Days Of Light And Shadow (68 page)

“Sit.” He raised an arm at those still standing. “It’s over.”

One by one they did as he asked, finding the ground as the strength slowly left them. Some managed to find things to lean against so that they could die still sitting up, others couldn’t even do that. But it didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was that they were dying in a state of grace. And that the Mother was still with them. That she had forgiven them. They could feel her still with them. It was nothing more than the slightest of presences, a faint hint, but it was enough.

They lay there in silence. The time for words had passed. It was time to return home.

Chapter One Hundred and Nine.

“Y’aris!” Crassis bellowed his name, shattering the peace of the temple. He was angry Y’aris realised. He was always angry. But underneath it all he was frightened. Terrified that the day that his master would finally consume him had arrived. A day that could not come soon enough as far as Y’aris was concerned. The high priest was a constant pain.

Still since he wasn’t yet dead, Y’aris had to answer him.

Y’aris pulled himself out of his bed, annoyed by the interruption of his morning. He was tired from his nightly exertions. Impregnating so many women was a lot of work. Not quite the pleasure he had thought it would be. But still he pulled a robe on and went out to the entrance chamber to find out what was wrong this time. There was always something wrong.

The first thing he saw when he got there was one of his watchmen lying on the floor, broken. It didn’t take him a second glance to know that the man was dead. Living people simply couldn’t lie in such positions. Not without their hips and backs completely shattered. And he knew instantly that the high priest had done it. Crassis’ temper was getting the better of him these days, and this wasn’t the first of his watchmen he’d killed. And there was probably no reason for it either. Sometimes Crassis just lashed out, and whichever unfortunate was unlucky enough to be within arm’s reach suffered his wrath.

“Crassis.” Y’aris stepped carefully over the broken body and made his way over to the bales of straw that were serving as chairs for the present. The temple compound might still be in solid condition even after a thousand years, but the furniture hadn’t survived with it. It was now a part of the dust that covered the floor. But the straw was comfortable enough for the moment as it served as both chairs and beds. “Something on your mind?”

“They’re gone.” The high priest hurled the words at him as some sort of  accusation. But who was gone or what it had to do with him Y’aris didn’t know. All he knew was that the high priest was as restless as a leap rabbit surrounded by dire wolves. And that made him very dangerous.

“Who’s gone?”

“My brothers. One hundred and twenty servants of the Master. Thirty thousand of my Master’s soldiers. All of them guarding Python Pass as you wanted. All gone.”

Y’aris wasn’t particularly surprised by the news. He’d expected them to fall before the advancing army. That was their purpose. But it did seem a little ahead of schedule. Mostly though he was surprised by the emotion in the High Priest’s voice as he told him the news. One would almost imagine that he cared about the other priests. But he didn’t. Crassis only cared about his own skin, his body and soul as the human’s and their accursed cannon came closer. He knew that with them the time when the Reaver would claim him drew nearer with them.

That was the one thing he’d learned in his time among the priests that had surprised him. Whatever was done to them, however the Reaver made them his priests, it came with a cost. Whenever he wanted to, the demon could drain their souls like a glass of water. And every one of them knew that he would one day. When they failed him in some way. When they were of no more use to him. Or whenever he felt like it. It was a deal that Y’aris would never have made.

“So? It was expected. That’s why they were sent there. To die. With their sacrifice the human army would be devastated. They are weaker now, slowed down as well, giving you more time to raise more abominations.” Priests! He silently cursed the lot of them. They just didn’t understand strategy.

“The humans are stronger now, and they had nothing to do with it.” The High Priest fixed him with an angry stare. His black eyes had narrowed alarmingly and the dark veins running up the sides of his face were throbbing. “This was done by your people. Elves. Barely a thousand of them. They came running out of the forest and descended upon the Master’s soldiers like wolves. They slaughtered our army as they lay in ambush.”

“What?” Y’aris didn’t believe him. What he was saying sounded more than wrong. It sounded like something the bards would make up. Elaris was broken. Half its cities had been levelled, the smaller towns and villages either destroyed or emptied out. Across  the entire realm he doubted that they could even find a thousand soldiers. And even if they could pull that man together, how would a mere thousand soldiers overcome twenty to thirty thousand of the Reaver’s abominations?

Y’aris put that to the high priest, who as usual responded with wild accusations and screaming in return. Every day that slipped by it seemed that Crassis lost a little more self control. But eventually he got something of an answer. Not much, but enough to frighten him. The soldiers were stronger than normal. Faster too. And they seemed to understand pain and injury no better than the abominations. That he knew could mean only one thing.

“The Grove!” It had to be them. Who else had that sort of magic available to them? And who else would elves follow? But if the Grove was now actively moving against them, that meant the dark priests were in trouble. And if a hundred or more of them had been slaughtered like sheep in a single attack, it was worse trouble than either of them had prepared for.

But still there was one good thing to come out of it. The blame for this disaster would lie firmly with Crassis. Y’aris had given the priests a good plan, and they had failed to carry it out. Priests! They had all the intelligence of fell oxen!

The high priest however, knew he was responsible for the rout. That was why he was so agitated. This could be the mistake that cost him everything. Literally. And when Crassis went Y’aris would rule. If Crassis didn’t kill him first. 

It struck Y’aris then that this could be the chance he’d been looking for. If the utra were coming in such numbers as the priests said, then they could well destroy the temple. And with it, his connection to the demon and his magic would be lost. He would be free again.  Free with a small army of devoted soldiers and the beginnings of his new race. If the battle was hard fought, then both the priests and the utra would be decimated. Elaris was already in ruins. And in such a realm a man with an army could carve out a kingdom for himself.

But first he had to make sure the battle was hard fought. And he had to make the high priest think that he was committed to the defence of the temple.

“Bring back all your priests and armies! Everyone you can reach and who can reach us before the utra do. We need to build some fortifications and defend the temple.” Y’aris gave the high priest his instructions and for once Crassis even seemed to listen. He had little choice. Not if he was to have any hope of survival. He probably didn’t though. Their master would not forgive him his failure. And the chances were that the temple would fall no matter what.

There should have been two or three hundred thousand abominations to protect the temple. Unfortunately recruitment wasn’t going as well as it should. The people were learning to fight back, and the priests leading the abominations knew nothing of tactics. They lost far too many each time. At best Y’aris figured the temple could be  surrounded by sixty or seventy thousand abominations.

It was far too few, but with nearly thirty thousand dead at Python Pass, tens of thousands more roaming the lands creating trouble across the realms, and forty thousand more too far away to get back as they marched on Greenlands via the western roads, it was what they had. They would at best match the utra one for one. And the filthy utra had learned how to fight them. Worse, the utra had cannon with them, and maybe if the high priest’s story was true, an army of Grove priests as well.

Still as he watched the high priest rush off to do as he said, Y’aris knew it didn’t really matter. The temple would fall. Crassis would finally be consumed, and the Reaver would be cut off from the world. Meanwhile, as the battle raged he and his army would flee, taking all of the temple’s wealth with him.

There were places they could go. Places where a man with a small army and plenty of gold and moon silver could make himself a lord. Places where no one would know to look for him. Vidoran perhaps. The gnomes were weak and foolish, and they were desperate to stay out of this war. They had burnt down their own bridge to protect themselves from his master’s army. Cowards! King Petrich would agree to anything if it saved him a war. Vesans!

The gnomes would pay for their cowardice, but not yet. First he would take everything they offered him and pretend friendship as he rebuilt his army. Then in a few years, when his new race was prospering, he would find a pretext to conquer them. Little by little. It might take a while. Though he had wagons loaded already with the cursed water, there was still only so much of it. And without the Reaver there would be no more. Likewise he had only so much gold and moon silver. But it was enough. Enough to conquer the greedy little vesans.

And from there, having taken their vast wealth, he would continue his campaign. He would crush the outsiders and mixed bloods. He would turn the remains of the elven race into slaves. And finally the true king would be revealed.

“Bring the next girl.” Y’aris chuckled a little to himself as he marched back to his bedchamber, and a little more when he heard the sound of the watchmen dragging another frightened girl from the cells. Time to give her some water and celebrate. Things were looking up again.

Chapter One Hundred and Ten.

It was the smell that struck Iros first. The odour of blood and sweat, and the slightly sweet smell of decay. It wasn’t strong, not yet at least, but to smell that while still in the forest filled with the scent of pine trees, that was troubling. Iros kept walking, following the scouts towards the edge of the forest and the clearing beyond, and wondering just how bad it was. If the scouts could truly be right.

Then Iros walked out in to the open, surprised that he could and surveyed the scene before them. It was exactly as the scouts had described. Maybe even worse. Bodies. Python Pass was filled with bodies.

The pass, the clearing leading up to the pass, the edge of the forest too. There were bodies everywhere. For as far as the eyes could see. Soldiers and abominations both. They littered the grass like leaves after a thunderstorm, so many that it was impossible to count. And still he tried.He estimated that there were between ten and twenty thousand abominations lying dead, maybe more. Maybe many more. All of them hacked to pieces. And maybe a twentieth as many soldiers. Elves in makeshift armour and carrying crude weapons. Elves that had been bitten and torn to shreds.

It didn’t make sense. This had been a battle of terrible scale. Of terrible ferocity. A battle such as normal soldiers couldn’t hope to survive, let alone win. Twenty to one in hand to hand combat? Against abominations? That was suicide. And yet it looked as though that was exactly what had happened. Mass suicide. And he had no idea at all who had fought it. Who were these elves? And where were the survivors? But even as he asked the question a dark thought crossed his mind. Maybe there were none. Maybe this had been a battle to the absolute end. Both sides completely destroyed.

Could that actually happen?

“My lord!” One of the scouts up ahead shouted for him and Iros realised that he had found someone alive. A survivor. Though maybe not for long. Not when the man was covered in blood. Iros hurried over to him, fearing he did not have long to ask his questions.

When he got there he discovered that things were worse than he’d guessed. The soldier had lost a leg, the crude stump sticking out from his leggings, its end chewed off. And that was only the start of his injuries, as he bled from at least a dozen other wounds. But the soldier had fought to the end and the abominations that had done that too him were dead also, dismembered. They lay in pieces around him, the remains of leg still in the mouth of one of them. A dead mouth attached to a bodiless head. He was surrounded by dismembered abominations. And when Iros looked around he could see the same pattern repeated everywhere and he suddenly understood the battle.

The elves had been outnumbered twenty to one, thirty to one, maybe more, but they had still charged into the battle, wading deep into the enemy territory, and then each of them had set about cutting the assailants surrounding them into little pieces in hand to hand combat. No tactics, no strategy, no thought of survival.

What sort of soldier did that? What sort of man? The ferocity and savagery of the abominations was matched only by the courage and insanity of the attackers. And how had the soldiers killed so many? One against twenty? Even if the enemy had been normal men, those would have been impossible odds. Iros bent down on one knee before the dying soldier determined to understand.

“Who are you soldier? What happened here?”

“I am no one,” the soldier replied. His voice was little more than a whisper and considering his injuries it was a miracle it was even that. “We are no one.”

The answer made no sense. But maybe Iros should have expected as much from a man who had waded into a battle that made no more sense. He looked to the others, hoping that they had an answer, but saw only the same disbelief in their eyes.

“The pass is clear.” That much Iros could see for himself, but he knew that man wasn’t telling him it because he thought Iros might not know. He was telling him why they had fought. They had cleared the pass so the army could get through.

That was a blessing. They had had a plan for dealing with the enemy at the pass. Infantry with heavy steel shields and archers to cover them. It would have been bloody but they would still have got through. But this saved them that battle. It meant that when they reached the temple they would be stronger. And without the dwarves and the trolls they needed every man they could get.

“Thank you.” It was such an inadequate phrase for what they had done, but what else was there to say? And even in those two sorry words, he’d still managed to say something wrong.

“No!” The man’s whisper became an almost inaudible screech and he very nearly managed to sit up in his desperation. “No thanks. Ever.” Then, his words given, he ran out of strength and collapsed back to the blood soaked grass.

“Healers!” There was no hope and little time left. Iros knew that. But he still called for them, hoping they could make the soldier’s passing a little easier. And as if by magic Elder Yossirion and Elder Trekor were suddenly beside him when they should have been safely back in the folds of the army. Yossirion went down on his knees before the man and cradled his head.

“How can I help you child?”

“Ask … the … victims. Forgive us.” With that he died, his head rolling free of the elder’s embrace, and Iros was grateful for the mercy. The man had suffered too much. But he still didn’t understand.

“Elder’s?” Trekor turned to him and Iros thought he could almost see a tear in her green eyes. She might look to be troll in large part, but in that moment he knew she was far more human than that. Trolls didn’t know tears. Ever.

“These were the last of the Royal Watch. The watchmen returned from the war. We could restore their souls to them, their thoughts and their wills. But not their lives. Death was always theirs. Their constant shadow.”

Iros believed her. Completely. He remembered only too well the harrowing nightmare he had seen in his prisons when the elders had freed them. He had known then that they would not recover. People couldn’t recover from everything. And whatever horror had so consumed their souls had been too much. He had tried not to think about it then. But standing there among all those bodies he understood. This was their recovery. Their redemption.

“We should leave them here. Let them return to the Mother. That in time they may be new born as the innocents they once were.” Her face was grief and thunder, her voice solemnity itself. And Iros knew she was right. It was wrong to leave the dead unmourned and uncovered, but it was what the soldiers would have wanted. And there was nothing they could do anyway; there were simply too many to bury or burn. But still the crows were circling, awaiting their dinner, and the sight disturbed him.

What he truly didn’t know was what to think about their last battle.

These were the elves who had murdered so many innocents. Who had done such terrible things. Who had killed his family. But they had been demon ridden. Even Iros could not have doubted that. Not when he had seen their freedom given to them in the prison. Not when he had seen the anguish they endured. But now that they had sacrificed their lives in a hopeless battle to clear a pass for them.  What did that make them?  Murderers? Evil doers? Innocents ridden by a demon? Or heroes? Could they be all of those things? The one thing, the only thing that he did understand about them, was that they hurt. They had suffered. And death for them was a mercy. Maybe the only one they could know.

And even if it wasn’t there was still nothing that they could do.

Iros stood up, his decision reached. “Everyone, back to the others. We need to cross Python Pass today.” One by one the others did as he commanded, and he watched them leave. But before he followed them he had to do one more thing. One more thing that had to be done. He turned back to the dead soldier.

“I don’t know who you were. I don’t know what you did. But I forgive you.” Did anyone hear him? The spirits of the dead? The Divines? Or just the crows circling above? He didn’t know. What he did know was that it was right. That it had to be said.

He held to that thought as he walked back to the others, trying hard not to listen to the shrill cries of the crows above as they waited to feed.