Angelslayer: The Winnowing War (57 page)

Satrina had kept with the Galagleans, to the rear. She continued searching, but hope had almost faded. How could Rhywder have ever survived this? There was no chance. Her heart failed her and tears fell freely across her cheeks as she stood weary and confused, warriors rushing past her for the gate, at times knocking her from their path. She looked up to see a rider on a massive horse hewing his way through the Galagleans as though they were no more than children. He was mercilessly slaughtering them—a single rider and no Galaglean could even reach past his buckler and hammer. Blood sprayed as Galagleans fell and a rider pressed through them, his path littered by their blue cloaks soaked in their own blood.

She knew of these. Her father had told her of them. They were Nephilim, high-blood firstborn who had slain their own bodies to craft new ones grown from pods that spawned a certain wood able to form arms and legs and sheath them all in exoskeletons hard as steel. Just the sight of him chilled her through to her bone. What looked to be his helm, with red iron horns, was, in fact, his face. He was driving forward, searching, but for what? The machinery had been destroyed, all hope of lifting the gate was ended, yet this one continued slaying with purpose. She noticed within his skeletal helm, the faint flow of his eyes as they continued to seek.

He was passing right by her, close enough to shear her neck open with the buckler, and Satrina did not even step back. She had lost all hope. If Rhywder was dead, what use was there? The creature almost seemed to hear her thought. It paused and the head slowly turned to her, almost a mechanical movement, and the faint glow of the eyes bore into hers. She felt him stab through her mind, a probe; it struck with blinding pain as he searched her memories. He slew a warrior coming at his side, knocking Satrina out of the way to have his throat opened. The Unchurian crushed another, beheaded a huge axeman with the edge of his buckler, kicked in the chest of a legionnaire who charged him from the side.

He finally turned from Satrina's eyes and the probing stopped, leaving her head throbbing as if he had just worked his fingers through her brain. But he had found what he wanted, and he turned with renewed purpose. She followed his gaze. There were tall pikes near the wall of the gate. She noticed bodies hanging from them upside down, tied to the tip of the pikes. She realized these were many of the boys who had been defending the gate. Their hands and feet were bound and carefully selected cuts in their necks were letting blood steadily drip into casks below.

Rhywder had spoken of this, how there were blood drinkers who collected human blood like fermenting fine wine, how it was something of an art with them, how they needed to collect the blood slowly, mixing it properly with the seasonings in the casks. A good brew took time, Rhywder had told her. And she remembered something else, the blood drinkers needed to collect the blood at just the right moment, while their victims were still alive!

The minion killed a Galaglean who leapt for him like it was an annoyance and turned his heavily armored horse toward the pikes, picking up his pace, continuing to slay, but now driving in a line for the pike and hanging boys.

Satrina then gasped. One was not a boy. One was Rhywder! The monster had sensed Rhywder's lifeblood through her eyes, and now he moved with a single purpose. The Galagleans would eventually bring him down; as omnipotent as he seemed, there were simply too many warriors filling the passage for him to survive much longer, but that mattered little to him. He had only one objective: the creature was going to kill Rhywder—Rhywder the Lochlain, the Walker of the Lake, the valiant one—and Satrina had virtually pointed him out for the beast.

Rhywder was hanging upside down from a briarwood post, his feet and hands lashed tightly. Cuts in his neck let his blood drip in steady splats into a keg below him, letting it mix and brew with the seasonings.

Satrina scrambled to her feet, lifting Rhywder's short sword.

“Someone help me!” she screamed. She ran and leapt for the minion's horse, but he anticipated, turned in the saddle, and his boot slammed into Satrina's chest. She was thrown high, the wind knocked from her, and when she hit the bloodied ground, the sky and commotion about her for a moment went gray.

The Galagleans not only had heard Satrina's cries; they had already lost hosts of their own to this single rider. Scores of Galagleans swarmed him. A lance pierced through the minion's underarm—a place where the bone-armor did not cover—but the dark rider ripped it away, even tearing the sinew that held one wing. The wing hung askew. He reared the huge horse, slew a Galaglean axeman in his way, crushed the head of another, but one arm wasn't working well so he cast the buckler aside, and used only the hammer, swiftly from one side to the other. He pushed his horse onward. Not much farther to Rhywder.

“Nooo!” Satrina screamed, scrambling to her feet. “Stop him! Stop him!”

Two more leapt at him from either side. The first he killed with a crushing blow of the axe. With his boot, he kicked the chin of the second so hard the neck snapped.

Satrina ran for him, clutching Rhywder's short sword tight in one fist. She was coming from behind this time and perhaps his senses were not as keen. She was, after all, merely a woman and there were armored warriors coming at him from all sides.

He killed yet another Galaglean, then cast aside his war hammer. From a back scabbard, he lifted a heavy iron crossbow. This was for Rhywder. As only Satrina knew, Rhywder was his single target. One bolt was all he needed, and he had used the hammer to clear ground for him, giving him time, and he lifted the crossbow, already loaded with a heavy bolt that would rip any man in half. The only thing he ignored was Satrina, leaping onto the back of his horse. He leveled off the crossbow, using his arm to steady the aim, lowering the oraculum tip on Rhywder's midsection, even ignoring a lance that buried deep between a break in the armor near his ribs with a heavy thud.

Satrina was no warrior. She had never fought in a battle in her life. But none of that even crossed her mind. The huge horse was big enough that she could crouch behind the upturned back brace of the minion's saddle, and with all her strength, she plunged Rhywder's sword into the only opening she could find, a break in the plated armor beneath the back of the head, just below the skull. It allowed him to look up or down, and it also allowed Satrina to plunge Rhywder's short sword deep, angled upward. She screamed with the effort, throwing all her weight into it, feeling it drive past the spine, feeling it pierce something round and almost soft until she was able to drive it in all the way. Only the crossbars of the hilt stopped Rhywder's sword from vanishing into the brain of the creature.

The crossbow's bolt soared upward, blind. The Unchurian arched his back, roaring, furious. He twisted roughly, throwing Satrina from the back of the horse as he reached, clutching for the hilt of Rhywder's sword. But Satrina had buried it deeply, and even as his armored fingers searched desperately, they were beginning to falter.

Lying on her back, to the side of his horse, she briefly saw the look on his face as he struggled to dislodge Rhywder's sword, a look of utter astonishment, a look of complete disbelief. And in the last moment, before he dropped over the flanks, his eyes even connected with hers, swearing at her, damning her as he fell.

Satrina had to dive to the side, crawl under his horse, then run for Rhywder. Behind her, the Galagleans overwhelmed the struggling Nephilim, falling on him and hacking into him with savage revenge. He had left a trail of their best from the gate to where he had fallen, a litter of blue cloaks and fallen shields. She saw an arm torn free and flung into the air, the same arm that had wielded the war hammer that had caved in so many Galaglean heads.

When she reached Rhywder's side, she first grabbed a fallen dagger, then leapt to catch the post and quickly scaled it. She cut the cords that bound his feet, pulled him to the side where they would miss the cask of his blood still brewing with its strange smell of seasonings, and fell with him, rolling on the rock ground of Hericlon. She propped herself against Hericlon's wall and cut away the rest of the bindings, freeing his hands. She then cut through the hem of her skirt and tore away binding to wrap about the lances in his neck, putting pressure against them to stop the bleeding. Sitting beside him, she held him tight, his head lying on her shoulder. He was still alive, breathing, even stirring. She curled her hand about his and held it in her lap.

There were others being cut down, as well—five or six of the boys who had been selected for blood draining, as well. Apparently, the blood drinkers were picky, it looked as though they had selected the best fit, the most muscular and handsome of the boys, and were slowly draining them of living blood. The blood drinkers would have had no reason to suspect the gate was that same day going to be swarmed by Galagleans.

Rhywder slowly came to. He shook his head, ran his fingers through his hair, and looked about, disoriented. He then leaned back and turned to find Satrina sitting beside him. He believed it was a dream, none of it could have been reality, but a strange blood-soaked, chaotic dream in which he and Satrina were sitting against the rock of Hericlon's gate. He then noticed the tall pike and remembered being hoisted up, tied to it; how the priest, the blood drinker, had so carefully cut the right lashes in his neck to drip his blood out at the proper rate. There was simply no explanation from that moment to this, sitting here held by Satrina. She smiled, seeing he was conscious. He had to blink and look again, making sure it was real. “Satrina?”

“I brought them,” she said, “just as you ordered. I brought the Galagleans.” She was bloodied all over, but not blood of her own. He could see no injuries, and it was truly her, it was Satrina, violet eyes quick and alive, the Cupid's bow lips, the button nose, and her expression was as if not that much had happened, as if everything were fine, just fine.

He coughed, still difficult to breathe. “How?”

“I told their fat king with his chariot and horses to come save you. I was not going to let you die, Rhywder. I will not let you die. At all. Ever. Do you hear me? Not here, not anywhere. You are staying with me now. You are mine, so get used to it.”

He nodded, still troubled by disbelief.

“Promise me! Say you will stay alive from now on!”

“I … I promise, Satrina,” he said weakly. “You have my word.” He stared at the keg that contained much of his blood, realizing his head was light as a bubble.

Rhywder looked up to find a tall, bloodied Galaglean, helmet still on. He bore wounds and had obviously seen bitter fighting.

“This man helped me,” Satrina said. “But I do not know his name.”

“I am Marcian.” He held out Rhywder's short sword, cleaned of blood. “Your sword, my lady.”

“Thank you,” she said, taking the sword by the hilt.

“You left it embedded in the Nephilim's neck, but I thought you might want it back. It is a sword of a Shadow Walker.” He then noticed Rhywder's armband. “Yours, perhaps?”

Rhywder nodded. He saw by the tassels on the man's shoulders this was a horse captain; in fact, he knew this man. He was the captain of the Galaglean Second Century Calvary. He remembered the name and the face from the legendary battle of Tarchon Pass. He had met the captain that day, both during and after the fighting. It was a hard day to forget.

“I remember you,” Rhywder said. “Antiope, am I right?”

“You are, but I am afraid I do not know your name.”

“Rhywder. We met at Tarchon Pass.”

Marcian stared at him a moment, then nodded. “Of course. I do know of you, Rhywder the Lochlain, Walker of the Lake. You were here then? Before we came—you defended the gate?”

“I did.”

“With a handful of boys?” “Uncommon boys. Did any survive?”

“A few, as were, still being drained of blood. So then, I am guessing it was you who burned the machinery?” “Yes. It remains burned, I pray?”

Marcian sighed. “Rebuilt, but now destroyed. With much difficulty and bloodshed that will haunt my dreams for months to come. They still did not leave—the Unchurian prime, they watched us through the gate. I assembled archers along the length of the portcullis and ordered them to fire directly into the Unchurian. They were left with the choice of dying or retreating. You would be amazed at the number of dead that lay beyond that portcullis. They have no fear of dying.”

“They have been taught well, Captain—by a lord for whom death is an art.”

“Tell me, Rhywder, is this your woman?”

Rhywder glanced at Satrina, her eyes so innocent, even here, with carnage all about them. Satrina waited for his answer with more anticipation than Marcian.

“Yes,” Rhywder answered. “Yes, this is my woman.”

“Whoever you are, you need be proud this day. I can say with all honesty I have never seen such a warrior. She wears a skirt and yet, with your sword she killed a nameless beast nearly fifteen feet high with scores of arms bearing hands of five-inch claws. And, as well on her own, she brought down a Nephilim minion, armored of wood stronger than steel, but she put your sword to its hilt into the back of its brain.”