The Storm's Own Son (Book 2) (5 page)

Weak and slow, they hesitated and stepped back.

Delaying their deaths only by moments.

He hurtled over the battlement, wreathed in lightning, and into the massed enemy.

With a sweep of his long blade, he cut a man in half at the waist, and in the same motion, sheared another foe's head from his shoulders. 
A third enemy stumbled backwards bleating in fear, so slowly he seemed trapped in amber. Talaos stopped his bleating with a short blade through his mouth, freed the blade by slicing it sideways out of his head, then spun around to take out another foe's legs with his long blade.

Life, vital, furious, strong, merciless as the storm, and as nature itself, coursed through him. He spun, whirled, struck and slew. Electricity arced in the wake of his movements. Foes died with swords hanging loosely, uselessly in terrified hands. He laughed, wild and heedless.

An eternity of arc-lit slaughter passed. He grew impatient. Then at last some found their courage. Ever so slowly, foes formed a rank with spears and locked round shields. Others charged with swords ready. Archers behind drew back their bows, and fired them uselessly in the wind. Arrows crawled toward him , only to be guided away harmlessly by the caressing wind.

Talaos advanced on them, stalking forward with blades bright as thunderbolts, eyes flashing lightning and the grin of a wolf beneath.

The men with swords moved to attack him, as slowly as if in a waking dream. He leapt forward, cleaved one man through the shoulder, leapt back again with a smile, and yet still they moved no faster. Their eyes, ever so slowly, widened with fresh fear.

Fast as the whirlwind, he attacked with scything, stabbing blades.
One man, then another, and then more, weak, slow, and dead.  He glanced around, the swordsmen were all slain, bodies scattered in pieces and their blood washing the stones along with the slowly dropping rain.

Behind him, he heard the slow snap and the clang of heavy iron as the scaling beast reached the wall and clamped its own wolf-jaws on the keep.

Before him, half the keep still had living foes, a hundred or more. They formed a shield wall with lowered spears. Others behind had axes or swords. The archers had given up and drawn short swords. A few hurled javelins. Slowly at first, like twigs in a gentle stream, they flew his way. He knocked one aside casually with his armored forearm. Then, others came, a little faster, then faster still. He dodged them. The men behind the shield wall seemed to be waking from their dreams, action and intent returning to their sluggish limbs.

They moved faster yet, almost like men, but they did not move closer.

One hundred of them, and him. He grinned his feral grin.

The speed of the world seemed to catch up at last, or he slowed down to that of it.

Then behind him, the Madmen howled and came pouring over the battlement.  Vulkas roared, and Talaos laughed joyfully beside him. Together they charged toward the ranks ahead. At their sides charged Larogwan, Kyrax, Epos, and Halmir, like savage beasts against sheep.

Larogwan hurled a hand axe over the edge of an enemy's shield and between the man's eyes. As the foe toppled, javelins from Epos and Halmir pierced the chests of men behind. The beasts reached the sheep. Vulkas crushed a man to the ground with his mattock, as Kyrax shoved a man's shield aside with his own and rammed a sword through his ribs.

Talaos leapt high and brought his long blade down to cleave a foe's helm and head in two. Halmir dodged a spear and split the wielder's shield apart with his axe. Then he kicked the man backwards as he spun around and brought his axe into another's shoulder. Larogwan took a glancing spear strike on his shield, stepped inside the wielder's reach and used the rim of his shield to force the other's aside. With the opening created, he brought his axe into the foe's neck.

Three enemies jabbed at Epos with spears. One glanced off his sturdy, closed-faced helm. He replied by putting his own spear into his opponent's unprotected eye. As the foe dropped, he coolly
glanced another spear off his shield, brought his own low, and ran it through the opponent's thigh. Then he made a measured step to one side, avoiding the spear of his remaining foe. The other had stepped too far with the strike, letting his shield shift away from the gap in armor under his outstretched spear arm. Epos ran his spear through the spot.

The center of the enemy front line stood ragged and shattered.  Talaos and his five beasts tore into the wound, slaying as they widened it. Behind them and around them, here and there, other enemies still lived. Others came forward past their own ranks to surround the invaders. Firio and Imvan, like a pair of predatory falcons or ravens seeing prizes, descended on them.

Now, up the ladder and over the battlement, came the rest of Talaos's men. Grim and terrible, they advanced on the wavering enemy. Talaos, even as he slew, looked back at his advancing men and laughed.  The enemies all round wavered, seeing their deaths upon them.

And then eighty grim and merciless men charged, like the flanks and claws of a beast with Talaos and his Madmen as the jaws. With them, death arrived. They howled, roared and slaughtered. It was over swiftly, and then they had only corpses around them. The rain poured from the sky in sheets as lightning flashed overhead.

Talaos laughed. Victory, he thought. But only the first. They had work to do.

The front left tower of the keep was a graveyard of shattered wood and bones. The other three still had ballistae, and even in this wind, they could hit at such close range. The crews in the towers were working furiously to reposition their weapons to do exactly that, while archers took aim at targets close enough to have some chance of success.

"Vulkas!" roared Talaos, voice echoing like thunder, "Take those doors out!"

The doors at the bases of the towers were iron-bound and strong, built to withstand assault. Vulkas ran, massive as a hurtling boulder, to the one at the front right of the keep.

He made a turning leap, war mattock swinging wide.

"ONE!"
Vulkas bellowed.

The mattock smashed into the door and sent it flying backward. Soldiers on the other side were crushed in a spray of blood against the opposite wall. Beyond the doorway were stairs, up and down. The giant charged toward a second tower, that on the back right.

A group of Talaos's men charged into the open door, and both up and down the stairs.

"Larogwan, take charge of the men below!
Halmir, lead the men up top!" shouted Talaos.

They nodded and ran.

Vulkas reached the second tower.

"TWO!"

The gigantic warrior turned low, mattock swinging around and upward like the mallet in a game of ball. It smashed the door inward from the bottom, flipping its jagged remnants backward to cut a soldier behind it in half at the waist.

"Kyrax, up!
Epos, down!" roared Talaos as he followed Vulkas to the final tower.

As they went, another group of Talaos's men poured behind Kyrax and Epos through the shattered tower door.

On top of the first tower, Halmir was leading a swift slaughter.

"THREE!" roared the giant, as he reached the last tower.

Vulkas whirled, mattock upward, then down again in an arc that cracked the door in half, with splinters flying inward. This time no one had been so unwise as to guard behind it.

"Vulkas, clear the tower!" bellowed Talaos, "Firio! Imvan!
With me!"

As Vulkas crashed his way up the stairs, smashing foes foolish enough to stand in his way, Talaos descended. He grinned with the feral joy of the hunt, ready to face the unknown prey below. His beasts, he thought, were now leading hunts of their own. Behind him, companions on his
hunt, were his ravens Firio and Imvan, and his wild, ravening men of death.

4
. Blood and Wrath

Talaos leapt down the winding stairs as the sounds of battle raged all around. They circled twice, and he came to the landing of the next floor down. There was a sturdy door with an iron handle and a lock. His lock picks from Carai were with the remnants of his old gear in camp. The door was sturdy, he thought, but not so strong as the doors outside. He gave it a kick with the same force that had knocked a man ten feet, and the door flew open.

On the other side, there was a scene of struggle as a large mass of enemy in the center fought his own invading men at the doors from the towers on the opposite side. To the center front and center back of the place were huge iron and wood mechanisms to operate the gates.

Facing him, however, were spearmen crouched low in a line behind large round shields, bearing white clouds and thunderbolts, and behind them a line of archers in dark gray tunics.

The bowmen fired. Talaos leapt backwards out of the way, fast as the arrows, and blocked Imvan and Firio behind him. Arrows clattered against the stone where he'd stood. He missed his throwing daggers. Then another idea came to him.

He sheathed his swords. Briefly, he showed himself around the doorway. The bowmen in the room were quick, and another volley of arrows struck the wall.

In the mere seconds available, he darted forward, and to the shock of all who saw it, he ripped the heavy, thick wooden door from its hinges, and then took it by its sturdy handle like a tower shield in his left hand. He drew his long blade with his right.

Behind him, Firio whistled with an intake of breath.

He charged forward. For a moment, the enemy soldiers were too stunned to react. Then they fired more arrows uselessly against the door he carried in one hand. Behind, Imvan fired an arrow and put it through an archer's throat. Firio threw two daggers in quick succession, faster than the strikes of a snake, and each went through the eye of a bowman.

Then Talaos was upon the enemy. He turned the door sideways and threw it into the faces of the spearmen before him. Blood sprayed where it struck as the men behind toppled. He leapt over the ruin with blades flashing, and cut down the archers left and right. As the startled remaining spearmen turned to deal with him, his grim warriors poured through the doorway and were upon them. Imvan stayed at the stairs, selecting targets, while Firio crept into the room, seeming unimportant as always, and began to deal stealthy death.

On the other side, his men had cleared the areas around the doorways of enemies and fought their way forward with Larogwan and Epos in the forefront. The enemy fell back and formed a defensive position in the center of the vast room.  There was an officer in the center, directing them to form a shield wall while bowmen readied behind.

Talaos picked up his door shield, thick with gore on its underside. It was cracked, but held together by its iron bracings. He stepped in front of his men and hurled it like a discus into the center of the enemy. The officer and those around him went crashing in ruin. Then Talaos howled, and he and his men descended like wolves on the startled, leaderless enemy.

It was over in moments.

He gestured to the mechanism at the front of the room. It was flanked by a pair of narrow windows, and then several arrow slits on each side. Then he roared, "Larogwan, take some men and open the gates! The rest of you, to the floor below!"

With that, he raced back to the tower stairs and down with men charging behind. Above, he could hear Vulkas bellowing as he brought more men down the stairs. Elsewhere, Kyrax and Halmir shouted as they followed down their own towers.

The next level had another sturdy door. Warm, almost hot air filtered up through the small gap at its base. Talaos readied, kicked the door open, and drew back as the arrows came. He then went leaping high, his back almost scraping along the thick beams of the ceiling, and over the next volley of arrows. As he flew, he saw a mixed body of soldiers on either side of the door, and archers beyond.  He landed in the midst of the bowmen with scything blades.

The men on either side of the door, waiting to ambush, had glanced up as Talaos flew past. Next through the door was Firio, low and unseen on the ground. He darted right and cut a soldier's tendons, then leaped away as others turned to attack him with swords and axes.

Next through the door was Vulkas, who moved his mattock into motion even as he did. He spun left and brought the mattock like a hammer against the anvil of the wall on the left. The closest enemy had the misfortune of being in between. Then more men poured through, and bloody fighting began all round.

Talaos stood in the center of the slaughtered archers. He surveyed the floor, his battlefield, before him. There were small openings above and below at the front and back, where the huge chains of the gates ran.  On the floor in the center of the room, there was a rectangular grid of much larger openings: square hatches with iron grates.

On either side of that grid was an area where sturdy beams crossed the floor, with metal mountings for pots of boiling water or oil. At the back of the room was an area of brick flooring and brick furnaces to boil the water, with chimneys out. Men had been working the fires, and with protective clothing, carried pots by means of iron rods to the mountings, where boiling water would be poured on unfortunate invaders below.

However, with the arrival of Talaos and his men, all work had stopped.  The two doors on the far side looked to have been braced with spare iron rods and stopped with heavy iron pots. There was banging as Talaos's men tried to smash through the doors. More enemy soldiers, ready for the ambush, stood watch on that side.
A pair of officers near the center were shouting orders.

Then, as Talaos watched, his men poured past him and into the enemy. As they advanced, slaying, they hurled some of the defenders over their own iron gratings. Blood dripped through to the gate causeway below. The other doors smashed open at last. The remaining Madmen and their soldiers poured through, and it was soon over.

A great grinding noise filled the chamber as both gates began to open.  This floor had arrow slits as well. Talaos walked to one of them as the rest of his men poured down the stairs and gathered, awaiting his command. He took a look.

Down below, outside the walls, was a scene of combat, as ladders raised and men fought. The wind still roared and the rain came down in sheets. In that, arrows were useless, and all would be decided steel to steel. He listened to the creaking of the gate mechanism and looked to the field before those gates, where Kurvan waited with a thousand men.

The gates seem to have opened far enough, for Kurvan bellowed, audible even in the storm, and his men roared with him. Then howling madly, Kurvan charged with a colossal axe in his hands and his thousand men at his back.

Talaos turned to his own men.

He spoke in a deep voice that echoed like distant thunder, "Men, there will be archers in a room on each side of that causeway on the floor below. We'll clear them, then we'll help Kurvan at the gate. After that, we're going to the center of Avrosa, where that fire was burning. You will follow me and go nowhere else unless I order it. You will slay anyone under arms who opposes us, and you will slay any I order you to, without question, but no one else!"

There were looks of surprise from among the grim volunteers.

"I command it!" roared Talaos, voice like a thunderclap.

"We obey!"
came the shouted response, the response soldiers of Hunyos used when accepting a formal order. With it, they saluted him, and it was returned by him.

"There is one more thing, men," said Talaos. "You've earned a title of your own, just as we Madmen did against
Drosta. We took this place like a wolf on the fold. As of now, you are the Wolves."

Ferocious cheers followed. Talaos raised his hand, and they waited on his word.

"Now men, to it!"

~

Behind the gates of Avrosa spread a broad paved square, and that square ran with rain and blood as Kurvan and his men fought their way through massed ranks of defenders. Talaos hurtled out from a door at the back of the left of the keep, and into the enemy. With the Madmen at his sides and his Wolves behind. At the now-cleared keep, they left fourteen dead of their own, and three hundred or more of the enemy.

Here in the open was a very different kind of battle. Talaos and the Madmen wreaked havoc before them. Further on the flanks, enemy spearmen, some in formations with long pikes, slew some of his Wolves. Squads of enemy cavalry in the gray of Avrosa flanked the plaza, and they charged. On the far side, Kurvan's men simply swarmed around them, taking losses, but pulling them off their horses with axes and knives doing bloody work.

"Leave the cavalry to Kurvan! Men, follow me!" roared Talaos.

He cut a scything path before him, with Vulkas to his left, smashing and hurling unfortunate foes. Like the point of a wedge, they advanced with the other Madmen at their flanks and the Wolves behind.  Then they were through, with only buildings and the driving rain before them.

Behind them, Kurvan's men poured up the stairs of the walls, and the heavy infantry marched behind to finish the defenders in the plaza. Talaos smiled as he ran. The commanders knew their business, he thought. He'd done his part. They were in and through the gates. Now, he had business of his own. Business with his only true enemy here. Business with the followers of the Living Prophet.

Down the streets he ran. Close-spaced buildings of three to five stories formed blocks much like those in the Republic, with shops below and housing above. There were few civilians on the streets. Most of the doors they passed were closed, and the windows above were shuttered. Here and there, small squads of enemy soldiers or militia ran to join the battle. Talaos and his men cut them down, hardly pausing. Others simply fled before them.

He was getting closer. They came to an area where the buildings were made of fine stone. They had little walled courtyards between them and their neighbors, and towers rising above from their centers. Talaos guessed they were the homes of the wealthy, but unlike the friendly townhouses of the Republic, these looked to him like fortresses in miniature.

Then they reached the civic buildings. There were statues on columns
fronting  tall colonnades in the old Imperial style. Just like home, thought Talaos. It was not far, could not be far. Then, they heard singing. Even in the rain, the driving wind, and the thunder, they could hear singing by many voices. They rounded a corner.

"What the...!" snarled Kyrax.

Before them was a great plaza, surrounded by the largest of the civic buildings. Around that plaza massed crowds of people, many, but far from all of them, in simple woolen or linen clothes. Some of the men had white caps and some of the women white shawls. They sang. In the midst of rain, wind and death, they sang a song of peace and redemption.

On the far side of the plaza stood a House of the Prophet.
It was larger by far than the one in Ipesca. Here and there in the crowd were soldiers. In front of the House of the Prophet stood a small group of men and women, all in simple clothes and white caps or white shawls. They sang as well, the same song of peace, of redemption, and of forgiveness in the next world.

In the midst of the crowd, at the center of the plaza, atop a wide brick platform of eight
steps, was a great iron stake with rings and chains. Chained to the stake were four people in smocks of plain linen, looking up vacantly at the sky. Wood was piled beneath and around them. Around the wood, twelve people, six men in robes and beards, and six women in shawls with tight-coiled hair, were pouring oil.

Talaos ran faster, with his men behind him.

As they ran, Kyrax growled, "What are those idiots doing? Fire in a rainstorm..."

There was a flash of green light atop the platform.

The people all around, hundreds of them, sang on. There was joy on their faces. The twelve men and women on the platform watched the people on the pyre solemnly. Then they smiled, the gentle smile of forgiveness.

Amid the rain and wind, as Talaos watched, bright red fires lit in the wood.

Rage.

He would not allow it.

The wind roared to new life. Wind like a gale.

Rain poured from the sky as if unleashed from a dam.

Some of the singers faltered. The men and women on the platform, watching the growing flames, were undisturbed.

The fires flickered in the driving rain.

Electricity flickered in his hands.

Talaos stalked forward. Some in the crowd, those who had faltered in their singing, turned his way. Their eyes widened and their mouths opened with fear.

It was all around him now, raging. Blue-white wrath crackled from his hands and arced into the ground around his feet. The rain poured. The men and women on the platform turned to look at him, and they turned all at once, slowly, with gentle smiles.

There was a flash, and the flames rose anew. The people on the pyre began to scream.

He would not allow it.

Lightning struck from the sky, struck the smiling men and women. One, then another, in great crashing thunderbolts, they hurtled and scattered and died. Their corpses smiled still.