Siege of Stone

CHAPTER 65

The screams of slaughtered soldiers, the crunch of bones, the splash of blood filled the battlefield, but the Ixax warriors uttered no sound. The titans covered a dozen paces with every stride. Their iron-shod boots crushed multiple opponents at a time, grinding enemy soldiers underfoot. Their swords decapitated ten at a time. A single blow from a gauntleted fist knocked down steadfast defensive lines.

The Ixax destroyed hundreds, then thousands, and set their gaze on thousands more. They moved in tandem as countless enemy soldiers rallied against them, attacking with spears and swords, battering their impenetrable armor. The Ixax destroyed anyone who engaged them.

First Commander Enoch rode up on his chalky-gray warhorse, raising his sword and yelling to the troops. “Rally! All soldiers of General Utros, rally! We have strength in numbers. Make your stand!”

Messengers raced among the farthest ranks, and the invincible army pulled together like a living creature, tens of thousands falling into ranks and running in lockstep, perfectly trained.

The Ixax warriors smashed forward, as if wading through waves of flesh and bone. Many opponents fell with each blow, but the ancient army did not scatter. Enoch knew they wouldn’t. He had spent his life with these men, and he’d trained them for decades. Now they were all joined by a brotherhood of blood, their families dead, lost from time. The only thing remaining to them was the victory that Utros promised, and they had faith in him.

Battle horns sounded, and desperate orders spread like wildfire. “For the general, whatever it takes!” Enoch shouted, and thousands of voices echoed the resounding response. “For the general!”

Two companies locked their shields together, pointed their spears, and formed a pair of phalanxes. They marched forward with precision in the face of the chaos caused by the colossal Ixax. More hardened soldiers threw themselves upon the giants, and they were summarily slain, but more came in their wake to continue the attack. And then more.

Enoch was horrified by the casualties he saw. In the past half hour, more of his comrades had been killed than General Utros had lost in all of his military campaigns combined. But the general’s army would not retreat, nor would they surrender. Judging by the uncontrolled destruction caused by the two giants, Enoch knew the Ixax would never give up, either. He couldn’t tell whether these titans were intelligent and aware, or just mindless fighters with one purpose. The massive armored warriors would continue to fight until they had killed every enemy soldier.

The only choice was to destroy them, no matter how much blood it cost. General Utros felt the same.

Another fanfare sounded, and half-stone soldiers closed in from all directions, tightening the net. The two phalanxes struck the giant warriors, and when the Ixax shattered the point of the formation, the soldiers closed up and pushed ahead, jabbing with spears. The enraged giants flattened the formation, but the numbers that flooded in were becoming overwhelming. Around them, bloody, broken bodies of slain soldiers piled up like mountains.

Astride his warhorse, Enoch bellowed orders, but the mayhem of the battlefield was simply too loud for anyone to hear him. Even so, the soldiers knew what to do. “For the general!” they cried, their voices scattered and overlapping, and as they repeated it, their shouts fell into a pattern, a rhythmic chant. “For Utros, for Utros!”

The Ixax warriors took down more and more of the ancient soldiers, but General Utros had hundreds of thousands of fighters, all well trained and well armed, each man ready to give his life to cause even a flicker of damage against the titans. Even Enoch, who had relayed the order, stared in breathless disbelief.

The soldiers reminded him of a swarm of ants trying to take down a much larger insect. They came forward by the thousands, throwing themselves upon the Ixax warriors. Their bodies piled up in barricades of bloody flesh, broken bones, and severed limbs, but they pressed closer to overwhelm the Ixax.

Then more came.

And then more.

Groans of dismay rippled among the spectators on the high walls as they watched the Ixax falter against the overwhelming resistance. Nathan unconsciously wrapped an arm around Elsa’s shoulder, folding her closer to him. Even as the gray dragon circled over Ildakar under some kind of command from General Utros, Nathan watched the vast army switch tactics and close in on the two juggernauts, oblivious to their own casualties. “Dear spirits, they are like locusts.”

“More like wasps,” Elsa said, “swarming to sting their enemy.”

At the city’s high point, the gray dragon circled, blasting fire in the air, and Nathan suddenly recognized Brom from the ancient graveyard of dragons. Nicci stood in her black dress, challenging him from the ruins of the pyramid.

Out on the battlefield, the Ixax warriors kept slaughtering company after company of the half-stone warriors, but as the numbers turned against the two titans, Nathan’s hope began to dwindle. Enemy soldiers threw themselves upon the giants in an endless wave. They piled more and more upon the bodies of their own comrades and then began to overwhelm the two Ixax, covering them with sheer numbers.

Fleshmancer Andre had claimed that his Ixax could each single-handedly slay a thousand or more of the enemy, and these two had done far better than that. Ten thousand, possibly even twenty thousand lay massacred. But it wasn’t enough.

Utros’s army hacked at them with their weapons, swarming, climbing, fighting, dragging. Finally, they brought down the inhuman fighters like great lumbering beasts. The two crashed, still struggling, unable to move. The maddened ancient warriors swarmed over them, eventually pulled them to the ground, and chopped them to pieces, a thousand cuts at a time.

Trembling on the battlements as he watched in horror, Nathan whispered, “I am so sorry for what was done to you.” His azure eyes filled with tears as he watched their end. “I hope you can find peace now. You did better than anyone could have asked.”

His army did exactly what the general expected them to do. The soldiers surrendered their lives without question for the cause of Emperor Kurgan and for Utros himself. First Commander Enoch unleashed their combined strength, which proved invincible, as always.

Utros turned now to face the impregnable city walls, wanting to see Ildakar burn under the attack from the dragon. Brom had unleashed fire as he flew above the buildings, and seeing smoke in the air, Utros knew that some parts of Ildakar were ablaze.

But not enough. The city should be an inferno by now.

Next to him, Ava and Ruva both collapsed backward as if stabbed with invisible knives. They clutched their chests, their hearts, and Utros felt the thread of magic that bound Brom to him suddenly severed. Shortly after the army toppled both Ixax warriors, the dragon came surging back to the battlefield.

The enormous gray beast soared toward their army. Utros braced himself, feeling disbelief build within him. “The dragon is free now. How did he break free?” He whirled to his sorceresses. “Get him back! I need that dragon.”

Ava and Ruva frantically tried to restore their magic, but they could not. Ava said, “Your scar was only enough to create the one bond, and because Brom was not the dragon who injured you, the hold was tenuous from the start.”

Ruva said, “Someone broke the bond.” They looked at each other, and said simultaneously, “Nicci. The sorceress Nicci must have done it.”

The angry dragon thundered toward the huge besieging army. With beating wings that looked like axe blades in the air, Brom swooped away from Ildakar and cruised low on an attack flight. He unleashed a river of fire upon the scattering ranks of the general’s army. Columns of half-petrified soldiers turned into smoking debris. Entire companies were flattened as if by a giant hot cudgel.

Utros had already withdrawn toward his headquarters, planning to activate the blood lens so he could announce his victory to Iron Fang in the underworld. But now the gray dragon came for them.

Brom flew over the giant knot of soldiers who had converged to bring down the Ixax warriors. With blasts of acid flame, the monster ignited countless screaming men, demonstrating his might and punishing Utros and the sorceresses for what they had done.

The dragon angled up into the air again, filling his lungs so he could dive down and unleash another incinerating assault. He was searching for Utros in particular, but because the bond was now broken, all the human forms down below looked the same. The dragon blasted rows of tents, exploding shacks and storehouses, searing the blood-soaked ground.

The general stood near the tall oval lens crafted with the blood of innocent children. “We can’t let him damage this!” Utros yelled. “Ava, Ruva, protect it!”

Brom swept closer, opening his jaws wide. Spotting Utros and the blood lens, he dove and unleashed a powerful gout of flame directly at the general. With a shriek, Ava and Ruva clasped each other’s hands and raised a protective wall, shaping the air into an impenetrable shield around the three of them as well as the lens. Flames washed over them, and Utros felt the searing heat in spite of his mostly numb skin.

The invisible shield diverted the fire to either side. Behind them, the command structure erupted in flames, the wooden walls crumbling to ash within seconds. The magical shield held, though, and they were spared. The lens to the underworld remained intact.

The dragon flew past, gushing out more fire before Brom exhausted his anger and vengeance. The ancient gray dragon had made his point.

Utros collapsed backward to the ground. The smell of burning wood, grass, and flesh rose all around him. He stared into the sky as Brom bellowed his defiance one last time, flew high into the air, and turned north toward the mountains and Kuloth Vale.