Book 6: Chapter 22 |
AFTER OUR LITTLE EXCHANGE of monologues, Alberto di Lanzi returned to his force and commenced with a flurry of activity. I was actually very curious to see what he was going to try, given the unfolding situation. Sometimes, I caught myself thinking that this was all a lot like a game of chess, where each player moved their pieces about in preparation for the decisive blow.
And, to continue with that metaphor, things were looking a lot better from my side of the board than his. As I prepared the city for its defense, I didn’t forget about attacking, either. The Glenns and shapeshifters did their work well. Even as they arrived, the enemy was already missing most of their provisions and all of their siege equipment.
Continuing the chess analogy, I had made my move, and it was one that essentially stopped the clock on my side of the board. Time froze for me, but my opponent’s timer was still counting down as fast as ever.
I was forcing Alberto di Lanzi to hurry up and start moving his pieces around. After all, time was flying by quickly, along with the meager supplies that still remained to the Atalians. But having to rush always increases the likelihood of making mistakes...
In our councils of war, the potential moves the Gray Reaper might make were a frequent topic of discussion; eventually, everybody agreed that he would probably concentrate his forces for a decisive blow in a single place. The most vulnerable place...
Given that the “Scarlets” had already successfully stormed Gondreville once, Alberto di Lanzi knew exactly which part of the walls had taken the worst beating. Specifically, it was the north gates. The “Scarlets” and their ballistae had done a lot of damage to them.
Cesare di Nobile had, of course, done his best to repair the damage during his time as commander of the garrison, but as sometimes happens, the results left something to be desired, and the work wasn’t completed.
It seemed highly likely that, thanks to his informer, Master di Lanzi was already well aware of exactly how his subordinate had performed in his task of repairing the fortifications. This was confirmed for us when the Atalian force moved immediately to focus their attention on attacking from the north.
All my comrades took their positions, but I decided to watch the Atalians for a little while. So as to avoid attracting any unwanted attention to myself, I climbed up to the roof of the eastern bastion and activated invisibility.
As I watched them busily getting to work, I smiled knowingly to myself. Alberto di Lanzi was seated on his horse in front of the camp that the legionaries and red cloaks had hastily thrown together, addressing his men loudly.
His attempt to undermine the defenders’ morale had clearly failed, so apparently he was trying to compensate for this with a speech to his subordinates. I could only imagine the conversation that awaited Viscount di Revel after everything I had said to him.
“Can you hear what he’s saying?” I asked, although I knew full well that Master di Lanzi was almost certainly filling his soldiers’ ears with some sort of horrible, melodramatic motivational speech.
“Just bits and pieces,” said Vaira as she concentrated, eyes closed. I could see that her aura was partially mixed in with the energy currents around her. “He’s talking about their duty to their homeland and the King... Their sacrifice will not be in vain...”
Well, I thought — that’s what I expected.
“Talking about the deeds of their fathers and grandfathers,” continued Vaira. “About the victories of the past and the importance of the task ahead... Promising honor and glory if they take this rebellious city...”
The efirel snorted and quipped in a derisive voice:
“ Pff... Humans....”
Judging by the fact that there were two priests walking around the ranks of the assembled legionaries with their arms extended into the air, there was probably some religious pumping-up going on as well. Heh, I thought... I’ve sure seen this kind of thing before...
I’ll have to get rid of these two first...
Finally, Master di Lanzi stopped talking. His host raised their weapons to the sky and let out a martial shout. To me, however, it didn’t seem like the Atalian legionaries were especially enthused in doing so (unlike the red cloaks alongside them). And that was understandable. They probably wanted nothing more than to fill their bellies after a long march, and take a few big gulps of wine to help with the stress before collapsing into a bed and sleeping for at least the next few days.
After the Gray Reaper’s speech, the Atalian camp turned into a veritable anthill of furious activity. I have to give the master his due: he and his commanders got things in order very quickly, and loaded their men up with work very efficiently. Legionaries were soon trudging off toward the forest with axes and saws. Apparently they were going to get materials for building assault equipment. Trained by bitter experience with the werewolves, the Atalians were moving in large units, and they were all fully armed.
Toward evening, these units started coming back, their carts loaded to the brim with long tree trunks. Apparently, they had been specially selected for making assault ladders. I saw several massive trunks lying on two of the carts. These would become battering rams.
The men who remained in the camp weren’t sitting on their hands, either. All along the perimeter, they quickly pounded a row of sharpened stakes into a small earthen embankment. The red-and-gray robes of their priests would periodically flash out as they moved through the camp. The two holy men clearly had their fingers on the pulse, and were busily encouraging and supporting their flock. And it seemed to be working: all the Atalians soon brightened up, almost as if there had never been a long and difficult march.
I knew very well, however, that this effect was only temporary. These people were tired, and they were toeing the line purely because they feared the grand master. They needed at least a little bit of rest if they were going to recover even a little bit of strength after their exhausting march through guerilla-infested woods. Throwing soldiers in this condition into an immediate attack would have been pointless and counterproductive. I was sure that Master di Lanzi understood that.
Unlike him, however, I wasn’t planning to guarantee those men much rest at all...
A few hours after nightfall, I slipped down from the tower onto the wall. My armor was snug against my body. It wasn’t just armor, actually — it was part of my very nature. The mages in this world called the effect “fusion.”
My aura merged softly with my armor, allowing my mana to circulate freely through its energy channels. This flow of energy could create a protective film around my body that was invisible to the naked eye of a normal human.
Literally one step away from me, two sentries were standing near each other, exchanging the occasional short phrase to pass the time. They didn’t suspect my presence at all.
After sinking into the shadows, I approached the edge of the wall. My hands touched the cold stone. A little push, and I began to descend, slowly and silently.
Every movement was calculated, every step full of energy. My fingers and toes easily found the gaps between the stones. For me, climbing down a sheer wall was no more difficult than descending a huge promenade staircase. With every yard I descended, I could feel the night accepting me into itself; I could feel the darkness transforming into my ally.
When my feet finally touched the ground, I froze for a moment and listened closely to the silence around me. My senses were telling me that I wasn’t alone. The familiar aura of my strykers was already somewhere nearby. Only those who were at the rank of medius or above would be participating in this sortie.
The aura of my first-born was there as well. After the ritual of transfiguration, the connection between us was growing stronger and stronger with every passing day. I could sense their emotions much more distinctly. Their fear, their joy, their sadness. Sometimes we didn’t even have to speak — we just operated like a well-oiled machine.
The Atalian camp was relatively quiet; only the sentries were awake.
After approaching close enough to see the entire camp from the north, I squatted down and watched. The strykers spread out to my right and left. This night would be a test of strength, not only for my first-born but also for the very best warriors in my personal unit.
It was time...
The first phase of our plan had begun...
I sensed four first-born auras as they began to move. One of them headed for the cavalry pens, while the others crept deep into the camp.
Nothing happened for a little while. The camp was still asleep. But that calm didn’t last long.
Suddenly, hundreds of the horses in the Atalians’ specially-built pens began panicking, all at the same time. First, a many-voiced roar burst out above the sleeping camp, and then the infuriated animals burst out into the open. As if led by a gigantic unseen hand, they all surged in one huge mass out of the camp and raced off to the west, toward the Imperial track. By pure “coincidence,” it just so happened that the camp where the legionaries and crossbowmen had their tents was right in the horses’ path.
The living wave, merciless and devastating in its panicked state, turned the camp into bloody chaos within seconds. The tents were smashed and ripped to pieces as if they had been hit by a tornado.
The people in them, caught utterly off-guard and half-dressed, tried to race out of their tents, only to be knocked down and stomped to a pulp by hundreds of hooves. Their dead bodies (or what was left of them) were scattered all over the camp like leaves after an autumn windstorm.
The deafening noise woke up the legionaries and red cloaks, who rushed for their weapons immediately, but in the darkness and chaos their efforts were disorganized and minimally effective. Seized by animal panic, the horses paid no attention to either screams or blows; the only thing that mattered to them was their overpowering desire for freedom.
The herd didn’t trample the entire Atalian camp. After all, Lorin, who had masterminded the diversion, wasn’t all-powerful. Nevertheless, the destruction was horrifying. The Atalians’ crossbowmen had the worst luck. Their part of the camp didn’t have stakes hammered into the ground around it yet. So that was the direction the herd chose to run, and it cut through the crossbowmens’ encampment like a warm knife through butter.
But that wasn’t the end of it all... In fact, it was just phase one. The distraction.
And now that it was over, it was time for our “guests” to have a baptism of fire. In the terrifying chaos, nobody noticed that the army’s wagons and carts, which had been strung out along the back of the camp to cover its rear, suddenly burst into flames like huge torches. And the fire was incredibly intense — like a smith’s forge, it seemed to be getting whipped into an ever-more-powerful roar by a current of air from some unseen bellows.
The fire’s intense heat immediately spread to engulf every corner of the wooden structures. The horrifying (yet somehow majestic) spectacle took our breath away.
The flames lit the night in bright colors as they danced through and around the carts, rising higher and higher into the sky as if trying to reach the stars. Light from the fire glinted on the many metal objects lying nearby and created the illusion of a massive creature preparing to swallow everything around it.
The sounds of crackling and hissing flowed into the general roar of destruction that drowned out the screams and chaos in the camp. The fire devoured its victims mercilessly, turning them into ash and smoke that hung in the sky like a death shroud. The heat from the flames was so intense that even where we stood, it felt like we were standing next to a hot oven. And I, at least, was still pretty far away from it all.
An area of viciously bright light formed around the wagons and carts that dispelled the night’s darkness and made the shadows seem to retreat. There was something entrancing in the fiery chaos, a reminder of the invincibility of nature and the magic that could so quickly turn everything around into a dance of fire and light. Also, of course, it was a demonstration from the fayret and efirel of just how powerful the descendants of those once-mighty elemental spirits could be. After all, they were only at the beginning of their development...
Drowned out by the noise, the tent in which the two priests were sleeping also came under attack. Thanks to the lunari, they were sleeping so soundly that not even the indescribable racket outside could wake them up.
My fairy had these two in her sights since the very start. After Cesare’s revelations, the attitude toward these pseudo-knights and their priests among my people was pretty unanimous. The things these bastards had done to the true gifted and first-born had earned them all an irreversible death sentence.
Meanwhile, the time came for Ignia and Vaira to step into this part of the game. Somehow, the two of them managed to create a sizable tornado of flame and launch it at the red cloaks in their tents.
With a deafening roar and a shower of sparks, the fiery funnel tore forward across the ground, headed straight for the middle of the “Scarlets’“ section of the camp.
As soon as it touched the first row of tents, they burst into flames like piles of loose, dry straw. The fire snaked into every corner, spreading with terrifying speed from tent to tent and devouring them all. The bright light of the fire lit up the night and revealed that the enemy camp had transformed into a huge sea of burning pain.
People were frozen in shock and panic as they suddenly discovered that they had fallen into a trap that seemed to have been set by the elements themselves. The screams and shrieks of those who were burning alive began to fill the air. Basically, there was no more Atalian force left to speak of. There were only small groups of utterly-terrified people, trying as best they could to save their own lives.
Meanwhile, the fiery tornado kept moving like a predatory beast from the bowels of hell, greedily devouring everything in its path and leaving nothing but carbonized remains and smoke in its wake.
Besides a multitude of people running all over the place in a desperate effort to escape the invincible flames, I noticed that there was also a well-organized group of four people hurrying toward us.
Judging by the familiar deep-purple energy structure, it was the Gray Reaper and his bodyguards.
Heh... It wasn’t too hard to guess what kind of afterlife would have awaited Alberto di Lanzi if the fire had gotten him in his tent.
“My dear strykers,” I said quietly, still hiding in the grass. “It’s our turn. Stick to the plan.”
As the enemy strykers approached, I got a better look at their energy structures. The entire quartet, and especially the Gray Reaper, was so decked out with bruts that they looked like Christmas trees. But there was a noticeable plus, too: the bruts clearly weren’t fully charged. It seemed that these strykers had had to use their magical shields a whole hell of a lot in recent days.
I had outfitted all my fighters with magical crystals — more than enough for the task at hand. They could easily expect to hold their own against a more numerous and better-equipped unit if it came to that.
The four “Scarlets” soon reached our position. I could already hear their heavy breathing. An instant later, at my signal, my warriors threw themselves into an attack and cut down the Gray Reaper’s bodyguards.
With a guttural grunt, Master di Lanzi whipped both his sickle-shaped swords out of their scabbards and tried to flit to the side in a lightning-quick dodge. Thanks to true vision, however, I knocked him off his feet at the same time that Sigurd landed a savage blow to the chest with his two-handed sword. I saw the master’s magical shield flash in the darkness; almost at the same time, one of the energy nodes on his armor went dark.
There was no room for heroics in anybody’s plans that night. Sigurd and I immediately began raining a hail of blows down on the Reaper. I have to give the grand master his due: he obviously wasn’t a man to sit on his laurels, as so many mages were. He had clearly spent his entire life training and developing. His fighting style, counterattacks, thrusts, dodges — it all suggested that fighting multiple opponents at once was almost an everyday occurrence for him. Unfortunately for him, however, his opponents in this fight weren’t simple strykers. Sigurd and I were two of the most powerful avants on the continent. And judging by the look in his eyes, he understood that.
The Reaper tried to move away in a series of rapid lunges. In different circumstances, the tactic could have worked well, but not against a seer. As in the battle with Neumark and my sparring sessions with Sigurd, I could see every move my opponent made and predict the one that would come next. On several occasions, I knocked the Reaper off his feet, which opened a gap for Sigurd and his powerful two-handed sword.
His blows were lightning-fast and terrifyingly powerful. Had Sigurd been fighting the Reaper one-on-one, of course, the situation might have looked a little different, but as it was my bodyguard was managing to conserve his mana very well.
Out of the corner of my eye, I glanced at what was going on around us. Our strykers had already finished their assigned task and started turning their attention to our battle. Knightly duels and tournament gallantry were out of the question in this battle. Every blow was aimed at putting an end to the threat that this evil bastard posed to us.
We didn’t give the grand master even the slightest chance to recover or counterattack. Little by little, he was forced into a position of pure reactionary defense. Weakened by the loss of several energy nodes and surrounded by a whirlwind of powerful strykers operating like a pack of wolves, Master di Lanzi tried several times to break out of our encirclement. But our pressure didn’t let up for a moment. Every hit, every little “bite,” was costing him mana.
Despite his magical power and masterful skills as a fighter, the grand master was moving more and more slowly all the time. We could sense that his defense was weakening — his strength seemed to be ebbing with every blow. We could hear the hoarse breaths ripping themselves from inside his chest. By the end, he was actually peppering us with curses and threats.
At a certain point, I noticed that the master was no longer counterattacking, but was instead sending his energy straight into his blade. The Reaper seemed to be preparing for one final, desperate lunge. He selected Elsa Backer, Georg von Linz’s ward, as the weakest link in our party.
Just a second before the Reaper made his move, I shot forward, knocking the young woman down and taking the crushing blow on my own blades. A blinding flash of purple mana lit up the battlefield and sent me and the grand master flying back in opposite directions.
I jumped quickly to my feet and saw the last brut disappear from the Reaper’s armor. He was defenseless. At that exact instant, Sigurd swung a mighty blow downward with his two-handed sword, which clove through the Reaper’s body from collarbone to waist and ended up being the last blow of the battle.
Grand Master di Lanzi’s broken body collapsed to the ground like a ragdoll. His sickle-shaped swords fell out of his hands as they went limp. All around us, for just a moment, silence reigned, broken only by the sound of heavy breathing.
My comrades — my strykers — began to take their helmets off one by one, and I could see a mix of disbelief and shock on their faces. They were staring down at the corpse of Grand Master di Lanzi, the notorious stryker whose name had once been a byword for indestructible power and total mastery. True gifted used his name to frighten their children into obedience, and among soldiers it inspired deep respect and fear. And suddenly, here before us was proof that his invincibility was a myth — a myth they had shattered with their own hands.
To be honest, I had expected quite a bit more from the renowned Gray Reaper... The best thing he could really have boasted of in that fight was a huge quantity of lilac bruts.
I looked up into the sky, which was beginning to get light. Sunrise was coming, and with it would come the final phase of our plan. When the sun’s first rays had just barely touched the horizon and driven off the night’s mist, we heard a long, loud roar from the direction of the city.
The gates opened, and André de Châtillon’s riders began to appear from within. Behind them, in strict formation, came wave after wave of fresh, well-rested legionaries.
I glanced over at the Atalian camp, where the ground was still smoking and embers could still be seen smoldering in various places. A sharp contrast between light and dark was beginning to take shape as the sun rose, which made the whole scene sharper and more clear.
By no means all of the Atalians had fled or been killed. About three cohorts of soldiers had assembled in formation and were preparing to fend off our attack. Above their heads, on a long shaft, a banner with two red bears on it unfurled in the morning light. The Viscount de Revel turned out to be a much better commander than the famous Gray Reaper...
“Well, come on, ladies and gentlemen!” I said as I glanced around at my comrades. “It’s time to finish what we started. And bring those strykers’ bodies with us. We’re going to need them.”
* * *
The remnants of the Atalian force were a sorry sight indeed. Some of them didn’t even have shields or spears in their hands. A lot of them were bare-chested and armed with nothing but tent stakes.
The harried expressions on their faces kept flitting nervously from one edge of our formation to the other. Some of them were obviously looking for a way to save themselves. I could see desperation and confusion writ large on many a blood-splattered, grime-smeared face.
But not everyone looked so helpless. Viscount di Revel, surrounded by his bodyguards, was obviously preparing to sell his life as dearly as possible.
I yanked my horse’s reins and, accompanied by Leo von Grimm who was carrying a white flag as well as my personal banner, I moved out ahead of the others. Several legionaries walked along right behind us, carrying the Gray Reaper and his bodyguards’ corpses.
Seeing me, the Viscount moved out toward me as well. His sword was still in its scabbard, a deliberate move on his part.
“Monsieur di Revel!” I shouted when we were about forty feet apart. “I must admit, you’ve turned out to be a much bolder commander than your leader was!”
I nodded to my men, who laid the strykers’ bodies on the ground several yards in front of the Viscount. The look in his wide eyes was one of shock and disbelief, but I swear there was also a flicker of relief in them too.
“We met the grand master of the “Scarlets” in battle on the path that leads to my Margraviate!” I continued loudly. “I don’t suppose I need to relate to you what he was doing there?”
A shadow fell across the Viscount’s face.
“No, Your Lordship,” he replied with a quick glance at his entourage, who were all equally shocked at the sight of the once-invincible grand master’s bisected body.
“I’m glad that fate has crossed my path with that of such a perceptive man as yourself,” I said. “It’s just a pity that we happen to be enemies. Nevertheless, I offer you and your people the chance to lay down your arms. You and your vassals will be my personal prisoners. I promise that you’ll be treated with all the respect due to a man of your status.”
“And my men?” He asked tensely.
“With the exception of any who are guilty of serious crimes against the people of this land, they’ll become our prisoners and do a little bit of work for the benefit of this glorious city. Any who have stained their hands with the blood of innocent women and children can expect a fair trial in Gondreville. You already understand who exactly I’m referring to there, of course?”
“Yes, Your Lordship,” said Viscount de Revel, before continuing with a bow: “And I accept your terms.”