The Silent Army (18 page)

The long run of the river was deceptive. Closer to the Blasted Lands the banks of the river were close to the ground, but the closer one got to the mountains, the deeper the cut of the land. The river had hacked a wound into the land itself and cliffs rose high enough to make the water impossible to reach without climbing down several hundred feet. The foothills were deceptive and the land was magnificent to look over. In a few places villages had built bridges between the two sides of the river. Most were in good repair. Stastha left them that way. A person could never tell when being on the other side of a river might be beneficial.

Canhoon was getting closer. Within a day the vast city in the air would be moving along the river to the west and heading for the very spot where she was now standing.

She prayed the gods gave them the best possible weather. Clouds, yes, but no rain or snow. Whatever the case they would be ready, of course, but best if the weather worked with them instead of hindering the cause.

The work was sturdy, but it was also ungainly in appearance. It would do.

Satisfied at last with her work, Stastha took out her horn and blew four sharp notes that echoed between the mountains and along the river below.

The sound came to them as the skies to the east began to lighten.

Tuskandru rose and stretched and walked over to Brodem, who was still pretending to sleep though the sound had awakened him.

“Up, you lazy brute,” Tusk said with affection. Brodem let out a good-natured rumble and rolled over, giving Tusk access to the satchel he wanted.

A moment later his horn was out and he was blowing four sharp notes that perfectly mirrored the ones Stastha had just called out.

There were no complaints from most, but the newest among them looked around, shocked by the powerful notes.

Bram Littner, the spokesman for the villages who now followed Durhallem, looked to Tusk. “My king? What do you need?”

“Get up! It’s time for war!” Tusk bellowed the words even as his followers rose from their rest and grabbed their belongings. The newer followers had little. Most could carry only a cloak and a few supplies. That was just as well. They would learn today as they had every day since joining the followers of Durhallem.

The boats raised their anchors and untied from hastily crafted stays along the shoreline.

Tarag Paedori bellowed to his people and they responded.

Within ten minutes the Sa’ba Taalor were on the move. Those with mounts took to the lead. Those on the boats were close behind. The stragglers – mostly from the village – did their best, hastened by the younger members of the Sa’ba Taalor, who made sure they moved as quickly as they could.

Life is a series of tests. No one was permitted to fail. Young Mendt and her cohorts kept the stragglers in line. Those who could not follow the orders of their god were not left alive.

Durhallem is called the Wounder for a reason.

They travelled east with every haste. The time had come to show the foolish among the Fellein that no place was safe from the Sa’ba Taalor.

The winds picked up pace and the boats soon took the lead, moving even faster than the mounts. From all points among the gathering horns called out, not to communicate but to call to the gods, to let them know that their children were on the move and eager to serve.

Far to the east Lored ran into a surprise as he moved along the river’s edge.

His army was moving, but slowly. The war engines had to be pulled from location to location. It might have been easy enough to build more in their stead, but there were no forests here, only occasional trees and more flatlands.

Bromt suggested taking the river, seizing boats as needed and moving quickly to the west. There was a war going on and there were few threats to them that they had not easily crushed. A few hundred of the Sa’ba Taalor had been badly injured and half that number had been killed.

They wanted war, and they wanted it sooner rather than later. There were also several cities with great walls along the river, at least according to their captives. Best to find them and crush them if they could, and so they rode along the river. It was easy enough. They took boats by force as they went, and killed their enemies in the process.

When the arrows came, few of them were prepared.

Oh, to be sure, there were guards, but whereas usually they stayed alert because they were on foot, the waters made them complacent. They looked for boats and little else. They were foolish.

Lored saw the arrows and called an alarm, but his call was cut short by the arrow that slammed into his own throat and stopped against his vertebrae. He reached for the obstruction, uncertain as to why, exactly, he was having trouble breathing, and then fell back, drowning in his own blood.

The followers of Wheklam onboard the boats steered and turned the vessels, moving them to better defensive positions, but it did them little good. Their assailants had waited patiently and brought their full wrath down from a very advantageous position.

The Imperial archers knew their duty and they did it. Arrows rose and fell and many of them were covered with burning pitch.

The Sa’ba Taalor did their very best, but the boats under them were burning and sinking and they had no choice but to swim for the shores. The problem was that the shorelines were not clear and easy to access. They were rocky outcroppings that led to areas where a person could climb seventy or so feet up a cliff side to reach land.

The dead Sa’ba Taalor burned with the boats, then sank into the fast moving waters.

The rest climbed. The simple fact of the matter is that the people of the Forges were raised climbing mountains. It was among the very first tasks they were given. Many of them, even encumbered with wet clothes, scrambled quickly up the sides of the cliff. The volleys of arrows slammed into the walls around them, stuck to their backs or pierced their limbs. However, the majority of the gray-skinned people carried backpacks with supplies, occasionally their shields, or even weapons, all of which stopped the arrows from penetrating. Those hit occasionally fell back into the river, but not as many as might have been expected. They were trained their entire lives to deal with pain. Unless a tendon was cut or a bone broken, there was little they would not endure.

The arrows continued to come, however, and those who were not quick enough died before they reached the top of the cliffs.

They did not have their siege weapons any longer. They did not care. The Sa’ba Taalor lived for war. Their gods shaped them that way.

The archers on the shores retreated a reasonable distance, but they did not flee. Some of them used short bows and used them well, several arrows held in their hands and fired in quick succession as the Sa’ba Taalor approached. Others used longer bows and fired from a distance. These weapons had greater power and slammed into the enemy with substantial force, often enough to penetrate bone.

As the Sa’ba Taalor charged, their enemies retreated then dropped down to the ground to give the crossbow archers their chance.

Several of the Sa’ba Taalor had bows as well and used them, but most never had the chance. The Fellein archers were better prepared, and their weapons had not just been soaked in the river.

Had the Sa’ba Taalor been alone it is very possible that they would have been killed off in that initial assault.

No one sounded an alarm. No one blew a horn. So the mounts were unaware of a battle until well after the worst of the damage had been done to the boats.

But when they realized the mounting carnage, they did not take well to someone murdering their humans.

The Fellein in the area had never seen a mount before. They had been warned to beware the creatures, but they had no real point of reference. Yes, they had seen bears, and occasionally a mountain lion. Bears did not move the same way, and the mountain lions did not wear heavy armor.

If the armor should have slowed down the mounts, it was not up to the task. Flaming arrows and regular arrows alike did their job and cut into the beasts, but a few still made it to the archers before the fighting was done and even the crossbow bolts that hit the beasts seemed to slow them only when they’d been struck a hundred blows.

Not all the Sa’ba Taalor died that day. Not all the mounts, either. Instead they did what few Sa’ba Taalor ever did: they retreated.

Once they were safely far enough away, the surviving Sa’ba Taalor looked to Ordna for direction after the death of their king.

Ordna was silent for a long time before responding.

If one were to observe the southern shoreline of Fellein, the first sights from the west would be the ruins of Roathes. The bodies of a few could be seen here and there, rotting away, though far less than one might expect considering the catastrophes that had befallen the small nation. Beyond that, the Louron still held sway in an area that was surprisingly untainted by the volcanic activity that destroyed the neighboring Roathes.

An odd sight that one might note would be the activity around a lone ship that was being loaded with supplies by an unusual crew.

For a long span after Louron there were rugged shorelines that belonged to no one. The area had been disputed for generations, claimed again and again by both Fellein and the Brellar. The land itself was inhospitable, the ground unstable and given to collapse. For that reason, the area was finally abandoned by both sides. The Brellar still claimed it was theirs. The Fellein still claimed it belonged to the Empire. But no one fought over it any longer. The neighboring people of Louron said it was best left alone, for angry spirits inhabited the area.

It should be noted that most people in Fellein didn’t believe in ghosts. They preferred to believe that any unusual actions were acts of either sorcerers or the gods. Louron was the exception. Most of the people there believed in ghosts and other spirits. It should also be pointed out that Louron was the area that, for the time at least, the Sa’ba Taalor had decided to leave alone.

Almost at the center of the continental landmass, there was a break at the southern end. That break was the mouth of the Parmahar River, which ran from the Corinta Ocean all the way to Lake Gerhaim. In most places the river was over a mile wide and there were no existing bridges crossing it. The waters were deep and fickle and it was best to travel by ferry, which could be found with great regularity and used to cross for a small fee. No one would charge a heavy fee, as the next ferry was never really that far away.

Along the way there were many villages and port towns, most of them small in population and happy to be that way. Larger towns, the local wisdom said, get noticed in times of war. Though Fellein had not been at war for several generations, the local wisdoms still stood and made perfect sense to the people who lived along the Parmahar.

The wisdom of the locals did not mean much to the black ships of the Sa’ba Taalor. They rode up the river from the sea and took their time about it. But first, they let off the remaining armies they carried.

The armies of Ganem spread on both the eastern shore and the western. Those on the western shore saw Ganem first. Days of hard riding found her on the other side of the Arkannen Mountains. She rode her mount and carried her spear in one hand, bucklers on both of her arms.

They cheered when they saw her. The King in Silver was well loved for a reason. In a perfect world, as far as Ganem was concerned, Drask Silver Hand would have been on the western shore to lead the troops.

Instead it was Tenna, who was just as solid a leader, but tended to waver on the path of balance more than her former lover. Tenna would do. She was a warrior first and a philosopher second and this was, after all, wartime.

Ganem sounded her horn as the sun rose and the black ships sailed on, heading upriver with all haste. Tenna sounded her horn in response. Moments later Ydramil’s army was on the move.

The small villages had always believed that their size made them useless as targets. They had no strategic value and their people were merely fishers and boaters.

That notion was cemented for them when the great black ships moved up the river, dark sails set and oars cutting the water. None of the villagers were foolish enough to cheer as they went past, but most of them thanked their gods – mostly Othea the River God and Luhnsh the Beggar King – as they were spared assault.

When Ganem’s forces attacked, few of them were praying any longer.

As with Tuskandru before, and with the direct wishes of both the King in Iron and Ydramil, each villager was offered the chance to pray to a new god. When each had made their decisions they were converted or killed. As with Tusk, a coin was needed to prove faith and to mark the newcomers among the blessed of Ydramil. Some lived. Some died. All were changed by the experience. While it is true that many converted and were introduced to Ydramil, a great number chose death. The river ran red as the soldiers of Ydramil made their way to the north, following after the great black ships.

First came the sickness.

Then came the riots.

The illness that started with the Temple of Etrilla spread. The symptoms were identical to the Plague Winds, meaning that people first grew feverish and then had to deal with the horrible scarring of their flesh, with nausea and chills and vomiting and in many cases the loss of hair and teeth, before death came along to end their suffering.

Once past the walls of the temple, the illness became a flame that drew the attention of the people. When the dead and dying were hidden away people did their best to ignore it, but as soon as the refugees started dying on the streets, panic set in. In a day’s time the rumors had become truth in the eyes of many and that was enough to start the desperate attempts to escape their fates.

Those who suffered the pains soon found death to be a mercy. Those who watched their loved ones suffer did not take it well. Prayers were not enough, it seemed, no matter how much the faithful asked for assistance.

Those who did not have loved ones suffering from the Plague Winds did not see the efforts that went into stopping the spread of the illness. All they saw were the infected, who might well pass the sickness by breathing on them. “Spreading the wind,” they called it.