his knotted flesh. Cyrus got a good look at him shirtless before the fire ate at his skin, and it was just as thick and nubbed as the faces of these creatures.
Scars from training, or natural skin growth? In either case, it certainly makes them tougher in a way that does us no kindnesses
.

The first titan burned, skin sloughing off as he danced forward, screaming loud enough that Cyrus might have thought the heavens themselves were descending upon them. The titan fell to its knees, blackened muscle exposed on his forearms and face, all his tangled hair gone, consumed by the fire spell that was even now being replaced by another. They were to go in cycles, the wizards and druids, covering each of the major entrances and preventing titans from escaping.

Cyrus looked toward the southern horizon, but was stymied in his gaze by the wall of wood.
We can only hope that our other forces have arrived at their targets, because if this gets seen by the sentries at Kortran’s gates …

The flames burned all comers, catching the titans alight as they streamed through the threshold of the barracks. The screams were loud, punishing to Cyrus’s ears, but provided all the distraction he needed as the titans began to come out from other exits as well, half-clad and furious, running shirtless and armor-free into the fight. They came in numbers too many to count, the titans so tall as to strain Cyrus’s perspective and make him feel like he were trapped in another world.

Cyrus led on his front of the attack, rushing toward the command post and catching a titan with a long, ripping strike across his calf as he used his superior speed to rush past and attack the next in line. They wore no uniforms, caught next to naked while sleeping, and while this one had a blade in hand, he appeared not to know quite what to do with it. He made a thrust at Cyrus that was easily parried.

Cyrus came at him toward the neck and was forced to back off as a hard backhand struck him a glancing blow, rattling his helm and armor and making him take a shuddering step back on air. Cyrus readjusted his attack and looped around, the titan following him with angry eyes under knotted cheeks. Cyrus feinted toward him and the titan swung with all his might, missing and exposing his back. Cyrus rushed in and planted Praelior behind the creature’s ear, drawing a sharp grunt that cut off after a moment and led to the titan pitching forward into the dirt.

Flames danced all around, the fires on the parade ground and blocking the main doors of every building in the fortress growing higher and higher by the moment. They’d spread to the thatched roofs of the barracks and Returron was becoming a hellish spectacle reminiscent of the time that Cyrus had seen the boiling oil pits in the Realm of Death lit afire.
Please, oh, please let our people have killed the Kortran sentries,
he offered in silent hope
.

When he swept his gaze around to survey the field, he found war lit by firelight. A titan was howling on the ground, a pack of three wolves tearing at his legs, ripping them open. The master of the animals, Menlos Irontooth, was plunging his sword into the titan’s lower back all by his lonesome, his long beard and frightening, angry visage filled with a battle fury that might have exceeded that of his wolves. The titan was swatting at him ineffectually, and Menlos withdrew his short blade to battle the probing hand, delivering defensive strikes to the titan’s palm every time he brought it around for another swipe.

Cyrus turned his head at the sight of a flash and saw Ryin Ayend blasting forth with coursing lightning that was drawn to a titan wearing his breastplate. It hit the metal and sparked, causing the titan to jerk, his feet planted to the ground like they’d been nailed in by long spikes. The lightning ran up and down the enormous beast with each bolt thrown from the druid, and the creature’s fingers danced and twitched as he fell to his knees, then slumped onto his face, limp, eyes open in death.

Cyrus dodged an incoming strike by instinct alone, bending at the waist as he flipped, Falcon’s Essence keeping him aloft in his maneuver. His opponent came at him with a balled fist, furious and calloused as if he had practiced his punches on a boulder until each knuckle had outgrowths of rough skin enough to make it appear doubly bony. The punch sailed over his head, and Cyrus realized dimly that had it hit him, it might have killed him. The titan’s movement carried him through, and Cyrus caught him in the armpit with Praelior, driving it into the skin and up to the quillons. As he pulled it out, a rush of foul air and a slight spritz of blood sprayed him in the face. The titan’s breath went out of him and he bent double. Not waiting for him to succumb to his wound, Cyrus delivered Praelior’s edge to the back of the massive neck with a fury, hacking it thrice before the head came off entirely.

Cyrus spun, looking for his next foe, and caught a glimpse of Longwell in the firelight of the parade grounds, two titans coming at him. He jabbed one straight in the belly with his spear, the long haft braced against his side. It landed in the titan’s liver and the beast stopped, grunting in obvious pain, his face lit with the horror of his wounding. It started to bend at the stomach, as though to control the agony surely writhing through its belly, but Longwell pulled the spear out and spun, catching the next titan charging him under the chin with it as it stooped to swipe at him. The tri-pointed blade lodged under the jaw and the mighty mouth came up, revealing the center point of Longwell’s weapon sticking out of the middle of its tongue like a stake planted in its mouth. The dragoon withdrew his blade and spun once more, this time delivering the weapon to the exposed heart. The titan sank sideways, curling up to die without a fight.

“This is how we do it!” Vaste’s cry caused Cyrus to pivot. The healer ran up to a titan that was distracted, half a dozen arrows jutting out of its face like a porcupine’s quills, Calene Raverle plucking away at it with her bow. Vaste ran right between its legs, raised up his staff, and shouted, “LIKE A CHIPMUNK!” before striking a mighty blow into the titan’s groin.

The titan’s reaction was immediate, all thought of the arrows and their shooter forgotten, he clutched at his crotch, falling to his knees as Vaste scrambled out of the way. Calene Raverle placed three solid bow shots right into the eyes, and the titan fell dead, his pain forgotten.

“This is chaos,” came a small voice from next to Cyrus. He turned and looked down at Mendicant, quivering in his robes only a few feet from Cyrus. “Utter and complete.”

“We tend to bring it with us wherever we go,” Cyrus said dryly, “like we carry it in our travel trunk, I suppose.”

“Indeed,” Mendicant said and shot a spell of ice across the battlefield where it came to rest on a titan’s face, encrusting him from chin to forehead as he was reaching down to strike at Odellan, whose back was turned where he stood perched in the middle of the battleground. He spun at the sound and leapt up with the aid of Falcon’s Essence to smash the titan in the face, shattering the ice and part of the creature’s cheek with it. Cyrus caught a glimpse of skull, muscle and bone, along with bare eyes, bereft of the cover of lids, before the titan fell to the ground.

“Where are the titan healers? That’s what I want to know,” Cyrus said, moving slightly to the side to give Mendicant a clear shot as he hurled another spell past Cyrus and into a cluster of titans running from behind the barracks. The spell burst in a cloud of green that filled the air with a noxious toxin, and when the titans emerged, they came out as green in the face as if they’d been painted by it, and all three fell to their knees within ten paces, only to be finished off by a raging army of dark elves.

“In the barracks, I would hope,” Mendicant said, gathering his robes back around his tiny figure. “Burning to death.” The robes were streaked with mud that was visible in the light of the burning buildings. The fire had consumed the roofs of the barracks and the command post. The storehouse, however, was only partially lit, and while Cyrus wasted a second pondering what to do about it—

“Look out!” Mendicant cried, but it was too late.

A titan burst through a first-floor window twenty feet away from Cyrus, fully committed to his charge. Cyrus took him in with a glance as he flew forward, buttoned up with his armor on, not only the chestplate but the gauntlets as well. He flew through the air in a fury on course directly for Cyrus. The warrior froze, the speed of the titan carrying him unerringly forward.

“Arnngraav, urnkaaav!”
Mendicant cried. Cyrus’s mind tried to make sense of the exhortation even as he watched, still slightly stunned, as the titan dropped precipitously toward him. He had Praelior tightly clutched in his hand and was ready to spring to the side when a burst of flame the size of a steed bellowed forth from behind him and struck the giant full on, causing him to raise his gauntlets to defend his face.