The Legend of Asahiel: Book 03 - The Divine Talisman (46 page)

“Any messages?” she asked as she came upon her courier. Her people had long ago devised a system of relaying messages in the dark through the use of their glowstone lanterns, using the dimmer knobs to send staggered flashes of light as signals. A similar system had been implemented among each rover and its crew before setting out, to ensure communications between the separate vessels.

“All is well, at last report,” Tonra replied. The smooth-cheeked Hrothgari was one of a half dozen other female dwarves aboard this, the lead siege rover, and one of Vashen’s oldest friends. She seemed to sense the warder general’s frown without turning to see it. “Have you word to relay?”

“Only to keep close watch on their water supply,” Vashen said. “I would know if Duggarian’s concerns are shared by the other boiler masters.”

“At once, General.”

Vashen left her to it, pausing to peer out a rear viewing slat, which afforded a glimpse of the black cloud chugging skyward from her rover’s chimney. A pall it was against the clear blue heavens she had dreamed of for so long, yet another sign she had come to rely upon. So long as that smoke kept burning, the bulk of the Hrothgari should be safe, given the cover they needed to sneak southward. That had been Htomah’s plan, anyway, and the one that Vashen and her king’s people had agreed to. Though much could still go wrong, she preferred to focus on making it work.

The grinder feasted, the rover thrummed, and Warder General Vashen rode along in the forgelike belly of her shelled beast, bearing death to her enemies, and hope for a better future.

I
T IS NOT TOO LATE,
an inner voice whispered to him.
Turn back now
,
and all may yet be forgiven.

Htomah shut his eyes, and breathed deeply of the crisp mountain air, trying to quiet the promptings within. So certain he had been that this was the course he must take—so certain that he had risked not only his own future, but those of his fellow Entients: Quinlan, Jedua, and Wislome. After tracking him to the Hrothgari city of Ungarveld and learning of his plan, they had decided to support him in his efforts, lending him even greater confidence than before. Upon launching the siege rovers and setting forth with the rest of the Hrothgari nation in tow, he had felt nothing but peace and determination.

But that was more than a week past, before he and his host had crossed the forsaken wilderness of southern Partha and reached the Aspandel Mountains—returning him to the doorstep of his former home. Now, all he could think of was the wedge he had driven through their sacred order, of the irreparable and far-reaching ramifications of his choices. Did the good he intend truly outweigh the unforeseen ills that must surely result?

“Lost our way, have we?” a voice grumbled.

Craggenbrun. The Tuthari must have followed him after realizing how long he had been gone. So deep was he in his own reflections that he had
failed to sense the other’s approach. “You should be resting,” Htomah chided him quietly. “A long day lies ahead.”

“And another after that, I’m sure. The camp stirs. Have you found our path?”

Not a path, but a crossroads—the last he would come to. Continue west, and he would pass through to the lands of Kuuria, where the Hrothgari might unite with the realms of man in battle against the Illysp. Veer south, however, and he would find himself on the trail to Whitlock, where he might beseech the mercy of Maventhrowe and their brethren—that he might renew his divine oaths and resume his all-important studies.

“I’ve not seen you think twice on which direction to take,” Crag pressed.

“Not once. And our choice here seems clearer than most. What’s wrong?”

Wrong? Htomah nearly smirked at the other’s obliviousness, and at his own inability to fully explain his dilemma to any but another Entient. In simplest terms, he had erred in coming this way. He had never anticipated that the temptation to turn back could be so great.

It is not too late.

But it was. He had led these people out, herding them from their caverns and tunnels to take part in the struggles of an unfamiliar world. Not merely an army of warders, but the entire Hrothgari nation—male, female, and child. Having listened to Htomah’s pleas, they had emerged completely, under royal order of King Hreidmar, to join forces with the humans besieged upon the surface-earth. A desperate decision, but due to their own minor run-ins with the Illysp, and given a lack of options, the Hrothgari had agreed to seek the shelter of the human cities and lend their military strength in a united defense, hoping to earn the trust and gratitude of their neighbors.

Htomah had led them to believe it was possible.

He could not abandon them now.

“Come,” he sighed, rising from the log upon which he had sat in solitude since before daybreak. Even then, his gaze clung with reflexive longing to the southerly track that stretched away among the jagged, crumbled slopes. With a concerted effort, he tore his eyes from that path, triggering a profound hollowness deep within. “Let us march.”

Crag fixed him with a skeptical look, as if dissatisfied by the lack of a true response.
Always wary
,
this one.
Htomah could not fault him for it, but neither would he burden the dwarf with riddles and mysteries beyond mortal comprehension.

“Good day for it, leastwise,” the Tuthari said. “Last time I passed by these mountains, rains and mudslides nearly buried me—and that to the north, among her foothills.”

Htomah grimaced at the reminder. That they had suffered not a single downpour since journey’s inception spoke ill for Warder General Vashen and her siege rovers. He turned his gaze to the north, searching leagues and leagues of open sky and finding only the barest wisps of cloud. So as not to add undue alarm, he had led them to believe that sweat and waste fluids
would be enough. Those served a purpose, yes: Burned as exhaust, they filled the air with a scent that would help to lure the Illychar and fuel their bloodlust. But additional water would be required to fuel the boilers themselves. He had assumed there would be rain aplenty during this, the spring season. Thus far, he had been wrong.

Yet Crag’s observation was correct. Showers here, in the mountains, would have made the path much more treacherous than it already was. Were it humans that followed him, rather than dwarves, Htomah never would have risked crossing this way. But even the smallest Hrothgari possessed a strength and toughness that few humans grew to match. For them, this was the quickest road, made safer by the fact that they had it to themselves.

“One man’s blessing is often another’s curse,” Htomah remarked, turning east along the trail that would lead them back to the Hrothgari camp and his fellow Entients who watched over it. There was nothing he could do for Vashen at this time. To call forth a stream of lightning was relatively easy, given the nature of its composition. But it was no simple task to coax rain from the sky. Perhaps, when the rovers drew closer, he and his outcast brethren could manipulate the winds so that a few storm clouds might brew. Perhaps.

By that time, his own host should be safely over these mountains and into Kuuria. That was where the true battle would take place, he knew. He had seen before leaving Whitlock the way in which the tides of this war were moving. And he had mankind’s actions in the recent War of the Demon Queen as a model. Souaris was where his flock would gather while seeking to weather this storm. At Souaris, this people, too, would be as safe as it could be.

Just a few more days, he hoped, barring misfortune. The going thus far had been easier than any had reason to expect. Even with the siege rovers to cover their movements and hide their true intent, Htomah and his brethren had expected to encounter ambush or resistance of some kind. Keen senses and powers of persuasion enabled them to sweep from the roads they traveled the rabble and strays who might give them away, but they had found precious little need. He had not yet decided whether he should be pleased by this, or alarmed.

For now, then, he and his splintered faction of Entients would stay the course. Overseeing this people’s safety allowed them to keep watch of these lands shared with their own flock—without directly involving themselves with their human charges. In that, he might continue to hope that when his task here was finished—when he had seen to it that the Illysp failed to claim all—he might return home, rather than fade away into exile.

Even though, in his heart, he knew he had just faced his last chance at redemption, and turned the other way.

T
HE EARTH STIRRED, A WHISPER
of thunder rising from within.

Corathel paused, lowering the spoon held halfway to his mouth. He could see upon the faces of his lieutenants that they felt it, too. All kept silent, listening, until the pebbles at their feet began to dance.

“That’s no outrider,” Jasyn warned.

Corathel dropped the bowl of cold oaten porridge he’d been sharing with his division commanders, and snatched up his sword belt. Soldiers in their nearby squads took note, and the murmurs of alarm began to spread.

“To your posts,” the chief general ordered his lieutenants. “Silent muster. I don’t want a panic. Ninth Cavalry upon the western ridge. All others to await my command. General Jasyn, take the Fourth. General Lar, with me.”

The division commanders snapped to obey. An attendant came racing up with Corathel’s battered breastplate, but the chief general waved him off, signaling for his horse instead. Moments later, he and Lar were galloping in the direction of the growing thunder, flanked by a pair of mounted runners, and with Owl and his Mookla’ayans giving chase.
Let it not be Illychar
, Corathel prayed.
Not yet. Not now.

“Sir!” Lar shouted, pointing with outstretched arm.

Corathel saw it: a lookout, ahorse, scampering down from his perch of scrub and boulders. The chief general’s own steed whinnied as he turned its head sharply to intercept.

“Heavy horse,” the lookout reported breathlessly. “A company at the least, maybe two. Alsonian banner, led by a Parthan crier flag.”

“Was it one of ours still carried it?” Corathel asked.

“Sir, yes, sir. I held long enough to be sure. Sergeant Dunnel, if my eyes serve.”

Fair news, or so it seemed. He had sent Dunnel out just last night, after what he had seen of the reavers clogging the southern pass. There hadn’t been time for the sergeant to become a reaver himself.

“Carry on. Bear word to the encampment. Orders unchanged. I’ll send a runner with any further command.”

And off he spurred once again, bearing now a twinge of hope amid the fear. Could it be they had found friends at last?

As the trail he rode emptied out onto the main highway, they were all but on top of him: scores of armored riders, in livery of brown and green and gold. A cloud of dust billowed in their wake, forming a veil against the distant
horizon. And there, out ahead of the central column, the flag his lookout had spied, the red-on-black falcon of his homeland.

He could have smiled, had he not then seen the leader of that host. Encased in black, and with a dark-hued stallion barded to match, the unknown commander drew eye like a bloodstain on fresh linens. His sudden, upthrust fist might easily have been an attack signal; Corathel felt it like a punch in the gut.

The oncoming riders, however, slowed in response. Only the leader and a small detachment pressed on, a few lengths behind Sergeant Dunnel. Corathel breathed a private sigh of relief, and held pace until his outrider reined up before him.

He had barely received the sergeant’s salute when the other newcomers came to a sudden, skidding halt, sending a wave of dust washing over the chief general’s party. Corathel squinted against the grit as he looked them over. The leader wore a visored helm, his eyes hidden within its darkened recesses. His armor was a heavy plate dominated up and down by lines of flared ridges, with reinforced clefts designed to ensnare an enemy’s blade. Bladebreaker, as the design was known, though, for most men, its cumbersome weight and treacherous balance made it all but unsuitable for battle. Corathel listened to the wearer’s breath sawing in and out through vertical mouth slits.

“I would speak with your chief general,” a shredded voice echoed from within that mask, “the one called Corathel.”

Sergeant Dunnel cleared his throat. “With respect, sir, I present Corathel, chief general of the Parthan Legion, and Lar, lieutenant general of the Fourth Division.”

The leader raised his visor at last. Flint-gray eyes peered out from beneath a broad forehead, taking in Lar’s size as if measuring an opponent. They then turned to Corathel.

“Is that so?” he asked. Without the visor to obstruct it, the man’s voice was clear and unbroken, full of meat and stone. “Begging pardon, but you are not what I had imagined.”

“And may I have
your
name, sir?” Corathel replied, even though, at this point, he knew.

“General Rogun, chief commander of Krynwall, and acting regent of Alson.” He gestured to the man on his right. “My right hand and commander-in-waiting, Zain.”

At least he hasn’t named himself king
, Corathel thought. He glanced momentarily at Rogun’s lieutenant, who wore no helm, only a smirk.

“You keep odd company, General, if you’ll forgive my saying so,” Zain offered.

Corathel glanced back as Owl and his brood came sliding up behind him, their olive, tattooed skins bristling with horn-and-stake piercings. “I’ll accept stranger yet, should they prove even half as useful. How many are you?”

“I bring four hundred riders,” Rogun said, “as many as can be spared of two thousand set down as an eastern front, twenty-five leagues west of here. The front is quiet, and my men grow bored. When your rider found us, and
claimed you could use some help, I decided it high time we came to where the fighting is.”

“High time indeed,” Corathel agreed. The personal slights he would tolerate, but he was rankled by Rogun’s flippant tone, after all his people had endured. “I wonder that this aid did not come sooner.”

Rogun’s scowl, after he had seemed so pleased with himself, was an abrupt and startling thing. “I’ve been seeing to my own. We are here now. Take us or leave us.”

“Has my sergeant apprised you of our situation?”

“You seek to break through to the south, from what I’m told, though I might question why.”

“We make for Souaris. Our civilian populace—”

“Shall have the city to itself. Have you not heard? Kuuria is deserted. The Imperial Council seeks to lead its people overseas, and has bid us do the same.”

Corathel felt a sudden lack of breath. “Impossible.”

“So said I, but I have it from Baron Nevik, who has proven his loyalty. And with fewer than ten thousand men at my command, I’ve not the strength to stand alone. My own people are well on their way, led by Nevik, shielded by the bulk of my army. The eastern front I spoke of was established to defend their exodus against enemy pursuit.”

“Just as Thelin holds the Gaperon,” Corathel realized. “He is stalling, no more.”

For but a moment, he seemed to have Rogun’s sympathy. Then the stern-faced general proceeded to lay out his options. “Your people can flee westward to join ours, else attempt to punch through the Gaperon and flee south. Either way, the
men
”—he spat—“of Pentania are in full retreat.”

Corathel did not want to believe it. But he, too, trusted Nevik, and had no real cause to doubt Rogun’s account. The Alsonian general had shown already an inability to mince words, and did not seem one to shy from fact. Though he looked, Corathel saw no guile in his counterpart’s eyes, only cold, implacable truth.

All of a sudden, the Parthan chief general felt the full weight of his weariness, the assault of every buried wound. He had been fighting so hard…and to what end? There would be no valiant stand, no reclamation of his lands. He had given his entire life for the glory of Partha, and had not even known when setting foot upon its soil for the last time.

“It would seem the clearest road for our civilians is to the west,” he allowed.

“Will they find succor among the brave souls of Alson?”

“You know Drakmar’s young baron as well as I. They will be treated as his own.”

Corathel nodded. “Then they shall be readied at once. I have others, however—”

“A final caution,” Rogun interjected, “before you make that choice.”

The chief general raised an eyebrow.

“Reports from Gammelost say the western seas have been unseasonably
volatile, of late. Two weeks ago, a tidal wave tore down her seawall. Should another such wave strike, the harbor itself will be devastated, her fleet destroyed.”

Corathel’s jaw fell slack. “Have the very gods arrayed against us?”

“Wind and water, at the very least. As great a threat as the reavers, perhaps, but I leave it up to you.”

“The ocean
may
swallow us,” Corathel decided quickly, helplessly, “but the Illychar most certainly will. And we’ve no guarantee that the southern seas will be any gentler.”

Rogun nodded smartly. “You spoke of others,” he prompted.

“The rest of my people, already in Kuuria—or so I hope. I would see them given a chance to depart as well.”

“Theirs is the more beleaguered land, I am sure,” Rogun granted. “My victory against Darinor’s host at Krynwall seems to have chased his reavers south and east. Those making for the western shore will need but a token force to escort them.”

Corathel looked to Lar. “Enabling the rest of our men to relieve pressure on Thelin’s blockade by striking at the backs of those foes who now bear down upon them.”

“Further drawing the enemy’s focus,” Rogun added, “which will serve the westward retreat, as well. Should that be your desire, my riders stand ready to charge.”

Corathel gazed again upon the columns of horse reined up at the Alsonian general’s back. Four hundred, Rogun had said. Not nearly enough to overcome the odds his troops would face should they make this attack. But his own men were anxious for it, and Rogun had not led this force across twenty-five leagues merely to deliver a report that could as easily have been entrusted to his outrider.

He glanced at Owl, though the savage could not advise him, then looked again at Zain, who continued to smirk as if this were all some frivolous amusement.

“If it’s blood your men are thirsting for,” the chief general decided, “I will gladly show them where to find it.”

T
HE BEGINNING OF THE END,
thought Allion, as he scrambled from the trench in pursuit of the others.
The more they take
,
the faster we give.

After nearly three days of successful defense of Kuuria’s northern border, the archer had heard talk among several of his comrades that Thelin’s exodus was a mistake. The king had lost his mettle, some whispered. The premature death of his children and heirs—not to mention the near calamity befallen his proud city at the hands of the dragonspawn—had sapped their ruler’s strength and made him frail before his time. If so few could hold out against so many, here behind makeshift bulwarks, what cause had Thelin to fear for the mighty walls of Souaris?

You shall learn soon enough
, Allion had reflected whenever their gossip
reached his ears, though he had kept his morbid sentiments to himself. Such confidence would be needed in the days and weeks ahead. He could have told them that this force of human Illychar they withstood was but rabble compared to the hordes of elves and goblins and ogres and giants he knew to be out there. He could have explained how time would never again favor them, and that if Thelin and the Imperial Council had waited any longer in coming to a decision, they would have lost their already dubious chance at gathering and outfitting the countless vessels that would be required to bear this people out to sea. He might even have confirmed for them the rumors that a dragon had been reborn, and that, should the creature happen to return, it might destroy them all as it had Atharvan, without being winded by its effort.

He’d found it easier to remain silent, however, to let the soldiers around him buoy one another with ignorant bravado, even if he himself could not partake of their false hope.

And then, sometime in the hours before dawn, a pack of Illychar had stolen upon one of the cliffside anchor positions, overwhelming those who held it. According to the officers Allion had spoken to, none knew how the vile reavers had managed it. Some rumored that the company commander had gone mad upon learning his son had been killed in the previous day’s fighting, and had launched an unauthorized incursion to recover the body—thus weakening his defensive position. Others claimed that the company’s ranks had consisted of one or more reavers all along, and that these had finally found an opportunity to compromise the entire regiment. Whatever the truth, the position had been lost, and the army’s flank forced. The entire forward line had folded as a result.

They had barely reassembled behind the next barrier when it, too, was breached, this time by a mad rush straight up the center. Archers rushing to converge from either side had ended up feathering as many friends as foes—and the friends went down much easier. Troy himself had put an end to that debacle, giving the order to retreat to the next bulwark.

Now, that line, too, had fallen. Allion could not yet say why. But the command to displace had filtered down from the east, and he knew better than to ignore it. When a tidal wave was rising, one did not stand still to see where it would fall.

The sun overhead had not yet reached its midday brightness. Three lines lost, all in a matter of hours. Even Allion, in his bleakest of moments, had not imagined this. They were giving ground faster than their sappers and engineers could secure their fallback positions. With every trench and bulwark claimed, the enemy seized valuable weapons and stores and artillery that the defense could scarcely afford to surrender. The great blazes with which they had attempted to destroy the dead and keep the reavers at bay had been all but stamped out. Weariness and despair were beginning at last to exact their critical toll, while the Illychar only gained in strength and madness.

When Allion stumbled, it was all he could do to raise himself to his hands and knees. He did not even remember sprawling to the earth, yet there he lay,
as though in a drunken daze. He stared stupidly for a moment at a scattering of arrows flown from the communal quiver he had thought to snatch from the trench before fleeing. His body felt leaden and useless. Too long without sleep. Too long without hope.