Torn By War: 4 (The Death Wizard Chronicles) (40 page)

Unexpectedly, Gruugash felt a surge of magic assault the shield from somewhere above, but it was not powerful enough to destroy it. Then another surge. And another. Still, the shield held. A long time passed before Gruugash felt a concussive blast that dwarfed the others tenfold. In agonized unison, the Pabbajja cried out—as did the witches on the battlement. And then there was another blast, even more powerful than the first. Without the aid of subterfuge, the shield collapsed.

Suddenly the monsters were exposed.

WHEN THE PABBAJJA raised the magical shield, Kusala and thousands of others were cut off from the portion of the battlement that framed the top of the gate. The transparent shield was barely visible, except for a yellowish wobble that betrayed its location. Archers bearing powerful longbows loosed iron-tipped shafts at the monsters, but the arrows were incinerated as soon as they struck the enchanted barrier.

“I thought you said the Pabbajja were our allies,” Madiraa snapped at Kusala. “I’ve told
everyone
.”

“Don’t give up on them yet,” Kusala said.

“Mala has secured the battlement above the gate,” Commander Palak raged. “And he did it with ease. What fools we were!”

“Fools?” Kusala said. “Do not use that word so lightly. Asēkhas are not fools. Tugars are not fools. Better to say that evil has won the first round. But we are not beaten yet. The battle has only begun.”

“The chieftain speaks wisely,” Henepola said. “We must find a way to defeat the shield. If so, we can drive the monsters from the gate and smite them as they retreat.”

Indajaala stepped forward. “Sire, fifteen conjurers are with me on this side. Shall we make the attempt?”

“Quickly!” the king said. “And I will aid you.”

The conjurers pressed forward and joined together their staffs of Maōi. A milky mass of energy flared to life, converging on the head of Henepola’s black staff. The king flung it against the shield, but it easily absorbed the assault. Henepola struck again. And again. With the same result.

“Sire, there are less than a score of us, and yet the Pabbajja number in the thousands,” Indajaala said. “If all our conjurers were gathered here together, we might be able to break the shield. But we are scattered, with a few also on Ott and Hakam.”

“What of Utu?” Kusala said.

The king’s eyes brightened. “Will you try?”

The snow giant stood motionless.

Henepola walked over and stood at his feet. “Will you
try
?”

Utu finally spoke. “I question the value of resistance.”

In a rage, Madiraa rushed to her father’s side. “What do you mean? In all its history, Balak has never fallen. And you question value?”

“Hatred is never appeased by hatred,” Utu said.

“Have you gone
mad
?”

“Madiraa . . .
please
!” Kusala said. Then he turned back to Utu. “Don’t forget your original purpose. Mala is down there, still tormenting Yama-Deva.”

Utu’s ring blazed. The snow giant gasped, as if he had been unexpectedly struck.

“Very well. I will try.” Utu stepped forward and sniffed the sheath with his broad nose. Then he pressed the ring of pure
Maōi
against it. The concussive result knocked Kusala and many others off their feet. Yet the shield held. The snow giant grunted and then pressed the ring against it again. This time, the shield crackled into nonexistence.

When the magical shield collapsed, Kusala rushed along the battlement to greet the enemy. First he encountered a Mogol wielding a stone war club. Kusala ducked beneath a sweeping blow and stabbed the warrior in the abdomen, driving the point of the
uttara
beneath his ribs and up into his heart. Kusala yanked out his blade and nudged the already-dead warrior off the battlement.

A witch, in her beautiful state, came next, waving a tall wooden shaft ablaze with wicked power. Kusala avoided a bolt of crimson fire, rose up, and punched his
uttara
between her alluring cleavage, twisting the blade to maximize damage. Her scream was followed by a gush of putrid smoke. He kicked her off the wall too.

By now, other defenders had joined the fray. Two more witches, in their hideous state, swept past a pair of black knights and closed on Kusala. The magic emanating from their staffs caused Kusala to cringe, but then Utu appeared and slammed both of them off the wall with one sweep of a gigantic arm.

Churikā and several Tugars leapt past them both, attacking the monsters that remained on the battlement. Henepola, Indajaala, and Palak were close behind.

“You make that look so easy,” Kusala said to Utu, temporarily ignoring the fighting that raged around them.

The snow giant shrugged. “And of what benefit were my actions? Have I cured all woes? A pool of water will not quench your thirst if it is choked with silt.”

“I don’t understand . . .”

“That doesn’t surprise me . . .”

“The ring has changed you,” Kusala said. “When the time comes, will you confront Mala?”

“‘When the time comes?’ An appropriate choice of words,” Utu said. “Perhaps you are wiser than I give you credit.”

“Wise? I know little of wisdom. I care only about duty.”

“What is your duty?”

“To prevent the fall of Nissaya.”

“If that’s your duty, then you are doomed to fail,” Utu said, his voice sounding sad. “Nissaya
will
fall, if not today then tomorrow. Or ten thousand millennia from now, when the stone has crumbled to dust. Is there a difference?”

“I don’t understand . . .” Kusala repeated.

“That doesn’t surprise me . . .”

FROM THE BATTLEMENT of Ott, Podhana watched with fascination as the snow giant broke the shield. Instantly the Asēkha shouted orders, reinforced by the black knights’ high commanders, to bombard the monsters. Thousands of arrows were loosed, and the thirty nearest trebuchets launched balls of pitch that exploded on impact. The monsters were besieged, including two dozen witches, twice that many Mogols, and a slew of vampires and ghouls that were trapped on Balak’s battlement. From where he stood, Podhana saw the defenders of Nissaya close on the monsters from both sides. Dracools attempted rescues, but they too were overwhelmed. Even Mala was forced to retreat.

Podhana raised his sling above his head, whipped it in a circle three times, and flung a bead with deadly accuracy. The largest of the trolls grasped his boulder-sized head, then collapsed. The Asēkha loaded another bead and took aim again, this time at Mala.

AN ARROW STRUCK Mala’s chain, incinerating on impact. Another bounced off his chest. A third skimmed the tip of his nose. Thousands more fell all around.

A ball of pitch landed behind him, spraying him with molten shards that clung like glue. A Tugarian bead struck him in the temple, which really hurt. Mala was not in lethal danger, but such means could slay many of the monsters that had come with him to the gate. A dracool fell from the sky and squished a pair of ghouls. A troll—Orkney was his name—had already dropped his hammer, grabbed his boulder-sized skull, and collapsed. The witches, Mogols, and other monsters on the battlement were under assault by sword and magic. He watched one of the damnable Asēkhas stab a witch in the chest and then heave her off the wall. She fell fifty cubits, struck the hard stone at its base, and splattered. Then the mysterious snow giant knocked two more witches off the wall with a sweep of his hand.

Though a part of Mala yearned to stand and fight, a wiser part realized it was time to retreat. He fled from the gate, calling for the others to follow. Another bead struck him on the buttocks, causing him to howl.

With arrows and balls of pitch on their heels, Mala and the monsters thundered away from the bulwark. The majority of the monsters had remained in the field beyond reach of the barrage, and they watched the withdrawal with a combination of shock and hidden amusement. When Mala’s raiding force was safely out of range, he stomped about like a bully who had lost his first fight and had no idea what to do next.

“Where’s that hairy little squirt? The Pabby guy. Gruely. Grugee! Where is he?”

“Do youuuu mean Gruugash?” the Warlish witch named Wyvern said.

“I thought you were dead,” Mala said.

“A dracool came to my resssscue,” she said, her face beautiful despite black smudges on her delicate cheeks. “But at least ssssix of my sisters did not ssssurvive. I am appalled.”

“Do you think I give a crap about your sssssssssssisters?” Mala said mockingly. “Where the hell is Grudack?”

The Pabbajja overlord came forward and bowed. Some of his hair had been singed, revealing a portion of diseased-looking scalp. “May I be of service, General Mala?” Gruugash said.

“
May I be of service, General Mala?
Yes, you
may
, asshole! Tell me what the hell just happened!”

“The shield was broken, general.”

“
The shield was broken, general
. Thank you for clearing that up. I feel
so
much better.” Then Mala pointed the prongs of his trident in the direction of Gruugash’s protruding eyeballs.

“Tell . . . me . . . what . . .
happened
.”

If Gruugash was afraid, he didn’t show it. “A force stronger than the Pabbajja—
and
the witches—broke the shield.”

“I thought you said the conjurers were not strong enough.”

“It was not the conjurerssss,” said another witch, in her hideous state, standing next to Wyvern. “It was your brother, Yama-Utu. He also bearssss great magic.”

Wyvern and Gruugash gasped and stepped back just in time to get out of Mala’s way. Mala’s eyes went wild, and he pointed Vikubbati at the ugly witch and blew her to shreds with a golden blast. Then he turned on the other monsters and spoke in a voice loud enough to be heard by all. “He is
not
my brother . . . is that understood?”

It was understood quite well.

When enough time had passed, Wyvern came forward timidly. “Master, our losssses already are great. We can afford no more.”

“Oh,
shut up
. We can afford whatever I say we can afford.”

Wyvern bowed her head to conceal a snarl.

Gruugash approached more boldly than the witch. “The snow giant, whoever he is, was indeed the cause of the collapse. At first I felt the conjurers attempt to break us, and fail. But the snow giant came next, and he wielded a power that was beyond even the Pabbajja. Among us all, General Mala, only you are the greater.”

Mala’s face went red, but the back-handed compliment reduced his rage just enough to make him manageable. Still, he stomped around for an exceedingly long time before regaining his composure.

“What to do? What to do?” he said. “Where’s that cowardly Augustus? I need to talk to him.”

The Duccaritan pirate named Tew raised his hand. “Master Mala?”

“
What
?”

“You . . . uh . . . sort of . . . uh . . . heaved Augustus over the wall, sir . . .”

“Oh . . . yeah. Right, right. Then . . . hmmm . . . how about
this
for brilliance? I promote
you
to second in command.”

MAYNARD TEW considered himself lucky to be alive. If he had not
volunteered
to lead the small force of pirates that had been
requested
to join Mala’s army, his bones now would be rotting somewhere in the streets of Duccarita, just one more victim of the Daasa uprising everybody had been talking about. In fact, he and several hundred other
volunteers
—those among them in the most trouble, debt, or both—had left the city just six weeks before the butchering.