The Tomb of the Dark Paladin (40 page)

C H A P T E R

S E V E N T E E N

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Yerkses sat atop his horse, resplendent in his royal armor. He was in his accustomed place at the front of his men, the position from which he always led in battle. His standard bearer bore the colors of his house and those of the empire atop a tall lance held aloft in the brisk wind. The fresh air blowing in from the sea was invigorating to the emperor and he relished the thought of the coming battle. The island chain was mercifully warmer than than his own lands to the north. The Sea Witch, goddess of the seas, was known to unleash her fury and blast the northern islands with bouts of foul weather. Such a thing might have been helpful today against the dark clouds conjured by treacherous Umber and his dark wizards, but was not meant to be.

As he expected, the enemy did not send an emissary to offer terms. He snapped the visor of his helm closed and placed a hand on the shoulder of his standard bearer. With that quiet signal, the man stood up in his stirrups and waved the royal colors in the air. That was the signal to his own troop commanders to prepare. A second signal followed and soon the regiments marched forward across the grassy plain, beating their swords against their shields in sync with their steps. Yerkses walked ahead of the formation, then kicked his horse and urged it to a trot.

The enemy troops were positioned in a wedge formation, the tip of the wedge prepared to delve deep into Yerkses' line. The few horses that Yerkses had with him on the island were in line behind him. They charged forward, determined to blast their way as deeply into the ranks of the walking corpses as they could. If there had been any doubt in the emperor's mind as to the veracity of the reporting about the enemy's corpse-troops, they were dispelled as the stench of death filled his lungs. He snarled and tried to force the disgusting odor from his mind as a flight of crows appeared in the sky, seemingly from nowhere, diving down at him and his riders. The birds slammed into the armored men but did little injury. Still they charged onward, pennants snapping in the wind behind them. The tip of the enemy's wedge formation appeared before the emperor and he lowered his lance. The weapon was huge, nearly seven feet tall and perhaps twice as massive as an ordinary man. His lance tore into center of the creature's body and the flesh split apart like wet paper. His horse knocked the creature backward and he was rewarded by the sight of its limbs falling off its body as it struck the ground. As he turned and set his sights for the next enemy, he noticed that a host of insects spewed from the downed creature's open wounds and swarmed in the air above the battle.

Yerkses charged deeper into the enemy formation and found another target, though he was too close to use his lance. He shoved the butt of the lance into a sheath behind him and drew his sword, swinging sharply down at the slow moving creature before him. As he neared the thing, he saw that its lifeless body seemed to be comprised of mismatched limbs and a torso haphazardly knotted together. He suspected that the creatures were held together by a dark enchantment. Giving the oddity no more thought, he set to work.

All around him, his riders were doing the same, and now his foot troops had arrived. As his ground troops entered the fray, Yerkses relaxed. The infantry seemed to have the corpse-troops well enough in hand, soon there were none left standing. All that remained of the enemy was a putrid field of flesh and clouds of insects and carrion crows that harassed his men but did little more.

Emperor Yerkses stopped his horse lifting his visor to survey the carnage. He hadn't needed his flanking element; this had been too easy.

He turned and galloped his horse away from the grisly scene, his standard bearer waving a flag that signaled an order to regroup and reform. "Regroup!" he shouted as he charged past each soldier. "Regroup!"

A sense of panic filled him as he made his way to the rally point and cursed himself for a fool. The enemy lured him out and onto the field of battle with the apparently simple engagement, there had to be another attack coming and he did not want to be caught unaware. When he reached the small piece of high ground that served as the rally point, he whirled about expecting to see his troops making their way to his standard.

But all the emperor saw was as cloud of dark mist that seemed alive with swarms of giant insects. The sound of his men dying filled the air.

Yerkses' only remaining priest was a man called Ankus, a dour and troubled alcoholic from the wilds of the Northern Continent. Though the emperor detested the man, he was indeed a sight to behold on the field of battle. The man was blessed by his god, Q'raz' the Lord of Battle, and was known to tear through the enemy in a berserk rage. His own men, too, seemed to take heart and fight harder when the priest was with them.

Ankus was with him now, astride his own horse and bedecked in the studded leather armor common to the followers of Q'raz. While Yerkses was very displeased with his new patron deity and those who followed the chaotic god, he had no choice but to keep the powerful cleric nearby. It was no secret that the brother gods detested each other and all suspected that their alliance had merely been one of convenience. Yerkses himself suspected it was but a matter of time before one or the other of them broke the truce, but he had not suspected that it would be so soon. 

The sounds of his men dying caused a fit of anger in the man. He held his sword in a vice-like grip, ready to charge in and kill anything that got in his way. Nevertheless, he exercised restraint and forced himself to study the grim sight. 

"What the Hells is that?" he demanded of his priest.

"A death cloud, Excellency. It was formed when the spell that animated the corpses broke and the vile magic that held their stinking pieces together oozed out into the world."

"Can you do something?"

"I would give my left arm to charge down the hill, but there is nothing to fight. We have destroyed their troops, and they have destroyed some of ours. I see no reports of an enemy reserve, I suspect we have won the day."

"Don't be so certain, priest. The enemy wants this island; he is unlikely to simply give up after one salvo. Do you not feel this victory was too easy?"

As if on cue, the cloud that hovered over the battlefield began to rise above the bodies of the dead. Then a breeze began to blow and it seemed as though the dark cloud had been pushed aside, but then the cloud just stopped. It swirled and drew in on itself like a spinning vortex, until nothing but a disc of blackness was visible. Then, as the emperor and the priest watched, figures began to appear, marching listlessly out of the disc of darkness and onto the solid Llarsian ground. Now the enemy's reserve has arrived. Yerkses silently counted as they ambled slowly through the disc, and when they stopped coming he found that there were a thousand more. 

A slight rumble in the distance, a sound not altogether different than a distant rumbling thunder, could be heard. His messenger had reached his reserve force and the men were now bent on destruction. He smiled inwardly, they wouldn't be so eager when they learned the nature of their foes. Be that as it may, his men would acquit themselves well. And like a horde of screaming madmen, the army of the Black Earl surged out of their hidden depression and spilled down onto the battlefield. In response, the horde of walking corpses moved out to meet the advancing tide. 

This time, Yerkses' magic-wielders waiting in reserve went to work and several multi-colored fireballs sailed over the heads of the advancing men and slammed into the ranks of the enemy. Everywhere the fireballs struck, enemy soldiers vanished. As the forces collided, the clang of steel was nearly deafening  But there were too few fireballs and too many corpse-soldiers. Soon the forces were completely engaged, the battle was soldier to soldier. 

The emperor wanted to charge in and fight, but he had a responsibility to watch the developments of the battle. He didn't think that the Black Sigil would simply keep throwing these mindless corpses at him. Yet the battle was not going as well as planned. The Black Earl himself had just fallen, then his standard bearer, and many more of his men were falling to the evil walking corpses of the enemy. 

"Sire!" shouted the priest. "Over there!"

The emperor glanced to where the priest was pointing. On the first field of battle where the corpse soldiers had fallen so easily, an enemy host had gathered.

"How can that be?" he demanded hoarsely. "I watched them fall!"

As the man watched, a new enemy force advance on his flank. In astounded silence, he realized something terrible.

"Those are my men..."

Yerkses sat on his throne, basking in the glory of his newest conquests into the fringes of the Cklathlands: the Broken Islands. While these islands belonged to the mighty Arnathian Empire, the natives considered themselves to be Cklathish. Yet these people were peculiar among the feisty and independent Cklathish and thought themselves above the rest of their wild kin to the east. Soon the Steel Empire would be rebuilt, stronger than it ever had been. 

His advisor had cautioned Yerkses to consider the implications of annexing lands to which Umber had laid claim. Yet even the advisor seemed to believe that the strategic benefits of possessing these islands outweighed the slight possibility that Umber would take offense to the incursion. The Cklathish Islands were small and thinly populated but provided strategic control of shipping lanes to the south that would bring new trade to his empire. That would come with time, however.

For now, though, he was enjoying the supplications and offerings of the fools before him. The five earls that were the heads of the Earldoms which comprised the land known as the Sargan Duchy, were present in his court as well. The new emperor gave his earls dominion over the lands which their armies helped him conquer, and the smaller of the Broken Islands now belonged to his man, the Red Earl.

He ignored the people before him of course, his attendants were receiving the offered treasures and recording them in the ledgers while his earls passed judgment on local disputes. He studied the throne room in the palace of the Imperial Governor of the Broken Islands, now converted to his own use. It was opulent, famously opulent, in the tradition of the millennia old empire. The rest of Osprey Island, home to the capital city of the Broken Islands, reflected that same level of grotesque decadence. The Arnathian nobility suffered from an affliction of indifference toward their own peoples. While Yerkses shared the Arnathian belief that peasants were of lesser value than than nobility, he recognized that the noble class could only exploit the peasantry so far before they began to revolt, or worse; work less and produce less. Peasants needed a modicum of acknowledgement from their betters. They needed a group of people to look up to and to give them a sense of national pride.