The Champions (11 page)

Raising his hand the king signaled a messenger.

“Tell the generals to ignore Valdadore’s champions, and
better yet, avoid them altogether. Strike the main force of the Valdadorian army.”

The messenger bowed, and turned to dash off between
soldiers, racing as fast as his legs would carry him to the front lines.

By now the young fool king would believe him dead. Sigrant
smiled.

*****

Tommy raced right past the champions of Valdadore, looking
to report to King Garret himself. Leaping high into the air he looked around
and spotted the young king not but a few hundred yards to the west. Changing
direction, just a few bounds later and Tommy stood before the king.

“The deed is done, your majesty!” Tommy nearly yelled.

“You are certain?” Garret asked, believing the war would now
end as the opposing army would fall apart.

“Yes, your majesty, I saw it with my own two eyes. Sigrant
fell. He was missing an arm, and bleeding from the throat as his entrails were
spilled out around him.”

“How far from his healers?” Garret asked.

“Too far for them to make a difference once summoned,” Tommy
grinned, showing his stubby, pointed teeth.

“Well done, Tommy. Join the troops. Let’s see how long it
takes for Sigrant’s army to disintegrate,” Garret grinned wickedly.

Thousand Hole Tommy bowed low, and turning, he sprang into
the air to cover an impossible distance before leaping again. Two jumps and
Tommy was among the other created champions who served Valdadore.

Garret liked the new plan. Not because he thought his
brother was right in his thinking about the gods; perhaps he was, perhaps he
wasn’t. Garret liked the plan because once the invader’s champions were
destroyed, the rest would turn and flee. The battle could be ended this very
day. Garret liked the idea of returning to the city a victor, and summoning
Linaya to return and reclaim her place by his side. Today the chosen champions
of the gods led by the fallen King Sigrant would follow him to the grave. Garret
smiled and strode towards the front lines.

His troops had their orders; everything was in place.
Valdadore stood waiting, looking out across the field at the enemies who simply
stood looking back.

Garret waited. Seconds turned to minutes and minutes seemed
to take eternities. Garret paced back and forth, wearing a rut into the grass
beneath him. Those around him simply observed the enemy who either did nothing,
or milled about seemingly just as anxious as the defenders.

More minutes passed and Garret realized what the problem
was. The invaders had no one to call the attack. Simple enough, Garret thought,
he would just attack the attackers and draw them out.

Calling upon his blessing Garret exploded in size, sending a
concussive wave of air out in all directions. Taking this as their cue, the
rest of Valdadore’s blessed called upon their abilities as well and in seconds
an imposing wall of giant warriors and beasts stood before the common troops of
Valdadore, blocking any enemies from moving upon the infantry and archers.
Seeing no reaction from the enemy, Garret did the only thing he could do. He
ordered the attack.

A wall of giant soldiers rushed across the field to meet
their enemies, each of them fully expecting the blessed champions of their
enemy to retaliate in kind. Nothing happened. With orders not to kill the
enemy’s common troops, the Valdadorian champions, having closed the gap, simply
stopped when they met the enemy unsure as to what they should do. Garret was
too late to realize what he had done.

From the middle of the enemy army a surge of troops rushed
forward between the giant Valdadorians. These appeared to be common troops, and
as such the champions ignored them. Having passed the Valdadorians, however,
the enemy troops called upon their blessings as well. With nothing standing
between them and Valdadore’s common soldiers, Sigrant’s champions hurled
themselves at the wall of shield and spear-wielding infantry.

Garret turned in time to see the first couple of blows as
several troops of the likes he had never seen before exploded in size, wearing
nothing but armor carved from skulls and bones. These troops, though only
twelve to fifteen feet in size, were devastating. There were at least two
hundred of the bone-clad warriors, each twice to three times as tall as a man.
They hit the wall of spears and shields in a single blow, driving the defenders
back all along the line. Spears bristled, but to little effect against the
large opponents. The warriors clad in bone were a breed of berserker and cared
little for their wounds.

Blow after crazed blow the bone-clad warriors landed,
sending men flying in twos and threes. In seconds hundreds were dead as the
champions of Valdadore rushed to protect their common troops. Borrik was the
first to retaliate and Garret watched as the beast man swooped down among the
enemy, hacking and stabbing whilst throwing fireballs as well. It would take a
full minute to make it back to the rear lines, and by then thousands would be
dead, maybe all of them. Fireballs began to lance from Valdadore’s mages, but
it was merely a feeble attempt to scare the enemy away. Neither the mages nor
the archers dared shoot into their own troops. As Garret and the other blessed
soldiers of Valdadore raced back to their rear lines, they all watched in
dismay as thousands were slaughtered upon the weapons of their foes.

One instant two armies faced each other across a field of
battle as Garret and his primary force raced to save their weaker allies. The
next moment an explosion sounded unlike anything ever heard before as two
entire armies were thrown from their feet by the wall of air blasted out in all
directions.

So strong was the blast, shields were ripped from the hands
of soldiers and were caught up upon the blast and thrown hundreds of yards
away. Those closest the blast were dead, and the next nearest who survived bled
from their pores. Nearly all bled from their ears.

Picking themselves up off the ground, both attacker and
defender alike looked for the source of the blast. None could miss him.
Standing near the center of the battlefield was an enormous man that none had
even heard tell of in legend. Standing close to ninety feet tall the
gray-skinned man raised his four massive arms in defiance, and screamed in
rage. Just yards away from the immense giant lay another four-armed man,
identical to the first but smaller. This one lay face down, several bones bent
at odd angles. Enraged the enormous beast began striding towards the
beleaguered Valdadorian line. With each step the ground trembled, and those
already fighting to regain their feet were tossed to the ground again.

Reaching the line the enormous four-armed beast began
plucking Sigrant’s troops from Valdadore’s line and hurling them back at their
own army. The bone-clad warriors began to panic and flee in all directions but
the giant beast would have none of it. Some he scooped and hurled, others he
squashed beneath his feet as they sought to elude him.

Garret watched as the giant beast singlehandedly destroyed
the bone-clad warriors to a man. He knew his brother’s work when he saw it, and
was impressed by the massive creation. The giant warrior had saved thousands if
not tens of thousands of lives.

Hearing cries from the lines of Sigrant’s troops, Garret
spun anew to face the enemy, and again he was too late. Fireballs, lightning,
ice, and water flew across the field. Every mage the enemy could muster had
singled out the same target. Garret turned again.

More magical blasts than a man of any size could take struck
the immense man over every portion of his body. Lightning blasted a hole
through his flesh in over a dozen locations as fire blistered and peeled his
skin. Giant balls of ice smashed against his skull and face but the enormous
man remained upright. Though pain showed clearly upon his contorted face, he
glared defiantly across the field at the enemy and began to sing a song of
battle that echoed across the land, shaking the very earth beneath them. It was
a song Garret had heard the day before and returning his gaze to the great
warrior he recognized his father just as the second volley of magical attacks
hit. Something inside Garret snapped and his vision turned red.

*****

Seth and Sara stood side by side upon the front lines of
Valdadore’s army. Borrik and Jonas were with the pair and together the four of
them watched the enemy across the battlefield. The enemy watched back. Seth
smiled. He bet the gods were seething right now. If no one was fighting, no one
was dying. This was even better than his plan.

For an hour they watched and nothing happened. Looking down
the line he could see his brother pacing, even from here, and knew that being
patient was not one of his brother’s strengths. Nor was it his own, but Seth
was
loving
this. More time passed and still nothing. Seth, growing
amused, thought it might be nice to sit in the grass and enjoy the view from
another perspective for a while when he heard his brother’s booming voice echo
across the field of battle.

Seth could not believe his brother was calling a charge. Who
would they charge? The troops all had orders to leave the unblessed soldiers of
the enemy alone, yet the enemy’s champions had not revealed themselves. Sadly,
Seth watched as his brother and all of those blessed for melee battle charged
into the fight. Turning, Seth nodded to Jonas and Borrik. The latter sprang
into the air as the former placed his hand to his chest and muttered a simple
prayer as he darted off across the open expanse. Boom after thunderous boom
sounded as over a hundred men and woman blessed by Seth expanded in size faster
than eyes could witness. The charge fanned out across the entire field of
battle, but as expected it was wholly one-sided.

As Valdadore’s champions reached the opposing army, Seth
watched as nothing happened. The defenders stared at the attackers and vice
versa. Seth was embarrassed. Some of Sigrant’s troops began to spill between
the larger opposition, but overall the battlefield remained calm and virtually
empty.

As if sensing something was amiss, Sara began to stalk off
slowly like a cat who had just located its prey. Seth, looking out from his
deep cowl, saw naught but a line of odd looking soldiers slowly detaching
themselves from the enemy troops. One moment these men were slowly wandering
away, using the Valdadorians’ confusion to their advantage, the next they were
openly sprinting as one by one they began doubling in size. Some of Seth’s
troops began to notice, as their heads swiveled around, but without orders they
simply stood their ground. Not Borrik; he realized the threat and began
circling lower before tucking his wings and diving.

Seth was already at work and plucking the life from the
strangely armored troops. Two vanished, then four more; a few seconds later
nine turned to ash. Again and again Seth reached out, but the odd soldiers were
already upon Valdadore’s common soldiers. They didn’t stand a chance. Hundreds
were dying as their screams echoed across the battlefield.

Valdadore’s champions raced to save them and then the
unthinkable happened.

Seth reached out and grasped two dozen of the odd auras
belonging to the soldiers clad in bone. Then the world sped below him as a
great explosion rocked the battleground. Feeling the impact like he had been
smacked in the chest by a castle wall, Seth flew more than a dozen yards
straight back through the air. Landing in a twisted heap, he disentangled his
robes only enough to see what it was that had taken place. His heart stopped
beating. Air fled his lungs. Seth choked.

Upon the battlefield James, the only father Seth had ever
known, had called upon his blessing. So great was his size now that Seth had
changed him, the explosion he produced when shifting was more than a hundred
times stronger than it had been near his entire life. Standing beside James had
been his life-long friend Jack. Like Seth, Jack had always looked up to James
both literally and figuratively. Now Jack lay at James’s feet, a mangled mess
of broken bones. Blood spewed from his ears, mouth, and nose. Even from here
Seth knew he was dead.

From across the battlefield Seth watched as his father
realized the same thing. Raising his four immense arms, the giant unlike any
other upon the world screamed out in rage in a voice that shook the earth and
echoed across the world for a hundred miles in all directions. Everywhere
eardrums lay wasted from the initial explosion, yet all heard the mournful cry
of the giant man. More or less he had just killed his own brother. It was
Seth’s fault.

Tears streamed from Seth’s eyes as his heart broke time and
again. He had just watched a man that helped raise him die. He had watched his
father’s heart break, having killed his own best friend. None of it would have
happened were it not for Seth’s meddling. Seth’s life meant nothing in that
moment. He would have willingly given it to bring back Jack.

With strength to do nothing but watch the battle unfold
before his eyes, Seth lay crying upon the ground, believing himself thoroughly
broken. There he lay as James rushed across the field, his footfalls throwing
all those who had risen back to the ground once again. Roaring in fury he flung
the enemy like dolls across the field at the army who spawned them. Bodies
rained down upon Sigrant’s forces killing those below in a symphony of crunches
and screams.

James, having removed the threat to a man, turned and roared
across the battlefield, unhinged by his rage, daring them to send another
assault. The enemy responded.

Seth sobbed as a magical attack that would destroy
battalions of men lanced through the cold air where it crashed into this
father. Mere seconds later James cried out in pain, but even with his body
ruined, he stood defiant. Ignoring his own suffering James opened his mouth
again and from it came the unimaginable.