The Blasted Lands (8 page)

Nolan carried himself easily enough. He’d grown up in the north, joined the army when he was of age and had now been trained as a soldier. Canhoon was where he was assigned and where he’d expected to stay, but now he was on his way to Tyrne, where he was supposed to join the Imperial Guard and where he would see his family again.

That was the plan before he found out about the death of his father, Wollis. He hadn’t seen the old man in a long time and now it looked like he would never see him again. The thought was a hard one to accept. He’d grown up believing his father was nearly indestructible. The man had been on the road and traveling for most of Nolan’s life, but he’d always seemed almost like a giant when he was home and he’d always been the first to tell stories of the military life and the people he’d fought with and against.

Thinking about Wollis made his chest swell with pride and his heart ache with loss at the same time. He would be missed.

The man who’d been his father’s commander had sent for him. The plan had been to reunite the entire family and Nolan was grateful for the effort, even if it hadn’t worked out.

“First thing I do when we get to Tyrne, is I take the money I’ve saved up and buy myself a new pair of boots. These bastards are falling off my feet.” The voice came from Darus Leeds, who could rightly enough be called Nolan’s friend. Which is to say he was one of the people in the battalion that Nolan liked and additionally was one of the few he trusted. Nolan was not big on trust. His first few weeks in the army had taught him that many people are thieves. Those same weeks had taught a few of the thieves that stealing from Nolan was a very bad idea.

Stonehaven was a long ways off, but the lessons he’d learned in his hometown stuck with him. Most of the people in the area, not surprisingly, worked in the quarries and worked hard for what they owned. That tended to make them a bit reluctant to let go when something was taken from them.

Darus was fairly tall and lean, but Nolan had already learned that didn’t mean much. While he was nowhere near as solidly built as Nolan he was as strong as an ox and had a fearsome way with a sword. They often faced off against each other in practice matches and from time to time teamed up against other members of the battalion. Darus came from a good distance to the east, somewhere near Elda. From what he’d told Nolan, the people in his area still trained hard with sword and shield alike. Nolan saw no reason to doubt those claims.

Darus was looking his way and expecting a response. “What?”

“I said what are your big plans when you get to Tyrne?”

Nolan looked away. “I’m supposed to meet with a family friend.” He muttered the words and a little twist of guilt nibbled at his insides. It was unjustified but the guilt was still there.

“Your family has friends in Tyrne? Didn’t you say as you’re from up north near Trecharch?”

“Stonehaven. A bit east of Trecharch.”

“Yeah I heard of that one.” The way he said it let Nolan know his friend was lying. He didn’t take offense. Darus had a need to sound knowledgeable about everything he encountered. Several people had called him on his claims in the past and Nolan ignored them as easily as he ignored the false claims. Darus was a friend. It was precisely that simple for him.

“My father.” He paused a moment to swallow the lump trying to form in his throat. “The man he was riding with is in Tyrne. He’s asked to see me. He wants to present my father’s ashes.”

Darus made a noise and nodded his head. That was all there was to say on the matter. Darus had left home when he joined the army and had no intention of looking back. What his parents might have done to inspire the cold distance within the otherwise friendly man he did not know. He merely understood that Darus had no desire to speak of it.

Nolan thought back to his one meeting with Merros Dulver. He’d seen the man ride up on horseback and smile and thought him a striking figure. He was tall and rugged and solid. He carried himself with confidence and he’d shaken Nolan’s hand and spoken highly of his father’s prowess in combat. He’d liked the man just fine right up until the time his father decided to go off with him.

There was nothing fair about that, of course. He knew Dulver was a good man. His father had said so on several occasions.

Still, his father was dead. And the man who’d taken him away was one of the men in charge of the entire army.

“What you should do is find out what this fella says about how your father died.”

Nolan nodded his head and looked around. They were following the same road they’d been on for longer than he cared to think about. Up ahead the sound of horns came back their way and the foot soldiers dutifully stepped to the sides of the road and waited, most of them grateful for the chance to rest their legs for a moment. The last time they’d been called off the road had been to let the escorts past with the body of Emperor Pathra Krous. That had been a somber moment. An escort of mounted Imperial Guards had dominated the road, and a great black wagon moved between them, the windows covered and the Imperial crest gleaming on the sides. Nolan, along with every other soldier, had held his sword out above his head as the wagon rumbled slowly past and several of the soldiers had done their best to hide tears.

Tears for a man none of them had met. What a mad world they lived in.

Somewhere up ahead a loud noise came their way, as if to prove the point. It was a warbling cry, a trumpet call that he was not familiar with.

The response was immediate by a good number of the foot soldiers. They grabbed their shields and their weapons and prepared. The men sported swords or axes. Those that did not brandished spears. The road almost immediately bristled with pointed, sharpened steel.

“What the hell is happening up there?” Darus was squinting against the glare of the sun’s attempt to burn away the mists, trying to see what was causing the disturbance, but with no luck.

Someone called out, “Spears to the front!” and immediately the foot soldiers with spears came forward, sliding past the swordsmen and preparing themselves. A lanky man with graying hair moved into position in front of Nolan and dropped into a crouch, holding his spear with the point aimed high and easily lowered should it be necessary.

No one questioned whether or not this was a drill. The sounds of conflict came from further up the road. The view was obstructed by spearmen and by the curve of the road itself.

“What the hell?” That was Darus again as a deep roar cut the air and was immediately followed by the sounds of several men screaming.

“Spears, ready! Here they come!”

“They” were impossible to see at first, but hearing them was easy. The sounds of metal and men joined together in a loud tidal roar, but that was nothing to the sounds clashing for attention. The noises were unsettling, alien, and made Nolan’s skin crawl with distaste. There were low growls and higher sounds, a keening noise that barely made sense to his ears.

The lines of men that bordered the road began to falter and spear tips that had been raised high wavered and then dropped as something came closer. Whatever that something was, the spears were attacking, doing their best to pin it in place.

A vast shape took to the air for just a moment. A blur of dark fur, darker leathers and metal and unless he was mistaken there was a person atop that lunging, flailing insanity. Yes, he saw an axe coming down even as the massive thing yielded to gravity. Several spears went sailing in the wrong direction, their points falling like saplings in a sudden flood. But more weapons went in the right direction and a moment later the roars and screams of the furred nightmare were faltering and then dying completely.

Ahead of them, along the line, soldiers screamed and broke ranks, unsettled by whatever it was they were seeing. The squad leaders called out for order and a small handful began listening, drawing back into the proper ranks, but some did not pay heed too enthralled by what they were seeing, apparently.

Darus shook his head. “Can’t see a damned thing.”

Nolan was about to agree when the shape came through the ranks. It was low-slung and charged across the ground, roaring and swinging clawed front limbs that slapped people aside with too much ease. There was indeed a man riding on the beast’s back, but he was dead near as Nolan could tell. The man’s skin was gray and his body sagged to one side, flopping and flailing with each move of the creature. Soldiers screamed as they were hurled through the air, broken and bleeding. Some only staggered a few feet, but a few truly unfortunate souls were thrown twenty feet or more with a single sweep of the monster’s limbs.

Nolan backed up and looked for a better access point. Darus moved with him, looking for a moment as if he planned to run away. But that wouldn’t happen. The punishment for running from combat was death and they all knew it.

There were few people from the north who couldn’t climb a tree. Trecharch and the surrounding areas had trees that practically begged to be climbed, and so Nolan resorted to older skills, found the best looking tree for the job and scampered up as quickly as he could. Flinching a couple of times when his equipment tried to snag itself on a branch of catch on the rough bark.

Not far away the soldiers he’d trained with were scattering, giving more room to whatever the hell they were fighting and he saw them for the first time. The great furred nightmare he’d seen was down, killed by the footmen. Easily a dozen of them had gone down in the process, but they had taken man and mount alike.

Moving over those remains, demons from the worst kind of nightmares charged, slashing at the soldiers too close to the. The attackers moved quickly, but they were not faster than the eye.

What he’d thought was one enormous attacker was actually several. From above he could see the breaks in the forms that were close together and pushing along the same path. The large shapes could easily have broken away from each other and moved through the entire area, but they stayed stubbornly on the road and they continued to follow the path even when the foot soldiers and cavalry were in their way. Horses and riders were knocked aside and torn apart if they got too close. Any men standing nearby when the odd shapes got closer were slapped away or violently attacked. As he observed, one of the shambling things reached out and yanked a man into its embrace. Within a heartbeat’s span the captured soldier was screaming and dying. As he died four of the spearmen attacked, driving the points of their weapons deep into the loathsome thing that shuddered and wailed and died.

Before he could see much of the dying creature the next in line rolled forward, crawling over the dying man and monstrosity alike.

He clamped his teeth tightly together and looked down at Darus. “Get to the supplies! Get to the wagons!”

“What? Why?”

“I want to try something.”

As they spoke the column of nightmares tramped closer, pushing past or through the men fighting them. Spears and swords rose and fell and a few more of the things fell to the weapons. But the next in the line kept coming in a slow moving tide of unnatural flesh.

And as the people fighting them looked at the creatures, occasionally a trained fighter would back away, disgusted or horrified or simply unbelieving of what they were seeing. Nolan wasn't sure which was stronger, his desire to know what was so unsettling or the part of him that never wanted to be that repulsed.

Nolan dropped quickly from his perch and ran toward the wagons, hoping that Darus was with him. The things were coming closer and he had a momentary fear that someone would see them running and think they were trying to flee. He remembered his father telling him about two occasions where he’d had to discipline a soldier trying to flee from a fight. Neither of the men had lived through the experience. The idea of a spear in the back or a noose around his neck did not appeal at all.

Death did not come in the form of a spear or rope, but the things behind him were definitely getting closer.

The wagons were in motion. Not because they were supposed to be, but because the horses apparently did not like what was coming their way and they were trying to get up the sides of the well-worn road and drag their wagons with them. The men trying to calm the beasts were not having any luck. One wagon had fallen to its side already and the draft horses were straining and trying to haul their burden along despite the added traction. The men riding the wagon had fallen. One lay broken on the ground and the other was pinned under the weight of the capsized vessel.

Nolan didn’t take time to think it through. Instead he pulled his axe and climbed atop the wagon, hacking at the couplings until they broke. It didn’t take much effort as the wooden connections had already fractured. Darus followed his lead and took a long knife from his belt sheath and cut the leather straps at the same time. A moment later the horses were free and the wagon was no longer moving.

The man under the wagon was not moving. He was alive, but his eyes had rolled back and his skin was pale and sweating. It would take more than the two of them to free him. The wagon was too damned heavy.

Nolan shook off the worries for the downed driver and climbed over the wagon. The canvas cover had broken and the supplies inside were spilled halfway across the road, only adding to the chaos as other wagons and horses tramped over the supplies within.

He’d been hoping for one of the armory wagons, but was not that lucky. The spilled contents were from the larders.

Behind him a wagon succeeded in climbing the rise and lurched off the road. The man who’d been riding the wagon and directing the horses did not make it along for the ride and let out a yelp as he fell backward and flopped down the hillside back to where Nolan and Darus were waiting. He was battered and looked a bit surprised to find himself in the mud, but he got back up on his own. His round face was familiar, but there was no name associated with him in Nolan’s mind.

Nolan looked the man over. “Get a weapon ready!”

The man nodded and pulled at his sheathed axe. It was more a tool than a weapon, unlike like the one Nolan himself carried, but it would cut a monster as sure as it would chop wood.