The Silent Army (36 page)

“I have been chosen as their champion. Should you decide that your Empire is best served by singular combat, I am the opponent your champion will fight.”

Nachia leaned back in her throne.

“And how long do we have before this offer expires, Andover Iron Hands?”

The man in front of her was larger than the lad who left her Empire. He was almost as large as Drask, who was a terrifying sight to behold up close. Andover’s face was ritually scarred and he looked enough like Drask that it was unsettling. A different shade of gray, fewer scars, though still a substantial number, his hair not as black. His eyes glowed with silvery light, however, and his garb was little more than black pants and a leather vest.

And an axe made of glossy stone.

Andover tilted his head.

“The Daxar Taalor offer you one hour to decide.” He stood to his full height and looked directly at Merros Dulver. “This will be the last offer of peace from the gods.”

Merros looked back, one hand on his sword. He did not seem the least bit intimidated.

Nachia nodded. “There is a chamber down the hall where food can be had. Two guards will escort you there. Please do not leave that hall until I have summoned you back here.”

Andover bowed again and so did Drask. Then the two of them followed the Imperial Guard out of the room.

Tega and Nolan did not leave. They were not representatives of the Sa’ba Taalor.

Merros looked at Nolan March with an expression of deep sorrow. He had the unpleasant task of telling the soldier that his mother was gone as well.

Desh nodded to Tega and she moved to him, almost immediately being folded into a protective embrace.

Merros walked toward Nolan and sighed. “I am sorry, Nolan March. I must inform you that your mother has passed.”

Nolan looked at him for a moment and then looked at the far wall.

“He’s addled,” Tega said. “He was injured in the Mounds, and injured badly. We do not know if he is capable of thought.”

“If he is not it might be a blessing.” Merros looked at the young man for a moment and then moved back to Nachia’s side.

He looked toward his Empress and said, “
That
was Andover Lashk?”

Nachia said, “We’ve less than an hour to decide if the Sa’ba Taalor will attack us or if we will choose a champion to fight for me.” She gestured toward the door. “Against Andover ‘Iron Hands’.”

Desh nodded. “That
was
Andover Lashk. Now he’s apparently a full member of our enemies.”

Merros shook his head and sighed. “I’d dearly love to know what training regimen they used.”

Nachia scowled, “Perhaps we can ask them after the war?”

Desh came straight to the point. “If you were to choose a champion, who would it be, Majesty?”

She walked over to the closest window without answering. Outside was her city. Beyond it was a frozen lake blanketed in fog, and covered for far too great a distance with the Sa’ba Taalor.

“How many do you suppose are out there?”

Merros frowned. “Fifteen thousand at the very least.”

“I know the Silent Army is on our side, but that is a lot of enemies.” Nachia stared at them as if by looking she could somehow make them go away. It wasn’t going to work that way, of course.

“I don’t know that Andover Iron Hands is all that formidable.” Merros spoke, but he seemed distracted. She knew that he was simply trying to calculate all of the odds.

Tega spoke up from the comfort of her instructor’s arms. “I have spent time with him. I know that he hasn’t truly been gone from here all that long, but you’ve seen the transformation and he told me that he literally fought thousands of enemies thrown at him by the gods in order to prepare him for this. He is likely as dangerous as he looks.”

“Well then, what shall we do?” Nachia asked.

Desh looked her way. “It’s one champion or a massive army. You could always try to find a really good champion.”

The debates began properly at that moment.

Who can say if the Silent Army was aware of what was going on in the palace? They stood along a massive stone wall and stared out toward the vast armies of the Sa’ba Taalor which, shielded by fog, made noise as they settled themselves and prepared for the coming combat. For some time, the stone sentinels watched as the masses of invading forces came their way and they did nothing.

And then they changed their tactics.

The stone army slipped through the Mid Wall and stepped out along its edge. Their spears were held in position. Their stone faces offered nothing.

The Sa’ba Taalor, unfamiliar with much of the ways of sorcery, saw the changes and stared, shocked. How clearly they could see was a mystery, but they noted when the soldiers vanished into stone and stepped out of the wall.

The gods had spoken, had said that none should attack as yet.

They had not said that none should defend themselves.

The Silent Army looked on for a few moments, and then one of them hurled a spear. The throw was strong and fast and the point of that spear rammed through the shield of a follower of Truska-Pren and then through the heart behind that shield.

Tarag Paedori looked at his fallen follower for only a moment and then roared, “We are attacked! For Truska-Pren!” The horns sounded. The forces of the King in Iron moved forward.

It was only seconds later that the rest of the kings called for battle.

“What was that?”

Merros moved to the window and looked down. “We’re attacked.” His voice made the words seem inevitable, and perhaps they were. The world had already changed too much and there were too many forces involved for calm to be maintained.

“Why are we attacked?” Desh Krohan moved closer to the window and wall and studied the situation. “The Silent Army are no longer at their guard positions.” He shook his head. “It might be they started this.”

“Yes, well, I’ll try to remember to yell at them later.” Merros shook his head. “Please relay the call to arms to my battalions, Desh.”

The sorcerer nodded. With a thought Desh Krohan told his followers what they needed to hear and they, in turn, passed the information on to the leaders of the Imperial Army.

Even as the massive surge of the Sa’ba Taalor charged across the ice once more, the horns of the Imperial Army called for a defense of the city.

From the barracks houses and the ready stations that had been hastily assembled, the army moved, taking up arms and grabbing shields. From the throne room they looked like ants, but they were well-organized ants as they scaled the steps to the top of the Mid Wall and prepared for battle. Shields were set to the wall, adding height and strength to the barrier. Archers readied their weapons. Spearmen set their long spears into position between the shields, wedging hard iron tips between the flagstones so that the points thrust outward and toward the sky. Shorter spears were readied for close combat.

“Desh?”

“Yes, Merros?”

“Could you melt all of that ice?”

“Beg pardon?”

“The ice. The damned idiots we’re dealing with are standing on ice. Could you melt it?”

Desh frowned, thinking.

Tega didn’t hesitate. “Done.”

And just like that, it was.

The ice shattered violently and as it broke apart the shards melted into water. The charging forces of the Sa’ba Taalor fell fast and hard as the effect continued to ripple outward.

Just as the gray-skins had somehow managed to freeze the lake, Tega now reversed the effect. Merros looked at her and damn near kissed her.

Drask heard the horns, of course. He knew what they meant the second they sounded.

“We are at war,” he said to Andover.

Andover nodded and rose from the food he’d been picking at. Pabba fruit. He would never tire of it.

The two guards with them heard as well and reached for their swords. Under the circumstances that was to be expected. Drask stepped toward the first of them and drove his silver hand into the man’s skull, cracking it like a soft-boiled egg.

Andover kicked the table where he was eating across the distance between him and the other guard. The table was small and got good clearance. The guard was fast with a sword and slow with defending himself. While he was pushing his way past the wooden obstacle, Andover cleaved him in half with the obsidian axe.

The two emissaries did not speak to each other. Instead they pushed past the door and headed for the stairwell leading down.

Then Drask said, “You may never have a better chance to kill the enemies of your gods.”

Andover shook his head. “Tega is there. She would stop me, even if the sorcerer could not.”

Drask nodded his head and kept moving.

“You could stop them too, Drask.”

“As I have said, I am not certain where I stand. I am still reflecting.”

Andover shook his head. “The time for reflection might have passed.”

“No. But it soon shall.”

In her chambers, Cullen sat up abruptly. The pain was no stronger than before, but there was a sense of urgency, a sense that whatever it was she had been waiting for was soon to come.

Also, there were horns sounding. Deltrea looked to her and shook her head. “You’re going to do something stupid, aren’t you?”

Cullen reached for her arrows and bow.

“I am going to help defend the castle. You’ve seen these animals in action. They’ll kill everyone if they break through the walls.”

“There are two walls between us and them, Cullen. Two. And they are very large walls, with many soldiers.”

“Then I will simply look foolish while I wait.”

She stopped speaking. That pain in her guts was now roiling.

“Almost time,” she said quietly.

“Almost time for what, Cullen?” Deltrea’s voice sounded worried and desperate. “Gods sake, almost time for what?”

“For whatever I’m becoming. Oh, GODS!”

The pain was as vast as Trecharch. It filled her. It seethed through her. Cullen dropped her weapons and fell to her knees, crawling toward the window, looking to the north and east. Whatever was happening, it was happening now.

The Sa’ba Taalor swam. There was no other option. They had spent their lives preparing for this and so they swam.

The waters were not as deep as one might have expected, but they were deep enough. Several of the more encumbered warriors sank to the bottom of the lake, only to find that they only dropped ten feet or so. There had once been a city here and it had been locked into the land under the lake. That land was still there.

Tarag Paedori held his breath and moved, reaching for the straps that held his armor in place, pulling them as calmly as he could even when he felt like he was drowning. Truska-Pren comforted him, the god’s presence keeping him calm. The chest plate fell away. It was enough as a start. He reached for his dagger and cut at the straps as he walked, concentrating on cutting his way to freedom.

When he rose from the waters the helmet came off his head. He rose in little but pants, his sword held in his hands.

He rose angry, and sought to take out his fury on an enemy.

The wisdom of Tuskandru could not be denied. The man never wore armor and he was already wading to the shoreline and roaring Durhallem’s name at the stone enemy they all faced.

The first of the moving statues to reach him tried to skewer Tusk with a spear. Tusk dodged the weapon and crouched low, water spilling from him in a cascade.

The man sported a short sword, an axe with two blades and a flanged mace. He reached for the mace.

That was as long as Tarag could look toward his counterpart before he was engaged in the battle himself. A spear was hurled his way and he twisted his body roughly backward even as he swept his sword in the direction of the weapon. The sword did him no good. The movement however stopped him from being gutted by the head of the spear.

He charged, pushing out of the waters and onto the land along with dozens of his brethren.

The Silent Army was powerful, to be sure. They were also vastly outnumbered and every last one of the Sa’ba Taalor who stepped onto the land wanted them dead.

A stone sword came for him and he blocked it, sending the blade singing along the edge of his great sword. The pommel of his sword was a heavy counterweight for the blade. He used it to break the stone blade in half and then shoved himself at the stone man wielding it. For most the forward shove would have achieved nothing. But he was Tarag Paedori and he knocked the stone man back.

Even as he struggled against the defender of Canhoon, two of his people came to his aid. A sword rang off a stone arm. A hammer broke a stone knee.

A broken stone blade cut the arm from the other sword bearer and Tarag once again struck with the pommel of his sword, this time to hook the knee of the stone man and make it buckle. The silent warrior fell and Tarag pushed past him, leaving him to the mercies of the other Sa’ba Taalor.

A spear tip cut a line of fire across his chest and he felt blood flowing. The wound was not deep and he thanked the gods, even as he grabbed the stone spear that had been thrown at him and dropped his massive sword. The blade was too unwieldy and could not cut stone. The spear was a better weapon under the circumstances.

The butt of the spear broke the nose of a stone man’s face. And the length of the pole let him knock his enemy staggering.

All around him flesh met stone, stone met steel, and enemies clashed on the narrow strip of land around the city of Canhoon.

Tarag Paedori roared his god’s name and continued on, reveling in the glory of a proper savage battle.

Behind him, around him the Sa’ba Taalor moved onward, pushing themselves against an army of stone.

Swech listened and obeyed. She once again climbed to the roofs and along with her a dozen others. They carried few weapons and they spoke not at all. The war was on. The Great Tide crashed along the edges of the city and Paedle told her it was time.

There was no need for ceremony, she merely needed a decent view.

Once high enough Swech looked to the north and east and nodded. Morwhen. The city was famed for its barbarism and the warriors it created. The first she heard of the people, they were to be the probable salvation against the Sa’ba Taalor, as they allegedly matched her people in savagery. For that reason the gods waited until most of the soldiers from Morwhen were on the move and heading for Canhoon before Paedle told her it was time.