Resurgent Shadows (Successive Harmony Book 1) (33 page)

He started, realizing that Sigvid and Nepja were still waiting for his answer. Even Lando was now watching him, curiosity etched in his young features.

“I’m ready, Sigvid,” Caleb said as firmly as he could. “My mind is here.”

Sigvid grunted and nodded to the wizard, signaling that he should lead the way.

Nepja looked at them piercingly, almost appraisingly and then said, “Let’s go then. The dragon and his ‘lord await.”

Horns blared throughout the camp as the dvergers reacted in a mad scramble to the suddenly approaching army. The Draugrsál had been but a distraction to occupy them while the Brown Dragonhosts advanced unseen through the night. Eric’s plan to bottle them in the pass was worthless now. The disorganized dverger army made a mad scramble to gather themselves into formation as a horde of screaming golgent, numbering well into the thousands, marched into view in the valley’s throat.

Eric immediately took charge of the situation, leaping atop an overturned supply cart and shouting to gain attention. He was tired and his head buzzed with the effort of staying on his feet after such a high adrenaline rush. Valundnir thrummed in his hands.

“Form into ranks!” he bellowed. He had seen them practicing their formations and the clan chiefs had drilled him on their tactics. “Shield bearers in front. I need three ranks of wedges formed up behind. Someone get the siege weapons working and flood them with naphtha and rocks!”

None of the dvergers moved. They stared at him until Diarf, the only clan chief with few enough wounds to perform the feat, leapt up beside Eric and bellowed, “What are you waiting for? Move!”

Immediately the dvergers sprang into action, their inbred stoicism and sense of duty overcoming the initial moments of reactionary confusion. Dvergers bearing tall rectangular shields ran forward and formed into a long line, two dvergers deep. Behind them, thousands of dvergers formed up in massive triangular groups with such speed and precision that less than a minute could have passed since the order had been given.

Diarf leapt from the back of the cart with a roar.

“Forward!” the clan chief and Eric shouted in almost perfect unison.

As one the dverger army moved against the oncoming avalanche of golgent, the sound of their heavily booted feet echoing off the far walls of the valley from which the golgent poured. Eric was swept along at the head of one of the wedge formations—Pedryn, Torsten, and the remainder of his squad along with him. He felt the adrenaline begin pumping through his veins once more and spun Valundnir high into the air, joining his voice with those of the dvergers around him as they shouted defiance in the face of their enemy. The weapon responded with a shout of its own, sending waves of energy and a hunger for battle running down Eric’s arm and through his body. The golgent cried out in a guttural, carnal language that was little more than grunts and screams to Eric’s ears. The dvergers burst into a song as they ran, a haunting ancient chant. The notes hung heavily in the air as they sang and Eric felt his blood surge with the chant’s crescendos.

The lines met with a clash of steel and flesh. The wall of shields held in place with the powerfully built dvergers using their strength to literally push back the wave of smaller creatures. The wedges continued forward as the press of golgent bodies forced the shield bearers to a standstill. The small creatures broke through in a few places forcing the shield bearers to draw weapons and fall upon the orange-blooded horrors.

At a shout from Diarf, the shield wall split in several places and the wedges charged into the sudden gaps. Eric almost laughed aloud as he was carried into the tightly packed press of golgent bodies, lashing out with Valundnir and sending broken golgent bodies flying backwards into their companions. All the dvergers except for Pedryn and Torsten moved back from the powerful swings, awed by the strength and force behind the blows.

At his side, but outside the reach of Valundnir, Pedryn lashed out with his mace. He left skulls caved in and limbs and chests crushed with each passing blow. Torsten walked almost serenely at Eric’s other side, appearing for all the world as if he were merely taking a stroll through a grassy meadow. The only indication that he was in the midst of a terrible and bloody battle was the crackling bolts of energy he shot from his fingers at random intervals, leaving bodies smoldering in his wake, smoking holes burned through the golgent chests.

The wedges cut deeply into the golgent hordes, forcing them back and opening the front ranks of golgent up to be hit by either side of the ever growing triangles of dverger soldiers. By now the shield wall had taken up positions on either side of the wedges in an effort to keep the golgent from slipping around and outflanking the dverger troops.

Siege engines groaned and suddenly the air was filled with flaming rocks and buckets of burning naphtha that burst amongst the back ranks of golgent and sent a wall of flame roaring into the air. The dvergers cheered and surged forward, recognizing the opportunity to crush the golgent up against an impenetrable wall of fire. The chant grew louder and more frenzied, punctuated by the sounds of death and destruction being visited upon golgent and dverger alike.

Eric plodded steadily forward, crushing whatever golgent came into his reach. An open circle grew around them as golgent avoided him and the rain of death they knew they’d face at his, Pedryn’s or Torsten’s hands. Eric grew irritated by the lack of mettle and hurled Valundnir at the nearest golgent head. So powerful was the throw that the hammer shattered the creature’s skull and continued onward, slaying two others before reappearing in Eric’s hands. Eric bellowed something inarticulate and threw again, leaving a trail of broken golgent bodies in the wake of Valundnir

He felt a hand on his arm and he whirled, Valundnir appearing in his upraised hands ready to fall onto whoever had the gall to touch him. He held the blow as he recognized Torsten, his white robes still immaculate despite the blood and gore around them.

“They are fleeing, Eric,” the cleric said, gesturing to where the golgent had forced a way through the wall of fire and back the way they had come. “Let them go.”

Valundnir surged defiantly in Eric’s grip, but Torsten’s amulet glowed faintly and the weapon quieted. Eric lowered it to his side.

Torsten smiled at him and turned to Pedryn, muttering a quick spell of healing over a nasty wound the dverger had sustained to his right arm.

Eric looked around, not remembering much in the red haze of the battle. The ground was littered with golgent bodies. He could tell where he had been. The bodies lay mangled and broken, thrown back from where they had been struck as if tossed by the hand of a giant.

Torsten’s work was easily identified as well. For the first time he noticed the stench of burning flesh and the odor that seemed a part of the golgent themselves, a smell so foul it seemed as if the creatures had never once bathed nor even been rained on. He gagged as dvergers ran past him, chasing the golgent back the way they had come, cutting down any that were slow enough or dumb enough to get caught.

He retched over the body of a fallen golgent, not improving his nausea in the slightest. He wiped the back of a hand across his mouth and glanced around, his nose crinkled against the smell. There were a few dvergers amongst the fallen, though most bore small wounds that were more inconveniences than anything.

Pedryn walked up beside him, his mace covered in grime and gore. Eric noticed absently that a bit of bone was lodged between the teeth of the mace.

“This was too simple,” Pedryn grunted sourly. “They send in Draugrsál and then only a few thousand golgent against ten thousand dvergers. What was the point?”

Eric immediately saw what Pedryn meant and voiced the answer, “It got us into the valley.”

Pedryn swore at almost the same time that Torsten shouted and pointed back toward the dverger encampment. Eric spun about to see one of the massive trebuchet’s go up in flames, mirroring its six companions like silent sentinels against the sky. Eric was too far away to make out details, but saw short figures battling against the backdrop of the flames

“We’ve been betrayed!” Torsten swore. “That’s Ragnar Clan! They’re responsible for the siege weaponry!”

Pedryn swore again and made to run back to the camp, but at that very moment a massive explosion knocked them from their feet and sent shrapnel flying in every direction. Eric rolled onto his stomach and covered his head with his hands as more explosions rocked the ground around them, bouncing them around like rag dolls that threw them into each other and against the lifeless golgent bodies around them. Eric recognized the sound.

It was mortar fire.

The shelling stopped and the staccato sound of gunfire pierced the concussive deafness left in the wake of the explosions. Eric rolled to his feet as a swarm of men rushed down the valley, their assault weaponry sending bursts of flame and bullets into the stunned dverger army that was struggling to get back on its feet. Interspersed amongst the ranks of soldiers were trulgo and slightly smaller creatures halfway between golgent and trulgo. The hail of gunfire cut down ranks of dvergers in seconds, ripping through shields and armor or finding the areas not protected by coverings. Eric saw Diarf fall with a dozen bullets in his chest, hit twice more before his body made it to the ground.

A bullet grazed his cheek and he felt the sharp pain. In his hand, Valundnir burned and suddenly Eric felt his anger consume him, a red film covering his eyes as his heart pounded in his chest.

He hurled Valundnir into the oncoming ranks of soldiers, catching one in the chest and knocking those near him from their feet. Eric made to charge after the hammer, but again felt a hand on his arm that halted him where he stood and instantly abated the fires that burned within his eyes. Torsten’s face was hard and stony, his eyes flashing with the anger and revulsion that had been in them when the Draugrsál had attacked. Eric almost quailed away from the raw power and strength that radiated from the cleric.

“It is not yet your time, Eric,” the cleric said simply and stepped around the larger man.

Eric went to stop him, but found himself held in place, unable to move.

Torsten walked forward calmly, ignoring the hail of bullets that flew around him. The bullets seemed to hit some sort of impenetrable barrier a few feet from the cleric and bounced away from the invisible shield. Guns rang and bullets flew as all the soldiers that had entered the valley leveled their guns at Torsten and opened fire. Torsten seemed to disappear in the thick cloud of lead, but as the shooting died down he still stood. The cleric spoke and his words seemed to echo throughout the valley like thunder.

“Sayrin always fights with an unfair advantage over Atelho’s children,” he shouted, the anger apparent in his words. “But no more! I take from you these weapons of war!”

Torsten put his hands in the air before him, palms forward. With a sudden sweeping jerk he closed his hands into fists and the guns in the soldier’s hands—all of them—broke and fell to the ground. Eric looked on in awe as the soldiers shouted amongst themselves in fear and confusion. Many of them took one fleeting look at the small, white-robed dverger before them and simply turned and ran away. The trulgo though, and the smaller half-trulgo, charged forward. Their ugly ghoulish faces were twisted in a look of supreme hatred as they raced for the short cleric.

Eric grabbed for Valundnir as Pedryn raced by him to defend Torsten, Eric only a few steps behind. Torsten slumped, as if the effort involved in breaking the weapons had been too much for him to bear. A massive trulgo, almost large enough to be called a giant, bore down on him, a halberd leveled to run the cleric through. Pedryn barreled into the trulgo’s legs a moment before the halberd’s blade would have sunk into Torsten’s side, tripping the creature and sending them both toppling to the ground.

Eric skidded to a thundering halt in front of Torsten, ready to defend him with his life.

Pedryn scrambled around in the dirt trying to find his mace. It had been lost when he’d tackled the trulgo.

Eric didn’t have time to stop and help him as he batted aside a poorly aimed swipe from the club of another trulgo as more trulgo, half-trulgo, and the returning golgent swarmed around them, spurred onward by their larger kin. Valundnir spun in Eric’s hands, deflecting blows more than dealing them. He could hear Pedryn struggling with the trulgo to his right, but couldn’t see him in the tangle of bodies that assaulted him on every side.

A sword blade snuck through his guard, cutting Eric across the side. The wound was shallow, but the pain shot through him like an electric shock, jolting him into greater speed. Valundnir burned in his hands and once again his vision clouded over in a red haze.

A trulgo’s club swung towards his head with enough force to level a building. Eric spun Valundnir upwards and drove the hammer head through the club and onward to crush the trulgo’s arm—bone shattered with an audible crunch. Following the momentum of the swing, Eric twisted at the waist to bring Valundnir down onto the back of a half-trulgo that was trying to get behind him. The half-trulgo flew forward with the force of the blow, its head flopping uselessly on its shoulders as it sailed through the air trailing bits of gore.

With a massive show of strength, Eric heaved the war hammer back the other direction to catch the first trulgo in the chest, breaking ribs and crushing lungs.

He stepped forward as the trulgo fell, completely forgetting about Torsten behind him. He only saw the next trulgo or half-trulgo rearing up in front of him, one more enemy that would fall before Valundnir’s might. A dverger that seemed oddly familiar grappled with a trulgo on the ground, the dverger’s strong arms wrapped around the trulgo’s thick neck. Without thinking, Eric slammed Valundnir down on the trulgo’s chest, crushing its lungs but also crushing the dverger underneath. The dverger shouted, and for a brief instant, recognition flashed through Eric’s mind, a cognizant understanding that he’d just injured an ally, Torsten, but that thought was burned away as Valundnir thrummed within Eric’s grip.