Authors: Laszlo,Jeremy
Sara looked the device over. It did resemble a coffin slightly, except that it was iron and had a distinct human shape to it. Inside the device there were grooves for the arms and legs to fit into, allowing them virtually no movement. The head area was similarly fashioned, and loose loops of thick iron chain sat within the device.
“That should hold her,” Sara approved. “But I don’t think the chains will hold her if we open the lid when it is time to kill her.”
“We won’t need to open it. I already have a plan that will take care of that problem.”
“Of course you do,” Sara joked. “What was I thinking?”
They both smiled at the jest, but with little time for dawdling, Seth began anew.
“I hope we have enough time to see this through. I expect Sigrant to attack tonight. There will be no sun tomorrow,” Seth said, pointing to the sky, careful, like Sara to keep himself deep in his cowl. “Even now the moons catch up. With the winter eclipse, Sigrant will have two nights and a day of total darkness. It’s what he has been planning for. Now that he is ready, he will attack as soon as the sun sets.”
No more than Seth had said the words than a trumpet blared from the west wall, to be picked up and repeated all around the city. They were under attack.
Garret watched as the great, metal-clad beasts began their slow approach to the city. He had already tried to combat the things, but it was beyond his abilities. They were great hulking creatures and so far as he could tell, impenetrable to harm. Seth had killed one, but even in death the creature reached back to the plane of the living to do even more destruction. There was nothing Garret could do but watch them come, and test the tower defenses on them.
Already, Valdadore’s great ballista were being drawn and loaded, their massive cranks being turned by crews of men upon every tower. Into them, giant, steel tipped bolts were loaded before the mechanisms were swiveled upon their bases to be aimed. Finally, a wheel was turned that raised and lowered the angle of the weapon’s shot. As Garret watched the beasts come, every ballista team trained their immense weapons upon the nearing line of fire breathing demons.
Below, in the courtyards behind the wall, catapults were being loaded and drawn to fling huge stones weighing hundreds of pounds over the wall. These machines could not be aimed, at least not from behind a wall. All the men could do, who operated the catapults, was follow orders shouted down from above.
From down the wall a cheer arose from the new troops Seth had created, and Garret looked on as his once twin winged in from above, the petite form of Sara leaping from somewhere unseen to join him. Demons to fight demons, Garret thought, shaking his head. What has become of Valdadore?
Above, the great were-beast, Borrik circled in the sky, his own troops, as few as they were, climbed to the top of the wall to join the rest of the defenders gathered there. The wall was defended well, though in order to accomplish the feat, the other three walls of the city only retained a skeleton crew of defenders. Garret could only hope that Sigrant attacked directly.
Closer and closer the armored demons lumbered across the fields, their hot breath pouring from their nostrils. Garret watched closely as they came into range.
“Fire!” the king shouted, invoking his blessing to be sure his voice carried.
The twangs of a hundred ballista sounded as the city’s wall vibrated slightly, and a hundred bolts twice as long as a man and as big around as a forearm sailed through the air. Again the cranks began to clank, their teams drawing the weapons once again to be loaded. Then down the ballista came, many falling far short of the mark, but yet others began to strike around the beasts, some driving deep into the ground.
Garret watched as several deflected off the armor of the creatures, but nonetheless, some bolts struck true.
One bolt struck a demon dead center from above, driving through the beast and into the soil below it. Garret smiled in victory, but quickly his smile faded. The beast lumbered on, apparently undiminished by the savage wound. Behind it, a deep cut in the soil trailed where the spear tilled the land like a horse-drawn plow. Dropping his head disappointed, Garret was about to give the order to save their ammunition, when another cheer arose. Looking out upon the field, he saw where another bolt had struck true, its shaft sticking out of the head of one of the beasts. Steam and smoke poured from the beast before fire burped from its mouth and nose once, and then the thing exploded.
To either side of the creature its nearest companions were thrown aside from the blast, one of them overturning. A moment later the overturned beast also began to whistle in an increasing pitch before it too exploded. Those on the wall cheered, finding the creatures’ weakness. But still the demons lumbered on, and there were more of the creatures than the ballista teams could pray to get a head shot on. They needed something more accurate.
* * * * *
In the light of day Seth could see the creatures better than he had been able previously. They were frightening things, all armor and gaping maws. Smoke spewed from their nostrils and on they came at a steady pace. He watched as Garret’s men managed to take two of them down, their corpses exploding after they died.
“They’re not what everyone thinks,” Sara said, watching over the field beside him.
“How so?” he asked, turning to face her.
She looked very much like the role she would be playing later in the day. Dressed from head to toe in skin tight, black leather, with a deep cowl and cape, she was the epitome of what Seth thought an assassin should look like.
“They are gnomish mechanisms. Wheels and cogs and steam. I saw them on my… well… journey to the west.”
Seth could not believe that he had not seen it sooner. Multiple independent auras within one creature. It made perfect sense. Reaching out now, it took him only a second to confirm it. Seth could simply rip the life from the drivers of the mechanisms, but he had already seen that they would simply keep coming. Seth had no idea if the wall could survive the creatures crashing into it, tipping, and blowing up all along the base. It was a risk he could not take.
“Should I mention that they have a design flaw? Of course what gnomish machine doesn’t?” Sara added, before Seth could respond.
“Take your time, we have all day,” Seth replied sarcastically.
“Their bellies leave the cogs that makes them move exposed. If you can somehow tangle something in them, or perhaps jam something in there, then they won’t be able to move.”
Sara was to be their savior, if only Seth could devise a way to get something under the machines. He looked around for something he could fling upon the field that might become entangled, but to no avail. On the mechanical creatures came, and still Seth couldn’t find a solution. Looking up and down the wall, it became obvious. All along the wall were his new troops. Formed from melding humans and rats. Rats that could burrow anywhere and chew through anything. Seth shouted his orders to the nearest werewolf, where they were instantly relayed. Then the wolves shouted to the rat children and down they wall they scurried.
It was an odd sight, all those bodies climbing head first down the wall of the city to dive into the defensive pits dug at random beyond the walls. Once in the pits, and out of danger from the fire from the gnomish mechanisms, his warriors began to burrow.
Down on all fours they scratched and clawed at the soil, working together to begin digging small tunnels near to the surface. Onward the mechanical demons came.
Seth could no longer see progress of the burrows visually, but switching vision he was surprised to see just how fast the tunnels were progressing. It was no wonder how the creatures found their way into just about everywhere.
Within moments the fire-breathing machines were too close to be in range of the ballista, and as such the twangs and clanks ceased as everyone watched to see what would become of the rat men’s counter attack.
The minutes passed slowly as the machines droned on, ever nearing the city, but when their approach met the burrows of Seth’s child troops, it became evident fast that he had made the right call.
Watching with his god vision, Seth looked on as his men did not shove something into the drive gears of the machines, unable to carry anything with them while burrowing. Instead, they themselves found entry into the machines from below, and judging by how quickly the gnomes were dispatched, Seth was left to assume that the gnomes had not been armed. One by one the machines began to act erratically. Some began turning in circles and others stopped in their tracks, simply spewing fire in whatever direction they halted. Still others began to turn and head back the way they had come.
Seth smiled
. Children were bound to play with the giant toys after all, were they not?
Apparently learning the basics of propelling the machines within a few minutes, many more began turning to lumber back in the direction of Sigrant’s camp as they each began to spew copious amounts of fire from their jaws.
How nice of them to share with the enemy.
Then, trap doors began to swing open from atop the creatures and out climbed Seth’s creations, dropping to all fours and scurrying back towards the castle. Just minutes later they climbed back up the walls and watched with their maker as the beasts were returned to Sigrant. More than one went off course, but the vast majority, it seemed, were right on target.
Seth was the first to see the commotion, the bloated aura of Sigrant himself, moving at speeds beyond measure. If it had not been for his god vision he would have seen what everyone else witnessed. The reptilian machines began to fly from the ground, exploding upwards like so many leaves upon the wind. Caught up and thrown, the things were flung one into the other like a great hand had descended from the heavens and simply swept the mechanical beasts away. In truth, Seth imagined that King Sigrant simply kicked and shoved and threw the things one at a time, but so fast as to look simultaneous. It was frightening, the power of his enemy.
* * * * *
Sigrant watched the gnomes go, every tedious second drawn out to a damned eternity. Inch by fucking inch the things crawled, to no end as far as Sigrant could tell. Leave it to the damned gnomes to annoy him further.
Impatient, Sigrant counted the hairs upon his arm as the things crawled across an eternity. One blew up and then another, but Valdadore’s pathetic defenses were nearly useless against the machines. Sigrant smiled, knowing all too well what awaited the defenders there. Once the machines reached the wall they would begin to heat the stone of the thing. They could not melt the stone, that was near impossible. But within the stone would be moisture, and if heated quickly enough the moisture would turn to steam and expand. Once it did, the stones would either crack or build pressure until they exploded. Then down would tumble the pathetic king and his smattering of more pathetic troops.
Sigrant watched the span of another collection of forevers as the mechanical weapons neared the wall. The anticipation was killing him. Literally. If the damned things ever reached Valdadore, he would likely be too damned old to see that far.
If
he still aged. He wasn’t sure.
Down came Valdadore’s defenders. They climbed down the wall, too far to distinguish details from his vantage. He weighed foraying a little nearer to get a better look, but uncertainty stilled him. If only he knew whether or not the prince still lived. Then, what seemed months later, the gnomish war machines stopped or turned while some began spinning in circles before eventually tuning back.
Why were they retreating?
Then they began spewing fire, before out climbed none other than the troops who had climbed from Valdadore’s walls. Damn the child king! He was resourceful if nothing else.
He watched them come, his anger seething from his every pore. As they neared he could take it no more. Rushing out to meet the machines, he began to fling them in a rage. Smashing some, and throwing and kicking others until they were all destroyed. For a moment he stood upon the field, looking for any sign of retribution, but none came.
Damned Valdadore!
He still did not know if the little dark prince lived.
* * * * *
Garret watched the demise of Sigrant’s apparent machines. Once again it had been his brother’s monsters to save them, and once again the defenders cheered.
Did they not understand what he was doing to the people of Valdadore? How he twisted and ruined them? Cheer the victory, of course, but not the abominations.
The sun shrank, ever nearing the horizon. Soon, the people of Valdadore would see just what monsters Seth had made.
With two hours before darkness enveloped the land, a pair of creatures leaped and bounded across the fields, racing towards Valdadore’s walls. The two moved too easily, too gracefully. They bounded entirely too far per stride.
“Archers!” Garret boomed across the wall.
With bows raised, Garret’s few hundred remaining archers took aim across the field awaiting the command to fire. Garret watched the creatures grow nearer and nearer, the sun at their backs. As they came into range, Garret realized that the creatures looked familiar, but barely more than silhouettes he could not be certain.
“Hold your fire!” Seth yelled, and the archers began to obey him.
“Maintain!” Garret boomed.
The archers raised their arrows once more and took aim.
“No!” Seth shouted. “Do not fire!”
“Fire!” Garret yelled, his blessed voice booming throughout the city.
Arrows unleashed, the vast majority following his order as they were supposed to. He was the king, not Seth. He was their master and commander, and none stood above him. A second passed as the arrows arced through the air, and began to rain down.
Suddenly, a great blast of wicked green and yellow flame lanced out from atop Valdadore’s wall. Reaching out with licking fingers of fire, the arrows were incinerated. Seth had opposed him directly. Then the pair of approaching, bounding bodies came to a halt below the wall and peered up at it.
“That’s some greeting,” the first of the feline girls shouted up to the awaiting ears of the defenders.
“Mind if we come in?” the second asked, before they too climbed the walls like the rest of Seth’s wicked creations.
Garret stalked off down the wall, his anger seeking to be unleashed.