The Ninth Prophecy

The day of reckoning had finally come. As the sun was rising over the kingdom of the straightwalkers, the risen army was to charge on Baan Senicore. At the walls of the city, Yon stood at the helm, his brother and general Darion on his right, Hadera on his left. They all looked towards the horizon. The tension was such that one standing on the eastern walls could hear the seagulls on the west, flying around the ships being boarded by the commoners of Baan Senicore. Those who decided or had to stay were at the shores. No waves, no goodbyes were said, all of them expecting to be reunited by sunset. Yon gave his last instructions to the soldier with a red flag standing at the corner of the eastern and northern wall: “When I tell you, give the signal to Aegor and the Sciprians to release the arrows from their bows. Wait for my order. Even if they shower us with catapult projectiles, arrows and even horions, wait until they come close enough to be in the range of the archers on the wall.”

It was not long until they could see the narrow red flags and the long spears pointing towards the reddish skies above the south. As the army of the alliance approached the field, they stopped their advance. The commanders of the army of king Daors were shouting and rearranging the soldiers at the front rows, riding across the lines from the back. All of a sudden, all noises died out. Quietness and anticipation filled the air. Each of the soldiers on both sides could hear their hearts pound. After a few moments, heavy breathing of the argorites mixed with the sound of hooves tamping the ground beneath them replaced the illusory tranquility. The sound that followed was a deafening scream of the argorites, identical to the triumphant scream of their commander in the Karos palace. The scream made an impact on the army of Baan Senicore, whose soldiers, almost bewildered, were looking at each other as if all seeking comfort in the eyes of the other. Voice of reassurance came from Yon:

“Have no fear, my men! Their screams will soon be those of despair!”

Just as he finished, the massive force started to move towards them, at first slowly, then at a quickening pace, like that of a heart beating at the face of a threat. Yon was steadying the flagman. After the enemy came close enough that one could differ their faces from at the walls, Yon gave the order: “Now! Wave!”

As he gave the order the flagman waved and all eyes were pointed towards the two hills from where the rain of arrows was to come. After a few seconds, when no arrows came falling down on the enemy and the soldiers on the wall were becoming even more nervous, Yon repeated the order: “Stand up on the wall and lift the flag higher and wave!” The flagman obeyed. He stood up on the edge of the wall, lifted the flag as high as he could and waved. Few second later an arrow came flying from the field, striking the flagman in the neck, who then succumbed beneath the wall. He was the first victim of the battle. Just a second later, the Sciprians came charging on their horses from the hill slopes.

Faris then spoke, confused: “This is wrong…They were supposed to fire two bow salvos first and then charge. They must have missed the signal.” As all watched from the walls what will happen next, they eagerly anticipated the first contact between the two forces. As the two forces mixed, the white and grey Sciprian flags intertwined with the red flags of the alliance, but no sound of metal intertwining and clashing was heard. Then, Hadera spoke, pointing towards the left of the two hilltops: “Look!”

Sure enough, there were two horsemen on the top of the hill. One of them was Tibor, the commander of the king’s army, and the other one was the man of their own blood. It was general Aegor Kulin, side to side with the king’s son, overlooking the army of the alliance he had sworn to turn to dust.

- “That son of a bitch!” Yon said before giving the hasty order: “Fire! Fire! Archers, siegers, wait no longer!” Just then Aegor lifted his sword on the top of the hill and on his command the Sciprians who were evenly distributed in the first rows of the alliance army lifted their shields up above their heads to an almost horizontal position. Being made of Galian metal, just like the round shields of the Sciprians, the salvos of arrows just slid off when they came near the shields, losing on their strength and falling down on the ground harmlessly. Only few found their targets. As charges of heavy rain were fired, they suffered the same destiny. The pieces of metal dispersed in the air would, falling down, get attracted by the Galian metal of the Sciprian shields. The Sciprians would then simply shake off the debris, leaving them and their fellow assault troopers unharmed and marching forward even faster.

Seeing this happen, Hadera gave the instruction to her siegers: “No more heavy rain! Use only solid rocks, only solid rocks!” By the time the rocks started producing damage, it was already too late to have them stop the advance. By this time, the enemy was in close proximity and their charge on the city walls could not be prevented as the attackers’ siege weapons started doing the damage too. Hitting the walls, rocks would shatter, mutilating and killing the defenders. At the top of the hill, the flagman of the alliance now asked the already satisfied and confident Tibor: “My lord, what is the order?”

- “Signal Malak to send his cavalry to the front gate. Signal all other troops to attack the walls!” was the order given. Aegor then asked Tibor: “My lord, are you sure? Maybe they should all charge together on the gate. It is a rough, strong construction, but it will fall down if our men are all to charge at one moment. Dispersing the army may not be the best thing to do.”

- “Are you serious? We have virtually suffered no loses and we are almost at the base of the walls. We outnumber the enemy by five to one. We will overwhelm them on all sides. I don’t want to gather up the forces just so that they can kill them more easily! Do as I say,” Tibor gave his final word and the flagman did as he was told.

The cavalry came charging from the flanks, merging in front of the troops, in the middle of the field. As they charged at the walls, the gate keepers who were hidden emerged from above the gates, striking with their crossbows every fifth rider even before he got a chance to throw the torch. Almost just as many riders were hit in the back as they tried to ride back behind the lines having thrown the torches at the gate. When they couldn’t aim at their heads, which were the only ones not protected by the armor of the metal of the Illuminators, the gate keepers would shoot the horses which, falling over, broke the bones and smashed the heads of their riders.

The damage to the gate was not great. By this time, general Malak rode up the hill to Tibor and watched the course of the battle. Seeing what had happened, Tibor gave another order to Malak.

- “Malak, your men must charge the gates once more. You lead the attack personally this time. By the time you strike, our men and Koprites will already be at the walls and we will be sending out the horions too. Then you will have a good chance to attack the gate undistracted. The enemy will be too busy fighting our men and horions on the walls.”

Malak rode down without a question.

- “My lord, it might be wise if you spare Malak, he could get killed,” Aegor advised.

- “No. He must lead his men. They need strong leadership on the field. Maybe you would like to replace him?”

- “I think Malak will do well.”

As the defenders were relentlessly firing from all weapons at the charging Koprites, Sciprians and Septors, they finally reached the walls and dispersed along them to set up their ladders and spread the climbing nets. As the first ladders were lifted and nets were spread, the net hooks clinging on to the city walls, Yon signaled Hadera to give the next order.

- “The fire cloaks…now!” As the order was given, the siegers started dropping over the walls bundles of cloth and animal skin soaked in earth’s black blood. The bundles were so big that it took two men to slide them over the walls. As soon as they touched the ground, archers and crossbowmen shot flaming arrows towards the bundles. The awkward ball would immediately burst into a raging flame, devouring all those climbing above it. With the thick smoke arising, the attackers had great trouble seeing where they are to climb. Hadera then gave the next order: “Ladder-breakers and tar, now!”

As she gave the order, the siegers started using a rather peculiar device. It was a large metal hook which was on one end of a thick chain, the other end being fixed to the arm of a catapult. As the siegers would throw the hook over the walls, the firing of a catapult would jerk it upwards at such speed that the hook would literally rip apart the ladders and the nets underneath which it was thrown, along with any flesh on its way. The function of the tar was a common one. It was simply poured down the walls on the Koprites and the Septors trying to climb their way up.

At this point, the horsemen and the argorite riders started their second charge on the gate, but what they did not know because of the thick smoke is that the defenders were far from being occupied with their comrades on the walls. The rider at the helm was Malak. He was the first one to fall, shot down by Darion’s arrow. The arrow went right through his left eye. Nevertheless, Malak rode on, only to succumb under his horse’s hooves just in front of the gate. The others that followed managed to do some damage to the gate, but more damage was done to their own ranks.

Watching from the top of the hill, Tibor now seemed a lot less confident and a lot more nervous. Little could be seen because of the thick smoke arising from underneath the walls, but what Aegor and he could clearly hear were the screams of soldiers and Koprites mixed with the sounds of wood from the massive ladders being smashed to pieces. Watching this, Tibor screamed frenetically to the flagman by his side: “Send out the horions! Send out the horions!”

As the flagman signaled to the Koprite commander, he looked up the hill and groaned in disapproval, not complying to the order.

- “My lord, the horions won’t be able to see anything in this smoke. They might kill just as many of our soldiers as those of the enemy down at the wall,” Aegor tried talk Tibor out of his idea. Tibor quickly replied.

- “It doesn’t matter. We have a lot more of those than the enemy does. Our soldiers are expendable! The enemy can’t afford loses, we can!” Then he looked down, yelling and gesticulating at the Koprite commander: “If you don’t send the horions on the walls, the deal is off and your head will end up on a plate which I will gladly serve to the Servarians!” Then he went with his finger across the neck and pointed at the Koprite commander. It appeared that he got the message as he rode off to the back and struck the largest of the horions sitting on the plain with a whip. The horion twitched and flew off immediately. The others followed.

As the fight was raging on at the walls, soldiers of both armies fighting face to face, the horions came in and caused havoc. Grabbing soldiers with their massive claws, cutting them with their razor-sharp wing edges, tearing them apart with their fangs and freezing them dead with their breath, the warriors all seemed to have turned against the horions. Honor, duty, interest, protection of the kin is what turned them against each other. Pure fear is what instinctively turned them all against the horions. The look of terror on their faces said it all. Little good did it do.

One horion came directly at Yon, but he managed to evade it, although receiving a cut on his arm caused by the animal’s wing. Darion, Hadera and Faris were just as busy fighting off enemy soldiers and dodging horion breaths. One of those breaths sprayed Hiraq who was standing in the back, away from the battle, but also away from the smoke cloak. He stood in place and after his assistant touched him to check up on him, he literally shattered. Because of the smoke, the animals couldn’t see well at the walls. As the first few horions were cut at their legs and wings, the shriek of the first wounded signalized retreat to all others. Flying back, they were all accounted for, but it was obvious that they too got a beating. Some were cut and battered, some seemed to have injured their wings on the walls, struggling to fly away.

As the battle went on, one man dressed as a city guard crept up on Hadera from behind, holding a dagger in his hand. Just before he struck, a Koprite emerged out of the thick smoke and beat him down with his baton. Hadera saw none of it. She only saw the Koprite hammering the soldier and she struck the darker down with a knife she threw at him.

Meanwhile, the commanders at the top of the hill were looking for a way out of the stalemate. Aegor advised Tibor energetically: “My lord, I really think we should regroup and strike the gate. The enemy is quite worn out. They won’t be able to repel a focused attack on one spot. The gates are already fairly dented. We should all strike there. My Sciprians will provide safety from enemy weaponry with their shields. They can’t do it when the troops are spread and scattered all around like this. I urge you…”

- “All right. Sound the retreat. Aegor, go down and organize the troops. Don’t join the battle. I can’t afford to lose you too,” Tibor spoke acknowledging that he had made a mistake by not listening to Aegor earlier.

As the horn sounded retreat Aegor rode down to assemble and reorganize the troops. The defenders dealt effectively with the few assailants who were left stuck on the walls. These few minutes of ceasefire gave an opportunity to the defenders to reassess their positions too. “Faris! Faris!” Yon shouted looking for his brother in the thick smoke.

- “I am here,” Faris replied emerging from the smoke dirty and stained with blood. Hadera and Darion were already at his side.

- “Good,” Yon said with relief. “What is our status? Hadera, the siegers?”

- “My lord, more than half of the men are lost. The horions destroyed most of our catapults. We are down to two. However, we still have some tar and several fire cloaks.”

- “Darion, what about the guard?”

- “We have lost just as many, if not more. If they come back and continue with the same strategy, we might be able to hold them back.”

- “And if they change the strategy?”

- “Who knows…we’ll see. We should prepare an effective extraction of your brother and you, if the defense is breached.”

- “I agree. Send a soldier to the harbor. He must tell the captain of our getaway ship to stand by. Tell him to pass an order to the marine general Geren that the rest of the fleet is to sail off to a safe distance and wait for us for an hour. If we don’t come, they must sail off towards Venegor and then go on foot to Nox where they are to pledge their allegiance to lord Spero. ”

Then he looked around. He saw his men. Some were injured, all were exhausted and all were still standing at their posts, although in fewer numbers. “My brave men…we have shown the enemy our teeth. When they return, we shall use those teeth. We will chew them up and spit their remains back at their cowardly commander Tibor and traitor Aegor! ”

The men cheered and lifted their arms in the air. “Stand firm and unleash your rage. We have sent their horions back with their tails between their legs. Now show them that their horions are merely puppies compared to the defenders of Baan Senicore, the defenders of the realm of the straightwalkers! Let them feel our wrath! Send them all back into the darkness from which they can never return again!”

As the sound of cheer of the defenders of Baan Senicore reached the regrouped alliance army, Aegor gave the simple order: “Let’s wipe them off the face of the earth,” and the army charged. Sciprians used their shields to create a barrier for the Galian arrows. In a now tight formation, their shields near each other as much as they could be, lifted above the heads of the troops and forming a wall on the sides, of the formation resembled fish scales. As the defenders fired their arrows, they practically bounced off the invisible air membrane around the shields made of the same metal.

As rocks were fired from the catapult, the formation of the Karosian army would break up just for an instant, until the danger would pass. Several rocks struck the flanks of the forces causing some damage to the attackers. As they came close under the gate, tar and fire cloaks became the primary weapons of the defenders once again.

From underneath the shields, a battering ram with its tip in flames emerged. Its structure was completely covered by shields densely aligned one next to the other. As the ram struck the gates, from behind the formation, every few seconds a Koprite would rise above the formation, literally mounting up on the shields and running towards the gate over the shields above the soldiers’ heads. Those who survived the run under heavy fire of the defenders used their hatchets and torches to aid the men holding the front part of the battering ram in their effort of breaking though.

- “We can’t hold them much longer,” Hadera said to Yon.

Darion looked down at the gate. “Drop us down with ropes,” he said.

- “What?” Yon asked.

- “Lower us from the walls. I will take twenty more men. We will fight them off. As soon as we get them to lower their shields shoot from all weapons.”

After some hesitation, Yon agreed. Darion called some twenty of his men by his side. “Throw the ropes down. Hadera, tell your men to lift us up as quickly as possible when I give you the signal.”

- “All right,” Hadera shouted out, not sounding very convinced that Darion and his men will get a chance to climb back up.

As they slid down the ropes, they surprised the enemy units at the gate. Some of the city guardians came down directly over the enemy’s heads. Others appeared from their side. As the guardians started stabbing the holders of the battering ram, they threw the massive construction down and started fighting. Soon, Koprites on argorites came riding in. After the initial surprise and shock, the men and Koprites of the Karosian army responded fairly quickly. The guardians were cornered, one by one falling down to the ground. Soon, only Darion and two other guardians were left standing, their backs against the wall. They were surrounded by drooling argorites and Karosian soldiers.

Yon, Faris and Hadera watched from above. Hadera looked around, as if looking for ideas. She screamed at one of the siegers: “Throw them a ladder-breaker!”

- “But, my lady, that…”

- “Do as I say! Right now,” Hadera screamed at the soldier, grabbing him by his collar. He quickly ran to the catapult, running back with the hook on a chain.

- “Throw it by Darion’s side,” Hadera gave the order.

By this time, Darion had already been wounded, an arrow sticking out of his shoulder, his leg bit by an argorite. The other two soldiers were desperately trying to protect their general. As the two fell on their knees, Darion was distracted by the swooshing sound just by his elbow. It was the huge hook, the anchor-like ladder-breaker. He looked up and saw Hadera scream. He instinctively grabbed the chain next to him. Seeing this, Hadera ordered the men at the catapult: “Release the catapult!”

As the men obeyed, the force of the device’s jolt propelled Darion upwards at great speed. Just as he was lifted off the ground by the ladder-breaker, an argorite smashed into the wall where Darion was standing, the beast’s face hitting the wall. It hit the wall right at the place where Darion stood just a second earlier.

Darion was catapulted into the air. Releasing the chain somewhere half way up into the air, the device threw him in a mud pile on the road some fifty lengths away from the wall inside the city. He laid there still. Yon then addressed the two guardians on his side: “Go and take Darion over to the harbor. Take him on board the ship.”

- “My lord, he doesn’t seem to be alive,” one of the guardians replied.

- “Neither will you, if you keep questioning me on the battlefield! He is alive. For God’s sake do as I say. What is this? Even the guards question me nowadays! Go!”

The men obeyed. As the invaders came charging to the gates once again, with horions ripping apart the defenders on the walls, Yon turned towards Hadera and Faris: “It is over. We must leave.”

Just at this moment a warrior’s cry spread across the valley as a troop came across the hill opposite to the one where Tibor and Aegor stood. Several tenths of horsemen and a few hundred men on foot in dark brown robes covered the hill as they came charging down at the exposed flank of the Karosian army. The soldiers on the flanks scattered as the attackers from the hill came charging at them with vengeance.

- “What is this?” Yon asked in amazement, not believing his eyes.

- “The Fraternity,” Faris replied.

- “Are we saved?” one of the soldiers behind Faris asked.

- “No, just temporarily spared,” was Faris’s answer as he continued to speak. “They will do a lot of damage, be sure of it. However, they are just buying us enough time to retreat to the ship. They are sacrificing their lives for ours. You must go. I will go down and fight with my brothers until breath escapes me.”

As he finished the sentence, he was knocked out by Yon who hit him in the back of his head with the handle of his sword.

- “You two, drag him to the ship,” he ordered two guardians, giving his last orders as the ruler of Baan Senicore. “Abandon your posts! Retreat to the ship!”

By this time, the enemy had already consolidated their ranks and started to push back the men of the Fraternity. The horions played their part too, making sure none were to leave the battlefield alive. By the time the king’s army broke through the gate, the city defenders were far enough at the other end of the city, hastily boarding the only vessel left at the harbor.

As he was to board, walking behind two men who were carrying his brother, Yon turned back. He saw thick smoke erupting from all around the city. At the top of the slope, where his tower was standing, he could pick out the outlines of a familiar apparition on the high ground. It was Renekhardt, Aegor’s right hand. Renekhardt looked down on the city, screaming out a simple order which was so loud that it even reached Yon’s ears down in the harbor: “Kill them all!”

At the order, Koprite riders scattered, spreading like a plague through the narrow city paths and roads. Screams of those who stayed or had to stay could be heard. As Yon’s ship was leaving the harbor, Aegor rode in to the dock with some ten Sciprians. Aware that the ship was out of his reach, he exchanged a long stare with Yon, who was standing at the side of the ship which was sailing away. Neither spoke a word. Aegor just spurred his horse, which, before turning around, rose up on its hind legs, as if threatening Yon.