Children of Prophecy (32 page)

It reminded Brea’ahrn of a wolf pack considering its dangerous, but ultimately doomed, prey.

The massive peaks and cliffs of the Spine Mountains stretched as far as the eye could see to the north and south. Where one massive mountain stopped, it seemed another began. Few were the places where people could get through those immense mountains. Fewer still were the places where large groups of people could pass.

Drago Pass was the only place where an army could pass through. Tal’raen ran his eyes up the sides of the two mountains that defined the sides of the pass, Mount Drago and Mount Morit. In the sharply defined canyon between them lay the stones on which the Drake Lord and Hawk Lord met so long ago.

Now he had come here, to face his destiny. He watched the entrance to the pass like it was going to leap out and attack him. “Leave the horses here,” he ordered quietly.

“Tal?” Shej said questioningly.

“Stret’sar is entering the Pass even as we speak,” Tal replied, touching the tiny part of him that always knew where his foe was. “We will meet before this day is out. It will not end today… but it will begin.”

“As you command, Black Lord,” Shej acknowledged with a small bow.

Leaving their horses behind, Tal’raen led five hundred Battlemagi up into Drago Pass, to face his destiny – and the world’s.

Even on foot, the Battlemagi moved faster than the main body of the Swarm. They spread out, spanning the pass from one side to the other, watching the pass before them with both their eyes and their magic.

The sun was approaching its zenith as the small army reached the midpoint of the pass. There they paused, resting for a moment on the highest point of the long, twisting canyon while the better seers scanned on ahead.

“Lord Tal’raen,” a red-haired Falcon Mage said as she approached.

“Yes, Mage?” Tal replied, turning to meet her.

“I’ve located their vanguard,” she told him. “Six thousand Beastmen and roughly a hundred Warrior Magi. They’re about two kilometers away.”

He inclined his head to her. “Thank you,” he replied gratefully. As the Mage left, hurrying back to her position in the line, Tal turned to Shej’mahi. “We’ll hold here,” he told the Battle Lord. “Get them ready to raise their shields and attack.”

“Shield wall?” Shej asked.

“No,” Tal replied. “Not yet. We’ll save that for the Swarm itself. A Beastmen army we can deal with without resorting to that.”

Shej nodded. “Then we are as ready as we will be.”

Tal stood just behind the line of Mage as the Beastmen approached. Just the sight of them was enough to send fear trickling down
his
spine, so he had a fairly good idea of how the other Magi felt. They were far too close to being human. They were twisted and corrupted, and yet you could see the human base.

It was disturbing at the very least. More disturbing, however, was how they moved. Tal had read the histories and records of most of the conflicts over the last thousand years. All agreed on one thing: the near-men were nigh on impossible to organize. Nonetheless, the army he was watching was moving as one, in formation. There were clearly defined blocks of companies and battalions.

“This is not going to be good,” he said softly. Those histories had also said something else: that disciplined Beastmen were vastly more dangerous than their wild kinsmen. Also, to discipline them took a Chaos Mage of
incredible
will, power and intelligence. Drake Mage Stret’sar was looking like a more difficult opponent all the time.

There was one advantage to facing disciplined Beastmen units though. They made fantastically large targets. “Get ready,” he ordered aloud, using magic to make certain all of the Magi heard him. “Raise shields!”

All along the line of Battlemagi, a slight shimmering began to appear around each Mage as they raised their individual shields against both magic and iron. As if in response, a similar shimmering was seen at various points in the Beastmen army.

“Idiots,” Shej said quietly.

Tal nodded agreement. “Target the Magi! Attack!” he ordered.

Almost before he spoke, fire and lightning began to flash out from the Battlemagi line, aimed directly at the shimmering of the Warrior Magi’s shields. Where Beastmen got in the way, the Beastmen died, the smell of their burning flesh rising to the heavens, but the Beastmen weren’t the target.

The shimmer of the shields began to die, as the Warriors received the attention of dozens of Battlemagi apiece. They replied with their own magic, chaos fire, chaos lightning and occasional chaos lances smashing into the shields of the Battlemagi, cutting down their own Beastmen if they got in the way.

The Warriors were focusing their counterstrike in much the same way as the Battlemagi, and shields began to flicker along the Battlemagi line. The Battlemagi replied by attacking the groups that focused on single Battlemagi, breaking their organization and reducing their numbers.

“They’re going to send in the Beastmen,” Shej said.

“Indeed,” Tal replied. “About… now!” Even as he said it, the Beastmen surged forward. He noted that, even in the battle lust of a charge, the regiments held their formations.

The Battlemagi changed their focus. The Warriors would have to wait. Fire and lightning lanced out again, but this time the Beastmen were the targets. Entire companies of Beastmen were swept away in single blasts of flame, and still the creatures closed into that devastating barrage.

Tal swept his eyes back, locating the Warriors, who were still attacking his line – successfully now. Even as his attention locked on the Warriors, he felt one of his Magi die. Then another.

A snarl crossed Tal’s face and he raised his hands. Death lances flashed out, punching through the Warrior’s shields as if they weren’t even there. Four Warriors died before the rest stopped attacking, charging forwards to join their Beastmen, where they couldn’t be individually targeted.

Tal turned his attention to the army as it approached his lines. The Beastmen had slowed their headlong charge, half stopping to fire off salvoes of black-feathered arrows while the other half charged. Each time arrows flicked out, chaos magic came with them, both hiding the arrows and being hidden by them.

Fire and lightning still swept across the pass, searing the dirt and melting the stone. Melted rocks and stone already marked the ground and canyons walls here, and they added to it.  Hundreds of Beastmen were cut down as the army charged across the open ground, but the Warrior Magi were claiming victims of their own.

Tal watched as the Beastmen approached, then raised his hands again. A massive blast of flame left his hands to arc over the Battlemagi lines and impact on the stopped Beastmen units.

He felt Warrior Magi die as the flame washed away over the half of the Beastmen who’d stopped. Even so, the Beastmen continued to charge, and continued to die, with a bravery that was all-too-human.

It wasn’t enough. The Battlemagi’s barrage was too intense. The Beastmen were dying far too fast for them to ever reach the Battlemagi line, and Tal turned his attention back to hunting Warrior Magi.

As the sun slowly sank from its zenith, Tal regarded the mound of burnt corpses piled up in front of the Battlemagi’s line. In the end, none of the Beastmen or Warrior Magi had escaped from the sweeping flame of the Battlemagi’s attacks.

“How many did we lose?” he asked softly.

“Nineteen dead, twelve injured,” Shej replied.

Thirty-one Magi. That was over a twentieth of their entire force. They’d managed to wipe out a tenth of the Beastmen and Warriors… but there were more Swarmmasters than Warriors, and
far
more Swarmbeasts than Beastmen.

“Send the wounded back,” he ordered. “Spread out the rest of the force. We’ll wait for nightfall, then switch to two thirds on, one third off.” He looked to the west, regarding the sun as it slowly dropped in the sky. “Not even Stret’sar would be so foolish as to try and fight Death Magi at
night
.”

Night was the time of Battlemagi’s greatest power. They weren’t enough more powerful at night that Tal would risk assaulting the Swarm even with that edge, but if the Swarm came at night… the Swarm would die.

“Four hours,” Shej said quietly, answering an unspoken question.

“We’ll see how fast our friend Stret’sar can make them move.”

The sun was beginning to set into twilight as the Swarm finally hove into sight. The boiling mass of life filled the pass from side to side, and extended off into the distances for miles upon miles. It seemed to seethe with corruption and twisted power.

The front ranks of the corrupted army were made up of Beastmen. The neat blocks of disciplined units blocked the advance of the Swarm, clearly combining with the Swarmmasters to keep the Swarmbeasts under control.

Similar neat blocks held positions throughout the Swarm. Their calm, unmoving, ranks stuck out like a sore thumb among the chaotic swirl that was the barely half-controlled Swarmbeats. Those blocks were by far the minority against the vast numbers of the Swarm.

“I make it ten thousand Beastmen,” Shej said.

Tal nodded. “In sight,” he reminded his old teacher. “Call it forty thousand for the whole Swarm.”  No-one had even tried to count the Swarmbeasts.

“Too many,” the Battle Lord said softly.

Tal shrugged. “No-one ever said this would be easy, my old teacher,” he replied. “If they did, they were either insane or drunk.” He gazed down at the immense boil of corruption approaching. “Get the Magi ready to form the shield wall.”

His fingers reached up to touch the Hawk Amulet he wore around his neck. “And may the Gods have mercy on our souls,” he finished softly.

Tal was mildly aware of Shej calling messengers and sending out orders, but his main focus was on the approaching enemy. He saw it when their ranks split, the Swarmbeasts surging aside as if in fear and the Beastmen compressing their unit fronts, leaving a gap just wide enough for the four figures that moved down it.

Three trailed behind the first, mounted on drakes and accompanied by the banners of three of the Four – all except Mau’reek, who Tal had killed. The first was on foot, encased in deep purple robes that continually shifted shades. He seemed to glide along, easily keeping ahead of the three mounted Riders behind him.

Showy bastard, isn’t he?
Tal thought to the amulet.

One thing my brother always liked was style,
Shar’tell replied.
It appears as though he’s passed that on to Stret’sar
.

Indeed
, Tal thought, nodding slightly. He turned his attention to Shej’mahi. “It appears that the Lord of the Swarm wishes to speak with us,” he observed dryly.

“Shall we oblige him?” the old Battlemage asked.

“Of course,” Tal said with a grin. “It wouldn’t do to disappoint him, would it?”

At the end of the Battlemagi lines, Tal paused, turning to Shej. “You stay here,” he told his friend. “I will meet him alone.”

“What if he brings the Riders with him?” the Battle Lord asked.

“He won’t,” Tal said firmly. “Watch.” Even as he spoke, they saw Stret stop and gesture at the Riders to remain behind. Tal looked over at his former teacher. “I’ll be back soon.”

The old Mage bowed his head. “May the Gods watch over you,” he said to his student.

Tal gripped the other Mage’s shoulder for a moment, then strode out to meet Stret’sar. The Drake Lord gestured his own subordinates back and glided out to meet him halfway between the two hosts.

“Tal’raen,” the purple-clad Chaos Magi said.

“Stret’sar,” Tal replied. “So it comes down to this, doesn’t it? As Shar’tell foretold, the Children of the Twain meet upon this field. Only one of us will leave alive.”

“It doesn’t have to be that way,” Stret said softly. “We are powerful men, you and I, Tal’raen. In our hands lies the power to shape this world as we will it.”

“The ways we would shape it differ, I fear, Lord of the Swarm,” Tal replied.

“I disagree,” Stret said calmly. “We both seek the same things, in the end. Justice. Order. Peace.”

Tal laughed. “You bring an army of chaos beings to the edge of Vishni and speak to me of ‘order’ and ‘peace’?” he asked. “You have gall, I’ll give you that.”

The Drake Lord’s eyes flashed with indigo fire. “You have no idea of what you speak,” he said calmly.

“Oh I think I do,” Tal said softly. “That army, those Magi and those
things
– they don’t comprehend peace. They don’t comprehend justice or order. They comprehend death, destruction and chaos. Say what you will, but while
that
army and those creatures back your words, chaos and destruction is all you can offer.”

“Believe what you will,” Stret’sar replied coldly. “I will say this again: join me. We can bring a true peace to this world, not one built on the Long War.”

Tal laughed again, and spat in the dirt at Stret’sar’s feet. “Between Chaos and humanity, there can be no peace,” he told his enemy. “Chaos unbounded is pure destruction, nothing more. It is not your tool, it is your
master
.”