Chronicles of Gilderam: Book One: Sunset (16 page)

As the Crater packed even tighter with warriors, the drummers changed their cadence, and that started the entire horde chanting together. It took a moment for all thirty thousand voices to join in, but soon all were groaning along in unison. The resulting sound was tremendously terrifying for the soldiers that lay in wait beyond the rim of the bowl.

Nibqah could sense the horror spread across his army. He knew he could wait no longer, if only for morale’s sake. He gave the order to his officers and they signaled the captains stationed along the Crater wall.

Rariji
Nibqah stood straight up atop the rock wall and revealed himself to the entire horde below. Recognition came slowly to the Geldr.

For a moment, he stood alone before the forces of evil.

The captain waved them forward. Havlah’s legs marched without his consent in line with the rest of the army. The rocky escarpment was near vertical and he had to half climb, half crawl. They moved as quietly as possible beneath the tumult of thousands of chanting barbarians.

The soldiers above Havlah stopped suddenly, and he surmised that the frontline must have reached the summit. Now they awaited the charge. In the seconds that followed, while Havlah clung onto the side of that outcropping of powdery red rock, he felt the slowest passing of time in his life.

His breathing was shallow and cold, and quickly accelerating pace. He couldn’t control it. His grip on time worsened, and the next few seconds became indistinguishable from hours. Just when he thought he’d lose his mind, he heard the battle cry from across the Crater.

It was
Rariji
Nibqah, and the veterans behind him soon joined in. Then Havlah could hear the clatter of them rushing into the Crater, and could feel them through the stone. Before he heard the clash of weapons though, his own captain let out a war cry directly overhead. The men around him echoed it, screaming at the top of their lungs, and before he knew what was happening he was scraping up the rock as fast as he could.

At its peak, Havlah reeled at the sight inside the Crater. It was filled with an ocean of armored bodies and torches, all swirling around the central altar. It was altogether magnificent and terrifying. But he didn’t have time to process it – he was already sliding down the inside of the bowl with his countrymen.

Nibqah was at the fore of an avalanche of soldiers. He held his sword in the air and howled as he charged. Enemies below drew their weapons and prepared for the crash, but there wasn’t time before the desert people plowed into the Geldr at full speed.

There was a flash of swinging blades and an almighty crunch of bodies as the forces collided. Nibqah sailed deep into the horde, slashing madly with his sword as he went. The deeper in, the less prepared the combatants were. Behind him were all the veterans, just as eager to capitalize on their surprise as he. As fast as they could, they diced and slew the hunkering beasts before they could get their bearings.

In short order, however, the Geldr were ready to fight. Guttural war cries bellowed all around, and the feeling of advantage quickly dissipated amongst the Vali.

Nibqah came face to face with a particularly large monster. The muscles of this beastly creature rippled like steel cables beneath his skin. In his fat hands he clutched a
cordj
, a long, heavy sword with a flat head instead of a pointed tip. The blade widened at the top, forming two points like a double-headed pickaxe.

The monster heaved the weapon into the air with both hands and brought it down hard. Thanks to its incredible weight Nibqah had plenty of time to hop out of the way, and it cleft a great gash into the sandy clay where he had been a moment before.

The half-orc grunted, and his face churned as he attempted to wrench the massive sword from the ground. Nibqah ran forward and sprang off the edge of the dull blade, slashing his enemy’s throat wide open with his own sword. As he landed, another one was already coming at him with a
hran
in each hand.

The
hran
was halfway between a short sword and an axe, made to cleave with a wide, sharpened hammering edge. This monster was faster than the last, and whirled his blades around in a frenzy, screaming madly as he lunged at Nibqah. The
rariji
blocked and shunted the next seven blows between breaths before hacking off his opponent’s arm. The attacker yelped like a dog, and Nibqah pivoted around behind him to slice the tendons behind his knees. He collapsed a bloody mess while Nibqah engaged the next enemy.

Out of the corner of his eye the
rariji
could see the rest of his army streaming into the bowl from the northeast and northwest, but he could not take the time to see how they were faring. Someone with a pike was trying to skewer him.

When the beast thrust, Nibqah glanced the pike off target and then stampeded for him, placing himself inside the range of the long weapon. Before the wretched animal could draw his sword, Nibqah cut a deep slash across his face that continued into his chest. He fell backward gushing a river of blood.

A black-iron sword flew down at Nibqah’s head – and he blocked it, spinning in a tight circle. When he came around his blade followed through and cut open the stomach of the offender, spilling hot entrails on the ground.

In the lull, Nibqah had just enough time to peek at the southern rim of the Crater. To his horror, he saw that the horde was still pouring over it in an endless drove – thick as ever. He gulped and engaged the next grey half-orc, unable to fully consider the situation while he traded blows.

Behind him the desert army was being massacred by the horde. The heavy, crude blades of Geldr’thal spilt the blood of Val with sickening ease. Primitive clubs smashed apart their armor with no apparent difficulty and pulverized the bone beneath. The desert people could not hope to overpower the grey beasts, who’d been bred to fight and die fighting. Their prime advantage lay in iron, which made their weapons slow but very powerful, and their armor impenetrable. The thin, efficient weapons of Val were woefully unsuited for such a fight. Those who were light on their feet could survive any number of one-on-one duels, but when mashed into the close quarters of the Crater, their carefully crafted fighting skills were rendered useless.

Countless desert soldiers were simply tackled to the ground and beaten to death with bare fists. The warriors of Geldr’thal, it seemed, could withstand any amount of pain or wounding, short of consummate death, and still continue fighting. They battled on despite the fresh subtraction of an arm, and feverishly oozed precious blood without slowing down.

The army of Val was coming to suspect that their surprise attack might have been, if anything, a pleasant surprise for the horde.

Havlah was backed up inside the bowl, smashed between the other soldiers as they mashed their way into the melee. His ears were overwhelmed by the ravages of war: singing blades, howling throats, all manner of screams, snaps and crunches, and beneath it all the thundering of feet – but he couldn’t yet see it. He felt himself being worked up into a murderous paroxysm by the engulfing roar.

As the wall leveled out and became ground, space opened up and Havlah could breath again. They pressed forward until Havlah could see the frontline. It was where his comrades dropped out of sight and were replaced by the grey, hulking forms of the Geldr. With each Vali that fell, the battle crept one step closer to him. He swallowed the lump in his throat and clenched his sword. The hilt was wet in his palm.

Another row was cut down, and at last Havlah got his first full glimpse of the enemy. Their appearance, mutated and repugnant, revolted him to his core, and their indiscriminate bloodlust sent a paralyzing chill down his spine. They swung their great weapons with unstoppable force. One man, he saw, who tried to block was knocked over anyway by the sheer power behind the blow. His body was hacked to pieces immediately after.

Soon there were only a few men between Havlah and the monsters, and he watched as they fought bravely, but were brought down quickly.

Havlah blinked, and then he was staring into the face of a great, big, thundering grey titan. This one held a flail in one hand and a short, gore-covered sword in the other. He eyed the boy before him curiously, as though his appearance was something unexpected. Then he drew back his flail, its fat chains jingling, and prepared to bring it down upon Havlah.

He could only stare – his body solidified with terror. Just as the monster’s weapon was about to swing down, a blur flashed between them. When it had gone, the monster’s neck was spewing blood. He sputtered and released the flail midway through his strike, throwing it high over Havlah’s head. Then he fell over from his own momentum and twisted on the ground.

The blur materialized beside Havlah. It was the bearded old man.

“Come on, boy!” he said. “Don’t make it easy for them!”

And he flew like a flash, burying his sword to the hilt in the side of another beast. He spun around, fatally slashing someone else, before taking off another’s sword arm. He was quick – unbelievably fast – and already moving again, dueling with two half-orcs simultaneously.

Havlah hurried to follow him, and on the approach the bearded man sidestepped around his opponent, forcing the monster to turn as well. In doing so, he led the creature’s back right to Havlah, and without thinking the boy brought his shamshir straight down on its head. There was a
crack
, a spurt of blood, and the body fell.

Havlah blinked at it, astonished.

“Good work!” the bearded man said before he turned to meet the advancing blows of another foe. They fought, and Havlah made sure to keep his distance this time. Eventually the old man got in close and kicked the grey beast in the stomach, launching him backwards. When he did Havlah was there, and his sword was waiting to impale it.

The man with the white beard swam expertly onward through the battlefield, and Havlah struggled to keep up.

Rariji
Nibqah came to realize that his support was dwindling. In a brief reverie between combatants he was able to survey the Crater and confirm his suspicion. The desert army was no longer coming over the rim. Every one of his soldiers was already in the fight. And there were no reserves.

Looking back the other way, he saw that the end of the horde had still not yet been reached. They kept rolling over the rim and pouring into the Crater. Their scouts must have grievously erred in their estimation. There were certainly more than fifty thousand already in the bowl, and more were still coming….

Nibqah sallied up his strength and fought on. It was all there was to do now.

A notched, dull blade came swinging at his face. He batted it aside and, with the upswing, decapitated its wielder. Two more arrived to replace him as he fell, each armed with a polearm, and they made up their minds to double-team Nibqah.

Keeping him at bay with the superior reach of their weapons, they spread apart and forced their prey to deal with two fronts instead of one. Nibqah retained his defensive stance while repelling their sporadic thrusts, each one a test of his nerves. He knew, sooner or later, they would have to go in for the kill. When that moment came he would have a split second of advantage.

And it came.

One jabbed with their polearm and Nibqah bent backwards to avoid it. But he knew it was only the bait, and dropped his sword to the ground to grab the polearm by the shaft.

The second spear was coming from the other side, and Nibqah jerked the weapon in his hands to knock it off course. Once it was diverted, he pulled himself up the length of the polearm and kicked its owner in the chest, simultaneously yanking the weapon from his grip. He twirled around just in time to deflect another thrust, and now it was one-on-one contest. Nibqah, as it turned out, was far more skilled in staff combat.

He out-played the Geld in just a few moves and thwacked him over the head with the butt of his pole, fracturing his skull. Then he staked the other, who was scrambling to get to his feet, to the ground.

He retrieved his sword and took stock once more of the battle around him. His core of veterans was now cut off from the remainder of the desert army. The horde encircled them, wisely using their superior numbers to overwhelm. Nibqah had been greedy in his charge and led them in too deep. Now they were an island of warriors sequestered in a sea of enemies. But his consideration had to stop there, because a stout blade was flying through the air towards his head.

He deflected it with his sword at the last second, and found himself dueling again. After only a few blows had been exchanged something unexpected happened.

First there was an explosion on the altar. It sent a marvelous fireball into the night sky, illuminating the shrieking priests beneath it like a bright red flare.

Then the earth itself gave a response, growling and quaking as though being shaken by supernatural forces. Fighters on both sides of the conflict were brought to their knees by the trembling ground. Either they were rattled off balance, or they prostrated themselves in pious reverence. Vuora itself declared an armistice to the battle, bringing the clashing of swords to a standstill as it shook the whole Crater like a bowl full of ants.