Rise of the TaiGethen

Chapter 37

Garan seeks death at every turn. Does, then, the human spirit need to evolve to properly embrace immortality?

From On Immortality by Ystormun, Lord of Calaius

Pelyn saw it happen and knew their chance had come. A great wash of flame had erupted in the midst of the enemy and the castings had stopped. She had seen them panic and a human had been thrown into the air. The ClawBound must have lost many but their attack never faltered. She could only hope Auum had been watching too, wherever he was.

She roared the order to charge and led three hundred from the hall of the Al-Arynaar into the central ring, where the human advance had stalled. Archers surged up the sides of tottering buildings and began to shoot. Arrows finally found their targets; the magical shields were gone.

Pelyn had the Al-Arynaar in a single line leading the hastily trained Katuran militia. Elsewhere, ready to face other human forces, Tulan and Ephram had similar numbers. Every other Katuran had been ordered back to the lake and the falls, as far south as they could go before the blank rock faces stopped them.

The humans outnumbered her people by five to one, but without their magic Pelyn doubted their courage. She raced around the edge of the burning, collapsed courthouse and into the ring, where men panicked and elven temples burned.

Pelyn howled her fury and ran harder. The enemy saw her and, after a moment’s shock, formed up on their commander’s orders. Arrows flew from behind their front ranks and three of her Al-Arynaar fell. So did some Katurans who would never get to defend their city after all. The charge did not falter.

Pelyn and her front line crashed into the humans. Pelyn caught a sword on the hilt of her blade, turned it aside and thumped a punch into the man’s face. She cut her sword back across his chest and kicked him hard in the ribs, sending him down among his fellows.

Two more came at her. She ducked a swipe at her head and whipped out her left fist, feeling it break teeth and split lips. Pelyn blocked a thrust to her midriff as she straightened then paced back, needing a breath. The soldier came at her again, overhead this time. She got her sword into position just in time and turned the blow aside. She kicked out straight, catching him in the stomach. He was fast, and his next strike cut her cheek while she tried to fend him away.

Next to her, an Al-Arynaar fell, his face bloodied and his skull split. A Katuran ula raced into the gap and delivered a massive blow with a shovel, slicing his enemy’s face open from right eye to left cheek, breaking bones and knocking him from his feet. The human clattered into Pelyn’s attacker and she seized her chance to bury her blade in his chest through his leather armour.

The shovel wielder was quickly cut down, but the Katurans kept coming. Another filled the gap, jabbing out with a long pitchfork, keeping his target well back. Pelyn moved into the space. She dropped to her haunches and swept her blade through her victim’s knees, pushed upright and jabbed out, her blow glancing off an enemy blade and into her target’s neck.

Pelyn breathed hard. Her heart was racing and the sweat was already pouring from her. Her arms ached and her legs were trembling. She needed water. She needed nectar. She would get neither. Promising herself as much of both as she could take when the battle was done, she shook her head to clear her vision and threw herself back into the fight.

Auum saw the last of the spotter mages fall, his shadow wings failing him. His poison archers were lords of the higher ground now and they wreaked havoc in the central ring. Auum brought his Tais with him into a side street leading into the marketplace. Men were breaking ranks and running towards him — mages seeking escape. Claws chased them down.

‘Marack, get word to Graf and Merrat. They have to attack now. Then come back west to join Acclan. Acclan, go west with Oryaal and Illast. The Katurans must hit the enemy there too before their magic returns. Tais, we move.’

Auum raced towards the marketplace with Ulysan, Thrynn and Ataan. Here the humans were attacked from in front and behind. Pelyn had redeemed herself at last and the ClawBound… Perhaps Auum’s words, spoken an age ago in the depths of the rainforest, had reached Serrin after all. It hardly mattered. They were here now and they had changed the course of the battle.

They ran in, hurdling the bodies of dead mages and running beside panthers racing to rejoin their Bound elves once more. Entering the marketplace, Auum saw the extent of the chaos the ClawBound had caused. They were still on the attack at the northern end of the market by the part-collapsed temple of Yniss, holding their line at the end of the street to prevent flanking. Archers perched in the burned rafters fired over their heads into the enemy.

To the south Pelyn’s Katurans and Al-Arynaar were holding against an organised defence, while in the centre mages with nothing but daggers were looking for soldiers to protect them. The cohesion of the army had gone completely and humans were scattered all over the central ring, most of them desperate to find a way out.

‘Get forward and break the attack on Pelyn,’ said Auum.

Human bowmen were firing into the rear of Pelyn’s lines and up into the buildings on the edge of the ring, trying to dislodge his archers. Dead ahead, soldiers guarding the flank and the mages in their midst saw the TaiGethen charge and turned to face them.

‘Jaqrui,’ he called.

Without their shields to protect them, the humans suffered the full force of the crescent blades. Auum threw two, both of them finding their targets. He heard the mourning sound of more jaqrui and saw one slice the top from an enemy’s skull, another chop away a mage’s dagger hand.

Auum drew his twin blades and sprinted in at an angle calculated to take him towards Pelyn. The enemy readied but he had no time for them. Two paces in front of their line he jumped, turned a roll in the air and came down behind them in the midst of mages and bowmen.

A mage in front of him screamed; Auum slashed him through the shoulder and barged him aside. A bowman turned and shot; Auum saw the flight of the arrow and swayed his body to the right then lashed out his blade and split the bowman’s skull. Auum thrust left and caught a mage’s dagger. He turned his wrist, drove the weapon down and jabbed his blade into the man’s face. Auum moved his right blade out, slicing deep into the side of another. He jumped above a clumsy hack. His feet licked out one after the other, smashing the soldier’s nose and breaking his jaw.

Auum moved on, hearing his Tais driving into the fragile enemy flank. He glanced behind him, seeing the ClawBound beginning to fall back, their panthers tiring. They had done enough. Ahead, the humans had begun to make ground. Auum signalled archers on the wrecked courthouse to concentrate their fire on the enemy front line.

Three men ran at him, seeing him alone and thinking him vulnerable. Auum watched them come and saw the intent in each of them. They would reach him simultaneously but it would do them no good.

The first jumped in the air to hack his blade down two-handed. Auum simply stepped aside and reversed a sword into the man’s back, skewering vital organs. The second had gone low, but Auum was already jumping above his swipe. He landed while the man was off balance and kicked his standing leg from under him. Auum thrust his right fist into the mouth of the third before he could deliver his intended strike. He finished the second off, stamping hard on the back of his neck and feeling it crack beneath his foot.

Auum paused. More came at him. Bowmen were also targeting him, but in the chaos he could crouch and run beneath their arcs of vision. With his own poison archers doing terrible damage to their ranks, he battered into the rear of the human lines, Ulysan once again at his shoulder.

Pelyn sensed the shift in the army behind the front lines and knew the TaiGethen had joined the attack. She was blowing hard and her blade speed had dropped. Most of the Al-Arynaar about her were dead, and the Katurans were beginning to waver before the humans’ skilled blades.

‘One more time!’ she called, fending away a cut to her head and lashing a blow to a human’s gut. ‘We can break them.’

To her left, a Beethan iad screamed. Her meat cleaver went spinning from her hand, which had been partly severed by a savage blow. The soldier drew back his blade to finish the job but the iad leapt on him, her other hand ripping at his eyes and her teeth clamped on his lower jaw.

‘That’s it!’ cried Pelyn. ‘Hit them with everything you have. For Katura!’

Her words were taken up along the Katuran lines and they flew in once more. The enemy fell back a pace, regrouped and formed again, blades working hard, doing dreadful damage to the poorly trained city folk. The Katurans would not hold for long. Pelyn drew another shuddering breath and pushed forward.

She faced a man with the mark of command on him. Pelyn dodged back, avoiding his thrust to her stomach by a whisker. She bounced forward, aiming a cut at his head which he blocked hard, sending a painful vibration through her arm.

Katuran militia next to her lost their lives, their inadequate weapons breaking in the face of keen steel. One lost her intestines to a deep cut. Another’s heart was pierced by a blow which sliced straight through his unskilled defence. More took their places. Hope remained, but Pelyn could feel it it faltering.

Pelyn’s opponent advanced. He feinted right and struck left. She deflected the blade but its edge sliced into her side. Pelyn gasped at the sudden pain. She moved her blade left to right in riposte and the man leapt back. Her sword point cut into the leather at his neck.

Pelyn heard shouts from behind and felt the Katurans press in around her, their sudden move forcing the enemy back again. Her enemy weaved his sword in front of her. As she tried to follow the blade, nausea gripped her. She felt weak and her mouth was dry. Pelyn took half a pace back and waved her blade in front of her chest, trying to give herself a moment.

The enemy moved in. He butted her, his forehead smashing into her nose before she could lift her blade. Pelyn staggered back, dazed. Other humans moved to either side, driving her flanking militia back. The man stepped in again and Pelyn struck out. Her thrust was blocked and the next instant she felt a terrible cold pain in her chest.

The soldier put his hand out and pushed her away. His blade came clear, its edges dragging against her ribs. Her mouth filled with blood. Pelyn dropped her blade and fell, the pain gone to be replaced by a roaring in her ears that grew and grew with each slow heartbeat. She looked around and saw nothing but the gaping mouths and wide eyes of dead Katurans.

Her head fell back against the ground. There were shapes in the air, tumbling and rolling. Someone called her name but she didn’t have the strength to reply.

‘Pelyn!’ Auum landed astride her body, Ulysan a couple of paces to his right. ‘Fight! Fight for Pelyn! Fight for your lives!’

The Katurans had paused and some had lost their lives as a result. Auum’s arrival energised them once more, lent confidence to flagging spirits and turned them on their human foe one last time.

Ulysan led the charge, driving a wedge into the enemy lines that the Katurans filled. Jeral stood in front of Auum, his blade dripping with Pelyn’s blood. He pointed at Auum.

‘Kill him,’ he said.

Four rushed in. Auum held one sword across his forehead and the other with its tip touching the ground. His body was forward and his legs straddled the breathing but dying Pelyn. He didn’t wait for them to strike. Auum lashed his high blade across the face of the leftmost, his low blade up through the thigh of the rightmost. He balanced himself instantly, jumped straight up and kicked both feet into the chest of the third soldier. Auum landed on the unfortunate’s chest and brought his blades across his body, batting aside the blade of the last with one and opening up his stomach with the other.

Auum walked over the soldier on which he stood, crushing his throat on his way to Jeral. The human commander stood alone. The human line wavered behind him, its flanks weak and its centre fatally pierced by Ulysan.

Jeral swept his sword left to right. Auum ducked under it and with his left blade blocked it down and aside. He took a pace forward and drove his right blade into Jeral’s chest. The two locked eyes momentarily before Jeral’s gaze began to fade. Auum dragged the blade clear with his next motion and cut as hard as he ever had across Jeral’s exposed neck with his left.

Jeral’s body teetered for a moment then crumpled sideways, his head rolling off his neck to fetch up at Auum’s feet. The elf stared into the eyes of the men behind Jeral and fought for the word he needed in the clumsy human tongue.

‘Flee,’ he said.

They fled. Auum took Jeral’s head by the hair and held it high.

‘Their commander is dead!’ he roared. ‘Their magic is gone and their beast has no head. Fight, Katura! Break them.’

Katurans hanging back behind Auum roared their support and rushed past him. Auum watched them go. He flung the head towards the wavering enemy.

‘Here, have him. I have no use for him.’

He saw the head bounce once in the mud and roll a couple of times before stopping, the eyes staring up and the mouth hanging open. Auum turned to Pelyn and dropped to his knees by her side. She was almost gone but still she managed a faint smile when she saw him.

‘You did it,’ said Auum. ‘You showed your true self. Shorth will welcome you and the ancients will honour your arrival among them.’

Pelyn tried to speak but her mouth was clogged with blood.

‘Shhh,’ said Auum. ‘All is forgiven, Pelyn. They are broken. We have won. You have saved Katura and the elves.’

Pelyn gripped his hands and hauled her head from the ground. Blood flowed from her mouth and she coughed violently, spraying his face with a red mist.

‘Always… believed in… you,’ she said and fell back, her chest heaving and bubbles forming on her lips.

Auum nodded. He leaned over her and kissed her forehead and her eyes.

‘Hero of Hausolis. Hero of Ysundeneth. Hero of Katura. Sleep. Your work is done. Yniss takes you for other tasks beyond death.’

Pelyn was dead. Auum smiled and rose back to his feet.

‘Stretcher!’ he called. ‘Take Pelyn to the temple of Tual. See that she is comfortable.’

Auum looked to his people. The Katurans, with Ulysan in their midst, were driving the humans back across the marketplace. Thrynn and Ataan were fighting their way towards Ulysan through the tattered group of men. The ClawBound had re-entered the fray from the right and soldiers were scattering from their path.

Auum could see through the thinning smoke, down a street that led towards the eastern walls, that the enemy had been broken there too and was running with Katurans slaughtering any they caught. Auum strode through the marketplace. Here and there he found a human still breathing and sent them to the eternal torment of Shorth.

He stopped when he reached Jeral’s head and spat on it.

‘This is our forest. No man will ever conquer the elves.’