Darius Chapter 48

Silfor had done her best, but Mitrev was set on disobeying her, and the advisors had quietly moved closer to their general. Her visions of rallying her soldiers behind her and leading them forward from Erinstone’s destruction were beginning to blur.

The battle for Barringvale raged on beyond them, but neither Silfor nor Mitrev were concerned with it – they were concerned with power, that scarce resource they each wanted to monopolize. Silfor tried one last ploy.

“Mitrev, I would remind you that you swore an oath to serve my father and his family, no matter the circumstances or consequences. How are your men to trust you when you can’t keep the most sacred and important oath of any soldier? To serve me is your duty, and you’re throwing it aside in the heat of one battle.”

Mitrev spoke like he’d had his response prepared, like he’d been mulling over this thought for a long time.

“The king is dead, Silfor. And you’re right, you are his next of kin, so it would make sense that the oath transfers to you. But you’d be a queen without a king! You abandoned one marriage, so what’s to say you can provide a future for the kingdom? We should elect our new ruler through a vote – I would be happy to do so after my men win this battle.”

Silfor had heard this notion mentioned at a council meeting months and months ago. The advisor who brought it up called it ‘democracy’.

I fucking hate ‘democracy’.

Whilst trying to convince Mitrev, she’d dismounted her horse and stood before him, but now she turned away, resigning to the matter at hand – the battle she could not take part in. She could only watch from afar as the specks in the distance cut each other down, waging war with men whom they might’ve been friends with in times of peace.

Why did I even want this to begin with? For the sake of expansion? Barringvale was already a two-week ride – we had half the forest to ‘expand’ into if we liked.

Thinking too much about her part in this war made her uneasy. It was all so much easier when she could just say that it was all on the orders of her father. Being accountable was far less fun than it looked to be.

She led her horse back behind the tents, looking back over the expanse of the Great Road that she had travelled. There was a shimmering red blob in the distance.

Oh shit.

She squinted, hoping that her nervous mind was just playing tricks. She willed the blob to dissipate, or form into the red banners of some group of Erinian soldiers she’d missed on the way here.

The blob drew closer, and each second, she watched it grow until she could see the individual forms of hundreds of underkind racing towards her. She mounted her horse and yelled at Mitrev.

“Mitrev, if you don’t believe me, look over your shoulder! That’s a pack of underkind, and if we don’t organize the soldiers fast, we’re done for.”

The grizzled general sighed and threw a mock glance back along the Great Road. His old eyes didn’t immediately catch on, but he doubled back, standing to look over the tent that blocked his view.

“What the hell?”

The advisors looked too – merely a reflex at first, but Silfor saw the shock grow in their eyes as they witnessed the rampaging horde for the first time.

“How many?”

“Few hundred, maybe more. That’s not all of them, trust me.”

The camp burst into action, grabbing what few valuables were stored in the tents, then they rode towards Barringvale. Some of the faint-hearted just rode further south to the Islands, and one advisor bolted southwest, back the way Heldrus had arrived from. Mitrev’s angry shouts didn’t deter them.

“You weaselly varmints! Obey your general you lousy fucks!”

Silfor couldn’t help laughing.

“Maybe you’re not cut out for ruling, Mitrev.”

He glared at her and rode out onto the battlefield.

A band of Erinian archers were posted just outside the gates, firing at any remaining guards on the battlements, and sending the occasional explosive arrow through the gates, over the top of the Erinian soldiers. Mitrev galloped in front of them, almost getting himself shot.

“Stop firing! Look behind you, there are monsters coming our way. Underkind! Save your arrows for them!”

He careened off through the gates. For a middle-aged man, he was agile in the saddle. Silfor followed suit, her horse picking its way over the rubble. She did her best to spread the word, but she struggled to project her voice over the battle. She ended up just riding through and shouting hysterically while pointing back at the Great Road. Enough Erinians – shocked to see their Princess – looked back at the horde as it crushed the remains of the camp.

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Only twenty meters away on the battlefield, Marth finally found Heldrus. The former captain was earning his rank, holding down the eastern rampart by himself against a squad of attackers. At times, he would swing the hilt of his sword into his chestplate, and a rush of flames blasted out, sending his opponents to the ground or off the wall. Marth scaled the edge of the rampart, appearing by Heldrus’s side and scaring him half to death.

“Marth! What the hell are you doing! I almost stabbed you.”

“We need to stop this battle! You were right about the underkind, they’re already here! Look over the ramparts!”

Heldrus couldn’t see over the walls from where he was, but he caught sight of the Purple Plume General and Lady Silfor pushing around the crowd of Erinians, jostling to get to the front. Mitrev was yelling into their ears, and Silfor was pointing back out the gate. The soldiers looked lost.

Heldrus had a foolish idea, but it was one that would catch everyone’s attention.

“Marth! I’m going to get them all looking over here – you might want to get away for now!”

Marth was busy fending off the Erinians that had pushed forward while he’d been talking. To conserve men, he was just disarming them, despite having numerous chances to cut them down. He sent the last sword flying off the ramparts, out of Barringvale, then delivered a boot to the soldier's side, kicking him down into the bushes below. He heard an oof as the wind was knocked out of the man.

He’s probably fine.

Looking back at Heldrus, he was getting undressed. At least, he was removing his armor. He was struggling to get to the straps on his right shoulder, as his remaining arm couldn’t easily reach back on itself.

“I don’t think you’re that pretty, Heldrus, that won’t get many people’s attention. Let me help you.”

He pulled the glistening armor off and handed it to Heldrus, who piled it on the rampart. He placed the helmet and greaves inside the chestplate, pushing it all in as tight as it could pack together.

“You got one of those explosive arrows?”

Marth was beginning to see the plan.

“I do, but...are you sure?”

“No, but you got something better in mind?”

Marth unslung the bow from his back and readied an arrow. He pulled it back, then thought better of his proximity. Heldrus lay down on the rampart and covered his head.

“Alrighty, whatever you’ve got planned, get ready!”

He pulled the string tight, ensuring the arrow would be as powerful and loud as it could be. He let it fly, and it zipped off, slamming into the imbued armor.

Not only did the explosion get the attention of the entire battlefield, it almost ripped through the entire eastern wall. The fireballs thrown out by the armor joined into a colossal mass of heat and power, detonating into a shower of sparks that covered the soldiers. The blast was worthy of Falsith’s strength, and the pieces of armor were flung into the air and dispersed around the scene. The fighting paused momentarily while the soldiers evaluated if they were about to be crushed by a stray section of the wall.

Heldrus and Marth raced to the edge, bracing against the heat as Heldrus delivered his order. Marth assisted by gesturing out the gates at the underkind as they closed in.

“Men! Lower your blades and bows! The true enemy is behind us, and they will not discriminate between our banners, they will destroy us all! Use your eyes and LOOK!!!”

Mitrev and Silfor joined in, crying out in support.

“The underkind are upon us! We need to defend the gate! Anyone with a magical weapon, take the frontlines!”

The soldiers were slow to react. The Erinians weren’t keen on showing their backs to their enemies, but the horror on the faces of those around them eventually persuaded even the most battle-crazed to look back.

What they saw was a flood of crimson scales racing towards them, some of the monsters as big as four armored men. One of the Barringvale archers atop the walls fired a stray shot into the frontrunners – a fire arrow – it lodged in the stomach of a smaller monster, detonating flames and taking it down, but those beside it poured through the heat, not concerned. Heldrus yelled again over the chaos of two armies rearranging themselves.

“Their scales are extremely strong! You need to stab into them – horizontal slashes won’t work unless you have an imbued weapon!”

It didn’t seem like anyone heard him. Pretty soon, they’d work it out for themselves anyway. Luckily, it looked to be only a few hundred – they outnumbered the monsters, but Heldrus had seen firsthand how powerful they were, and he had to try and hide his doubts.

Marth was standing on the crumbling wall above the gate, trying to direct the soldiers into formation. Mitrev rode to the back, busying himself with retrieving any imbued weapons that had fallen from their owner’s grasp. He couldn’t remember where he’d put the axe he’d taken from that brute of a man he’d killed at the first battle.

Silfor picked her way through to Heldrus as he slid down the ruins of the east wall. His experiment left him unarmored, a state he wanted to remedy fast, even if it meant pulling the armor from a dead soldier.

Silfor dismounted and steadied him when he stumbled through the rubble at the base.

“You’ve...changed a lot since I last saw you.”

Heldrus didn’t have time to reminisce.

“Aye. I assume King Draythar never taught you to fight – ride up to the castle and get King Tarth – I dunno why the hell he isn’t here already.”

Silfor leapt back up and dug her knees into her horse, willing it to gallop up the steep hill. She hadn’t been to Barringvale before, but the beautiful, intricately carved building sitting high atop the hill was clearly where she was to go. Agitated citizens watched her from their windows, unsure if the sudden lull in fighting was a good or bad sign. They stayed inside and prayed.

Heldrus felt strange about seeing Silfor again. He didn’t dwell on the fact that he almost married his stepsister, and he wouldn’t dwell on it any longer. According to his mother, he wasn’t even an Avongold anymore – he had no family, and he was fine with that.

The mounds of rubble and planks that had fallen from the houses made good vantage points for the archers that couldn’t find a place on the deteriorated walls. They shot a spread of arrows over the heads of the soldiers under Marth’s direction, holding back the underkind that were nearing the entrance. The monsters had no semblance of order or formation or tactics, they just bowled in a straight line towards their prey, trusting in their hardened scales and the fear their appearance conjured.

For these soldiers, magic was a discovery made in the past weeks, and the horror stories of their youth coming to life was not the natural next step.

The underkind crossed the threshold, and the final clash began.