War Lands of Arhosa Read online

  A lunge from the left hand of the helfarch was batted away, while a thrust from the right was countered by stepping inside the arc of the blade. This left him perilously close to the distended lower jaw, which took that moment to lance outwards. Only to be meet in a thunderous collision by the heavy steel ball that formed the counterweight upon the hilt of his weapon. The resounding blow sent a crack rippling out over the battlefield, and even those who were engaged in desperate struggles turned their heads to see what could have caused such a fearsome noise.

  The helfarch itself reared back, its jaw shattered, its front legs and arms flailing into the space that Iaprem occupied. But these attacks were the disorganized actions of a stunned and wounded beast. Iaprem was able to slip beyond their reach with ease, his claymore up and in the ready position. As the beast landed back on the ground, weight now firmly on its front legs, he swept his weapon across in a great swing, the magically sharpened edge slicing through first one of the limbs and then the other, leaving flame-blackened flesh around the edges. The smoking ruins of the limbs fell to the ground, as did the sickened and stunned face of the helfarch, now flopping about on its side, unable to understand what had happened to it.

  What followed was merely an execution, for although the helfarch would no doubt eventually die of the blood pumping from the severed stumps where its limbs had once rested, it was still possessed of those fearsome blades, and a danger to any man who came near to it. Thus, when Iaprem severed the head of the mortally wounded creature, it was no mercy killing, but mere battlefield necessity. Glancing backwards, he saw that the line of his soldiers had stretched out to the right, the man on that edge of battle attempting to hedge his unprotected side away from the foes who assailed him, with those placed near him unconsciously following. It was a natural outcome of fighting, and one which the sergeants and junior officers should have corrected. But his was the supreme responsibility, and so he paused in his individual combat to yell at the men, for in places the line was grown thin, either where the wounded had fallen, or where soldiers had found the needs of their own survival to overtake their reluctance to appear cowardly in the sight of their friends.

  What scant number of reserves had been available to him were already in the line of battle, doing their utmost to keep the ring about the gate’s mouth closed. It was a ring that was all but broken, the numbers on the small keep overtop the gate having mostly been overwhelmed, now fighting back to back against assailants from both the walls outside and the steps inside. Granted, the attackers were positioned in the same perilous manner, their backs exposed to assault from further along the wall, but now the physical abilities and natural ferocity of the humanoid raiders was doing the greater damage.

  It was to the next of the helfarchs that Iaprem’s attention was drawn, for the creature spared no time in slamming into his back as he was shouting the last of his orders. Immediately after the bulk of the creature struck him, he felt the thin trickle of blood, as one of its bladed hands sliced into a vulnerable gap in the armour, leaving his off arm weakened and bleeding. There was also the foul stench of its breath as its teeth closed upon that same arm, but his armour being of a much higher quality than his poor subordinate saved him, and they found little purchase on the metal skin.

  Swinging wildly, the sword overly heavy in one hand, Iaprem spun about, blade flashing, an attack well anticipated by the helfarch. The large creature leapt backwards, settling easily onto its four legs as it looked down upon its wounded prey. Iaprem circled to his left for a moment, regaining feeling in his left arm and placing it once more upon the grip of his sword, the tip held out towards the helfarch in a challenge. The beast snorted, doing nothing more than glaring with stern derision upon its smaller, weaker, foe.

  Which drew quite a smile from Iaprem. A smile followed a mere second later by a great burst of flame, leaping from the tip of his sword in a solid line towards his surprised enemy, unable to manoeuvre its bulk out of the way. The liquid fire splattered against the helfarch, engulfing the creature in a blaze which rivalled that from the massive bonfire at the back of the courtyard.

  What followed was the screams of the monster, piercing, loud, and altogether unsettling, leading even Iaprem to step back in sudden horror as the flesh of the helfarch began to melt under the magical assault, slow drips sizzling and falling to the ground, there to smoke and fill the air with a putrid stench.

  Shuddering despite having seen that effect of his sword in times past, Iaprem turned aside, looking to find the next of the helfarchs, but the last pairing had placed themselves in spots barely reachable, both visibly chewing upon limbs dangling from their mouths, one having been sliced clean, another torn free by the action of the jaws. Neither was unmarked, but the Cynlyaa soldiers around them were the merest moments from flight, and did so as Iaprem watched, leaving a gaping hole in the left edge of the line.

  Rather than seek to turn the line, as Iaprem expected them to do, they both cantered away, heading for a spot on the walls equidistant from both of the gates. And when his eyes were able to see past the blaze of heat and smoke from the twin bonfires in the courtyard, Iaprem could see the soldiers on the battlements there already struggling with their attackers, the helfarchs from inside the wall, and some humanoids from without.

  The recruits were doing better than expected, in as much as they as yet held their posts and fought with intelligence, but with the northern gate as pressed as it was, there was little he could do aside from hold the entrance, and pray Yenque was able to assist.

  ***

  Yenque had had, up until this moment at least, a rather dull battle. Given command of the southern gate, he had found the enemy singularly reluctant to attack his position, and so had been forced to watch the frantic signalling from the tower on high, conveying some status of the attack on the northern gate. There was almost nothing he could truly determine from such dim and distant signals, other than that there was an assault underway, but one thing for certain was that he had not been called upon as reinforcement. Which meant the battle for the northern gate couldn’t be going too badly. Most likely thanks to Iaprem and his great claymore.

  Indeed, Yenque’s battle was so dull that he had affected a pose of complete disinterest, and taken to napping leaning against one of the crenellations. Because if he wasn’t going to be involved in the fighting, he certainly wasn’t going to miss a good night’s sleep in the bargain as well. Which meant he was snoring quite loudly when one of his soldiers gave him a shake hard enough to send him tumbling to the ground, his armour clattering upon the stone.

  “What is it?!” Yenque leapt to his feet, looking at the messenger.

  “That.” A pointing finger picked out the helfarchs slamming into the back of soldiers already hard pressed by an assault over the walls.

  “Half of you stay here. The other half, WITH ME!” Grabbing his morningstars from where they were hooked into his belt, Yenque sprinted along the battlements, calling up what magics remained to his weapons.

  By no means as impressive as those within the great blade of the Warleader, his morningstars were still highly useful upon the field of battle. One, when he got a good clean blow in, would spit a field of sparks across those nearby. Sometimes including himself, if he wasn’t careful. The other blinked and flashed in a pattern entirely random and incredibly frequent. Mixed with the occasional noises the weapon would make, which were of deafening volume, it was an amazing distraction on the field of battle to those who had never experienced it before.

  Sadly, the confusion was something that applied to his own soldiers just as much as any other, and he was charging in to the rescue of men who could barely be called soldiers. Certainly, he wouldn’t do so. But they fought and died for their country and their friends, and at the moment that was all that mattered.

  When Yenque and the charge from the southern gate finally arrived on the scene, more than half of the recruits who had held this portion of the wall were down, and in their place stood a
motley assortment of humanoid raiders. The leader of the mob appeared to be an overly muscled and slightly elongated creature, possessed of claws on both hands. It gave off an aura of inherent command, gesturing hither and yon at the orcs, gnolls, and others of its race that surrounded it. Even the helfarchs seemed to obey, now that they had broken through to the assault coming over the walls.

  With a section of the walls in possession of the raiders, there could be seen others of their kind climbing over the battlements and into the fight, although the rate was not that great. Clearly, the commander of the raiders had not yet realized the success of his attack, or if he had, was having trouble marshalling his troops and sending them to the right location.

  Taking no more than a moment for a breather, Yenque charged along the narrow stone battlements. Wide enough for two normal soldiers, with his morningstars Yenque took up a space much greater than the average man-at-arms, and so had directed those following him to charge down the stairs and attempt to come at the besiegers from the other end of the conquered territory, albeit with a few giving him support.

  While those whom he had ordered set off, Yenque activated the beacon in his morningstar, letting the light and sound play across his foes. So bright and rapid was the illumination that the world seemed to resolve itself into a series of frozen images, each one at some remove from the last. In reality, that was merely a trick of the mind, and Yenque was able to send his maces spiralling inwards, one coming across high, the other low. He smiled to himself as the brightly flashing one distracted his first opponent, a scrawny, spear-wielding goblin with a snaggletooth, from the second, which burst into glowing electrical life when it crunch into the hip of his foe.

  The spray of sparks set the creature immediately behind the goblin on fire, the hide armour it wore catching alight. Rather than slow his assault, Yenque brought the weapons around again, stepping over the crumbled corpse of his foe and launching into another blistering assault, the first strike of which sent the flaming orc stumbling to the side, his foot coming down on nothing but air and tumbling off the walkway to the ground beneath, where he was quickly stabbed to death by a spear thrust from one of the Cynlyaa soldiers.

  The next opponent to come within range of his flails was one of the taller, muscular creatures, the type of which he did not recognize. And yet, since one of them was directing matters, they were clearly amongst the leaders of this band of rabble. Curious. Perhaps they feel the need to fight only when absolutely forced to do so.

  Whatever the reason, the creature was quite skilled at combat, regardless of the distractions constantly assaulting it. It was able to catch the chain of the electrical morningstar, preventing the head from causing anything more than a deep bruise, and duck under the other strike, while at the same time retaliating with a deep claw gouge across the stomach, a blow that no doubt would have been fatal to almost all of the human soldiers. But Yenque twisted, letting the thickest part of his armour take the strike, and it scratched off, sparks flying from the talons as they skittered along the armour.

  A jerk on the morningstar freed it, no doubt in part because of the creature’s surprise at its fight ending strike doing nothing of the sort. This time, when Yenque came in with both weapons, he was more circumspect in how he did so, and the creature took a bash across one arm, but only glancingly so.

  With the helfarchs fighting shoulder to shoulder at the other end of the embattled area, his men were having a great deal of difficulty in creating any form of headway. If it wasn’t for the tight confines of the area, he’d have had no doubt that the helfarchs would have pushed his men back, despite their training. Those bloody abominations were bred warriors, skilled at combat in ways that it took humans decades of training to master, and they were showing it. As Yenque fought, he saw one of his men disembowelled, the intestines then cut through by a sweep from the second blade and flicked forward to create a spot of uncertain footing right in front of the helfarchs.

  If I don’t break through and smash them from behind, we’re dead and gone. And the fact that Iaprem hasn’t charged over here with that claymore of his means he’s doing his damndest just to keep the north gate closed. So, all on me. Joy.

  Sending both morningstars arcing in on overhand tracks, Yenque watched as the creature did exactly the right thing to defend against that - namely, step into the blows and come across with a strike at Yenque’s face. What the creature hadn’t anticipated was the arrival of Yenque’s booted foot in its midriff, knocking the wind from its lungs. At that moment, it was dead. The following strike that sent it tumbling over the crenellations to fall outside the wall was entirely preordained.

  As another of his men was sent reeling by the helfarchs, Yenque bashed aside the next creature to stand in his way. This one had better luck than the previous, and with a raking blow left bloody grooves where a gap in the armour did not protect Yenque. The next did even better, the thunder club it wielded so large and heavy as to be almost unstoppable when swung first. Certainly, with morningstars, which were a poor defensive weapon at the best of times, Yenque could do nothing aside from attempt to dodge as the massive head swept in from his right.

  The dodge was partially successful, in as much as he was hit by the upper part of the shaft rather than the head, but such was the force of the blow that he was driven fully across the walkway and slammed into the crenellations, leaving bruises and likely worse up and down both sides of his ribcage. It also stopped all the momentum that had gone into the morningstars, and they hung limply, the one still furiously blinking and howling from its enchantment.

  In the end, it was likely that enchantment that saved Yenque’s life, for the following blow was a slightly misaimed overhead, smashing into the ground and splitting the stone of the walkway as Yenque dived out from under the heavy strike. Thankfully, the thunder club was, if anything, an even worse defensive weapon than the pair of morningstars, and so now that it was safely out of the picture and lodged into the stonework of the battlements, it was possible for a hefty kick followed by a circling mace head to dispose of the foe wielding it, sending the rather startled gnoll over the battlements and to the courtyard below.

  Whether the foe had died was immaterial, for at that moment Yenque found himself facing down the imperious leader of the raiders, the tall and muscular creature bending slightly at the waist and spreading his claws in response to the opportunity presented. Accepting the challenge, Yenque swept the morningstars into motion, their heads spinning back and forth in front of him, too dangerous for his foe to challenge directly.

  At which point, his foe grinned, stood tall, and flicked something concealed in a claw at Yenque. Whatever the small object was, it took Yenque directly in the chest and exploded in a spray of red mist, coating him in a foul, nauseating, substance that had him on his knees in moments.

  When next he was able to see, he looked up to find the creature standing above him, a gloating smile on its face, claws raised to end the engagement almost before it had started.

  I have failed. Both myself and my people. I guess I really will end up as a goblin turd. What a noble end that is going to be.

  But the blow failed to materialize, and he glanced up again through the heaves to see his foe standing there with a dazed, stupefied expression on its face, swaying slightly in the nighttime breeze. And then down to the courtyard below, where Dregnon was staring at him with a concentrated effort upon his face. What followed was a sudden cessation of the nausea, followed by Dregnon doubling over and collapsing to the ground, wretching all the while.

  Somewhat uncertain of what had just passed between them, Yenque was entirely willing to leave such introspection to a later date, and in the very process of rising swung his electrically charged morningstar in a sweeping uppercut, the spiked ball crashing into the chin of his dazed opponent, shattering it in a shower of sparks, and no doubt snapping the neck that held such a foul mind in place.

  The spray of sparks did as it often had, leaping to another foe,
setting the poor creature on fire, the javelin that was held cocked in its hand falling away unused as electricity leapt through its system, frying what little senses remained to one as depraved as it was.

  The noise of the strike caused one of the helfarchs to spin about, glancing backwards to see what had caused it. Between it and Yenque stood only two more creatures, the rest otherwise occupied or dead. Seeing that the attack had in all likelihood failed, and that the commander was most certainly deceased, it barked a short order to the other helfarch, and leapt over the battlements, landing with a solid thud on all four bony limbs but otherwise unharmed.

  Within moments there was a general exodus for the ladders, the attackers fleeing as best they could manage, the second helfarch outdistancing them all with its leap.

  ***

  Ngaphasi watched as the helfarchs soared over the battlements, their large forms visible even at such distance. His forces had crept to within spear range of the southern gate once the fearsome warrior had sprinted away, taking some half of the forces with him. But enough had remained as to put doubt into Ngaphasi’s mind, and so he had waited, waited for a clear sign the battle was turning in the raiders’ favour.

  Given that the next signal he had spotted was the flight of some of his strongest allies, he knew to what end the battle had gone.

  Turning to his goblin troops, he gave the orders they had all been waiting for. “Mark yourselves like you’ve been in battle. We’re going home.”

  And with that, the only unit that could have forced the capitulation of Cynlyaa and its determined Warleader turned tail and fled.

  We hope you’ve enjoyed this Deepwood Publishing story. As part of our mission to give readers the best of up and coming fantasy and science fiction, the following pages contain a glimpse into Læccan Waters, the third full length novel of The Four Part Land from James Tallett and Deepwood Publishing.