The carriage wheels rattled on the roads, bumping Giorn up and down. The horses trotted, rushing Giorn to his destination. Over the sounds of hooves and carriage wheels he could hear the driver cracking his whip and shouting, “Ra! Ra!”
Giorn shoved the window curtains aside. Night had fallen, but bonfires, street-lamps and the moon lit the world quite well, at least for the nonce. The dark cloud over Vrulug’s host swept northward. Soon it would obliterate the sky.
They were passing through Inner Thiersgald, and the streets were so choked with citizens and refugees that the carriage could hardly navigate them. Raugst had had the outer city evacuated and now the entire population of Thiersgald—and the even greater numbers of refugees—were all packed into this one place. It was a beautiful quarter, with great towers and mansions and monuments all around, and there the magnificent golden dome that marked the Library, but it was not meant to hold so many. It was surreal and horrible, to see so great a number of people pressed so close together, in streets Giorn knew so well.
Everywhere people gathered in tight groups, praying silently or listening to sermons. The people thought their doom was upon them, that these truly were the opening days of the End Times. They thought Vrulug’s victory inevitable, that shortly the city would burn and Borchstogs would be raping the women in its ashes and torturing the men over its white-hot embers. Giorn knew they were right, too. Unless Raugst prevails. The notion did not sit well with him, and it especially galled him that he was forced to pray for the bastard’s success.
Giorn’s carriage passed through the beautiful, ornate inner wall of Thiersgald and into the outer city. It was supposed to have been emptied, but he saw that some stubborn townspeople had remained. Pale faces stared out through windows. Families gathered in gardens and on terraces to pray. A group of youths broke the window of a house, surely looking to loot the place. Giorn sighed.
The Temple to Illiana rose into sight ahead, its windows shining with golden light. The white edifice seemed to glow. Strangely, though, it was dread that welled up in Giorn as he neared that splendid structure, and for a moment he didn’t see the temple at all but Niara’s face, lovely and anguished. He could still feel the thunk that had coursed up his arm when he struck her—could still see her blood, bright as the sun. With a shudder, he closed the drapes and turned to his fellow passenger.
“We won’t be long,” Giorn assured him.
General Levenril frowned. “Are you quite certain the priestesses will be necessary? They’re useless now.”
“If all goes well, they won’t be useless for long.”
The procession rolled up to the Temple, where Hiatha and several other priestesses were waiting. They must have seen and heard the royal procession and come out to meet it. Hiatha was at the forefront of their circle, looking like someone trying to struggle for calm despite overwhelming worry. She kept raising her hands as if to wring them, then, realizing what she was doing, she would drop them, square her shoulders, and lift her chin.
Giorn sprang from the carriage before it was completely stopped, not minding that he nearly tripped and fell on his face. Even before soldiers from the carriage behind his could come to his side, Giorn hobbled forward, and Hiatha and her sisters converged on him.
Hiatha clutched his hand and stared deep into his eyes. “We felt something,” she said. “Something terrible. Tell us, is it true? Has Niara fallen?”
Wordless, he nodded.
The priestesses gasped or exchanged horrified looks. Tears built up behind Hiatha’s eyes, but she did not release them. “I’d hoped it was just Vrulug’s presence that darkened our thoughts, but—” She stared up at the black sky, at the moon that hung overhead, proud and dazzling, then focused on Giorn. Only then did she seem to notice to whom she spoke. Grief over Niara had blinded her. Now her eyes widened. “Why, could it be? Is that you, Lord Wesrain? Dear Illiana ...”
“I know. I know. Now listen, I need your help. Are you the High Priestess now?”
Warring emotions flashed across her face, but she reined them in. “Rites must be performed. There is ceremony, ritual—”
“But you are the leader?”
“Yes. I suppose. What would you ask of me, my lord?”
“Gather your most powerful sisters and your weapons of light and meet me at the South Gate.”
“But Vrulug blocks us. We cannot aid you.”
“Not yet, but hopefully soon you’ll be able to. I can’t say for sure, but I know we won’t win without you. Now go. Prepare for war. That is an order from your baron and king. Raugst is gone. I’m the leader now.”
There were more gasps at this, but Hiatha consented to his demands and withdrew into the temple, her sisters with her. Giorn returned to his carriage.
“Ra!” the driver shouted, cracking his whip. The horses neighed and pulled. The wheels rolled.
Giorn, settling himself in, breathed out heavily. Niara was gone from this world, but the temple still stood. It was a living reminder of the Grace of the Omkar, a symbol of the sacred. There was hope left yet.
General Levenril evidently misinterpreted his distraction, as he said, “Fear not, my lord. The other generals of Fiarth will take your orders. They will be most glad to know that a true Wesrain has returned.”
“Will they? Good.” It had been a strange scene at the castle, when Raugst, newly clothed and drinking from a goblet of wine laced with the blood of his victims—to strengthen him for his coming endeavor, he said—had told General Levenril that he was abdicating the throne to Giorn. The General, who had brought the news of Vrulug’s arrival personally, meaning to brief Raugst in full on the situation on the ride back to the wall, had been quite shocked at Giorn’s return and Raugst’s ill state. He had been further shocked when Raugst had, without ceremony, handed Giorn the crown. Giorn had yet to put it on. Even now it rested on the general’s lap, waiting to be claimed.
“And what of King Ulea’s men?” Giorn asked. “Will they accept my orders?”
“They’ll have to. They’ll be confused, especially if you insist on arresting some of your own officers—”
“Raugst’s appointments must be seen to before they can cause any further damage.”
“Yes, I suppose.” Levenril looked troubled. Like everyone else of a certain station, he would have heard the bizarre rumors circulating about Raugst and the company he kept, but it would still be difficult for him to credit. “But yet another change of leadership on the dawn of war, and the arrest of key generals and officers—it will undermine our troops’ morale even further.”
“There’s no other way. Raugst appointed unnatural beings in the guise of men, things loyal to Oslog. They cannot be allowed to lead our soldiers in combat, especially when they discover that Raugst is no longer in command.”
“Yes. Yes, I see what you mean, but I still can hardly believe ...”
“Remember the claw, General. Remember the claw.” To convince Levenril of Raugst’s true nature, Giorn had asked Raugst to give a demonstration, and Raugst had turned his right hand into a claw. The General had gone even paler than he was now.
“Y-yes,” he said. “I had not forgotten.”
“Good.”
The rest of the trip passed in silence save for the cracking of the whip, the thunder of the hooves and the grinding of the wheels. When the procession slowed, Giorn disembarked. Soldiers were all over the place, milling about or forming groups. Some saw to the horses. Others sharpened blades or engaged in silent prayer. Many shot Giorn curious glances. Some pointed to him, and he heard the words “Giorn” and “Wesrain” mentioned again and again. The soldiers began whispering to each other, excitement—but also, he was not surprised to see—consternation in their faces.
Giorn did not pause to explain or proclaim. Side by side with General Levenril, he ascended one of the thick towers flanking the South Gate. There he met up with a group of generals and other officers. This tower had become the center of command. When Giorn arrived, all those gathered were staring out at the oncoming horde.
He hobbled to the parapet. The rolling fields south of the city were dark, but a greater darkness rolled over them, shielded from stars and moon by the black clouds over Vrulug’s host. It was as if Giorn were staring into the Void itself, hungry and devouring, and coming closer, like a great black maw opening, and here he was, unable to flee, a fly trapped in amber, like something out of a nightmare.
And from the darkness came drumming, steady, rhythmic, like the throb of some monstrous heart. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
He swore. At the sound, the others turned to him.
“Giorn Wesrain!”
“It can’t be!”
Giorn waited for the expected confusion to run its course, then smiled grimly and said, “Well met, friends. I’m back. Raugst is gone and I have taken his place.” He nodded to General Levenril, who handed him the crown. Giorn took a deep breath, then shoved the crown onto his head. It was heavier than he had expected. “For now, I’m King. I won’t hold the office, but I do hope to preserve it.”
The officers stared at him, jaws open. Then one dropped to his knees. Another followed, then another. Soon all knelt to Giorn save for two generals in the rear, who hunched their backs.
“Where’s Raugst?” one demanded.
Giorn gestured to the soldiers that had accompanied him into the tower. “Seize those two.”
The soldiers obeyed and in moments the two struggling generals were cornered. One of them tried to change shapes, becoming something wolf-like and monstrous, but he was cut down and dismembered before he could complete his transformation. The other tried to leap out the window, perhaps meaning to fly away, but a soldier, unnerved by the first general’s transformation, hacked halfway through his head and the creature fell unmoving to the floor, brains and blood pooling about him.
The others in the tower muttered fearfully in outrage and terror.
“What’s the meaning of this?”
“What were they?”
“What they were doesn’t matter. They are dead,” Giorn said firmly. “And so shall the others be.” He turned to General Levenril. “You have the list of names Raugst drew up for us. I need for you to find all those that he appointed and remove them. I don’t know if all of them are demons or not, but if they put up a resistance slay them. Dismember them. Burn the bodies.”
“Aye, my lord.” The general took a last look at the half-changed thing on the floor, made a sign to ward off evil, and departed.
Giorn ordered the soldiers to remove the two dead ones and instructed them to burn the corpses. The soldiers were loath to touch the one that had attempted to change, but they carried out their new lord’s orders.
Giorn turned to the gathering. “Who here represents the royal forces?”
“I do, my lord,” said a short, broad man with a full black beard. “I’m General Miled, Lord Ulea’s chief general.”
“Well met, General Miled. Will you accept my direction until this crisis is over?”
The general glanced at the bloodstains on the floor, swallowed, and nodded. “I will, my lord.”
“Good.” They clasped wrists. “Now,” said Giorn, “what we need is to break Vrulug’s momentum. He’s almost near enough now to unleash his gaurocks, and without our priestesses to aid us they will surely breach the wall. We can’t prevent that, but we may be able to delay it.”
Quickly, he outlined what he would do. Over his words came the incessant pounding of the Borchstog war drums, coming closer and closer and closer, almost seeming to shake the room. Giorn left the officers under the direction of General Miled, gathered to him three thousand riders in the great square before the South Gate, made his plans, and issued forth.
With a horse beneath him and the wind in his hair, Giorn rode out. He could see the endless ranks of the Borchstogs ahead, with the great dark shapes of the gaurocks among them, slithering along at amazing speed. The behemoths wore iron helms on their heads with long iron spikes jutting forward. When Vrulug gave the order, the Serpents would charge forward and ram the walls with their iron spikes, just as they had at Hielsly. The impact would disorient and perhaps kill the creatures, but if they were successful the wall would be breached and Vrulug’s hordes could pour in through the gaps. Normally the priestesses could help counter these threats, but until the Moonstone was destroyed they were all but useless.
You will not end us, Giorn thought, watching the ravenous hordes close in. There will be no Age of Grandeur for you.
At the forefront of a V formation, he led his men forward in a rush. The Borchstogs’ red eyes narrowed as Giorn’s company neared, and many lowered their spears to rebuff the mounted men. Riders of Thiersgald were well-trained, though, as were their horses, and Giorn gritted his teeth and pressed forward.
Arrows streaked out, and he lifted his shield high, using his right arm to manipulate it. He still had a thumb and a palm and could grip the strap. Arrows thunked into the wood, but none got through. His horse cried out but kept going. A glance told him that his mount had been struck in the flank.
The line of spears shot toward him. Giorn hunkered low and trusted to the horse’s training. The animal leapt high, through the line of spears, and Giorn knocked aside spear-points with his sword, as he had been trained to do.
He was through.
His riders followed behind him, breaking the orderly formation of Borchstogs. Giorn shuddered as the black shadow of Vrulug’s clouds fell over him. The host of Borchstogs stretched before him, a great dark mass. Their helms glinted. Their eyes burned. There was enough light for him to see by, and the clouds occasionally flared with strangely-colored lightning overhead. A fine, bitter mist fell.
Giorn’s sword swept out, hacking off a Borchstog’s head. A spear jabbed at his middle but scraped off his armor. He brought his blade down with all the strength his left arm could muster, cracking his foe’s helmet and splitting his skull to his teeth.
A troll reared above, roaring its rage. In the darkness it was simply a huge, foul-smelling shadow. Lightning glimmered off its great sharp teeth.
It stomped down at Giorn. Giorn jerked the reins, and his horse swept aside. Giorn’s blade lashed out at the troll’s heel, meaning to cut the tendon there. The heel was armored. Giorn’s blade glanced off.
He rode on, leading his riders deep into the Borchstog host. Glarumri wheeled overhead, showering his men with arrows. The riders did not pause.
Giorn lifted his horn to his lips and blew, signaling the second charge. His force had distracted Vrulug’s host and compelled it to shift its focus, realign its warriors. Now the second group of riders stormed out through the South Gates and bit deep into Vrulug’s host from the opposite side, where the defenses had faded. Borchstogs screamed. Giorn grinned tightly.
He hacked and slashed, slaying Borchstogs all around. A corrupted giant came on him from the rear. He had been surrounded with a solid wall of Borchstogs to the fore and had been trying to hack his way through them, when he felt the earth shake behind him. He glanced over his shoulder to see the giant looming over him, eclipsing the lightning overhead. Giants were huge, taller even than the trolls, and if they were corrupted by Gilgaroth they became monstrous. This one seemed to have no skin, and it had strange tendril-like limbs protruding from its middle.
One of its massive hands grabbed Giorn’s horse and wrenched horse and rider up off the ground. The other hand grabbed the horse’s rear legs. The giant pulled in opposite directions. The horse screamed.
Giorn managed to leap onto the giant’s arm. He crawled up the limb, hacking at the tendrils that strove to ensnare him, and crawled onto the giant’s shoulder. From there he plunged his blade into the giant’s horrid, skinless face. He shoved his sword through its eye, into its brain, and the monster gave one last groan and fell. Giorn clung desperately to a tooth as it went down, his stomach rising. The impact knocked him loose, and he found himself on the ground beside the giant’s head. His horse, still living, was trying to kick and thrash its way out of the giant’s lifeless hands.
The circle of Borchstogs converged.
Swearing, limping, his shield lost, his sword still in the giant’s eye, Giorn backed up until he bumped against the giant’s skull. The Borchstogs swarmed in.
Giorn jerked his blade free and thrust it through the throat of the nearest enemy. It gurgled, black blood spurting, and crumpled to the ground.
The others howled and fell on him.
He set to right and left, ducking and weaving, hacking and slicing. Forced backward, he managed to crawl atop the giant. The great corpse was thronged by demons, an island in a sea out of nightmare. The Borchstogs surged all around, climbing up after Giorn. Giorn thrust and parried furiously, and blades clanged and sparked.
By then Giorn’s horse had freed itself. Giorn whistled, and it came. He swung astride, deflecting one last blow from a Borchstog’s blade, then rode off, trampling the demons in his path. The Borchstogs howled in fury behind him.
* * *
Giorn found his company once more and led them against the enemy, at last merging with the second group of riders and striking even deeper into the heart of Vrulug’s host. Ultimately, though, unable to ward off the arrows from the glarumri and beset all around by demons, Giorn led the riders in breaking free of the enemy ranks. Returning inside the wall, they streamed through the sally ports.
Covered in black blood but his own blood on fire, Giorn mounted the stairs of the gate tower and conferred with his generals and officers. As per his orders, General Levenril had arrested or slain all of Raugst’s appointments. Hiatha and her priestesses had arrived, and she was waiting for him.
“Soon I hope we’ll have need of you,” he told her. Raugst, be swift.
He returned his attention to the oncoming army. His raid had slowed and disrupted Vrulug’s host, but, as he had predicted, it had not stopped them. Vrulug came on, more wrathful than ever. If anything, the shadow draping his host deepened. The drums rolled on, steady and inexorable. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. The heart of the ancient monster whose rhythm they sounded thundered, unwavering and resolute. It was the heartbeat of Gilgaroth himself, and the Wolf was relentless.
Giorn hoped his charge had at least bought Raugst some time. He hated to admit it, but he needed the demon. Not just Giorn, but the city, the world. Should Thiersgald fall, so would Felgrad. And should Felgrad fall, the Crescent, that alliance of nations that had checked Gilgaroth for thousands of years, would be broken.
All too soon, Giorn heard a horn blow from the enemy host, long and loud. Giorn’s blood ran cold. Even through the darkness he saw the massive gaurocks reined and prodded into position at the forefront of the Borchstog formations. Howling, Borchstogs scurried out of their way. Some were ground into paste.
Men muttered all along the wall. Here it comes, some said. Now it happens.
“Brace yourselves!” Giorn called.
Another horn-blast rang out. The great serpents slithered forward at terrific speed, out from the shadow of the clouds. Starlight, moonlight and lightning flickered off their wet scales. The fifty or more Borchstog riders that bestrode each of their backs hunched low and raised their shields, expecting an onslaught.
Giorn did not disappoint them. At his command, the Felgrad archers riddled the gaurocks and their riders with arrows, but the leviathans could not be deterred. The arrows either glanced off them or stuck unnoticed. The Borchstogs riders howled defiantly, even as arrows sank into their shields.
The gaurocks surged on.
“Illiana preserve us,” whispered Hiatha. Many of the generals repeated the prayer under their breaths.
The Serpents struck the wall. CRACK!
As Giorn had feared, without the priestesses’ aid the behemoths managed to breach the wall at half a dozen points. On both sides of him, Giorn saw clouds of dust billow up from the impacts, saw the arrow-riddled mounds of the gaurocks, their riders climbing off them and pouring through the breaches. Somewhere, Vrulug blew on his black horn, and the rest of the Borchstogs and assorted creatures of the wolf-lord’s host surged forward, a great tide of them. Some heaved up ladders and battled the men on the walls. Others poured in through the gaps the gaurocks had created, following in the wake of the riders. Giorn issued frantic orders, gathering his men to resist the Borchstogs in the breaches, assembling his archers to combat the fleet of glarumri that swept down from the black skies, raining poisoned arrows down upon the men.
The black cloud swept north, and once more Giorn felt its shadow descend on him. Fine, oily rain misted through the windows, raising gooseflesh on his arm. Before him, the black tide rolled unchecked, endless.
His earlier charge had done its work, and Vrulug’s advance was not as orderly or as effective as it would have been otherwise. Still, Vrulug held every advantage, and Giorn did not lie to himself. He could not defeat the wolf-lord.
Thunder rumbled. Blue-white tongues licked down from the black roof of clouds and struck the wall, again and again. Men screamed, and sparks flared. The oily taint Giorn had tasted on his tongue at Wegredon returned. The Moonstone, he thought. Vrulug is using the Stone. The wolf-lord had learned to wield it not just to block the priestesses of Illiana, but to counter the armies of Fiarth, as well.
The tower shook. The generals cried out in fear.
Giorn gripped the parapet. What now? “Hold on!”
It was too late. The ground rumbled, and the tower rattled. A piece of the roof collapsed, crushing two of the generals.
“Flee!” cried one. “Flee the tower!”
Giorn took one last look at the hordes of Vrulug, turned and followed Hiatha and the generals down through the building even as it shook apart around him. Lightning turned the world to white, and he tasted dust in his mouth. He made it to the ground outside just in time. The tower groaned and then collapsed, right onto the wall, killing two score men in an instant.
Giorn stared at the smoking rubble, feeling rain on his face, and felt one of the soldiers clap his shoulder.
“I hope you’ve lived a virtuous life, my lord,” the man said. “Make your peace with the Omkar,” another agreed. “We go before them soon.” “Better pray it’s soon. Vrulug could keep us alive for years if he wanted.” The other patted his ornate sword. “Not I.”
Clouds deepened overhead, blocking out the stars. From their smoky masses lightning flickered down, blasting apart men with every strike. Thunder nearly deafened Giorn. The ground rumbled angrily.
“Come,” he called.
He took his officers some distance away, then looked back to see that great, proud wall that had stood a thousand years break and crumble as the ground shook it apart from below and lightning blasted it from above.
“It’s the Moonstone,” Hiatha told him. “He’s using it against us.”
Giorn had come to that conclusion himself.
“What shall we do?” General Miled asked. He was wild-eyed, his wet hair in disarray, his beard matted by rain, but his jaw was set and he was visibly struggling to maintain his poise.
“We’ll do what we must,” Giorn said. “Fall back to the inner wall.”
The generals grumbled, but none had a better suggestion, and soon Giorn was leading the defenders in a rear-guard action as the host of Felgrad fell back from the outer wall. They poured through the streets of the city, past the parks, the university, over the rivers, and regrouped at the ancient fortification of the inner wall. It had not been used or even particularly maintained in many years, but it was a proud and beautifully-constructed edifice, half overgrown by vines, and it would serve.
Giorn mounted this wall alongside his generals. He deployed the soldiers along it and readied the others on the ground, then set his men to hacking the vines down so that the Borchstogs could not use them for handholds.
The greatest portion of Thiersgald lay between the outer and inner walls, and even now Giorn saw flames shooting up from the houses and business centers as Vrulug’s host rolled forward. The University of Hiarn went up in flames. The rain was too weak to put the fire out.
“They’re burning the city,” Hiatha said. She sounded as though the idea had never occurred to her, as if the city were inviolate.
Giorn looked sideways at her. “Do you feel any difference? Is Vrulug still in possession of the Stone?”
“There’s no change.”
He shared grim looks with his generals. “Perhaps burning the city will slow Vrulug down,” he said. “Perhaps that will give Raugst the time he needs.”
Quietly, Hiatha said to him, “My lord, there is … something else.”
“Yes?”
“Do you know anything about ul Ravast?”
“The Oslogon legend of the Ender? Yes, I’ve heard of it.”
“Niara told me that ul Ravast was loose in the world,” Hiatha said.
Giorn snorted. “He’s hardly necessary at this point. The world is falling without his help.”
“She was given this information directly from Queen Vilana,” Hiatha said implacably, and Giorn listened. “He is loose in the world, and much of the current devastation has been wrought by him—or his Doom. His curse. That which binds him to the prophecy. Because according to Niara, ul Ravast is unwilling, but shackled through sorcerous chains to fulfill the prophecy.”
“What does this have to do with us?”
Hiatha sighed. “Apparenlty the sorcerous chains come from the Moonstone—the corrupted Moonstone, that is.”
Giorn grimaced. “You’re saying that if Raugst is successful, he can not only save Felgrad but the world?”
“Perhaps, perhaps not,” she said. “If nothing else, the chains binding the Champion of the Dark Lord will be removed.”
“Then we had better pray for the bastard’s success.”
Unable to do anything else, Giorn watched the fires spread throughout his city. The flames came closer—closer. Soon Vrulug would have razed the outer city, and then he would fall on Giorn’s defenders without mercy. If nothing else, it would be difficult for Vrulug to utilize his gaurocks against the inner wall. There were too many buildings in the way, burned or not. This wall was lower and not as thick, though. It would not be difficult for Vrulug to overcome.
Giorn instructed his men to be careful when firing upon those who approached the wall. They could be townspeople who had remained in the outer city, not Borchstogs. A few Thiersgaldians did trickle in, fleeing their homes at last, but not enough. Not near enough. Giorn watched for the boys who had gone out looting, but he did not see them return.
He heard soldiers whisper along the wall that they were doomed, that Vrulug would prevail, and he did not see how they could be wrong. Unless Raugst succeeded, they would all perish, and the ones that died swiftly would be the lucky ones.