Who Walks in Flame (3 page)

Khuar-na speaks to his people, his voice booming through the use of a simple enchantment.

“Today, we will have our revenge! Today, a new order shall begin on this world. My people, we will rise again!”

The cheers of ten thousand desperate souls resonate across the battleground. The captains he appointed divide his motley, ill-equipped horde into two groups of equal size.

“On my signal,” Khuar-na shouts. "Give no quarter!”

After that, Khuar-na’s army picks up its pace, moving forward at almost a jog. The Scorch-Walker matches them, though it is little more than a casual walk for a beast of its size. Opposite to them, the artillerists load their weapons. Squads of archers and gunners take their positions. Pikemen and swordsmen stand their ground before them. Cavaliers with pistols, lances, and sabers move to the sides, preparing for a flanking maneuver.

Do they think me ignorant of tactics and technology? Clearly, they don't remember the weapons their ancestors faced, and overcame despite the odds. They must think weapons such as theirs are new inventions.

The first cannons boom. Their fire concentrates on the Scorch-Walker. 

“Charge!” Khuar-na orders his troops as the Scorch-Walker launches into a sprint, dodging and weaving. Cannon shots scream by, missing a target the artillerists never imagined could move so swiftly.

They struggle to reposition and lead their shots ahead of the Scorch-Walker, knowing they will get one, perhaps two more volleys before the behemoth plows into their front lines.

The second round goes off in staccato fashion with artillerists firing as soon as they think they have shots. One cannonball whizzes by Khuar-na, missing by only a few paces, yet he remains unfazed. A second strikes the Scorch-Walker in the chest. The great beast grunts as a scale cracks. The flattened, thirty-pound ball falls to the ground. 

With eyes sharper than those of any human, Khuar-na spots the leadership element left of center. A thought, and the Scorch-Walker veers toward them.

A battery of light, maneuverable cannons trains its fire on Khuar-na. The Eastern captain raises his hand, trying to guess when the behemoth will next weave. Musketeers aim their guns. Khuar-na grabs his amulet, engraved with the sign of an alien sun ten billion years away, and directs the surging energy within it.

Carnage follows.

***

The Scorch-Walker’s approach begins as peels of thunder and plumes of dust and smoke. The earth shakes, and in the distance, it seems that the entire West burns. Refugees and scouts told of lands already turned to desert wastes by the might of the Witch-King.

When the Scorch-Walker rises on the horizon, like a moving fortress, the soldiers lose their nerve. They fidget and back away.

“Steady!” yells Bregissa. “It’s nothing more than we expected!”

Men return to their positions, but still they rock from foot to foot, as if weighing the balance of their lives. But there are no other options. Bregissa warns them a victory will be won only with great hardship. Battle now, battle later, it must come to this one way or another. 

As two men fall to their knees and beseech the elder gods of storm and sky, she mutters, “I didn’t prepare them well enough.”

“You did what you could,” replies Kerenthos. He looks haggard. He's gotten too old for campaigning, and his leg hurts, as if the missing lower half is still there, rotting away from the wound that ultimately took it. 

“Can you walk with me?” she asks.

“As far as you need me to,” he says, though at the moment he isn’t sure he could march another league without collapsing.

With Kerenthos in tow, Bregissa stalks through the ranks and stands in full view of the army. She blows three sharp notes on the Horn of Valyn and thousands of eyes leave the approaching horror and turn toward her.

As a skald, Bregissa can work three key magics with the power of her voice. She can compel an individual of weak will to obey her. She can sway a crowd toward her opinion by manipulating their emotions ever so slightly. And she can boost her voice to a volume five times louder than normal.

“Men of the East!” she shouts. “Today we become legends! The Witch-King’s beast may kill us, but we will not die as cowards! Khuar-na will not take our honor!”

She feels hearts and minds strengthen, but not enough.

Bregissa draws the white-steel saber given to her by King Hugix, whose advancing years forced him to stay behind. The metal is the color of bleached paper with only the slightest sheen to it.

Bregissa faces the Scorch-Walker and waves the saber. “Come and die, bastard king of serpents! I will wait for you here at the front! I do not fear you! My army does not fear you! Even our babes at home do not fear you!” 

The Witch-King can't hear her. But her gesture lends courage to the soldiers. And as the minutes pass and she declines to move, the soldiers realize she isn’t merely boasting. She truly plans to remain.

Several kings and lords come to her. “Return to the command post,” they urge. “We will need your leadership and guidance.”

“No,” she tells them. “I am busy being a figurehead. The plans are made. They are yours to execute. Leave me to my duty.” And in a whisper only Kerenthos hears: “And my doom.”

As the enemy forces increase their pace, Bregissa embraces Kerenthos and kisses him deeply, for what she thinks must surely be the last time. “You don’t have to stay up here with me.”

“I have already come here against your orders. Why would I leave now? And why do you torture me so? As if my love is in question, as if I wouldn’t willingly die with you for even the slightest cause you chose?”

“Forgive me, my love. I just had to try.” She hugs him close. “You know you are the strength of my soul and the true heart of my voice. Though the Isle yet needs guarding, I’m glad you're here after all. I don’t think I could face this without you.” She pulls away and passes the saber to him. “The white-steel would fare better in your hands. I entrust it to you.”

“But I’m nearly a cripple!”

“Nonsense. I’ve seen you practice your swordplay. You can still take five men by yourself. And you’re not burdened with my duties of leadership.” He starts to argue but she cuts him off. “I feel it is right for you to wield it. We will not discuss it further.”

Orders spread down the lines. Fear runs rampant as the beast grows larger in their sight, but for the moment, their resolve is set.

The first cannon shots boom. The beast suddenly launches into a full sprint, and the shots miss.

“By the gods, how can it move so fast?” says Kerenthos.

More shots and more misses follow as the Witch-King continues to evade. But at last one hits the behemoth front and center. A cheer rings out amongst the troops, and then dies as the shot falls harmlessly from the beast’s scales.

With the strange, half-reptilian humans charging along the flanks, it's obvious that the behemoth aims for the center where Bregissa and Kerenthos are waiting.

“Unless the cannons find a weak spot, we will die sooner rather than later,” Kerenthos says.

“Hush, love. Embrace hope.”

It's almost upon them when the musket units spread throughout the army target the Witch-King, and the archers nock their arrows, preparing to fend off the enemy fighters. 

The beast ceases to weave and heads straight, but off center, to the right of Bregissa and Kerenthos.

“He’s going for the high command!” Bregissa shouts. “We may have a chance at him when he passes us!”

Kerenthos points. “Look, the Penthian battery has trained on him!”

Bregissa hears the captain giving orders to the crack artillery battalion as they aim two dozen cannons filled with grapeshot. Hope swells within her that at least the rider will be taken out. They can't miss him.

“Ready, aim—”

The amulet of the Witch-King flares to life, stealing her breath. A split second later, her hopes shatter as a tremendous explosion rocks the world around her.

***

Scorched and bruised, her ears aching and ringing, Bregissa peels herself off the ground. Smoke swirls around her. She coughs and struggles to catch her breath. Faintly, at first, she hears screams of terror and wails of pain.

Through the haze, Bregissa sees what remains of the Eastern army struggling in disarray. Not a musketeer or artillerist yet stands. The cannons lay shattered, twisted, and melted.
Every man with wealth enough to carry a pistol is wounded, if not dead. So much destruction. How could we have known?
Many survivors flee in panic, pursued by the Witch-King’s minions. Bregissa spots one coastal baron pinned beneath his fallen horse, clutching at his side where his pistol exploded and punched a hole in his armor. 

Kerenthos appears, covered in smut, scraped and battered, but alive. “We can’t win.”

She shakes her head. “We’ve still got a chance.”

“But all we’ve got left is archers and infantry!” He draws the white-steel sword and sighs. “There’s no hope here.” 

“Look!” replies Bregissa, pointing. “We still have hope.”

Bregissa and Kerenthos sprint toward the high command as Lord Tantren, in his gleaming plate mail, lifts his spear tipped with white-steel, rallies the knights around him, and charges. Above them towers the Scorch-Walker, shrouded in the drifting smoke clouds.

Hellfire streaks down from above and strikes two knights, as the behemoth lifts a giant foot and stomps it down onto Lord Tantren. When the foot rises again, Bregissa sees neither man nor spear. 

Now only Kerenthos can kill the sorcerer. The third white-steel weapon she knows was lost along with its wielder, for Count Krenn, who commanded the outlying cavalry, loved his four ornately carved pistols. It would take too long to find the weapon now.

The beast kills scores with several more stomps then swallows at least a dozen at once. Finally, it spins with surprising agility and flicks its tail through the ranks, breaking some soldiers and halving those in lighter armor. All the while, the Witch-King casts hellfire at select targets, seemingly tireless, as if the spell to ignite the army’s gunpowder had cost him no stamina at all. His victims writhe helplessly, their flesh burning as if coated in oil.

As the army routs, Bregissa and Kerenthos are still hundreds of paces away from the behemoth. 

“We'll never get near them without cover, or some sort of distraction,” Kerenthos says. “Even then…”

Bregissa clutches the amulet in which remains the bulk of the talent energy she took from Orthinn's soul. She calls out the power and catches it in her hands, cupping it like water. She lifts it to her lips and swallows. Immediately she employs the voice of influence and shouts as loud as she can: “Men of the East! Rally to me!”

From all over the battlefield, those able to move heed her cry. Some of those fleeing stop and turn back, fighting their way through Khuar-na’s soldiers. They can’t help but meet her summons, for in that moment, her voice is fully awake, with all the force that her legendary father had possessed. And added to that is her own power, skill, and passion.

Surpassing anything Orthinn ever accomplished, her voice perhaps works too well. Witch-King and behemoth turn toward her. A final swish of the beast's tail completes the destruction of the army’s high command, leaving the land nearly devoid of king and baron.

I have outdone even you, Orthinn,
she thinks.
If I survive, it is me that history will remember most. You will be, at best, nothing more than the one who taught the greatest skald ever.

In complete disregard of their fear, soldiers rush toward Bregissa. The Scorch-Walker crushes many of them as it speeds toward Bregissa and Kerenthos, covering the distance between them in mere seconds.

The Witch-King draws back a hand and flings hellfire at her. She dodges to the right, but the flaming mass changes course to match her movements. At the last moment, Bregissa throws herself flat. The fiery orb passes over and strikes behind her with a heavy thud. 

With the stink of sulfur burning in her nose, Bregissa climbs to her feet, only to see two more streaking toward her, one lagging behind the other. With no chance of avoiding both, Bregissa stands tall. Perhaps her death will inspire those remaining.

With the flames so close that she can hear them crackling, Kerenthos leaps out in front of her. Blade held before him, the fire hits the white-steel, splits in half, and fizzles into puffs of smoke. The second one nears, and Kerenthos bats it away with the sword. 

Khuar-na curses in his strange tongue, and the Scorch-Walker rears up.

“Move!” Bregissa yells.

She and Kerenthos sprint away, and the beast’s feet pummel the ground, barely missing them. Just as the two skid to a halt and ready their next move, the house-sized head of the behemoth snaps at them with far greater precision than its feet.

Bregissa dives to safety, but Kerenthos, unable to run any longer, jumps as high as he can and drives his sword toward the beast, hoping to stab an eye. The sword misses and cuts through the scales of the lid instead, drawing forth a dark ichor. 

The wound is nothing more than a scratch.

The Scorch-Walker snaps its head back and the curving horn of its snout bashes Kerenthos. The sword falls from his grip as he tumbles through the air, blood spraying. He lands fifty paces away and lies unmoving. 

Bregissa runs toward Kerenthos, but the beast’s head whips around and blocks her path. From high atop the behemoth, the Witch-King sneers, his sinister eyes alight.

Bregissa draws the wind pistol. Maybe she can get a shot on the rider and knock him from his perch, for all the good that might do. Noticing the pistol, Khuar-na’s eyes narrow. He touches his amulet.

The bronze wind pistol instantly becomes hot, but before she can cast it away, it cools suddenly. Then the tiny needle of the shot meter, which had sat on “1” for all her lifetime, goes haywire, pounding against the upper limit until the needle breaks and the glass that encased the meter shatters. The weapon pulses, almost as if it's alive. She prays it will yet work.

“Face me like a man, coward!” Bregissa shouts, trying to lure the Witch-King closer.