Queen Yavara

Chapter Fifty-Nine

CERTIOK

I was stuck somewhere between boredom and existential terror. Within the shadow of Castle Alkandra, my battlegroup of the disabled and geriatric was shielded from the raining hell of boulders and missiles. The distant cacophony created a droning thunder that echoed off the castle's atrium, which acted as an enormous stone bandstand. We hung about the castle steps, watching the destruction unfold with grim faces. For two hours, we just sat there, and as we sat there, terror turned to dread to turned to hopelessness turned to boredom. It was only when Furia and her battlegroup came racing up the steps that we felt any semblance of excitement.

"What the hell are you doing here?" I asked her sharply.

She caught her breath, and pointed southward toward the arena. "Everyone needs to go to the rendezvous point. You, me, everyone."

"We were supposed to stay here and cover the retreat!"

"There won't be a retreat. Soraya and Brianna's battlegroup are trapped, and Faltia's committing her battlegroup to aid them."

"What? Where's Eva's group?! Where's Kiera's?!"

Furia just shook her head, and wiped her eyes. "We lost Brianna too. No one knows where Leveria is, and Yavara's dead."

"Oh fuck."

"Our only chance is to stop them at the arena. We're going to hit them with everything we've got left. Come on!"

FALTIA

I was too late. I could see the progression of the battle by the orientation of the bodies that blanketed the pavilion. The beasts had charged, dealt a considerable blow to the Lowlanders, and then were halted. The Lowlanders had dug deep, used their greater numbers and training to force the charge backward, and had slaughtered the beasts all the way to the steps of the arena. There, the few thousand Alkandran soldiers who survived the onslaught were fighting for their lives down the risers that led to the sands below. Their bodies tumbled down the stone steps by the dozen as the frontline was driven relentlessly backward, and the back ranks were already hopping over the wall and forming a defensive perimeter on the arena floor. Poor fools. There was no defending a position like that. It was like trying to defend the bottom of a well. The enemy formed flanking groups along the risers, and began an encirclement maneuver to trap the beasts on the sands below. I could already see the rows of archers shuffling along the top levels of the arena, ready to begin the final slaughter. Out in the pavilion, the rest of the army formed a long line between us and the arena, goading us to break through them to save our doomed brethren.

"Tom!" I called.

The great twenty-foot behemoth came lumbering to the front, shaking the earth with every footfall. "Yes, ma'am!" He grunted, giving an awkward salute. The hairy troll was covered in burns and great open wounds, but he still moved without too much pain.

"You and your crew take the north end and flank them." I pointed to where I wanted the fifteen resident trolls to go, "Hit them from the alleyway, and don't stop until you are stopped, understand?"

"Yes, ma'am!" Tom boomed, then added, "It's been an honor, ma'am."

"And it will continue to be one after this." I said, patting his great hairy leg. We both knew it was a lie.

"For Alexa," he nodded.

"For Alexa." I echoed, and sent him on his way.

"Joh Proudfoot!" I yelled. The centaur clopped to the front, and saluted smartly. "Take your men to the south end and start firing into their backs. Shoot the mages! Go quickly!"

Joh let out a yell, and the civilian cavalry charged out from the mouth of the street, and into the pavilion. I turned around, drew my sword, and waved it above my head. A third of my battlegroup had died just trying to get here. The boulders had rained relentlessly upon us, collapsing towers onto our heads, blowing holes in our ranks, and sending entire building sliding like avalanches into our sides. We were only seven-thousand strong, and the enemy was over twice that. We'd lost our numbers advantage. We'd lost every advantage. Still, my men cheered me as I haled them, and they raised their weapons overheads and roared their myriad war cries. It was enough to bring tears to my eyes. I turned around, let out a great scream of my own, and charged headlong toward the Lowland line. My battlegroup poured out into the pavilion after me, their thousands of feet causing the very earth to shake.

The Lowland spearmen up front braced themselves, and the archers in back drew down on us. They released a volley, and I heard the whistling rain of hafts descend upon those behind me, sending hundreds to their ends. The archers nocked again, raised their bows, and loosed. A deadly shower came down on us once more, nearly every arrow meeting its mark in the packed-in charge. The Lowland frontline leaned into their defensive stances. The Lowland archers nocked their bows for one last volley. They pulled back, aimed, and then Tom and his trolls burst out of the alleyway, and smashed into the elven ranks. In all my life, I had never seen so much mass move so devastatingly. The great furry beasts brought their payloader hands down, and smashed men into the ground. What was left when the trolls lifted their hands was a sticky red mess of pulverized bones and flattened armor, a two-dimensional caricature of the men they once were. When the trolls swept their hands across the ranks, it sent men hurtling into the air for hundreds of feet. Some of the bastards splattered against the arena columns, and some were sent sailing clear over the stands like homerun blasts. But I think the maneuver I enjoyed the most, was the simple and brutal trampling of the enemy. The great lumbering beasts squashed whole platoons of men by just walking, creating ten-foot gaps in the line. By the time we got there, there wasn't even a front to charge into.

I shot through a gap behind Tom's foot, and bloodied my sword for the first time. It went right through the throat of a reloading archer, then half-decapitated him on the way out. I dodged a spear thrust, spun away from a downward sword strike, then whirled my way into the middle of the two attackers, and before they could even raise their weapons in defense, I put my blade into the spearman's guts, ripped the dagger out from the swordsman's belt, and planted it into his eye. They dropped before me, revealing two archers aiming down their hafts. They loosed. I watched the arrows traverse the twenty feet between us, and intercepted them with the flat of my sword. The archers could only gawk at me as I closed the distance between us, and sent their heads toppling off their shoulders with expressions of disbelief still frozen upon their faces.

A regal knight in full plate rushed me. He swung his massive great sword with a roar, and I simply jump-roped the blade, ducked his return slice, and walked right into his guard. It wasn't like me to toy with my enemy, but I couldn't help but play with the bastard as he frustratedly swept about himself trying to find me. Undoubtedly, he thought very highly of himself, as well he should, for his thrusts and strikes were extremely powerful, and his technique was flawless. Unfortunately for him, there was no technique for speed. I could see his attacks coming before he even did them, and I stayed glued to his side throughout our combat until he raised his hands overhead for a downward strike, and I took the opportunity to drive my sword through his faceplate. Pink blood gushed from the steel hole in his helm, and he dropped the great sword behind him with a clatter, and collapsed to his knees.

My bout with the knight had attracted quite a bit of unwanted attention. Ten spearmen rushed me at once, closing in from my left flank and front. I committed leftward, rushed the five men flanking that side, and rapidly contorted myself between the heads of their weapons. The shafts glided along me in slow motion, and I pushed three of them to a new trajectory. With their momentum carrying them relentlessly forward, they crashed into the other group charging me, and impaled two of their own men. Isolating the two men I hadn't redirected, I quickly dispatched them with two motions, then turned around. The six survivors of the crash all charged me at once, and I raced out to meet them. Once again, I contorted my body to move through the space between their weapons, only this time, I continued all the way down the shafts until I met the men themselves. I put my sword through one throat, slashed across, decapitated another man, summersaulted to the left, plunged my blade into the third man's groin, pulled it out as he doubled-over in agony, then leapt up, stabbed the fourth man beneath the armpit, twirled around, slashed the fifth man across the chest, spun across his back, and plunged my blade into the last man's belly. I withdrew my sword, and all six men dropped at once.

The Lowlanders were being pushed back. The trolls' brutal advance into the Lowland flank had shattered their line, and the main front of the battlegroup was moving nearly unimpeded toward the Lowland's center. Way out in the perimeter, Joh Proudfoot and his mounted skirmishers were thinning-out any formations the Lowlanders could muster, keeping the bulk of the enemy pressed in and disorganized. We had no chance against a structured army, but the citizens of Alkandra could win a brawl. Massive ogres swung their clubs to and froe, sending broken men flailing into the ranks behind them, smashing skulls into dust and splattering bodies like tomatoes. Orcs cut through armor like it was butter, splitting humans all the way down, opening vicious gaps of tendons, bones and guts within their cleanly-cloven iron shells.

And I danced like a deadly little scalpel in the midst of it all, moving with precision and exactness to kill my enemy as efficiently as possible. I gutted one man, ducked a sword swing, put my blade through his chin and through the top of his head, ripped it out just in time to parry an axe, caught the hook of the weapon on my blade, wrenched it from the man's hands, and spun as he was sent sprawling toward me. I put my sword through his mouth and out of his brainstem, then twirled before a downward strike, slashed across my assailant's midsection, moved across him, then impaled the man behind him. Tom thundered past me, flattening a whole squad of Lowlanders who were only trying to get out of his way. He swept his massive hairy arms in great arcs, sending men flying in all directions, and then he suddenly straightened upright, and fell backwards.

I didn't need to see what kind of foe had killed the troll. I scurried around Tom's massive corpse, keeping my head low. One by one, the other trolls came crashing down, each of their impacts shaking the earth like felled trees. When I got to Tom's feet, I flattened myself behind his heel, and peered around it. There were twenty mages positioned in a wide arc around the trolls' bodies. Their hoods were down, showing me their very-normal looking faces. It somehow disturbed me even more that these creatures of such power looked like hardware store owners and grocers. I carefully drew my bow, nocked two arrows, and aimed upward. I judged the angle I would need, then from behind the cover of Tom's massive foot, I loosed the two arrows, and dared a peek out into the open. My two targets were in conversation with each other, heedless of the battle raging around them. They gestured to the bodies of the trolls, made some unheard comments, then they pitched violently forward when an arrow went right through their skulls. I smiled to myself, and watched as the other mages congregated around the two dead bodies. A soldier's natural inclination would've been to run for cover, but these were academics. I nocked two more arrows, aimed up the side of Tom's foot, and loosed. The arrows became dots in the sky, disappeared, became dots again, then became lines, and then they were gone. Two more thuds sounded from behind the troll's foot, and the murmurs of panic came after. I loosed four consecutive arrows, then charged out into the open.

They didn't even see me coming. They were so fascinated by their dead comrades that I closed the distance between us without being noticed. I plunged my sword into a woman's back, ripped it free, decapitated another woman execution-style, killed a third mage—this one a man—with a stab through his chest, rounded his body, and buried my sword into a fourth mage's back. They noticed me after that. Four mages raised their hands to cast spells, and—

Fffft, fffft, fffft, fffft!

—my arrows came down, and brained them. I leapt backward, split the space between two mages, and ducked just as an old witch cast a spell. It must've been a laceration spell, for the two mages at my sides were split as cleanly as a bone-ham, and their tops toppled from their bottoms. I scurried beneath their falling pieces, shot out like a snake, and plunged my sword into the witch's belly. She vomited blood when I ripped my sword out of her side, then she screamed when I ducked, and the spell meant for me acidified her flesh. I cut off the hands of the mage who had cast it, slashed a young woman across the face, wheeled around the handless man, stuck my sword through a grandfather's neck, wheeled back around the handless man, and dropped to my belly.

The spell that was meant for me struck the handless man right in the crotch, and he imploded from the point of contact, folding into himself fifty times until he was nothing but stacked pieces of hamburger. I rolled out of the way of another spell, snatched a hatchet, leapt to my feet, and sent the weapon spinning through the air to split a man's skull down the forehead. The woman behind him opened her hands, and I rolled out of the way just before a bolt of lightning struck me. It instead electrified the poor bastard behind me, and he crumpled into a smoking heap of robes. I ran serpentine through the bodies, dodged four consecutive spells, then ran the electrical woman through, rolled around her falling form, slashed the man behind her across the face, ducked the attack that would have disintegrated me, threw my sword end-over-end into his chest, and impaled him cleanly. As he fell to his knees, I raced up to him with my head ducked low, used his profile as cover, snatched my sword, and jumped as high as I could. For a moment, I was suspended in air above the last mage. His hands were poised to cast a spell, but he'd never imagined I'd be over him. I drove my blade down, pierced him through the skull, then flipped over him, and brough my arms forward to cleave my blade through the back of his head. He dropped behind me with a retarded groan, and I wiped my blade clean with a small smirk on my face.

Fffft!

I took two steps forward, and dropped to one knee. I looked at the arrow in my chest, then drew my gaze up to the centaur who had shot it. She was horrified, gawking at me with wide, trembling eyes.

"Oh my god, Commander!" she cried, and came bolting toward me. She scooped me up in her arms, and cradled me, "Oh my god, what have I done?!"

"It's fine!" I growled, "You were just following orders. Shoot the mages!" I laughed, blood flowing from my mouth, "I was the idiot who got in the way."

"We need to get you to some shade!"

"What shade?" I spat, "We're in the middle of a goddamn pavilion! Put me down, and let me—"

"NO!" She screamed, and bolted toward the rear, "No, no, no, no! I will not be the one who killed you!"

"That was an order—"

"Fuck your orders!" She snapped, and increased her speed, charging recklessly over bodies and rubble. I didn't have the strength to argue with her. The high-noon sun was warm against my flesh, and I was so cold. Though the breath fogged from my bearer's mouth in great gouts, it barely wisped from mine. The world was becoming dimmer. The motions were becoming blurred. The shapes and colors lost their structure, and blended together into amorphous constructs that swam in my waning vision. I didn't even notice I was being carried anymore. It felt like I was floating.

Where am I? What's happening? Who... who is... is that... Alexa?

FURIA

The goblins and I raced nimbly across the burning rooftops while Certiok's battlegroup lagged behind. We ran along the Knife River, where the blown-out skeletal buildings were covered in ash and blackened. The Lowlanders had spent their salvo here already, which was why I chose the path. There was no reason for them to destroy it twice. I kept one eye on the east, and watched the rain of boulders cascade upon the city's center a half mile away. One flaming boulder crashed through the center of a stone tower, sending a blast of rubble and dust high in the air. The tower buckled, then fell in place, and an even greater explosion of debris ballooned from the site.

I took a moment to glance out at Arbor's fields just to see something that wasn't dying, and I felt a terrible sense of foreboding. Those fields would soon be filled with forty-thousand golden helms, and the riverbanks across the water would be lined with trebuchets and ballistae for miles. If the Lowland marines were giving us this much hell, what chance did we stand against a battle-hardened army twice their size? I ripped my attention away from the thought, and instead focused at the task at hand. Grim though our prospects were, there was still a glimmer of hope. As long as Leveria still breathed, that conniving cunt could see us out of this shit. If she still breathed.

I suddenly lurched forward, and barely caught myself on the lip of a jagged hole in the roof. The gobbling behind me extended his hand, and pulled me up to safety.

"Keep your eyes down, Commander!" He yelled, "You'll be no help to anyone if you're dead!"

I nodded, and tracked my path along the stone shingles as I ran. The building across the street collapsed, sending ten of my soldiers screaming into the smoky wreckage. The goblin before me leapt onto a roof, and the entire top caved in, swallowing him whole. I was as surefooted a creature as there was, but Alkandra was crumbling from every beam. Still, it was faster than trying to navigate the streets below, which had become a treacherous maze of burning rubble. All I could do was pray that each step wouldn't be my last.

"Commander!" one of my men yelled, and pointed toward the east. I skidded to a stop, and groaned. The shower of flaming boulders was getting closer. They crashed upon the building ten blocks away, then nine blocks away, then eight blocks away. I didn't bother watching them further.

"Run!" I screamed, I dashed forward. There was no time to care for my footing now, and I leapt recklessly from building to building, trying to get ahead of the salvo before it arrived. Screams sounded from all around as my men lost their balance, but the terrified exclamations were fading in the wake of the approaching thunder. I jumped across an alleyway, caught myself on a clothesline, swung to a balcony, landed on the railing, and ran along the thin piece of iron before I launched myself across a pavilion, and dove through an open window. I rolled onto the floor, exploded upward with a jump, and sprinted through the apartment complex. The thunder was deafening. I reached the end of the complex, shot out of the window, and for a gut-lurching second, I was out in space. The cobblestones fifty feet below me seemed to move by me in slow motion, and the statue in the center of a fountain pointed its sword up at me as though signaling my flight. Then there was cement only a foot below me, and I was on the opposite balcony, running at full-tilt. The building across the street exploded, sending massive chunks of rock hurtling my way. They blasted through the walls, punched great holes in the façade, and peppered me with pellets from head to toe. I scrambled through the apartment, shot out of the window, and reached. The iron railing on the balcony across the street was only ten feet away. Then it was gone. The building exploded into infernal red, debris blasted out, and I was reaching for nothing. My fingers instinctively grabbed for what should have been there, and I was suddenly falling. I didn't even have time to scream. I just plunged into blackness.