The Prince of Ravens

  Chapter Twenty-One: Aemon’s Stand

  The Prince of Ravens was standing in a large field, and on his right was Tomaz. On his left was his brother Ramael, the Prince of Oxen.

  Tomaz held his huge greatsword, Malachi, an enormous ribbon of steel that seemed to undulate in the shifting light as he moved it back and forth between his hands. Ramael, the Prince of Oxen, held his customary weapons: Two huge battles axes, double-bladed, and made of the finest Tynian steel, the wood dyed black and the metal dyed red, making it seem as if they had blood on them even when they were clean.

  For a long moment, they remained frozen in an awesome tableau, standing proudly on either side of the Prince of Ravens, but then a breeze stirred the grass of the field, and the Prince knew what was going to happen. He jumped up and yelled for them to stop, but he couldn’t make any sound. His mouth was gagged.

  They both leapt toward each other, coming right toward the Prince as if he wasn’t even there. They clashed, and then fell apart. They stood for a moment, towering over the Prince, and then Tomaz fell in a heap. The Prince of Oxen hefted his axes, and looked down at the Prince. He smiled a blood-curdling smile.

  “Not even he is strong enough to defeat me,” he said in a voice deep as the ocean that rattled the Prince’s bones and squeezed his heart like a vice. “I’m coming for you.”

  The double-bladed axes swung down.

  With a heaving gasp, the Prince sat upright, his head pounding as the dark shadows of unconsciousness splintered to reveal reality behind them.

  He was in a large, dark room lying on the ground in what looked to be a makeshift infirmary bed of some kind, amidst a large number of other people who were all wearing bandages covered with blood and dirt.

  “What …?”

  He cut off as what felt like a hot poker stabbed through his side. With a groan of pain he fell back on the makeshift bed of blankets and rags. He brought his hand away from his side, expecting blood from the wound he remembered taking in the ambush, but it came away clean. With a sort of frantic energy, he pulled up the tattered remnants of his tunic, hastily cut open in order to allow someone to examine the wound, and found bandages wrapped around his chest. He breathed a large sigh of relief that sent a small jolt of pain through his body but did no more than that.

  “So you’re awake!”

  The Prince looked up at the source of the stern voice and found an older woman with so draconian an air about her that he immediately felt he had done something wrong and needed to apologize for it.

  “Yes …?” he responded cautiously.

  “You should be dead,” she said curtly.

  The Prince wasn’t quite sure how to respond to this remark.

  “I’m … sorry?”

  She rolled her eyes and walked toward him. Before he could react, she grabbed his head, thrust it under her arm, and held him in place while she checked his bandages. He was so startled by this treatment that he didn’t even think that he might try to stop her until she had already released him, and then she was forcing a white porcelain mug of hot liquid to his lips.

  “Drink,” she commanded. He coughed and spluttered at first, but the woman’s hands were insistent and dexterously managed to spill most of the cup’s contents into his mouth. It tasted strongly of peppermint, with a disgusting, bitter aftertaste. She pulled away to let him breath.

  “You’re healing well, but you need another day of rest before you can even think about going back to fight.”

  “Fight?” he asked, coughing and gasping. He seemed to remember the ambush being a success. Surely they weren’t needed to fight until they made it back to the Stand, which was days away.

  “Yes,” she said, now eyeing his head critically as if she might have missed something. “You can’t go back to join the defense for another day.”

  “We don’t have another day,” broke in a young man, dressed in the same plain light brown wool the woman was. He bent to an unconscious man lying next to the Prince and began to unwrap a bandage from around his eyes.

  “Don’t speak like that,” the woman responded sharply, her tone brooking no argument. The young man’s demeanor changed to one of deference.

  “Yes, Elder,” the man responded.

  “The walls will hold,” she continued, her voice loud enough to be heard throughout the room, “they always have.”

  The Prince noticed other wounded men lying around the room, and watched several of them nodded at this reassurance, but the general feeling seemed to be in grave disagreement with the hopeful pronouncement. Suddenly, a loud, muffled rumble shook the floor.

  “What was that?” the Prince asked. It repeated, and then again, in a slow mournful rhythm. He knew that beat, but didn’t want to.

  “Where am I?” he asked the woman quickly.

  “Lie back down, and finish drinking,” she commanded imperiously. The Prince caught a glimpse of a rough wooden door opening onto what appeared to be a dark balcony over to his left. He ignored the woman and pushed himself to his feet.

  Immediately, fire rushed up and down his side, sending shockwaves down his arm and leg before spiking throughout his whole body. But the pain died away in the next second, fading to a harsh but manageable ache, and he stumbled forward.

  “No!” the woman said, and placed a hand on him. He grabbed the arm and twisted it, sending the old woman to the floor with a shocked cry of surprise. Pushing his way through the crowd of injured Kindred, he forced his body to carry him out onto a rooftop balcony that gave him a full-circle view of his surroundings.

  What he saw took his breath away. Rain lashed his face from an overcast sky, the night lit only by torches and watch fires from below. Laid out before him was a city-fortress, seemingly carved from the living mountain on which it had been built, with natural gray granite walls laced with veins of black onyx and green serpentine. Three tiers had been hewn out of the rock, broad enough to contain layers of houses and huge guard towers, each sporting its own protective gate and wall. The three tiers seemed to spiral up one into the other, moving with the contours of the landscape. The keep itself, the castle within the fortress, rested squarely on top of the mountain, a large spire rising from its center and defiantly spearing the sky.

  There were three walls ringing the city: one around the keep, one halfway down the mountainside, and one of awesome size and proportion that circled the roots of the mountain. This bottom wall had a double gate facing a single road that appeared to be the only way in or out of the city. The Prince was on the third tier, and from his vantage point he could see to the left a broad river that butted against the mountain itself; having worn away the rock over years of violent elemental struggle, the river had created a sheer drop-off that, the Prince was willing to bet, was impossible to scale. To his right, bordering the fortress’ outermost wall and circling around out of view, was a cliff face so steeply inclined that no advancing army would have been able to bring any siege equipment to bare, making it unassailable. The only approach to the fortress city was directly ahead – and that was where the Prince of Oxen’s army had gathered.

  The first wall, the one that surrounded the first tier that was even with ground level, was enormous, and its double set of gates was being assaulted by an army so vast that it had cloaked the ground outside the city for miles.

  The pounding booms he had heard were the sounds of a massive ram, being applied to the outer gates by five enormous forms, each at least fifteen feet in height, covered in rocks and moss that had melded together to form a massive body with arms and legs made of entire living tree trunks. Fiery arrows rained down from the walls, burning oil and pitch were thrown from the houses above the gates, and as the five forms approached once more, one of them caught fire and a ragged cheer could be heard from the mob of soldiers manning the walls, but the Prince knew it was no good.

  Earth Daemons could not be defeated so easily.

  The form on fire reared back and opened a craggy mouth, filled with gnashing peg-
like teeth of rock and bone, and roared, a sound only echoed by the final crashing boom that signified the gate’s demise: it crumpled inward and was left in a twisted heap of wood and metal. The five Daemons pulled back, and the Imperial army began to flood through the now-open gateway.

  Arrows from guard towers and the walls shot into the invading army by the thousand, but they had little to no effect, even though the Prince knew the accuracy of the Kindred and knew those arrows were finding their mark.

  The army burst through the wall in the gleaming white-and-red armor of Roarke like a bloody wave. The Kindred soldiers, formed up before the wall in the green-silver-and-gold, met them head on, and held them. Arrows began to rain down on the inside of the wall as well, the men and women on the walls firing at the attacking army’s back as it passed beneath them. The Prince was shocked to realize that the Imperial army was being held at a stand-still, forced to bring only a small number of their force to bear because of the bottleneck of the gate, allowing the Kindred the advantage of numbers.

  But then the Daemons arrived, with spiked morning stars swinging viciously back and forth in their hands, each the length of two men. Black-hooded figures rode on their shoulders – the Bloodmages who had conjured them and were controlling their movements. They came charging through their own men, flinging figures aside and trampling them as if they weren’t even there, and then they hit the Kindred and the slaughter began.

  Men and women were thrown into the air, and all of the Kindred who attacked the monsters were trampled or found their weapons unable to pierce the rock skin of the Daemons. It was over in a manner of minutes, the Kindred fleeing before the onslaught of the five massive forms. Arrows continued to rain down, but now it was cover fire as men and women fled the outer walls and ran across bridgeways specifically crafted to allow them to reach the second wall without touching the ground. One of the Bloodmages saw this, and his Earth Daemon plunged its hands into the cobblestone street and pulled. An enormous slab of earth came free, was reared over the Daemon’s head, and hurled at one of these bridges, connecting and breaking it cleanly in two.

  The Prince watched in horror as the Imperial army took the first tier of the city.

  The Kindred soldiers retreated to the second level, passing through the gate as quickly as possible. Those who were too far away or who refused to retreat were given up for dead as the gates closed. The stone bridgeways connecting the walls were cut off as soon as the Kindred passed, portcullises with giant metal spikes rolled into place to prevent the Empire’s soldiers from following.

  The second gate held, largely due to the presence of mounted ballistae that were heavy enough to give the Bloodmages and their Daemons pause, and scores of dead-eye archers manning the guard towers that struck down any wayward Imperial soldier brave enough to come close. The Prince saw the Imperial army falter, and then tactically retreat in order to regroup. A brief, harsh cheer went up from the Kindred soldiers manning the second tier gate and walls, and the Prince allowed himself to take a long, slow, calming breath. They had been repulsed – the Kindred had bought time at least.

  An iron fist grabbed the Prince’s shoulder and spun him around.

  “Get back inside now,” said the woman, her tone brooking no argument. The Prince shot one more glance out over the edge of the balcony and confirmed that the two armies were backing down for the moment. The Imperial army was bringing the rest of its force to bear, while the Kindred were repositioning their forces along the walls. The Prince turned, tearing his eyes off the sight of the burning buildings of the lowest tier of the city, and came back inside the temporary infirmary.

  “This is Aemon’s Stand isn’t it?” the Prince asked.

  The woman eyed him in the same draconian manner as before, not deigning to respond. She pointed to the place in the corner of the room where he had woken. The Prince moved to the bed of rags, his wound sending little shocks of pain down his side every time his left foot hit the ground.

  “How did I get here?” he asked.

  “Quiet,” the woman snapped. She placed a hand on his forehead. While the rest of her was covered with dirt and sweat, her hands were perfectly clean and cool to the touch.

  “Arms up as high as they go.”

  The Prince did as he was told, and raised his arms over his head. His side gave a small twinge of pain, but that was all. The woman shook her head as she began to undo the white cloth tied tight around his torso. He winced as the pressure came off and the wound was exposed to the air.

  “You should be dead,” the woman repeated.

  “So I’ve been told,” the Prince responded testily. The woman grunted and thrust a cup of something into his face.

  “Drink.”

  He drank. This too tasted strongly of mint.

  “What was that?”

  “No questions!” she snapped. She applied some sort of foul-smelling poultice to his wound, which stung and burned. He gritted his teeth together, taking it on faith that this woman wasn’t trying to kill him even though it felt that way. Once she was finished, she re-wrapped the bandage.

  “You’ve been out for three days,” the woman said to him, still giving the impression that it was entirely his fault that he had taken so long to recover. “You came in with Captain Autmaran’s unit.”

  “Where are Leah and Tomaz?” he asked. She eyed him for a second, and the Prince thought she would refuse to answer again.

  “Black-haired girl and great big hulk of a man?” she grunted.

  “Yes,” he said, sitting forward, “where are they?”

  “They were the ones who carried you here,” she said. “They come to check on you every few hours, but now that the siege has begun in earnest, I don’t think – stop right there!”

  The Prince had risen from his corner and begun to move toward the door on the far side of the room. He paused, unconsciously responding to her tone that seemed to expect his obedience. It was as if his brother Rikard, Prince of Lions, was talking to him; but she was not his brother, and her powers were no more than a normal woman’s. He shook himself and moved on, through the door. On the other side there was a staircase, which he descended.

  The young man who was helping the older woman was in the room at the bottom of the stairs, and he moved between the Prince and the door.

  “Good,” the Prince said, “this saves me the trouble of calling for you. Retrieve my armor – it’s black officer’s issue – and find me a new tunic if you have one.”

  The Prince turned to a pot of cold stew and realized he was ravenously hungry. He grabbed a hunk of bread, tore it in half, and began to spoon the stew out of the pot and into his mouth at a quick pace. He caught sight of the young man moving off to find his armor. The Prince smiled grimly; it was something he’d observed Tiffenal do many a time to the other Children: act as though you deserve obedience, and people will unconsciously give it to you.

  “And where do you think you are going?”

  The Prince heard the woman descending the staircase, but ignored her. He needed to eat quickly and couldn’t spare any time for talk – he didn’t have much time before they renewed their attack, and he knew he could help in the defense if only he were able to find Leah and Tomaz.

  “Do not ignore me you young fool, I’m warning you!”

  The Prince rolled his eyes, stuffing the last of the bread and stew into his mouth and washing it down with a long draught of water from a clay pitcher next to the pot, before turning to face her as the young man returned with his sword and armor.

  “I don’t have time for you,” the Prince said abruptly. The woman’s entire demeanor was starting to infuriate him, as if she expected his obedience. As he thought this, he realized the irony and laughed to himself. He motioned for the armor, and the man helped him into it as quickly as he could. The woman just stared at him, mouth open and working like a fish that had just realized it was no longer in water. She recovered quickly, though.

  “If you leave now that wound w
ill reopen,” she said, her voice telling him that she hoped it would.

  “Thank you for taking care of me,” the Prince concluded as soon as the armor was in place, and then he dashed out of the doorway into the waiting night, his side giving a nasty twinge as if sparked by the woman’s parting comment.

  The street was a mess of people running here and there, belongings scattered across the broad boulevard that ran around the mountain up to the keep. Men and women were hauling children after them, doing their best to keep their families together, yelling and screaming to each other over a general cacophonous din that pounded in the Prince’s ears. Soldiers in the silver-and-green were doing their best to keep the crowd of people moving, some of them with carts and carriages that told the Prince they were from Vale and the surrounding countryside seeking refuge, and others just as clearly from the Stand carrying their belongings on their own backs.

  “Make your way to the keep! There is room for everyone there! Please, hurry but do not panic!”

  The Prince heard the bullish voice over the din of the crowd, and turned to see a captain with a green cape and green-marked armor directing the Kindred up the mountain. He quickly made his way over.

  “Captain!”

  The man turned and looked him over once, noticed the black armor and cape, and his eyes widened, in surprise or anger the Prince couldn’t tell, for both emotions seemed plausible on the squashed face of the man. But then suddenly the captain snapped a salute, fist to his chest.

  “What can I do for you, major?”

  Major? The Prince thought. That’s an interesting development.

  “Where are the Rogues being deployed?” the Prince said, seeing no reason to correct the man’s innocent mistake.

  “Sir?”

  The man obviously thought this a strange question for a major to be asking a captain. His brows pulled together in suspicion.

  “I’ve been wounded, captain,” the Prince said, “and that’s no concern of yours. Now tell me where the Rogues have been deployed.”

  The man tensed, the Prince’s manner apparently enough to convince him of his own inferiority in this situation.

  “Down at the second gate, sir, they’re going to be used as shock troops.”

  “Against the Daemons?” the Prince asked in surprise.

  “Yes, sir,” the man said with a quick nod.

  “As you were,” the Prince responded with a quick salute, turning before the captain had time to answer.

  “Who the hell was that?” the Prince heard a second man ask the captain.

  “I have no bloody idea,” was the bewildered response.

  The Prince moved off quickly before they could ask him to identify himself. His mind was racing, and he was doing his best to walk normally even though the healing wound in his side was making it hard to take full strides.

  Rogues and Rangers fighting against the Daemons? The Prince supposed there was a chance, particularly if any of them had Valerium weapons like Davydd and Lorna. But five Earth Daemons at once? The Prince shook his head. No, they’d never be able to get close enough without one of the other Daemons smashing them to pulp. The Rogues were good, but what they were fighting against were supernatural beings, the power of the earth itself given form and malicious intent.

  But what else could they do?

  The Prince heard a familiar voice and stopped, looking down a back alleyway between two large houses. It was Davydd, and he was talking to a gathered group of Rangers and Rogues. The Prince approached quickly.

  “How long do we have?” a man with a mane of white hair asked, blood on his face and an eye-patch covering his right eye. He had the black-and-silver armor of a Rogue and the dagger insignia of an Eshendai.

  “Not long enough,” a tall woman, a gold-and-black Ranger, responded grimly. “We can’t take another attack like that.”

  “It’s those shadow-cursed Daemons!” Davydd retorted in anger. “Nothing even slows them down. Nothing!”

  “We need to kill the Bloodmages riding them,” the white-haired man said.

  “They won’t die,” said a woman with a bow slung across her back. “We’ve pin cushioned them and still they ride those beasts.”

  “You could try drowning them,” the Prince said.

  Davydd and the rest of the group turned as the Prince came out of the alleyway.

  “Look whose joined the fight,” Davydd said, eyeing the Prince in his armor.

  “Who’s this?” the eye-patch man asked.

  “A captain major?”

  “No, it’s borrowed armor,” Davydd said.

  “Drown them?” prompted Lorna, who was leaning against a building, hidden in a patch of shadows.

  “Yes,” the Prince said, stepping forward into the circle so they all could hear him. “They’re Earth Daemons, summoned with the essence of earth, which is primarily rock. You need to counter that essence.”

  “Wouldn’t air be the counter of earth?” the white-haired man asked.

  “Yes,” the Prince said quickly, “but if you drop them off the cliff south of us they’ll get carried away by the current. The drop will take away their connection to the earth and weaken them, and then the water will carry them away. If you’re lucky, it might even break them up. Worst case scenario is that they get washed down river and have to make their way back – but they’re slow. They’ll be out of the fight for a couple hours.”

  The Rogues and Rangers glanced at Davydd, who looked to be doing some very fast thinking.

  “You’re sure of this?”

  The Prince nodded.

  “I must be shadow-blinded insane to take advice from the Prince of Ravens,” he muttered so that only the Prince could hear before turning back to the group.

  “Do it,” he said shortly. “We don’t have much time until they assault the walls – be ready to draw them off. Pass the word – all Spellblades, particularly Rangers, are to draw the Daemons to the edge of the cliff. Rogues will be used as a harrying force to drive them. Those with Valerium weapons take point. Have five teams ready, one for each of them, ready to push them over the edge.”

  “With what?”

  “The longest spears you can find,” Davydd answered. “Break off the metal tips and use them to push them over. Are these things easy to unbalance?”

  This last question was addressed to the Prince.

  “No,” the Prince responded, “but if they’re up high enough, close to that cliff, it will be easier. In any case, aim for the chest to get leverage. It’s your best shot – you’ll at least be able to slow them down.”

  “Right, all of you pass the word to the others.”

  They began to move off, but the Prince stopped Davydd.

  “The Bloodmages,” he said quickly, “the ones riding the Daemons. You need to take them off the Daemons to kill them – they’re connected to the essence of the earth that helped make the creatures. Arrows will never penetrate their skin now, but knock them off the Daemons, and they’re just ordinary men again. The Daemons will run amok with no one controlling them, but they won’t be much use in any tactical planning after that. To knock them off and kill them, break or somehow take the medallions they have slung around their necks - it’s the source of their power, and it will be what’s connecting them to the Daemons.”

  Davydd watched him for a long moment, and the Prince knew he was being reevaluated. Finally, the red-eyed young man nodded and turned to go, then stopped and turned back.

  “Leah and Tomaz are at the second gate, go join them if you can.” he turned and moved off at as near a dead sprint as he could through the buildings.

  The Prince retraced his steps and made his way back onto the boulevard. Two turns later, he was facing an enormous gate connected to a high wall branching off to either side of him, following the natural curves of the mountain with tall guard towers every fifty yards or so. Kindred archers in dark greens and browns covered every spare inch of the wall, raining arrows down on anything that moved in
the lower levels of the city. Similarly dressed light infantry men stood with them, some with small but colorful stripes on their breastplates to mark them out as officers in different regiments, ready to repel an attack should it come at them from over the wall. The Prince searched frantically around for Leah and Tomaz, and finally saw an enormous back over to his right pounding on something with a large hammer.

  “Tomaz!”

  The hammer paused and the big shape turned. The Prince ran for him, and as he came closer, he saw that the big man was working at a makeshift forge. Leah was nowhere in sight.

  “I thought you were wounded!” Tomaz rumbled, the lines of exhaustion on his face breaking into his customary smile.

  “Just a scratch,” the Prince responded, smiling as well. But then the moment passed and they remembered that they were in the middle of a siege that could begin again at any moment.

  “Are the blacksmiths too busy?” the Prince asked, motioning to the armor.

  “Yes,” the big man responded with a sigh as a shadow of fatigue passed over his face. “Most of the smithies are on the higher levels, thank the Light, but there is much more dire need of new arrowheads, swords, anything of the like. Some men aren’t even armed. And since I did my share of blacksmithing before I joined the Rogues, I take care of my own armor when I’m on duty.”

  “Some men aren’t even armed?” the Prince asked. Tomaz nodded darkly.

  “There were spies within the Kindred,” he responded, “a clan of Seekers.”

  “No!” the Prince said, feeling his stomach drop out from under him with no warning. An entire clan of Seekers could do incalculable damage. “What about the Anchors?”

  “The three we’ve caught had them,” Tomaz said. “And we haven’t caught them all. From the interrogations, we know that there was a group of thirty hidden in Vale, and another group of fifteen here. We stumbled on one man setting Black Power to the granaries. He won’t talk names, but we were able to find out the numbers. We were too late to stop the seven others from destroying the main armory; a full third of our force was half equipped when they began the siege. We caught two of the seven, which means five are still running around creating trouble. We’ve doubled the guard on the food and armor, but who knows what else they could get up to.”

  The Prince didn’t know what to say. How had a clan of Seekers infiltrated the Kindred and he hadn’t known? It must be a covert operation by his sister Symanta – she was the only one who had constant contact with the Seekers. The Prince wondered if the Empress even knew about this.

  “Where’s Leah?” the Prince asked.

  “I sent her to eat,” Tomaz answered.

  “Sent?”

  “Yes, that fool of a girl hasn’t eaten in nearly two days, and she still insisted she didn’t need to. It’s the Spellblade in her – the strength she gets from the bonding makes her think she’s indestructible.”

  “When do you think they’ll attack again?” the Prince asked.

  “I don’t know,” Tomaz said quietly, his tone solemn. “Soon, though. They know we’re beaten, but not broken. They’ll make sure the first tier of the Stand is clear and then they’ll assault the gate. I’d say at an outside guess we have a little under an hour until they can bring the ram to bear, and then we’ll begin again. You know your brother: once the scent of blood is in his nose, he won’t stop while there is anyone left standing.”

  “No. No he won’t,” the Prince said to himself.

  “Would you mind giving me a hand with this?” Tomaz asked the Prince, breaking him out of his reverie. He was pointing to the large breastplate he was holding. The Prince nodded.

  “What do you need?”

  Tomaz asked him to hold it steady so he could beat it out with his hammer and then to heat it over the banked coals of his makeshift fire. The job was imperfect, but the metal slowly bent back into a semblance of the shape it was supposed to have. The Prince, glad of the mind-numbing repetition of the job, relaxed into the rhythm, and for the next hour or so they mended most of Tomaz’s armor, which had taken a heavy beating in the first attack.

  All around them men were employed in various tasks of war: re-fletching arrows, sharpening swords, beating out dents in helms and breastplates like Tomaz. Not a single one was sitting idly by, and the Prince felt a strange stirring of pride, knowing that the people with which he had thrown in his lot would not back down even in the face of an overwhelming force.

  And then the ground began to shake beneath their feet.

  Immediately, Tomaz stood and thrust his armor into a waiting barrel of water. With a hiss and a huge gout of steam, the heated metal began to cool. While it did, the big man quickly smothered the fire, making sure all of the coals were gone. As soon as the breastplate was cool enough to touch, the Prince helped Tomaz into it, and was just doing up the last strap when Leah appeared.

  “Leah!”

  She turned and searched the street suddenly crowded with soldiers, all bristling with spears and swords, gleaming in their silver armor. All of the faces the Prince could see bore a steely reserve and a fierce light of defiance.

  “Leah!” the Prince called again.

  She found him finally and began to force her way through the crowd toward them. Out of the corner of his eye, the Prince saw Davydd and Lorna arrive with a large group of Rangers, all of who were holding very long spears with sawed-off ends. They also bore looks of grim determination, as though they were ready to march off to the ends of the earth if need be.

  “Why are you here?” Leah asked bluntly when she reached the Prince.

  “What?” he asked.

  “You’re wounded,” she said, “you need to be in the infirmary!”

  “Would you be?” the Prince responded angrily. “I can fight. And you need everyone you can get.”

  “You’re still wounded?” Tomaz asked, his eyes narrowing.

  “No,” the Prince insisted, “I’m fine.”

  As if on cue, a sharp, piercing barb dug into his ribs and he gasped in pain as red spots danced across his vision. He shook his head and rounded on Leah, who had jabbed him with her finger.

  “Do that again,” the Prince growled.

  “That’s enough,” Tomaz rumbled. “This is neither the time nor place for you to act like spoiled children.”

  The gravity of the situation fell on them once more, and the Prince felt his anger at the girl disappear. The shaking under their feet was growing more pronounced, and the Prince knew that his brother was somewhere on the other side of the gate. For what seemed like an eternity, they waited there, watching the barred wooden doors under the gate through which the enemy would attempt to come.

  BOOM!

  All of the soldiers recoiled at the noise.

  BOOM!

  The Prince felt as though something invisible had been placed over his ears, silencing all sound. The pounding of the ram was so loud that the silence that followed was almost unbearable.

  BOOM!

  Cracks splintered through the wood of the gate. The sound of arrows being shot from the force manning the wall continued, but it slowed the ram not at all.

  BOOM!

  The cracks widened, and the doors bowed inward under the weight of the enormous ram in the hands of the Daemons.

  “YEAAAAAHHHH!!!”

  The Prince started so violently at the noise, coming from directly behind him, that he jumped nearly a foot in the air. It was Tomaz, roaring in his huge voice, shouting his defiance.

  “Yeah!”

  “For the Kindred!”

  “For Aemon!”

  “AEMON!”

  Cries sounded from throats on all sides of the Prince, and he found to his surprise that he was screaming with them, wordlessly shouting against his brother, against this force that had come to kill him as assuredly as it had come to kill the Kindred around him. He roared so loudly it felt his throat would split.

  And then with a final crash, the doors crumpled inward and two Daemons with B
loodmages riding on their shoulders forced their way through, giant maces swinging and flattening anything and everyone in their path.

  Before the Prince could even react, there was a flash of movement and the Rangers, led by Davydd, his red eyes glowing with a murderous light, stood in a clearing in the center of the large courtyard. The giant poles, held by the Ashandel, lanced out with amazing accuracy and battered the Daemons from all sides, keeping them far enough away to keep them from attacking. The Eshendai began swooping in so quickly that the slow moving Daemons couldn’t react in time, cutting at the straps holding the Bloodmages in place and trying to haul them off their enormous mounts. Arrows rained down on the Bloodmages and their Daemons from the walls above, but as the Prince had warned, they did little damage.

  And slowly, step by labored step, the Daemons were advancing, moving out of the way of the gate, where the Prince could see the swarming red-and-white horde of soldiers waiting to attack.

  Without warning, Tomaz turned to the Prince and thrust his enormous greatsword into his hands.

  “Hold this,” was all he said, and then he was darting straight toward the Daemons, Leah right behind him.

  The Prince had no time to respond, but watched in complete shock as Tomaz ran at the closest Daemon, and rolled forward inside its reach as it swung its mace. Leah had drawn her two daggers, and with a slicing overhand motion, she brought both hands over her head, hurling the daggers straight at the Bloodmages.

  Out of instinct, the Bloodmages pulled back, and the Daemons pulled with them, leaning dangerously backwards. And then, inexplicably, one of them rose up off the ground. The Prince couldn’t believe his eyes – Tomaz had managed to situate himself directly under the Daemon, and was lifting it into the air.

  “LEAH!” The Prince yelled as loudly as he could, pushing his way toward the girl but succeeding in barely moving half a foot in the dense crowd of waiting Kindred soldiers. Leah, daggers flying back toward her as she pulled them in with her mind, turned.

  “YOU CAN KILL THE BLOODMAGE NOW!” he roared, pointing.

  Without a second’s hesitation, she turned and the daggers flew like steel arrows at the Bloodmage whose Daemon Tomaz had lifted. One pierced its neck, and the other shattered the medallion hanging around his chest.

  An enormous explosion rocked the crowd as condensed rock and wood flew in every direction. The Prince was pushed back so violently he fell to the ground, along with half of the Kindred soldiers surrounding him. A large boulder, smoking as if it had been blown there by Black Powder, landed not four feet in front of him, crushing an unfortunate Kindred soldier. The Prince frantically pulled himself back to his feet, and saw that the blast had been so powerful that the second Daemon had been lifted off of its feet and thrown through a building off to the left. There was nothing left of the first Daemon but debris. The Rogues were the first to rise, and they converged on the fallen Daemon’s Bloodmage, pulling it off of the Daemon. The Daemon rolled away, crushing Kindred beneath its enormous rocky bulk, and the last image the Prince saw was of Davydd pulling his Valerium sword from the Bloodmage, the shining medallion hanging from his clenched fist, and running off after the monstrous form with a squadron of Rogues close behind.

  As the dust from the Daemon settled to the ground, Tomaz was revealed standing with half of his armor hanging off of him in twisted scraps, panting heavily, numerous cuts covering his body from where sharp bits of rock had cut the skin. A brief moment passed as both armies seemed to catch their breath and absorb what had just happened, and then the Prince realized that the way was now clear for the rest of the army to make their way through the gate.

  “TOMAZ!” he called.

  The Prince drew back his arms, took a step forward, and with a great heaving convulsion threw the huge sword with a two-handed swing through the air. It arched end over end, and was caught by the waiting hands of the Ashandel. Tomaz spun and crouched low, just as the first line of Imperial soldiers flooded through the torn remnants of the gate. He lifted his sword and brought it down in a ferocious swing that cleaved the first three men clean in two.

  There was a loud thundering roar and two more Daemons pushed through the gate with another flood of Imperial soldiers directly behind them. The Kindred rushed forward as well, cries of defiance ringing from every throat, and the battle began in earnest.

  Time moved in jerky, half-seen flashes; the Prince found himself at the front of the Kindred attack, once more fighting beside Leah and Tomaz, his Valerium sword swinging like a white flame through everything that stood in his path. The sword swung and hung frozen in air, and then came down and struck with blinding speed. The sword swung again and took a second man, and time sped up as these lives were added to the Prince and his movements became easier, the Valerium sword suddenly no heavier than a child’s practice blade; time slowed again as he ducked beneath Tomaz’s back, his eyes catching sight of another Imperial soldier; with a snarl of anger on his face, the Prince brought his sword up with all his strength and unseamed the man from navel to chin.

  But despite their best efforts, the Kindred were pushed backward inch by inch. The next two Daemons, swinging their maces back and forth and wiping out broad swaths of Kindred soldiers, were an unstoppable force. Soon the Prince found himself backed into a side road off of the main courtyard in front of the gate, still fighting alongside Leah and Tomaz, but unable to advance as the Kindred were forced farther and farther backwards by the deadly spiked metal club of an advancing Daemon. Tomaz tried once more to roll forward and get under the Daemon, but was nearly scalped as the Bloodmage riding the monster anticipated the move and commanded the Daemon to bring the butt of the mace down in a quick slicing motion. The Prince did his best to make his way past the thing’s guard and cut it with his Valerium blade, but as soon as he got near enough to do damage, the Imperial soldiers drove him back. Soon they were completely off of the main road, and the superiorly trained and armed Imperial army was engaging with the main body of Kindred as the second Daemon forced more of the splintered force off in the other direction.

  “Shadows and fire – what do we do now?!” Leah cried in frustration.

  “I don’t know!” the Prince called back, cutting down a man who had forced his way forward, but leaving him alive.

  As if in response, there was a resounding crash, and the wall of a nearby house exploded outward. The Prince jumped and rolled away, springing back to his feet and turning to confront this new threat. His eyes rose and fear took hold of his heart as he beheld the final Earth Daemon, the dark figure of a Bloodmage on its back, with the shining medallion hanging around its neck – it must have made its way through the mangled gate while they had been busy dealing with the other two. The Daemon took a step forward into the light of a nearby torch and the Prince froze. The red-and-white soldiers charged forward, headed by the first Daemon and Bloodmage who could smell victory, and the Kindred around the Prince all settled into defensive stances, faces grim but still set with determination. The Prince, however, remained motionless, hand holding the Valerium sword forgotten by his side. He had just realized something that should have been impossible: it wasn’t a Bloodmage riding the Daemon.

  It was Davydd Goldwyn.

  The mace descended, and veered at the last second. The Kindred watched in shock and amazement as it struck the first Daemon full in the face, and knocked it completely off of its feet and onto its back. Immediately, Davydd’s Daemon stepped forward and brought its mace down on the Bloodmage, killing him and causing a second explosion of rock and flying splinters that carved a broad swath out of the Imperial soldiers, who had no idea what had hit them. The Daemon’s arm rose again, and the Prince and the Kindred charged forward, joining in the battle. The Imperial soldiers stood strong for about half a second, and then Davydd’s Daemon leaned forward, opened its rock-and-moss covered mouth and let out a bellow loud enough to shake the walls of the houses around them. It swung its mace one more time, and then the Imperial soldiers turned and
ran for their lives back up the boulevard.

  As they gave chase, making their way back to the wall, the Prince ran up to Davydd.

  “How … how?!”

  “Does it look like I know?!” the red-eyed man roared back with a roguish smile that showed quite clearly he was having the time of his life. “I just point and hope it goes that way!”

  Doing exactly that, the Eshendai pointed toward the crowd of Imperial soldiers surrounding the other Daemon and the monster charged. As it lumbered away, the Prince noticed the medallion of the dead Bloodmage swinging around Davydd’s neck.

  The Prince let out a fierce shout that was taken up by the Kindred around him, and they ran after the red-eyed Ranger.

  With two Daemons down and a third converted to their cause and engaging the fourth, the Kindred were able to engage the Imperial army directly; and it soon became clear that while the Imperials were better armed, better organized, and all around the more efficient soldiers, it was the Kindred who were unstoppable. Arrows were being continuously fired into the group, finding weak points in the red-and-white armor, and forced as they were to concentrate their attack through the bottleneck of the gate, the Army of Roarke was unable to bring their superior numbers to bear.

  Davydd’s Daemon, backed now by innumerable Rogues and Spellblades, felled the final Daemon, and threw it bodily over the wall. A cheer went up from the Kindred, and their attack redoubled, the Imperial army forced all the way back through the gates.

  “Drive them from the city!” Davydd roared, and he disappeared under the gate on the shoulders of the massive beast of rock and wood, and the Kindred followed, attacking the fleeing Imperial army. The Prince, swept up in the moment, followed them through the gate on the heels of Davydd’s Daemon.

  And then the presence of his brother burst into his head like a minor sun.

  “No!” he cried, but no one heard him. A dark figure, nearly as big as Tomaz, stood before the Kindred, flanked by the fifth Earth Daemon and a squadron of men dressed not in white-and-red but in dark black-and-red that seemed to make them a moving part of the night.

  Davydd pointed his Daemon toward the figure and charged.

  With a painful roar of agony, the Daemon fell back, an enormous ax blade buried in its side. And then the Daemon, with Davydd still on top, rose into the air, and was thrown not over the wall, but through it, bringing down a wide stretch of stone that included what had once been the gatehouse, as well as part of a guard tower, as the Daemon broke up and exploded.

  From where the Prince stood, he could see Davydd, lying on the ground unmoving as rubble fell around him.

  Kindred bowmen fell amidst dislodged stones, and the Kindred soldiers were forced to duck down and find cover wherever they could. The Prince, having stopped in his tracks when he’d recognized his brother’s presence, was on the inside of what had been the gate, and watched with horror as the Imperial army forced the Kindred back up the mountain.

  And then, miraculously, the army halted. The Kindred force stopped as well and turned to see what was happening. There was a long drawn out moment of silence, as in the middle of the battle both armies simply stared at each. And then, with a deliberate slowness, the dark figure disengaged from the larger force and strode forward.

  The Prince pushed his way to Leah and Tomaz.

  “You need to run,” he said gasped, “you need to run now and evacuate as much of the city as you can.”

  “What are you talking about?” Leah hissed back at him.

  “I can distract him and buy you time, but you need to go – now!”

  There was a heavy crunching sound, and the dark figure came out of the shadows and into the torchlight. He was a giant. Dressed in black and blood red armor from head to toe, he stood eight feet tall and carried two enormous double-bladed battleaxes, one in each hand; the blades alone were easily as large as the Prince’s entire torso. He wore a helm from which grew bone-white horns, curving down and framing a metal visor, which was shaped to resemble an enraged bull. Though he stood at half the height of the Earth Daemon behind him, there was a weight to him that made him seem somehow larger, as if he were more physically present than any other being could possibly be, even beings made from the very essence of the earth. As he walked, it was easy to note that his every movement was sharp and precise; he moved with a deadly power that screamed danger.

  As he approached the waiting Kindred, his gaze fell on the Prince, and his step slowed. He held up a mailed fist and the Imperial army behind him halted.

  With two quick motions, Ramael the Ox Lord, Fifth Child of the Empress, Prince of the Realm and Defender of the Imperial Borders, sheathed his battleaxes and removed his helm.

  “Hello, little brother,” he said.