GORLOK
The rising sun was red over the Highland Rift, casting the silhouettes of trebuchets and ballistae in a bloody hue. The morning was still, interrupted only by the annoyed cawing of a distant crow. To my left, the horde's line stretched to the northern horizon. To my right, there was no one. The tundra grasslands gave way to pine trees, and the Highland Rift ascended into thousand-foot cliffs all the way to Castle Thorum and the Knife River. I sat atop Ginger, my prize warg, the beast I'd ridden into battle a hundred times. She was so scarred that her hide was more flesh than hair, but she was tougher than leather and meaner than a cornered boar. With my sons all dead, she was the closest thing I had to family for a hundred miles. Truth be told, I never really gave a shit about my wife and daughters anyway. The only woman in my life worth a damn was the one I was riding.
I drew my eyes from the causeway of South Fort, down to the dirt path beneath me, and through the tunnel in the trees behind me. It was an old imperial highway, and it ran from Bentius, to Ternianas, to South Fort, then moved through the Northern Pines until it ended at Alkandra. I understood why Shordian had put his cavalry division here. The causeway at Mid Fort was barely wide enough for a cart, but the causeway at South Fort could hold ten abreast steeds. Its adjacency to the impassible cliffs made it almost impossible to take by force, so a wide ramp made sense. This was an offensive staging point, a proverbial knife aimed right at Alkandra's throat. This was where the Midlands was narrowest, between the rise of the Rift and the Alkandran Horn; it would take a rider less than a day to cross it. The threat was double-edged, however, for vacating that fort would leave an open door for the horde to walk right to Bentius.
"Orders, General?" Colonel Jedriok asked.
I examined the note Zander's owl had sent me that morning. "We are to test the defenses of sector nine today." I said, glancing up at the fortified section of the rift two miles north of South Fort. It was a particularly nasty ridgeline that cut inward for about a hundred yards, funneling any attempt to scale it into a crossfire kill-zone. I snorted. Maybe the Dark Queen was content with letting me live, but the wizard clearly thought I was a loose end. My regiment had hit eight sectors in the fifteen days since I'd been stripped of my title, seeing more action than any other unit in the horde by far.
"General?" Colonel Jedriok asked again.
"Send a salvo to cover our advance." I grunted, "Flame cannisters in the fort to get them distracted, then boulders over our heads when we begin to ascend. Lay off when we're three-quarters of the way up."
"Can we expect royal support?"
I barked a laugh, and pulled on the reins of my warg.
Thirty minutes later, the north wall of South Fort was engulfed in flame. Great salvos were launched from the trebuchets below, arcing through the sky like meteors before crashing atop the rift. Directly above me, the great bows of the elven ballistae were being cranked back, levered out from the cliffside to aim directly down. Directly below me was fifty feet of air before the hard earth.
Ginger snarled, her great claws digging into the rockface as she lumbered up the shear wall. Hundreds of other warg-riders labored behind me, their beast's talons screeching against the shale surface. They shot their crossbows in a vain attempt to dissuade the elves from aiming over the cliffs, but it was impossible to be accurate while aiming straight up, and impossible to miss when aiming straight down. I heard their archer commander give the order, and I clutched Ginger's scruff for dear life.
Hell rained down on us. The twang of arrows, the screech of ballista shot, the upending of great barrels. A missile screamed past me and impaled the warg behind me through the mouth, spitting the beast and its rider before exiting its rear to cut through another. They fell from the cliffside, clawing at the air in their dying moments before crashing to the ground. Hot pitch coated another beast in black tar, and its screech of agony cut through the cacophony of battle like a soprano soloist. The creature crashed into the riders below it and sent ten falling to their end. Ginger shuddered with impacts, the arrows striking her head and forelegs, but even elven bows could not pierce her shield of muscle. The same was not true for the younger wargs, and a dozen fell at a time. I growled, dug my heels into Ginger's flank, and urged her upward.
They made us pay for every inch. Arrows peppered us without pause, boulders were rolled over the edge to smash us, boiling tar cascaded like waterfalls. A final support salvo from our boys below knocked out three of their ballistae, but the other two were still there, and in the crossfire of the groove we navigated, they didn't even have to aim. The warg beside me was nailed to the cliffside. The rider behind me was split in two. The great gears of the death machines were cranked back, and they fired in quick succession, driving through flesh and rock, pinning the squirming beasts and riders like decorations upon the cliff face. I drove my heels harder, firing blindly with my crossbow, cursing and sputtering and raging until the world suddenly righted itself. I was over the top.
Ginger gained purchase on the top of the cliff by flattening two imperials under her paws, their pink insides shooting from their golden shells. Then she dug her hind paws into the rock, and launched herself over. I took no time to savor the moment. There was a rage within me as primal as Ginger's, and I knew nothing but death. I pulled out my axe and split a man down the middle, I swiped to the left and cut another's jugular out, I reared over the top and crushed a helm with the blunt head, his brains spraying out of his faceplate like confetti. The other wargs hurtled over the top, tearing into the hapless archers, ripping off limbs, biting into bellies. One poor golden bastard was dragging himself away, his entrails wriggling behind him.
We cleared the sector with an acute savagery, using teeth and claw to rip flesh and muscle from screaming men. Wargs liked to eat their prey while it was still alive, and so we let our dogs feast on the prisoners. As the satisfying gurgles and shrieks sounded from all around us, I watched the elven reinforcements marshal a thousand yards away.
"Nine times we've scaled that fucking wall, and eight times we've fled back down it." Colonel Pasok growled. He'd been Major Pasok before the battle, but Colonel Jedriok was dead. "The regiment started at two-thousand riders. Now, it's down to seven-hundred, and for what?"
"For what?" I chuckled, and looked down at the man Ginger was feasting upon. He'd stopped his shrieking, but his eyes were still wide, uncomprehending of the hell he was in, his open mouth spewing red bile, his guts being pulled out in pink strings. "This is why we fight, Pasok." I smiled down at the man, "What were you, boy? A husband? A son? A father? Doesn't matter now. Now you're just meat." I looked out at the reinforcing line, "That fucking wizard will send us up this wall day in and day out, and we'll climb it day in and day out. I'm unkillable, Pasok; that's what he doesn't realize. God has blessed me to live when everyone else will die, because God has charged me with sending her fresh imperial souls."
The reinforcements began their counterattack, and I pulled back on Ginger's reins. The elf gulped with a mouth full of red, staring sightlessly at the sky, his entire midsection torn out. He would die terribly if the mages didn't get to him, but he had a chance. I always left one survivor to tell the others about me.
ADRIANNA
Alkandra was beautiful in the morning. Six streets of tiered towers stood in regimented lines like parading soldiers before the castle, and beyond that, the vast city sprawled out between the riverbank and the shoreline, a myriad of shoddy high-rises and squat abodes that looked akin to architectural vomit. On the other side of the river, the lush fields of green shown like a blanket of vegetation before the surrounding arms of the Great Forest. Though we had felt the first chill of the fall winds, the last vestiges of summer had not yet left us, and the morning was a blessing upon my flesh.
"Beautiful morning." Furia yawned as she stepped beside me at the top steps of Castle Alkandra. I smiled at her tattooed face, and pathed with my thumb, the tribal crescent sigil that marked her from her left brow to her chin. She tilted her head into the caress, and wrapped her lips around my thumb when it ended.
I crinkled my nose at her. "Why did you have to turn it sexual?"
"Mmm, can't help it." Furia grinned coyly, gnawing on my thumb, "I remember where you put this thing last night, and it still tastes... delicious."
"Enough of you!" I laughed, palming her face. She licked my hand defiantly, and a second later, I had her pressed against the entryway pylon, my hands reaching into her magistrate robe to find her magnificent organ, stroking it until it was so hard that it leaked onto my hand. There were undoubtedly many people who could see us, but we didn't care. Hell, we'd performed on the sands of the arena before a hundred-thousand screaming beasts. If anything, the witnesses only excited us. I dropped to my knees, licking my lips at the sight of her robes draping over her tool, and I lowered my mouth to—
"Shit!" Furia gasped, her breath full of desire, "They're here!"
I turned my head, and saw the procession of black-cloaked figures moving down the imperial road through the fields. The moved like they were floating instead of walking, their heads not bobbing at all with their footfalls. I turned back to Furia. "Get the others."
Ten minutes later, I was standing before the Black Throne, and the vampires were kneeling below me. It was a surreal experience, but then again, surreal experiences had become so commonplace for me that surrealism had lost it meaning.
"You may rise." I said, and they did so silently. "Welcome, the clan of Titus, to your home." I said, gesturing to the hybrids beside me, "I am Governess Adrianna Alkandra. This is Watch Commander Faltia Dafian, Outreach Director Eva Alecia, First Scribe Soraya Poneria, Lead Engineer Alexa Jenania, Agricultural Liaison Kiera Lestria, Population Director Brianna Dedaclia, and Head Magistrate Furia Augustinia. We are here to serve you."
I made a motion with my hand, and the attendants in the rafters pulled the curtains over the windows. The doors were shut, and all at once, the great hall of the castle was pitch black. I snapped my fingers, and the chandeliers above ignited, illuminating the expansive atrium in orange light. The vampires looked around, then pulled back their hoods. I had to suppress a gasp. Almost all of them had been elves. What was once blonde hair and blue eyes had become black hair and red eyes, their pale flesh had become alabaster white, and their soft features had become dramatic and severely beautiful. They had bodies like gods, and stood over seven feet, with the tallest among them standing closer to eight. This was no elf, but had been a human man once, and an infamous one at that. Drake Titus stepped forward.
"Ladies, thank you oh-so kindly for your hospitality." He said graciously, the charm in his voice undoubtedly the deadliest part about him.
