chapter eighteen
Dark Communion
Ayla ran after the children. She scooped up one of her little marigolds, no more than four years old, who stood crying with his hands over his eyes. She raced for the gatehouse with him in her arms.
The children gathered in front of the portcullis, still screaming and crying. Ayla reached them as a fire blazed to life in the courtyard. Butch had lit the pyre for the archers and lookouts.
Ayla stopped inside the gatehouse as the children ran to the second, still rising portcullis. She turned to one of the soldiers inside and screamed over the rebounding cries and pleas of the children.
“Check and make sure there are no more children in the courtyard!”
He looked at her, stunned. Ayla waited for him to decide on another reaction. Not a moment ago, he had kicked her in the jaw. The man stammered, his eyes too big for his bony face.
Ayla put a hand on his chest. “I’m sorry too. Check the courtyard for children.”
The soldier nodded, the cords on his neck outlined by weight loss. Ayla hoped he heard, as the children yelled and cried for the portcullis to hurry up. They ducked under it and Ayla followed them.
“Stay together!” She shouted and herded them like a sheep dog. “Boys in the front, slow down! Help the little ones!”
They ran up the road together. Children fell and tripped over one another. One smacked his head on the road and didn’t move – James, the three year old. Orders carried over the wall behind them. The other children ran around him. Bridget, the dark haired tradesman’s daughter, scooped him up. Ayla thanked the twelve-year-old with a nod. Blasts of shattering stone boomed in the courtyard.
“Stay together, dammit!”
The first of the children cut across the grass to the temple. The Priestess raced ahead and the children towards the back cried out for her not to leave them. Ayla yelled over her shoulder.
“No one gets left! Come inside and sit!”
The inside of the temple glowed with the light of the braziers she requested for the latest and possibly last gathering. In her arms, the little boy with sun-bleached hair kept his hands over his eyes, sobbing.
The Priestess had not been here for two weeks. The thought made her eyes well up with joy. She put the boy down in the front row.
The children filed in and Ayla directed, pushed, ordered, and consoled until every one of them sat. She stood at the front, behind the altar, beset on either side with braziers. A metal grate was affixed above each of them for cooking.
Deetra ran in with the bowl. She slowed to a hustle as she came down the center aisle. Ayla took it and pointed at James, laying in Bridget’s arms in the front row. Deetra knelt down in front of him and placed her palms on him, one over his navel and the other over his head.
The children oohed and ahhed as the cornflower light spread from Deetra’s hands. The glow replaced the dim lighting of the braziers. She leaned over and kissed James on the head as he lay in Bridget’s lap.
“All better,” she said, mussing his hair. She came up behind the altar with Ayla. The sound of catapult payloads hitting the walls carried all the way to the temple. Ayla pointed to one of her little wilting marigolds.
“Little one, close the doors for us.”
A little boy, whose name Ayla couldn't remember, ran to the back. The wind picked up and pushed the doors toward him. He grabbed the handles and pulled them closed with his stick thin arms, then threw the latch. The children talked about the action in the courtyard, mocking the explosions hitting the walls. Some whispered and others laughed, or cried. Ayla let them talk. After what they witnessed, there was much to discuss.
Deetra fished strips of marbled meat out of the blood in the wide bowl and laid them on the grates over the braziers. In seconds the temple filled with the odor and sizzle of grilling beef. Deetra flipped them with her fingers.
One by one the children stopped talking. Every eye settled on the cooking minotaur meat. Ayla’s mouth watered. The children’s tummies growled, angry and insistent. James started to cry and another of the young ones joined him. The older boys thought it might come to a race, as some of them did the math of pieces to children. They remained seated, leaning forward, weight on their toes. Their respect, love, and fear of the Priestess held them in place by a slim margin as she spoke.
“There is enough for all. But first, you must drink from the bowl.”
The front row all started to rise to peer into the bowl. Ayla tipped it forward and lowered it for all to see. They craned their emaciated necks, leaning over one another. The eldest girl, a tradesman’s daughter by the name of Bridget, leaned her nose over the bowl.
“It’s blood.”
With a collective gasp, half of them recoiled and the other half, mostly boys, leaned in farther. The resulting collisions and ensuing confusion brought out the soldier in Deetra.
“Acolytes, take your seats!”
Another half second of confusion and yells passed as they fought their way back to their pews. Deetra’s voice lifted to the rafters.
“Now!”
Butts found places to rest and the noise ceased.
“If you want to eat, make a line in the center,” Deetra said and pointed to the aisle.
The children all got up and found their places until the line went down the center aisle and then curled outward in both directions at the door, lining the walls. No one remained in the pews.
Ayla lifted the bowl. “I will ask you a question. If your answer is yes, you will take a sip.” She put the bowl back on the altar and pointed at what they all wanted - the sizzling meat.
“Lady Deetra will ask you a question. If your answer is yes, she will give you a piece of beef. If your answer is no to either question, you go home to your family. Those who answer yes to both, truthfully, will have power as Deetra and I do.”
Bridget’s eyes went wide. She stood holding little James in her arms at the front of the line. “We’ll be able to heal?”
“Yes,” Ayla said and beckoned her forward. Bridget adjusted the boy on her hip and stepped before the altar. The muffled sounds of catapults battering the walls came down through the rafters.
Ayla held the bowl up to Bridget’s lips. “Do you trust and love the Goddess of the Night as your Mother?”
“I do.” Bridget took a sip and James leaned in to watch. Ayla lifted it to him.
“You don't have to, James.”
He nodded his willingness and Ayla asked the question.
“Do you trust and love the Goddess of Rest as your Mother?”
James nodded and took a sip. He looked up and then smiled with a red moustache. “I have more?”
The children talked it over in hushed voices. Some seemed doubtful, but most wore eager expressions. Ayla signalled Bridget with a tilt of her chin to step aside.
“I'm sorry, James. Only one each.”
One at a time they answered, drank, answered again, and then ate. The children stuffed the pieces into their mouths as they went back to their seats. The only sound in the modest temple came from the mouths of children eating.
Once they all had a piece, Ayla addressed them once more. “There is more where that came from.” She smirked, then wiped it away with her hand. “But we have greater things ahead of us. Now each of you is a Priest or Priestess, a healer. And our soldiers need us.”
Deetra stepped to the front of the altar and walked down the aisle to the front doors in her Freeman tunic. Her brown and blonde bangs framed her hollow, starving eyes as they measured the young Priests. Her gaze asked to know who among them possessed the faith and the courage to follow her.
Lady Deetra’s boldness, despite her weakened body and lack of armor, inspired the girls and challenged the boys. Her aura settled over the temple and the flame of the braziers cowed in her presence. Not one child cried, a first since the initial catapult explosion.
“Tor is dead, but his army attacks. Our soldiers don't sta
nd a chance without the power of the Goddess. Without us. They are our parents and neighbors. Which of you has the bravery, like me and Priestess Ayla, to save our people?”
Ayla detected her Mother’s presence upon Deetra, like the altar itself.
The soft warm wind blew down from the rafters above, carrying the scent of rain. The Goddess of Storms came to join the battle. Ayla had already arranged for buckets of water, and taught even the smallest among them to scoop from them with their hands. Now, they would not need to.
They got up in groups, with minimal conversation. Decisions made, or made for them by the others, they all crowded in front of Deetra. Ayla stepped out from behind the altar. She and Deetra would protect them with their lives. Butch told Ayla he gave the same order to the men on the walls.
Deetra threw open the doors. A flash of lightning and clap of thunder greeted them but none of the child priests flinched or cried. The thunder growled like a demon in the sky. Deetra held a hand out into the rain.
“The Goddess of Storms, the Tempest, is blessing us. Don't be afraid. The thunder and the lightning are for the cows.”
Ayla took up the rear of the group and tried not to imagine them getting hurt as she knew they would. She left the doors open behind her as the first drops of rain pattered on the roof of the temple. The unarmored knight led them down the road toward the inner courtyard wall.
Butch waved to them from the west staircase, to the right of the second gatehouse. It ascended twenty feet up the wall to the walkway at the battlement-crowned top. Each side had three staircases just like it, spaced over either of the eight hundred yard sections of wall. The three hundred plus men spread out, five feet between them, to cover the full length.
Deetra picked up the pace and some of the smaller ones had to jog to keep up. Ayla waved back to Butch as he descended the stairs to meet them. Lightning flashed and thunder rolled into a clap as the steady rain soaked them all. Again, the child Priests paid the storm no mind.
For the first time, the Priestess realized how much weight the orc had lost. His thick arms had shrunk to a reasonable size for his height. The orcish ridges of his face pressed against his skin, making him look fiercer than ever. He knelt down to talk to the children, his voice softer than he ever made it.
“Lady Deetra will take the west staircase and High Priestess Ayla will take the east.”
Ayla heard the title and thought it fit. Butch knew much about the gods from the stories his people told him as a child. She hoped they lived long enough for him to share them all with her.
The orc held up two fingers. “I need you in two groups.”
He stood back up and addressed Ayla as she approached. She threw her arms around his waist. When he had walked her through the streets, drowning in the anger and hatred of so many, she’d almost forgotten the ruse.
She hugged away the feeling. He patted her on the back and spoke to Deetra over her.
“The minotaurs are building up behind the breeches in the walls.”
Ayla let go and took a step back. Deetra stepped in and hugged him with one quick pat on the back. “What about the docks?” She asked, checking on the child priests behind her with a glance and a smile.
The torches at the base of the stairs hissed as drops of rain hit them. Butch folded his arms. “We got all the main defenses moved and another two hundred men. We should have the garrison held down as long as the storm holds.”
Moving the main wall defenses to the port wall by the docks was a part of the ruse of disarming for surrender. That, Ayla knew about, but the extra two hundred men, she did not.
“Where did the men come from?”
Butch shook Deetra by the shoulder. “Lady-Knight Deetra.” He pushed her back a step, playing rough. “She spoke in the Freemen Quarter. Men came to the arena dozens at a time.”
Butch counted off the children, pushing them to one side or the other, towards Ayla or Deetra. Ayla ascended her staircase with the children following her, single file. Butch called to her and Deetra from the bottom.
“Space them nine or ten soldiers apart. Stay to the back.”
James went with Bridget, who followed Deetra. Ayla got all the older, dark-haired boys, and one marigold ten-year-old. Butch had done it on purpose, she realized. The younger ones and the girls would need Deetra’s aura of courage.
Ayla did not know the name of the child that walked side by side with her up the steps. She turned slightly and put a hand on the back of his neck as they climbed. He looked scared in Deetra’s absence.
“What’s your name, Priest?”
He watched the stairs in front of him, as if when he looked up he might see a minotaur bearing down on him. Rain dripped from his nose.
“Fergus, High Priestess,” he said, his voice on the verge of tears.
Ayla whispered a prayer. The Goddess’ power surged through her hand. He lifted his head.
“What did you do?”
“I prayed for bravery, for you.”
At the top of the stairs the High Priestess turned to face them. She caught a glimpse of a soldier on the wall, trembling from hunger, fear, and the rain. He stood at the base of the stairs that led up to the top of the gatehouse. The boys waited on the steps below her, their faces terrified.
“Prayers for strength and courage are answered the moment you beg. You don't have to say the words slow. Get them out fast as you can, but get them right. Do it once for yourselves, and once for the soldiers each time you get scared.”
She waited, then motioned with her hand. “I meant, starting now.”
The boys all rattled off the prayer at different speeds, except one who kept stuttering over it. Fergus reached down from the top step and touched him. The boy stopped fumbling the words and said it right. When he finished, every face had calmed. She looked behind her at the trembling man. His posture had relaxed, though he still shook a bit from hunger.
He turned and saw her. The High Priestess smiled at him, then back at Fergus, her marigold from Moonvale. Lightning flashed and the rain picked up to a downpour. Ayla yelled over the rolling thunder.
“For healing prayers! You must touch the wounded anywhere on the skin!” The thunder clapped and boomed. “The rain will take care of the rest.”
Fergus blew drips of water from his nose. “What about prayers to be dry?”
The High Priestess tapped him in the back of the head. “Careful which gods you insult.”
The boys laughed but it was cut short as one of the men from the top of the gatehouse yelled.
“Breach! Breach! Both sides of the gate!”
Ayla scanned over the battlements, where minotaurs poured through the broken, v-shaped holes in the outer walls. Half of them carried long ladders, taller than the inner courtyard walls. They still had a quarter mile between the two to run.
“Alright Priests, remember - say it fast, say it right. Fergus.” The high priestess pointed to the far end of their wall. “Lead them to the end, leave one every ten soldiers. Can you do that?”
Fergus nodded. “Yes, High Priestess.” He ran up the stairs, then turned to his fellow child-priests. He stationed the first boy next to a man who had wet himself, the mess hidden by the rain.
Lightning struck the sixty foot west main tower of the outer wall with a flash and crackle. Ayla bowed her head and prayed as the children passed her on their way to their posts. The Goddess of the Tempest had rallied to her Mother’s side. She tried something new.
"Mother, Queen of the Gods, your priestess is in need and begs, humbly, for the weapons of the Tempest." Ayla’s hair sizzled with static as she lifted her head. Rain popped as it landed on her skin.
The herd of stampeding half-beast crossed the center of the yard, passing the extinguishing flames of Ayla’s would-be stake. Smoke billowed into the air, whipped into swirls and eddies. Lightning flared in a jagged arc from the sky. The stack of wood exploded as the bolt hit the tip of the stake in the center. Four of the close
st minotaurs to the blast lay smoking on the ground.
The men cheered. Ayla lifted her hand, eyes on the nearest group of half-beasts. Another bolt flashed.
Deetra averted her eyes, still blinking away the previous blast that blew up the stake. The first strike she assumed happened by chance. Then the second targeted the nearest group of minotaurs running with ladders. Thunder crackled and boomed. They flew in all directions, and Lady Deetra knew that the High Priestess commanded the storm. The wonders of Ayla’s faith never ceased to amaze her.
Deetra touched another man on the shoulder with her steel glaive in her other hand, like a game of battle duck-duck-goose. Only in this case, she and the Priests conferred strength. Her presence alone emboldened them to courage.
The rain soaked them all to the bone. With everyone so frail, she and Ayla would find themselves busy curing sickness once the battle concluded. The road back to health would prove a long one for all of them, herself included.
Another bolt of lightning struck with a crackle and the thunder shook the battlements. It hit at the base of the outer wall’s west tower where a group of half-beasts tried to ram down the door. If they had succeeded, they would have come up the stairs to the top of the wall.
The Lady Knight touched another shoulder with a blessing of strength. She checked behind her. The children waited with stern faces, spaced along the wall until Deetra could no longer see them in the rain.
The running half-beasts filtered toward either side of the inner gatehouse. If they could take either side, the stairs behind Deetra would grant them access to the other. The minotaurs slipped and skidded in the mud as they lifted their ladders.
Deetra called out to her side. “Bring it in this way! Pass it along!”
The children and soldiers turned their heads in cadence, passing the message along to their neighbor and gathering closer to the gatehouse. A ladder top landed on the battlements in front of Deetra.
She shooed the little one behind her back and away. The ladder shook as the minotaur below climbed. His face peeked over the top, between battlements.
Ayla yelled from the other side. “Prayers of courage, all of you! Pass it!”
Deetra lunged with the glaive. The minotaur lifted a shield and the blade glanced off. Two more men joined at her sides. Another ladder clacked against the wall next to the first.
Ayla told her boys to say the prayer fast. ‘Get it out’, she had said. Deetra did. She asked the Goddess to help her smite her enemies. With the final word she stabbed the shield with the blade again.
Thunder boomed, starting at the tip of the glaive. Wind threw her hair back. The beast and ladder went backwards into the courtyard. Deetra fixed her eyes on the next one. He leapt off his ladder and rolled onto the muddy ground.
Ladders laid against the wall in rapid succession, one next to the other, as the minotaurs arrived en masse. Shields appeared first, bearing Tor's symbol, an ouroboros twisted into an eight, emblazoned in the center of each one.
Soldiers rushed toward the center from the far side of the wall. The beasts used their weight behind the shields to push them back. The soldiers gathered in bunches, stabbing at angles from the sides and pushing from the front.
The child priests stuck with their assigned man or woman. They paired and tripled up behind the larger groups, praying and looking out for one another. Deetra spotted Bridget, James gripping a handful of her dress behind her, fifty paces away from the main fight by the gates. A man fell back from his group onto his rear, hands clasped over a wound in his belly. James prayed next to him, while Bridget placed her hand on a man standing at the back of the group.
James’ soldier got up first, awed. Another ladder slapped against the wall beside them, behind the group. The thin soldier scooped his spear from the ground and tried to push James behind him. James would not let go of Bridget’s skirt. The beast put a hand on top of the battlement, ready to climb over.
Deetra ran for them, a prayer on her lips. The soldier turned back too late. The half-beast bashed him in the head with the shield as it stepped over onto the wall. The soldier sprawled onto his back and James ran over to pray over him. The minotaur looked down, pulling his sword out of its scabbard.
James’ soldier didn't stir. The toddler Priest wailed, crying for him. Bridget looked back as the beast swung his sword. Deetra hurled her glaive the last twenty feet. The minotaur’s sword cleaved into Bridget’s neck. A moment later, the glaive hit the beast in the ribs.
Bridget’s head turned to an impossible angle as she fell and James shrieked. The minotaur stumbled into the crowd of men, Deetra’s weapon in his side.
The back row checked behind them but could not turn their spears on him in time. James prayed over Bridget’s body, eyes closed. The beast lifted one foot to kick the toddler out of his way.
Deetra dropped into a slide tackle on the rain slicked stone. Her foot collided with the minotaur’s hoof, taking it out from under him. He came down on top of Deetra, almost a full ton of muscle and bone. The world went black.
Butch ran along the wall, his legs cramping in protest. The torches had snuffed out in the rain, leaving the walls dark as pitch. His orcish night vision, far more acute than minotaur or human, revealed what the others couldn't see.
The half-beasts scaled the wall on the west side without ladders. One knelt as a base, with another on its back, and a third climbed both to the wall. Six or seven groups of three lined up next to the steep hillside cliff where the wall ended. Already, a group of five or six found their way to the top.
The garrison, already at the wall, had come too close to use the giant crossbow ballistas on the far ends of the dock walls. Butch stopped next to one as his men caught up from behind. He turned the massive crossbow, but it would not aim along the wall. He needed to pull the base away from the battlements.
Butcher put his feet on the stone wall and wrapped his arms around the heavy base. He pulled with what little strength the weeks of starvation left him. It slid an inch and stopped. The half-beasts made their way toward him.
Butch squinted in the rain. They saw him and picked up their pace to a cautious trot, shields and oversized serrated falchions in hand. He looked back the other way. His men would not make it before the garrison did. More still climbed up their comrade’s backs and appeared on the wall.
Butch pulled and strained. Something behind his shoulder tore, the pain radiating into his lung. The pedestal gave and slid, dropping Butch to his back. He groaned as he rolled over and got to his feet, the torn muscle in his back like a red hot knife next to his spine.
He spun the loaded crossbow to face the oncoming cows. The first few dug in their hooves, trying to stop. Two slipped and fell. Butch kicked the release lever. The recoil made him cry out. The shot took a beast off his feet, a bolt the size of a spear through its chest. The minotaurs helped the fallen ones up, stalling them a moment. Butch spun the crank with his off hand. The din of the battle raged far behind him; faint cries and tinny sounds of clashing metal.
The limbs of the crossbow bent a fraction of an inch with each full turn. His men’s footsteps drew closer, but not fast enough. He turned the crank like a madman, staring at the spear sized bolts on the floor as a focal point to block out the pain.
The thunk and whack of another firing ballista sounded over the rain and wind. A spear hissed over his shoulder and struck another of the advancing minotaurs. It threw the cow into the others, knocking them back.
Inspired by their General, some of his men must have stopped to move another ballista. It bought Butch the time he needed. A few more cranks, and one of his men showed up to take over. Butch thanked him and picked up one of the bolts. He dropped it into the slide.
Thwack! The giant crossbow fired again and skewered a minotaur. One of them jumped off the side of the twenty-foot wall. It bellowed when it landed.
He and his men spent the whole afternoon moving the main wall defenses. The torrential rain
put out the fires beneath the vats of pitch despite soaking the wood in oil. Butch had his men dump the pitch in the gatehouse.
The rest of his detachment of fifteen came up behind him.
Butch yelled to them over the rain. “I’d be a lot more scared of these cows if they had toes instead of horns!” He didn't have the blessing of the Goddess that inspired courage. Instead, he relied on insulting the enemy and making sure his men feared him more.
One of them shouted back. “The port gate is breached! We’re falling back!”
Butch balled his fists. He hadn’t called a retreat. If the dock wall fell, the girls didn't stand a chance. He turned to say so when a minotaur head came up over the battlements next to him.
Butch pushed the kid turning the crank out of the way and threw a punch with his bad arm. The pain and exhaustion stole the power from the shot. It smashed into the cow’s nose, but did nothing.
The cow swung its mace over the battlement. Butch leaned, but bumped into the kid he’d saved. The mace came down on his good shoulder, dropping the orc to his knees.
A woman's long, agonizing wail came from inside the gatehouse. Ayla hesitated. The men were losing the wall. She’d been cut off from half her boys - seven of them, most likely dead. She knelt before Fergus, the side of his head crushed in.
Fury and heartache spilled into her words as she finished her prayer, convinced he had died. The Goddess’ healing light appeared. To her amazement, he was alive. Fergus opened his eyes and blinked away the rain as he got up. Ayla took a step back and wiped rain from her face.
“I have to check on something. Healing prayers, everyone, all the time! Got it?”
Fergus yelled back. “I don't know where anyone is!”
Ayla took his hand and they ran back to the line of men blocking off the last portion of the wall they controlled. More men lined the stairs behind the wall. The cursed half-beasts had crossed into the city.
They fought a battle on both sides now, their numbers shrinking by the second. She didn't know where the others ended up, either. The cry came again from inside, a woman in terrible pain. Ayla had to know. She let go of Fergus’ hand. “Stay right here!”
He nodded and bowed his head to pray. She heard him ask for courage as she ran through the door that led up to the top of the gatehouse - a bare room above the gates, with holes in the floor. Butch called them murder holes.
Ava sat with her legs apart, knees bent, and her back against the wall under a torch. Her breath came in short gasps. Two soldiers tended to her. They saw Ayla’s face in the doorway. A dark haired one with a metal cap on his head beckoned her with his hand and panic in his voice.
“She’s having it!”
Ava screamed and pushed him away. She met Ayla’s eyes.
“I'm fine! Get back outside!”
Ayla turned and ran back out the door into the storm. If Ava bearing a months-premature calf in this moment was the High Priestess’ sign she asked for, she feared its meaning. The idea that she could kill Tor, but still lose the battle, did not seem possible until now.
The rain blinded Deetra as she sat up, the battle still raging all around her. A tiny cherubic face popped into her line of sight. James. He wiped his nose on his arm.
A hand grabbed him and pulled him out of the way. The Lady Knight fought to her feet to find herself surrounded by the backs of her men. Minotaurs pressed in from all sides. Her glaive had men standing on it. She couldn't get it from the floor.
Soldiers screamed and dropped as the circle tightened around her like a noose. James tugged on her tunic. She looked down and he hugged her leg. She rested a hand on his head.
“Close your eyes, little one.”