Torn By War: 4 (The Death Wizard Chronicles) (46 page)

Another newborn crashed among them, reaching for Kusala with glowing hands almost as large as a troll’s. Now almost fully recovered, Torg spun and struck at the creature’s neck with his sword. The supernal blade hacked through armor, flesh, and bone, with its usual disdain. The newborn fell and lay still, but did not bleed. Instead, tendrils of fire spurted from his neck.

More golden monsters pressed closer. Torg heard the rare but unmistakable cries of injury and anguish; for the first time in centuries, desert warriors were dying in significant numbers. The transformed newborns were too strong and numerous, and the supernatural armor provided protection almost as impenetrable as a Kojin’s magical sheath.

Torg stood beneath the snow giant and stared up at his broad face. “Either give Jord the ring—or leave us.”

“I will do neither. I wish to confront Mala—and I will need the ring to do it.”

“Agreed,” Torg shouted in a voice so loud that it echoed between Ott and Balak. “But we need you now . . .
without
the ring! Jord will not attempt to steal it from you. She is beyond its influence. Yama-Utu . . .
give . . . her . . . the . . . ring!
”

Now at least a hundred of the newborns had gained the battlement of Ott, and many more were close behind. Another boom shook the wall. Then another. Above the clamor, Mala’s obnoxious voice could be heard, full of threats and boasts.

“Give Jord the ring—or
leave
us,” Torg shouted one final time. “I can afford to dally here no longer.”

THOUGH MADNESS raged all around him, Yama-Utu felt strangely calm. Fighting and anger accomplished nothing. Violence begat violence. Love begat love. The ring burned his finger, but it now burned only with purity . . .

And emptiness . . . so limitless and blessed even Mala would succumb to its eternal lure.

But when he was asked to surrender the ring, Utu’s serenity was disturbed. Anger, which now felt unfamiliar, crept into his awareness, like a tendril of lava slipping off the side of a mountain into a bed of flowers.

“I will
not
,” he had said.

But he knew that he must. What good was truth if it could not tolerate its own scrutiny? The ring was beyond the sensation of craving, so he must be too.

Utu removed the ring. Though it fit the snow giant’s middle finger almost too tightly, Jord was able to slide it over her small hand and onto her wrist, where it hung like a loose bracelet. The pure
Maōi
, which had burned him so painfully, seemed to have no effect on her pale flesh.

Instantly, the snow giant sensed his perception begin to change. Suddenly, the battle that raged around him felt far more threatening. And when his sensitive ears picked out Mala’s ramblings within the cacophony, a rage rose inside him that caused him to bare his fangs. To Utu’s consternation, his companions seemed pleased by his sudden change of mood.

“As my Vasi master used to say, ‘If it’s a fight they want, it’s a fight they’ll get!’” Kusala said.

Utu turned to Jord, as if seeking her approval.

“The moment you ask . . .” she said, and then raced toward one of the inner stairways.

An ever-increasing number of newborns pressed against a host of Tugars on the battlement. The Death-Knower and his chieftain strode to meet the golden creatures. Utu watched as blue-green flame spurted from the head of the wizard’s staff, blowing up a pair of newborns and knocking more than a dozen others off their feet.

Tugars pounced upon the fallen ones, attempting to drive their blades into the exposed slits, but the newborns were quick and powerful. Three more monsters were killed, but the rest attacked again, driving the warriors back. The Tugars’ skill and dexterity amazed the snow giant, but it became obvious that even they were outmatched. If not for Torg’s presence, they would have been routed.

Far below, there was another boom, followed by the horrific sound of rending stone—and then an explosion of laughter from Mala. Apparently the gate of Ott had begun to fail, but Utu paid it little heed. Instead, he listened to the Chain Man’s absurd exhilaration with intense concentration and found that he was able to detect a tiny shred of Yama-Deva in that laugh.

Whatever remained of Utu’s placidity was swept away. Rage replaced it. The snow giant waded into a mob of newborns. Though some stood as tall as eight cubits, Utu was taller still—and stronger. Not even their golden coats could resist his battering fists. Torg came up beside him, hacking the enemy to pieces with his sword, while the Tugars pressed forward from both sides. The newborns were herded toward the parapet, where they began to tumble backward off the wall. Not even their bodies could survive a fall of one hundred cubits, and those that struck stone splattered, while others landed on their own kind, killing both. The snow giant heaved the last of the newborns far into the darkness.

As the Tugars cheered the apparent victory, another boom shook the night, followed by a shattering of stone. Utu peered over the side and saw that the door had been broken. Next came a rumbling sound.

“Henepola has flooded the tunnel with quicklime and debris,” Kusala said.

Mala cursed and railed, then ordered the trolls and Stone-Eaters to clear a new path. The remaining three-headed giant joined in, digging through the rubble with hands as large as a man. Without warning, the Chain Man looked up and seemed to peer directly into Utu’s eyes. Then he whipped the tines of the trident upward and launched three bolts of power directly at the snow giant’s face. Utu leapt aside just in time. The golden beams clipped the edge of a merlon and shattered it. A shard of granite struck a Tugar with enough force to puncture his thigh. The warrior looked down in amazement, as if the sight of his own blood was an impossible occurrence.

From Obhasa, Torg launched a bolt of his own. Utu watched Mala stagger backward, enveloped in a sheath of blue-green flame. But then, an incalculable array of colors—crackling like fire in dry leaves—enveloped first Mala’s left fist and then his entire body. The Death-Knower’s magic was swept away, prompting the Chain Man to howl triumphantly. Then he launched more than a dozen blasts at the top of the wall, forcing Torg and Utu back while shattering large portions of the crenulations. At least six more Tugars were injured.

“We must retreat to Hakam before its great door slams shut,” Utu heard Kusala shout to Torg. “Once the entrance of Ott is breached, climbing the rope ladders will be too slow. We’ll be trapped.”

ONE BELL BEFORE dawn, King Henepola X stood on Hakam and watched with dread as the first of the newborn monsters reached the battlement of Ott. Then he saw Torg’s magic lash out, and he cheered heartily along with the rest of his army. The snow giant joined in the fight and forced the enemy back. There was more cheering. But even on Hakam, the king and his black knights could feel the bedrock tremble as Mala and his monsters assaulted Ott’s great gate.

“I should not have fled the second bulwark,” he said to Madiraa. “I should be fighting alongside Torg and the Tugars. Too long have I cowered!”

“Father, you have never cowered,” Madiraa said. “But I fear that your desire to fight will be realized all too fully. Each and every one of us will have to fight before this day is done.”

“Perhaps not,” Indajaala said.

“What do you mean?” Madiraa responded.

Surprisingly, the conjurer dropped to his knees before the king. “Sire, it may be that Mala is too great, even for us. But that does not mean that all must die. I know that you would never abandon Nissaya, and so I would not ask it. But must all your people perish? Must your bloodline end forever?”

“Speak plainly!” Henepola said.

“I would suggest that Madiraa lead a small force of black knights into the bowels of the keep, where they could escape into Mahaggata,” Indajaala said. “At least some among us would survive.”

“Never!” the princess shouted, with enough force to stagger the conjurer. “I will not flee to the caverns like a coward. No order, not even from my king and father, could impel me to do such a thing. I would bare my throat and slice it open with a dagger before I would agree.”

Rather than become angry, Henepola chuckled. “You encouraged me to flee Ott, but you will not take the same advice,” he said to his only child.

In the torchlight of Hakam, Madiraa’s dark face grew even darker. “It is not the same.”

“And so it is not.” Then he turned to Indajaala and gestured for him to rise. “Though I love my daughter more than life itself, I would not ask such a thing of her. Perhaps the time will come for her—and others among us—to flee. But that time is not now. Do not forget that the energy of God’s creation is forever our ally, thriving within the very stone. As long as Hakam stands, we will remain to defend Nissaya.”

“And what of the refugees within the city?” the conjurer said.

“If we fall, they will fall.”

Commander Palak pointed down at the second bulwark. “Sire, the door of Ott has been broken . . . and it appears the Tugars are retreating.”

Henepola sighed. Then he raised his
Maōi
staff and fired a blast of milky energy at a protrusion above the entrance of Ott. The murder holes released their fury. It would buy them enough time for the Tugars to retreat and for Hakam’s door to fully close, but it was evident that Ott was lost.

“If the third bulwark falls, what then?” he whispered to himself.

Even as he spoke, the first of the Tugars poured underneath the half-closed door of Hakam, some carrying dead warriors on their backs.

WHILE THE REST of the Tugars rushed beneath the door of Hakam, Torg, Utu, Kusala, and the Asēkhas stood in front of the interior entrance of Ott. Though the second bulwark’s door had been broken, the tunnel-like entrance, sixty cubits deep, remained protected by ten iron portcullises in addition to being clogged with dust and debris. The monsters clearing the entryway were stunningly strong, but even they could not open a path before dawn. The greater danger was the newborns regaining the battlement now that Torg and Utu had descended, but Mala seemed to be holding them back. Apparently he wanted to be the first present when the next phase of the battle began. For the time being, those behind Ott remained safe.

“Lord, we should enter Hakam,” Kusala said to Torg. “There is nothing to be gained here. And I’m sure Henepola is anxious for our return. If we linger too long, the king will come down and join us.”

Torg managed a chuckle, though it sounded more solemn than mirthful. “As always, you cut to the quick, as Dēsaka liked to say. Very well. We will leave this place. But if the gate of Hakam is breached, those who stand among us now will be the first to confront the enemy.”

“With Henepola by our side, I’m sure,” Utu said.

“Indeed.”

In less than a bell, everyone was atop Hakam. Just as dawn—and the dreaded heat of day—made its appearance, the great door slammed shut. Including the Tugars, almost sixty-thousand defenders lined the wide wall walk, which towered two hundred cubits above the narrow gap between Hakam and Ott. Ten thousand archers with one hundred times that many arrows peered over the short wall of the battlement. Countless tons of stone and quicklime and a seemingly limitless amount of flammable oil, boiling water, and acidic liquids were ready to be dumped upon their enemy, turning the narrow gap into a quagmire.

The king was pleased to greet Torg, though aggravated—as the chieftain had predicted—that they had dallied so long after retreat appeared inevitable.

“Were you gentlemen having a friendly little chat down there?” Henepola said. “Or perhaps you were planning your breakfast.”

“Speaking of breakfast,” Torg said, “I wouldn’t mind a quick bite—and a sip of water, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble.”

Several desert warriors rushed forward with bread, cheese, and a skin of wine for Torg and Kusala.