Clouds of dust. Thundering feet. Wind whizzing past their bodies. Four demons raced down the road on top of horse-like monsters. Equi, as the monsters were called, were powerful, muscular beasts, capable of great speeds and even greater stamina. They were wild, proud, and incredibly dangerous, so riders had to look after them from foal to stallion, forming a bond that could only be broken by death.
The riders kept their eyes on the road, checking for any bumps or holes they might have to jump over. In the distance, a thin mist. Not unusual for this time of day. There wasn’t much else to see at dawn. The riders were getting close. If it wasn’t for the mist, they would have seen the city by now. They could return to the main army after scouting the road to the capital and preparing for their prince’s grand return. The prelude to his coronation as the rightful king of Izlandi.
I stepped out of the mist. The equi screamed. Unlike a horse’s neigh, their screams were deep and guttural, filling the air with their terror. Their riders yelled too, one telling me to get out of the way, another asking her equi to calm down, while the other two silently took back control of their mounts and barreled towards me with reckless abandon.
I raised one hand. Four demons tumbled to the ground. Their beasts reared, losing their sense of direction, until I grabbed their reins and stilled them again. But they didn’t calm down. Another demon ran out of the woods. He put something to his mouth, aimed at the four rampaging monsters, and blew. The four monsters crumbled to the ground, asleep. Their riders were dragged back into the mist, their mounts in tow, and the road was cleared of all signs of struggle.
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I stood on top of the ramparts at noon. In the distance, there was a much louder cloud of dust than the one we’d seen at dawn. I focused light magic to help me see more clearly. The dust and distance made it hard to see, and I hadn’t worked very hard on this magic, but as the soldiers got closer, I was able to survey the enemy.
Rows upon rows of demons wielding iron tipped spears and iron studded shields. Their spear tips were angled in a strange way, which made them catch the light and gleam from far away, like tiny little stars peeking through the clouds of dust. Their shields were rectangular, hanging by their sides as they ran up. The first line of soldiers had a strange red cloth tied to their spears, and their rectangular shields were already facing straight ahead, slowing the army’s march behind them. But behind the front line, the order of the army seemed to break down. Demons did not march in rhythm, their ranks were all over the place, and there were many demons on top of equi, barking out orders and marching up and down the chaotic ranks, trying to keep them together.
The prince was nowhere to be seen. I’d seen a portrait of him so I knew what to look for. And he would want to wear his ceremonial royal armor before entering the city. Or at least, he would have done so if his scouts hadn’t disappeared in the morning. Now, he was either hiding somewhere in the back ranks of his army, letting the generals do all the work, or he might even be somewhere far behind the army, waiting for the fighting to subside before making his grand entrance.
After some light interrogation, the scouts revealed that the prince wasn’t expecting too much resistance. He seemed convinced that the king could not have recovered, and the thought of the princess returning from the mountains never even occurred to him, which also told us the rumors we had spread in the South hadn’t reached up North yet. The prince was expecting some upstart generals or higher ups who were on his kill-list to take a stand rather than await execution. The prince had made many friends while fighting for the throne against his reluctant father, but he had also made a lot of enemies. Enemies who would finally get their comeuppance once the prince became king.
The scouts had given everything up very quickly once they saw both the king sitting on his throne and the princess kneeling by his side. Add in the strange elf who could use magic, the many fortifications that had appeared overnight, and a rapidly growing army, and the scouts couldn’t help but give up everything that they knew.
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And so the prince’s army marched down the road, carefully, and much more slowly than their scouts had done in the morning. The mist was thicker now. Strange for this time of day. The sun was still high in the sky, and yet visibility on the road between the dense forest and the rocky formations was abysmal. The rocky formations were created by the river which ran right next to the capital, but the river was wide, and near impossible to cross.
A short, stocky demon walked resolutely in the middle of the path. He stepped out of the mist and loud shouts rang out of the prince’s army. The commanders on the equi yelled, and the front line stopped. Many demons in the back ranks tumbled or knocked into each other, with many curses and a few unruly scuffles breaking out, until they were silenced by the nearby commanders. A large, well-built man, riding on the largest equi I had seen so far, cautiously stepped out to meet the stocky demon messenger.
The demon messenger held out a scroll. I couldn’t hear him from here but I knew what he was saying. “His majesty, King Olri Izlandi, commands his esteemed and noble generals to halt their advance on the sacred capital of the Izlandi Kingdom. Let the Heavenly Eye take note, that the king sits on the ancient demon throne, and wishes for his son, Prince Alek Izlandi, to come to his side unarmed. His majesty wishes to spend the twilight of his life, surrounded by his loving family, blessed with love and familial kindness, instead of the stains of the dirty blood of those who kill their kin and meet kindness with the cold insult of metal.” And so on in a pointlessly long heraldic message that was meant to put down the prince’s guard and bring him out to the capital without his army.
Of course, the prince was not stupid enough to fall for this, and the large, powerful general who had approached the herald, merely held him by his scrawny arms, and had him arrested. Perhaps they thought this was a desperate attempt at trickery, and a sign of their foe’s weakness, but the army began marching much more confidently. Their front line was quicker. Their back ranks lost more cohesion, as people jostled with each other, egging each other on. There was no doubt in my mind that if this army was resisted even a little bit on the outskirts of the city, they would take it as an excuse to plunder their own capital, committing many crimes in the process.
I looked back. The city was quiet. All windows were closed, every door boarded, and guards stood at most major intersections and at the roads leading out to every side, just in case there was any looting or opportunistic banditry. I brought my gaze back to the prince’s army as it finally got close enough.
“Halt!” came the generals cry as he marched up to his first line. The first line stopped, mid-march, sending the line behind them into confusion, and a ripple of tiny accidents and stumbles flowed through the army. The general came back to the front and squinted his eyes. The fog was thick, but the sun was bright. He had seen the dark shadow of the ramparts, blocking his army from the front and making his soldiers sitting ducks for arrows and projectiles thrown from above. Luckily, he’d spotted it in time, and could get his soldiers to raise their shields above their heads and march forward, carefully. He knew the enemy did not have much time. The ramparts would either be loose dirt, easily broken through, or not long enough to cover the whole road.
The soldiers marched with their shields over their heads. The general hung back to avoid arrows, as did most of the commanders and riders. The soldiers stepped forward. Marching, marching, stomping, stomping. Until one side stopped. Somebody yelled. But it was too late.
One half of the front line stomped right over empty air, lost their balance, and tumbled in their heavy armor down to the bottom of the trench. A few soldiers from the second line couldn’t stop themselves in time, either falling into the trench as well or bumping into front line soldiers and tumbling down with them.
The commanders yelled for them to stop. Confusion flitted through the ranks. The fog thickened. The leading general moved his head back and forth. Did he sense that something was wrong? I stared at him before searching through the army once again. Still no sign of the prince. In a way, that was a good thing. If the prince wasn’t in the army, we didn’t have to be careful anymore. And if he died because he mixed in with the soldiers then well, it couldn’t be helped. The king wouldn’t blame us for that.
I raised an arm in front of me. The archers held their bows. A large fireball slammed through the fog, accompanied by a rain of arrows.