The Crown of the Usurper (52 page)

  "That's my fucking spear," Ullsaard said. "And my fucking cat!"

  "You can have them back," said Lutaan. He tossed the spear down into the dirt and almost fell out of the saddle.

  Relinquished of her rider's control, Blackfang surged forwards, almost barging Ullsaard to the ground as she was reunited with her real master. The king scratched her hard under the chin and behind the ears, eliciting a deep purring.

  "Good to see you too, beautiful," said Ullsaard. He grabbed the horn of the saddle and swung himself over the ailur's back. "Companion, fetch my spear."

  Muuril ran out to retrieve the discarded weapon, returning to place it in the king's outstretched hands before taking his place again in the front rank.

  "You army seems to have wandered into my battle, general," Ullsaard said loudly. "I would get them out of the way before they get hurt."

  "We will fight for you," called out one of the other captains as Lutaan rejoined them.

  "Not a fucking chance. You'll be worse than useless," Ullsaard replied. He turned and pointed to hotwards, beyond his army. "The camps are that way. Be sure to have the fires burning and the wine poured for when the real soldiers return."

  It took time for the news to percolate through the weary legions, but slowly by company their line broke apart, dejected men dragging spears behind them, leaving their shields in the short grass so that they did not have to carry them any longer. Ullsaard's company turned about and returned to the Thirteenth while the jeers of the king's warriors ushered out those who had surrendered.

  The departing legionnaires quickened their pace, and soon started to run, glancing with terrified eyes over their shoulders. As the army dispersed, the black mass of the Eulanui was revealed, the air dark around them. A hot wind kicked up the dust in the wake of the breaking legions and drove as a wall through the army of Ullsaard.

  Gelthius held his shield in front of his face while the sandstorm raged around him, men choking and coughing as the wind swirled and the dust rasped skin. The unnatural gale did not last long, but when the Salphor lowered his shield, black tendrils of clouds were creeping overhead and the shadow army was advancing fast.

 

The attention of Urikh and Lakhyri was focussed on the battle. Noran eyed the pair of them carefully as they stood next to the grotesque block of bones and black rock that Lakhyri had brought with him. There were a few dozen Brothers around the camp, watching the army of Ullsaard and the Eulanui swarm from the vantage point of the wooden palisade further down the hill.

  Nobody seemed to be paying the herald any attention.

  With another glance around, Noran hurried between two pavilions, disappearing from view. He headed coldwards, away from the battle, and broke into a jog, not believing his luck. He moved between rows of smaller tents until he reached more open ground around the kitchens and storehouses.

  "Running away?"

  Noran stopped and looked over his shoulder towards the kitchen tent. Luia stood there with arms crossed.

  "Yes," he replied, figuring that he had a good enough head start even if she chose to raise the alarm.

  "Be kind to my sister," said Luia. "You will find her in Enair, if you wish to look for her."

  Noran was about to continue on but there was something about the queen that made him backtrack a few steps.

  "You should come with me," he said. "One way or another, this is not the place to be right now."

  "I would not expect you to understand," Luia said to him, glancing up at the summit of the hill where Urikh and Lakhyri could still be seen. "I have to protect my son."

  "I think it is a little late for that, Luia. Come with me, I will make sure you are safe."

  "No." Luia turned away and started to walk back up the hill, towards the centre of the camp.

  "Suit yourself," muttered Noran.

  The legion had not finished building the fort when they had been ordered to assemble for the attack. The hills of nearMekha rose up in front of Nora, and beyond them the more welcoming lands of Ersua. The herald looked back but could see nothing of the battle unfolding. That was probably for the best, he thought, and broke into a brisk walk, heading back towards distant civilisation.

 

The Mekhani were the first to respond. Amplified by runescribed lips, Erlaan-Orlassai's voice boomed out across the battlefield and the red-skinned hordes surged forwards. The grunts and hoots of the behemodons sounded out alongside the harsh blaring of war horns. Skirmishers on reptilian lacertils raced towards the oncoming army of shadow, their sling stones and javelins falling like rain into the dark mass; the effect was much the same as the Eulanui poured onwards, ignoring the missiles falling upon their leathery flesh. Scorching hot gusts of air forced the lacertils back, the riders unable to control their mounts as they scurried away from the searing heat.

  With a sea of Mekhani warriors streaming around them the behemodons plodded forwards, catapults on their backs launching boulders into the press of swarming black bodies. The rocks thudded into unearthly flesh, cracking chitin plates. A few of the Eulanui were caught directly beneath the fall of the boulders, their black limbs thrashing under the heavy projectiles.

  Through the dust and gloom, the king of the Mekhani could see a throbbing miasma surrounding the Eulanui army. Beneath the oil-slick cloud the grass withered and bushes crumpled into nothingness, their meagre life essence absorbed by the flowing horde of monsters. Where a Eulanui fell beneath a plummeting rock or was pinned by a storm of javelins, gouts of energy sprayed out into the seething, invisible morass.

  Bellowing his challenge, Erlaan-Orlassai led the charge, a stone-tipped axe in each hand. Whooping and yelling, the Mekhani avoided attacking their gangling foes directly, but swept wide around the flanks of the enemy army. It was their task to use their numbers to swamp the ends of the enemy line, dragging more and more creatures towards them from the centre.

  The Eulanui responded to the Mekhani mobs pouring around the sides of their host, groups of shadow-nightmares peeling away to face the threat like a smoke scattering into tufts on a breeze. The ground started to shake, and Erlaan-Orlassai felt a quivering in his gut as the shadow-things roared to each other below the range of even his superhuman hearing. The reverberations intensified as the Mekhani and Eulanui came closer, resonating inside the desert king's head.

  Whipping tentacles and scything tongues met bronze- and flint-tipped spears as the Mekhani closed in on the attack. There were no shouts of pain when tendril-tongues lapped at flesh and armour, dissolving through hardened leather and bronze studs, stripping away skin and fat and muscle. Spears scratched against unnaturally tough hide and rang from crystal eye clusters. Flint shattered on bony barbs and bones snapped at the sweep of horn-sheathed limbs.

  Erlaan-Orlassai ploughed into the midst of the Eulanui swinging his axes to left and right. Their heads split and their shafts splintered in moments and the desert king tossed aside the remnants of the weapons and laid about with bronze-clad hands and iron-hard talons. In a welter of spewing yellow ichor, the rune-carved warrior tore away coiling appendages and ripped gouges into black flesh.

  Over his own panting and the shouts of his warriors, ErlaanOrlassai could hear cheering; encouragement being shouted by the legions of Askh. Faced with a common foe, the men of Greater Askhor raised their voices in support of their fellow men, calling out praise to their monstrous leader.

  Listening to the cheers, a feeling of peace and contentment flooded through Erlaan-Orlassai. Ripping a banded tentacle from a Eulanui, he was filled with hope; hope that even a monster like him might find acceptance. Fuelled by this feeling, he raked his claws across the thorax of another foe, gouging deep into unnatural fibre and bone. As ichor spurted from the wound he saw the slick of life force leaking also. He drew in a great breath, reaching out with a part of him that was not flesh, drawing in the power of the escaping energy. The essence of the Eulanui burnt him, but it was powerful, causing rune-etched muscles to grow larger, rivets pinging from his skin as he swelled up, infused with strength.

  A tendril looped around Erlaan-Orlassai's throat, its touch freezing cold. The runes carved into him started to glow with a golden gleam, shining from his mutilated form. The feedertendril snaked back, steam drifting in wisps from its scalded skin. The Mekhani commander snatched hold of the limb before it was out of reach, and pulled hard, dragging the Eulanui into a swinging punch that smashed deep into its writhing innards. Seizing hold of alien organs, Erlaan-Orlassai ripped his hand free, pulling the creature almost inside-out.

  All around him the Mekhani were dying in their hundreds, but they looked upon their king and were filled with courage. Like a red spear driving into the sides of their foe, the warriors of the desert pushed on.

 

"Ready to the front!"

  Gelthius heard the call from Ullsaard repeated along the long line of the legions as the Eulanui swept forwards. They were almost within range of the spear throwers and the shouts of the battery commanders readied the crews of the war engines.

  The Salphor glanced at his king and saw Ullsaard sitting proud on the back of his ailur, his golden spear raised above his head, ready to give the signal that would unleash the fury of the war machines. To the front, Gelthius could see the enemy scrambling and lurching over the uneven ground, forced to climb the slope of the hills. He looked again at Ullsaard, trying to draw some strength from the king's calmness, wondering how a man could look upon the enemy bearing down on them and not show any fear.

  With an ear-splitting crash of thunder, red and purple lightning lashed down from the black clouds boiling across the sky. Lava throwers exploded as their fuel tanks erupted, showering fire and debris over the nearby legionnaires. The shrieks of burning men made Gelthius shudder and he tried not to imagine those caught in the blasts flailing around, skin and flesh burning away in the grip of the flammable liquid.

  The lightning continued to rage, moving along the line of the legions with deadly wrath. Their ropes severed by the forking energy, catapults and spear throwers tore themselves apart, flinging rocks and shafts and splinters into their crews, tattered cords whipping around like striking serpents. The storm clouds whirled above, the lightning leaving the Askhan war engines as smoking wrecks and still the unnatural tempest did not abate. The lightning crawled across the barren ground and flared through the phalanx. Shields cracked and spears shattered, clothes were set on fire and men screamed as the forking energy crackled through their bodies.

  The air was growing hotter as the Eulanui approached and the ground was trembling beneath Gelthius's feet. He gripped his spear tighter, knuckles paling. The shaking increased and Gelthius heard the pounding of massive drums off to his right. The companies of the Seventh and Fourteenth made way for the Nemurians as they marched, the crash of their drums matching the thump of their heavy tread.

  A lightning strike earthed itself into the rear ranks of Gelthius' company, causing those at the front to turn in shock, in time to see after-sparks flaring across the helms and breastplates of a dozen men, the cries of the wounded drowned out by the thunder of the Nemurian drumbeat.

  "Eyes to the enemy!" commanded Ullsaard, pointing his spear towards the advancing black mass, now a hundred and fifty paces away.

  Gelthius pulled his shield up a little higher and set the butt of his spear against the ground. Looking at the shadow-things he knew what it was they faced: dark spirits. The Askhans had forgotten, but in Salphoria they had kept alive the tales of the unearthly forces that had shaped the world and continued to inhabit it. He whispered a few words to the spirits of sun and air to clear the cloud, and hoped that today would not be the day the raven came for him. He thought about his family, and realised that he did not know whether they were alive or dead; nor did they know of him.

  Like an iron cleaver biting into meat, the Nemurians collided with the leading edge of the Eulanui advance. Six thousand of them and more had travelled from their distant isle to fight in the battle, Gelthius had heard, but such knowledge was little comfort to him; if they had come all of that way to take part the consequences of defeat were dire indeed.

  Hammers and axes and brutal maces crushed and cut into the Eulanui as the Nemurians steadily pushed forwards. Equal in size to their foes, the scaled giants battered and tore and stomped a gouge into the Eulanui's ranks, but risked being enveloped by their numerous enemies. Ullsaard clearly thought the same and his voice called out the advance. Dozens of trumpets sounded the order as the king raised his spear once more and then swept it down, its gleaming point directed at the heart of the enemy force.

 

It was such a familiar noise, the crunch of feet and jangle of armour, but to Ullsaard it had a new sharpness, a clarity he had never noticed before. He felt the beating of Blackfang's heart beneath him, the compression and expansion of her muscles as she carried him towards the Eulanui. Her panting mingled with the rub of leather and scrape of metal.

  He could sense the unease of his army, but despite their fear they advanced with him, a solid wall of shields and spears. So far his plan, carefully concocted in council with Erlaan, the legion first captains and several representatives of the Nemurians, seemed to be working. The initial Mekhani assault had drawn out the enemy, splitting them and teasing the mass apart like dough stretched by a baker. The Nemurians had plunged in at an angle, driving forward to meet up with Erlaan and his warriors on the right, effectively cutting off several thousand foes from the main host.