Escana (67 page)

The fire pit made it impossible
to see at any distance in the gloom of the night, in a camp like this
someone was always awake and keeping it burning so there was no utter
darkness until the very fringes. It was from there which the sounds
continued to emanate.

More people were rising to the
sound of the approaching screams, it spread like some foul gangrene
right through the centre of the camp. They were clearly under attack
and bodies started milling everywhere in response as men handed out
weapons and armour so that they may meet this crisis prepared.

Then he heard it, like a low
thunder travelling across the ground at high speed. He looked over to
Thom for clarification, the man's eyes had gone wide. He knew what it
was that approached them then.

The older man turned his head to
face Gadtor then. 'We need to get to the canyon wall as fast as we
can, this attack is beyond us.'

'The wall? Why are we going
there?'

Thom snarled at him. 'That's a
fucking order, soldier. We go to the wall or I knock you out here and
now and drag us there, understand?'

Gadtor knew that even if Thom
could make good on his threat he still lacked the strength to carry
both his dead weight and the large block fastening their legs
together. That would leave them both prone targets for whatever was
approaching and he didn't want to die at the hands of another man's
temper.

'Fine by me,' he said, initiating
a limp in the direction of the canyon wall.

His heart rose into his mouth as
the screaming increased in volume and proximity, it was as if it was
playing a ghastly duet with the thunder in an attempt to burst his
eardrums.

All their limping around together
through the camp hadn't prepared them for a crisis moment, Thom was
pushing at too fast a pace for Gadtor and try as he might to keep up
his leg wasn't complying.

'Come on you fucker, we're almost
there. Just one more push toward the wall and we'll make it in time.'

In time for what? Gadtor
wondered, once again he had been left completely in the dark about
everything and was beginning to resent his new position as the most
unfortunate able-bodied soldier in the camp.

He imitated Thom as they pressed
their backs flat against the canyon wall and watched the massacre
unfold before their eyes.

It was a green wave of sound and
fury, ploughing through everything it came into contact with as it
grew closer. Tents were uprooted and flattened, the coals of the fire
pits were kicked about and various parts of the camp followed the
stampede as if in an avalanche of their own, carried forward by the
relentless momentum. Occasionally they spotted what was left of a
human body surface and clatter around uselessly in armour that did
nothing to protect it.

It was strange, in the midst of
all this horror Gadtor felt anger toward Thom. After all his talk of
dying on their feet the man was undoubtedly saving his own skin and
Gadtor's life by proxy. It wasn't in Gadtor's nature to sit here as a
spectator over human destruction and in forcing him to remain against
the wall Thom had made him do just that.

'We should be out there helping
them. Telling them all to get to the canyon wall,' he said more to
himself than Thom.

The man laughed at him. 'To what
end? You'd have us hobble out into that impending shitstorm and
sacrifice our own lives on the assumption that anyone would listen?
Perhaps next we'll ask the lizards to kindly stop trampling our army?
There's fuck all we can do.'

Gadtor balled his fists. 'I know
that... I just...'

It was a strange response, Thom
clapped him on the shoulder reassuringly, his voice pitched normally
so it was almost lost in the cacophony. 'You want to save them all, I
know. You can't save anyone by dying out there with them.'

The stream of lizards seemed
without end as they wordlessly watched the destruction close in on
their position. Gadtor heard a shout from the opposite side of the
canyon and a few rallying responses from the remaining force.

'No you fucking idiot, get out of
there, no!' Thom roared, nearly deafening Gadtor, who turned to see
what he was looking at.

A huge man in plate with a vast
war axe charged into the fray, bellowing instructions at every man in
sight to join him for the counter. It was General Garth, Thom's
friend. He was charging the front line of the lizards on a collision
course.

'Get out of there! No!' Thom's
voice had become a rasping scream, Gadtor felt himself being pulled
relentlessly forward into the conflict.

'Thom, stop!' he shouted at him,
gripping the man's shoulders and pinning him to the wall. 'You can't
save him.'

He saw the powerless look in the
man's eyes and knew it all too well, then the fight went out of him,
extinguished as if he had accepted the inevitability of the General's
foolish charge.

When Gadtor felt certain that
Thom had given up his struggle, he released him and turned back to
watch events unfold.

They swarmed over them in a cloud
of sand and all sight of the General was lost, Gadtor was blinded by
a flash of scale and sinew as they pushed themselves against the
wall, frantically trying not to get caught in the flow. He could feel
the air pulsating around him and whipping against his face, he could
smell the animal reek from their hides and he felt sickened. Had the
Empire really thought to withstand such a force of nature? This was a
predator in full flow, destroying everything in its sight with a pack
mentality.

Then he noticed something
strange, the ranks of the lizards were visibly thinning, gaps opening
up in the previously packed stampede. It continued to gush forward
but without the intensity and sheer volume of numbers as before,
these lizards were slower than the others and seemed laboured in
their movements.

'No!' Thom screamed, as they
finally laid their eyes on the attacking force once again.

It was a pile of bodies, those
that were not torn apart were well on their way to death's door. At
the forefront lay the General, who had avoided being carried off in
the collision like so many others that had charged. His crumpled form
lay on the desert floor surrounded by embers and splintered wood.
They'd killed him.

Then Gadtor noticed a young cadet
pull himself groggily out of the pile of bodies and stagger toward
the General's prone form. He lurched to the side to avoid collision
with one of the lizards, who oddly seemed to be ignoring his
advances. Perhaps they saw such small prey as beneath their notice,
either way he was making his way toward Garth.

'That's it kid, go on.' He heard
Thom muttering to himself in a frenzied state, the hope rekindled on
his face as he watched this youth make his way towards his friend.

Somehow the boy continued to
avoid incoming lizards, who had become increasingly slow and
infrequent as the minutes had dragged on.

Then they saw it, a large one had
come lumbering in and taken interest in the boy. Gadtor ducked down
and gripped a glowing lump of coal in his hands, he tried to ignore
the searing pain that ran up his arm and hurled it with all his might
at the beast.

It fell wide of his target,
landing on the floor beside the beast's claws, it looked over and
spotted them by the canyon wall. Abandoning the boy it approached
them with a hungry look in its eyes, Gadtor was beginning to see the
downside of his snap decision.

He heard the sound of metal
scraping against a scabbard, Thom had brought his massive claymore to
bear on the creature. He stepped away from the canyon wall towards
it, giving Gadtor no choice but to follow or trip and send them both
sprawling.

The lizard obviously recognised
what a sword meant, it slowed in its advance as if it were having
second thoughts.

It bounded forward and lashed out
at them with its gaping maw, Gadtor didn't see what happened but
there was a gout of blood and the beast came away moaning. Thom had
stabbed it directly in the mouth, dislodging a tooth and raking the
edge of his blade along the insides. Gadtor had no idea how he had
held on to the blade.

It seemed to think better of
approaching them again and started off down the canyon away from
whence it came.

There seemed few lizards left
now, Thom pushed forward once again and this time Gadtor drew his own
sword, agreeing with the decision to press on. Let any lizard that
came near them feel the wrath of both their blades.

They went straight toward the
young man trying to drag Garth's body off the battlefield, Gadtor had
never seen Thom look so concerned.

'Is he alive, kid?' the General
asked.

The young boy nodded. 'Yes sir,
badly banged up but still breathing, we need to get him off the field
before he gets any worse.'

Thom nodded, then they heard the
croaking voice coming from the dead weight they were trying to haul.

'They didn't attack us, we were
swamped.'

'Save your breath you idiot,'
Thom replied, but there was no malice in his frustration. 'You were
beat up pretty bad.'

Garth's arm gripped Thom's hand
with an insistence that made them pause. 'No, you need to listen to
me, they swamped us in numbers but they did not attack.'

The concern evaporated from
Thom's features, in its place was fear. Of what, Gadtor had no idea.

'What is it? What's the General
telling us?'

Thom would not answer him, he
silently carried Garth away from the battlefield with the boy's help
and seemed to be going pale in the process.

The young man looked no less
confused than Gadtor. As if noticing this, Garth turned to him and
whispered in his ear. His eyes went wide and he nearly dropped his
General in surprise.

'Well? What is it?' Gadtor
demanded. 'Why won't anyone tell me what's going on?'

The boy looked at him and
obliged. 'The lizards that destroyed our camp weren't attacking us,
they were fleeing.'

S
he walked
through the white city of Levanin completely oblivious to its beauty
now. The skies held no awe for her any more, it had all receded from
her sight as she pondered over the meaning of his words endlessly.

She looked down at her hands,
they looked as human as any other. Could he have been mistaken? No,
she couldn't make that assumption, he'd have no reason to do so and
no way of convincing her of the lie. If she were truly Elven then
time itself would reveal her ageless features, El-Vador was powerful
but even his glamour could not defy the ravages that struck the
bodies of all that aged.

News had spread that Everalm had
taken ill after a nasty fall, no one was particularly surprised at
this turn of events and Ella's role in caring for him was seen as
fitting for her position. No questions were asked about the bandages
that she requested, the elderly population of Levanin were painfully
aware of the fragile existence they led. In spite of the popularity
of El-Vador's persona there had been no visitors either. It struck
Ella as odd, she had spent her whole life living on a land where any
number of people would knock on their gate.

Something else that surprised her
was the complete lack of commerce in Upper Levanin. The privilege of
living there allowed the citizens to request whatever was necessary
to be brought up through some unseen means. In spite of this,
decadence and luxury were frowned upon by the populace, a quiet life
of study and contemplation appeared to be the preferred path for
those who had ascended. Ella felt that if she could have anything she
wanted there would be a long list of demands, then again did she not
already have a means to acquire anything she wanted? Had El-Vador not
offered her whatever she pleased?

Perhaps when he recovered she
might take him up on that offer. If he recovered. She had never seen
such recuperative powers before, the injuries melted away from him
with little treatment. All except one, a dark gash to the left of his
heart, it seemed to fester and boil with an odd puss. El-Vador
claimed that the blade had been poisoned and it would take longer to
heal, Ella was beginning to think otherwise.

Although she had no real
conception of magic, there was something about that hole within him
that seemed to scream out a sense of wrongness to her beyond all
rationality. In spite of that she couldn't seem to attribute the
feeling to her emotions, she cared for him greatly but the other
wounds had not exuded this sense of wrongness and they had seemed no
less worse when she had first inspected them.

'You're Ella.'

Startled, she looked down at
where the voice had come from, a small boy was looking up at her with
round eyes.

'Yes, that's right. How do you
know my name?'

The boy shrugged, sucking on
something inside his mouth. 'My mistress knows lots of things.'

He stuck out his arm rigidly and
offered her his hand. 'I'm Eli.'

She shook it tentatively.
'Pleased to meet you Eli.'