The Fifth Vertex (The Sigilord Chronicles) (28 page)

The blast of a horn cut through their conversation. Another echoed the same tone, then another, until the whole city reverberated with the bass tones of battle horns.

"They've started their approach," Corliss said.

They waited in silence for several minutes. Goodwyn gripped his suzur hilt until his knuckles went white, pacing back and forth as much as the narrow walkway on the cliffside would allow.

Movement in the clouds before the sky gate alerted everyone. At once, the raven-shaped silhouettes on the cliffside stirred, all eyes on the road below.

"Look, there!" shouted Captain Rhygant, pointing at a dark wedge shape creeping up the road, emerging from the thick fog.

They watched as the dark wedge pushed forward toward the gate. As it moved further uphill, Goodwyn could see individual shapes.
 

Shield
s, he thought. They were advancing under the cover of a roof of kite shields.

"With all their flying machines and steam cars and cutters, this is how they come at us? Hiding from archers under shield?" Corliss exclaimed, leaning back and grabbing his stomach as if to hold the laughter back.

"It's a good tactic," Goodwyn said. "They could get all the way to the gates without losing many of their men."

Corliss whirled to face Goodwyn, mouth spreading in a wicked grin. "What makes you think the only threat to them is from
above
?"

The Knight Marshall stood, watching the wedge of shield-bearing briene approach the gates, his hand held aloft in a clenched fist. Just as it seemed as though the briene would reach the gate, he dropped his fist.

Horns blew and others echoed the call, but this time with a higher pitch than the first warning blasts.
 

"Watch," Corliss said.

All throughout the phalanx of armored briene, chaos erupted. Shields dropped, blood shooting from beneath them and splashing across the road. Within minutes the briene line had broken. As the invaders turned to retreat back down below the cloud layer, arrows thunked into their backs.

It was then that Goodwyn saw them: slits in the road just wide enough to let hooked spears through. Those spears sawed down the enemy front lines and those who didn't die by the first strike bled to death minutes later.

Before long all that remained before the sky gate were bodies, abandoned shields, and blood stains.

"That was just a test," Corliss said. "Next time they'll throw everything they have at us, including whatever bird machines they have left."

"Knight Marshal!" shouted a nearby soldier.

Goodwyn turned to see a large group of briene re-emerge from the cloud. They carried neither shield nor sword. Instead, they walked in pairs, carrying litters between them.

They're gathering their dead
, Goodwyn thought.

"On my command," Captain Rhygant barked.

"Wait, you can't attack them like that!"

"They lay siege to the city, Goodwyn. We are defending ourselves," Corliss said.

"This is not your fight, boy," Rhygant snapped. "If they come back up that road, we will cut them down."

"They're unarmed!" Goodwyn shouted, grabbing Rhygant's arm, keeping him from giving the order to fire.

"They're the enemy!" He wrenched his arm free and thrust his fist down. Again horns blared, commanding an attack. Rhygant spread his arms and legs, his windrunner cloak billowing up behind him, then leapt from the cliff.

"And they deserve your respect!" Goodwyn shouted, leaping after him. Soaring straight for the briene, he glanced back to see Corliss and a dozen others leap from the cliff after him.

They shouted something but he couldn't make out what. All he could hear was the sound of wind rushing by and pounding at his ears as he plummeted for the sky gate.

He landed with his legs already down and pedaling. Lurching forward, he barely managed to keep his balance. He skidded to a halt right before the first pair of briene litter-bearers.
 

Rhygant wheeled on him, grabbing his neck. "Listen to me, you savage runt, this is war. You're not going to stop it."
 

Rhygant let go, then punched Goodwyn in the chest, knocking him backwards and sucking the wind out of him. The man hit harder than Urus, which was impossible.
Nobody
hit harder than Urus. Goodwyn dropped to his knees and watched as Rhygant swiveled and approached the briene litter-bearers.

"Stop!" Goodwyn shouted, but it came out as little more than a croak.

Goodwyn watched, helpless, as Rhygant pulled his swords and cleaved the first of the little men in half. The briene dropped their litters and stood transfixed in shock. What happened next seemed to take forever, every detail of it burning into Goodwyn's mind forever.

The captain reached down and buried his arms in the bloody entrails of the briene. As he stood up, the blood burst into flame, immolating his body with blood-red fire. Whips of red fire cracked forth from Rhygant's hands, engulfing two more briene in fire. The burning men screamed and flailed as they dropped to the ground.

That's blood magic!
Goodwyn thought.

Finally able to breathe, Goodwyn leapt forward, unleashing the suzur as he did. The thought that Rhygant was a blood mage fueled a white-hot rage within him.

Rhygant laughed as he engulfed another briene in blood-fire. So consumed was he with growing his power by attacking the defenseless men, he had no idea the suzur was coming when it sliced his right arm off. Goodwyn yanked the handle, pulling the chain back, and the return pull of the weapon ripped off Rhygant's right leg. The blood spurted wildly from the severed arteries, catching fire.

Goodwyn stood over the smoldering body of the blood mage, cursing himself for not marking him as a traitor sooner. The blood mages were determined to use the briene to destroy Waldron, so Goodwyn had to be more determined to stop it.

He looked at the goggled faces of the briene who stood, staring at the burned bodies of their men, thankful that he didn't have to look them in the eyes. A tear escaped his eye, pain and disgust welling up within him. His power to see things before they happened hadn't given him a single glimpse of what Rhygant was or that he was going to kill those briene.
 

What kind of people can sacrifice an entire civilization and start a war just to get some stupid object?
Goodwyn thought, spitting on Rhygant's charred body.

Corliss and a dozen other men came up behind him, watching the briene remove the bodies of their dead.

"Kestians respect their enemies. Our code demands that enemies be afforded rights. One of those rights is the right to their dead," Goodwyn said, too furious to look at Corliss. If Therren were there, he would lose his lunch, witnessing such a dishonorable display of warcraft.
 

"I didn't know that Rhygant was one of them, one of the blood mages," Corliss said.

"No, but you were going to let him order the slaughter of innocent briene just the same."

Goodwyn spun and stared long and hard at Corliss before speaking, "You clearly know less about war than I thought."

Corliss looked stricken. A moment passed before he spoke again. "We'd best get back up to our perch before the next wave."

"I will face the enemy here," Goodwyn told him. "Your men are better trained at flying and more suited to fighting the bird machines. I prefer to stay down here where I know which way is down and which is up. Besides, I can't put a stop to this war from up there."

"There's no stopping this, son. Not after what's happened. I've got a company of men who aren't using windrunners. I'll send them out," Corliss walked toward the gate.

Goodwyn made no reply, staring into the whitish-blue mist hovering over the road below.

"Goodywn," Corliss called.

Goodwyn turned.

"Good luck. It's a shame I have to learn so much about a grim topic like war from one so young."

"War is only grim when fought without honor," Goodwyn said, then turned back to await the next wave of briene.

"If only all of our enemies felt the same," he heard Corliss mutter as he made for the gate.

Goodwyn didn't have to wait long for the next wave.

The screeching of the bird machines above accompanied the belching flames of wheeled furnaces below. Seconds later the road erupted in briene, a swarm of charging bodies overtaking every inch of flat stone.

It was a foolish strategy and would get many of their number killed. They charged at full speed, axes, picks, spears, and swords raised high, exposing their torsos as easy targets for Waldron's archers.

Of course, once the Waldron and briene lines clashed, the archers would stop firing and all plans and tactics would descend into pure chaos. Goodwyn's teachers used to say that the art of war was in learning how to accept that all of your planning meant nothing once the first drop of blood was spilled.

Goodwyn slung back the suzur's chain when his first target was still nearly a hundred meters away. He swung it overhead, building up momentum, twice before his target arrived. He knew where the briene would be and when, and his suzur gladly met the victim at the appointed time and place, hitting his helmet. Goodwyn deliberately held the weapon in check, not killing the briene.

The Waldron host piled onto the road behind him, meeting the briene surge head on. The sound of steel clashing against steel echoed off the cliffs. "
The Battle Ballad"
, Battlemaster Kurd used to call it. The rhythm, that unmistakable ebb and flow of swordplay, took on a dark, musical quality that Goodwyn would never forget. It was at once the most terrible and most beautiful song he had ever heard. It was the music that drove a Kestian's heart, or so the Kestians said. Goodwyn had his doubts.

He had little time to contemplate anything other than the fight at hand. He wielded the suzur with a lethality like never before. Before one target had even been cut down, his body was already twisting and coiling, ready to unleash his weapon upon the next target, and the next, and the one after that. He tried to avoid killing the briene, but there were so many of them, their numbers overwhelming. Someone was going to die, and Goodwyn wasn't ready to die yet.

He worked his way forward through the throng like a farmer shearing wheat with his scythe. Scores of briene fell to his blade before ever getting a strike close to him. He cut such a wide path of death through the enemy that the Waldrenes fighting beside him pulled back and to the side, else they too might get cut down like so much grass.

The sight was dizzying, but he fought to stay focused. He never saw where his targets were, only fuzzy outlines of where they
might b
e. The stronger the image, the more likely his target was to end up in that spot. It was as though he was fighting a battle two seconds in the future, and everyone else was stuck in the past.

For what seemed like hours, he threw his suzur into, through, and around his enemy. To anyone other than Goodwyn, it might've appeared as though the briene were hurling themselves at the suzur rather than the other way around. Goodwyn was only barely aware of the battle being waged in the skies above him. The briene on the ground simply didn't stand a chance.

Until
he
arrived.

For a moment, he was just another ant in the swarm, a target who would eventually meet death at the hands of his suzur. Goodwyn swung, twirled, and performed his dance of death, unaware of this briene.

After he fought his way through a few more crowds, a nagging feeling tugged at him, raising the hairs on the back of his neck. Someone hadn't been
there
when the suzur flew. Goodwyn had missed, and not just once.

It was then that he noticed that most of the briene had withdrawn. Goodwyn actually had to twist to avoid the stab of a blade that would eventually make its way through his circle of bloodshed. Then he dodged another, then another.

Before long, the only two people fighting on the road were Goodwyn and the other briene. Everyone else was either a corpse or a spectator, Waldrene or briene. An eery silence had fallen upon the road, the only noises that of Goodwyn, his opponent, and their weapons.

He let loose with a vicious thrust, aimed for where he knew the victim's face would be. Just to make sure, he leapt through the air, kicking out at another spot his victim might be. To Goodwyn's shock, the briene dodged in an unexpected direction, rolling under the flying blade and then dodging his kick.

This put Goodwyn on the defensive, struggling to avoid a flurry of blows while he yanked the chain to summon his blade.

This can't be happening
, he thought. He had never been unable to see where an opponent would strike. No one had ever been able to move in a way that eluded Goodwyn's senses.

Could this briene be a quiver? Or maybe he's like Urus?
Goodwyn thought, stumbling back, resorting to using his boot dagger to deflect blows as his opponent easily ducked under and leapt over the suzur's long-chain attacks.

The faster the briene attacked, the more glimpses of future possibilities Goodwyn saw. The man was everywhere; his short, wiry little briene silhouette appeared in nearly every direction.
How could someone have so many possible attacks?

Still being pushed back, Goodwyn did the one thing he knew would be the most unpredictable. He sought out the one spot in his enhanced vision where the briene did
not
appear, and he swung for it, with as much speed and power as he could muster. He flung the suzur ahead of his own leaping kick, in a direction his senses told him the briene would never choose.

As expected, his blade swung wide of the target, but it did so because the briene dodged toward Goodwyn's kick. He landed the kick squarely in the briene's chest, sending him flying back onto the road, sprawled on his back and gasping for air.

Goodwyn recovered, running to stand over the briene. Without having to look, he knew that the entire battlefield was watching. They had all stopped fighting and had become spectators in the match between him and this mysterious little briene.