The Prison of Angels

22

By day the orcs lurked in the distance, baiting them, daring them to separate their numbers. By night came the raids, never at the same time, and never from the same direction. It was enough to drive Tarlak mad.

“We’ll never make it to Angelport,” he said as he stood in the center of their enormous camp beneath the blackened sky. “By Ashhur, I don’t even think we’ll make it halfway.”

Sergan stood beside him, shaking his head as a cry of alarm came from the south, the third in the past hour.

“I’d celebrate just making it another day,” he said as they ran toward the call. Tarlak knew it’d be over before he got there. It almost always was. They arrived amid the confusion, with dozens of soldiers readying swords and shields. All around were their tents, gaping holes in the tops, many with spears still jutting from the fabric. Despite the commotion, no combat took place, the orcs having already fled.

It took little time to find out what happened. Orcs had taken out the guards with arrows, then a large group had rushed the camp, throwing spears from a distance before retreating. All in all they’d lost only seven men, but that wasn’t the raid’s purpose. The men were afraid to sleep, constantly roused by their hit and runs. By day they marched in a desperate attempt to reach Angelport, and by night they suffered the raids.

Tarlak looked to Antonil’s large tent in the distance, feeling like there were stones in his gut.

“We won’t make it,” the wizard whispered as a fourth alarm sounded from the north. “You damn fool.”

The following morning, Tarlak sat before his tent, legs crossed beneath him, and ate his meager gruel. Normally he’d have whipped himself up something more appetizing via magical means, but his supply of topaz was low, and worse, he didn’t want to feast so fine in front of all the other exhausted men. It’d been one thing on their march out, well-supplied and in good spirits. Now, though…now he ate the mush and wondered how long it’d take before he opened himself a portal and fled west.

Despite his odd garb and reputation as a wizard, Tarlak tended to be on the popular side, but not that morning. No one wanted jokes. No one wanted anecdotes and stories of faraway places. So used to his newfound privacy, Tarlak was surprised when Sergan plopped down before him, his own bowl of food in hand.

“At last,” he said. “I thought I’d never get to eat.”

“You here for company?” Tarlak asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Here hoping no one thinks to look for me next to the oddball wizard.”

Tarlak shrugged.

“Fair enough. I can cast an illusion spell over you if you’d like, turn you into a buxom lady. Should buy you at least an hour.”

Sergan said something indecipherable with his full mouth. Tarlak assumed it was a colorful way of saying no.

“Suit yourself,” he said, leaning his chin on his hand and looking to their destination. In the far distance was a set of hills, and once they crossed over them it was nothing but flat grasslands until they reached Angelport. Hunting would go down, hurting the army’s already dwindling supplies. Tarlak tried to think of an upside, got nothing. So he set his bowl aside and watched Sergan eat.

“We need to change his mind,” he said.

“Good luck,” Sergan said, wiping at his beard. “I’ve never seen him like this. Even when we were fleeing the war demons he was never this determined.”

“What set him off?”

Sergan wolfed down another spoonful of gruel.

“I don’t like to say things I don’t know for certain, especially about my king. But if you were to press me, I’d say pride. All those years ago, we were running for our lives, doing everything we could to hold together and protect our people. But now he’s a king. He’s got a legacy, he’s got tens of thousands of soldiers. Lords have been hanging all over him, and his reputation in Mordeina is in the shitter. He wants this, he needs this. To go back home unable to capture Veldaren a second time…”

Another spoonful.

“I think he’d stomach this gruel better than he would that bad a failure.”

Of course it’s pride, thought Tarlak as he let out a sigh. Pride, the one thing that couldn’t be reasoned or bargained with. He looked to the hills, trying to convince himself that Angelport really wasn’t that far away. A faint speck made him frown. He cast a spell to improve his eyes, making them sharper than an eagle’s. What he saw made him curse well enough to impress a veteran like Sergan.

“What is it?” he asked.

Tarlak enhanced the spell, and only the sheer audacity of the attack kept him from panicking. In fact, it left him vaguely amused.

“Get the men ready for battle, now,” he said. “I’ll keep us alive until then.”

“Keep us alive? What in Karak’s hairy codpiece do you mean…”

And then the first dozen stones catapulted into the air from the far hillside. While Sergan swore up a storm, Tarlak summoned his magic, his mind racing for a solution. A magical shield would endure too much strain against so many, especially with both the weight of the stones and the enormous space he’d have to cover. Shattering each individually would take too much time. Wind would do nothing. That left him one option: smacking them right back.

“Out of the way!” he shouted, and ripped chunks of the ground around him. Hoping he didn’t accidentally fling one of the soldiers with them, he hurled the pieces into the air, doing his best to track the downward velocity of the enemy projectiles. One after another he threw them, the mid-air collisions shattering rock and dirt across the hillside, with much of it raining down upon the army. Still, far better they be pieces of broken stone than ones the size of a tent. Of the twelve, he stopped ten, and he did his best to ignore the casualties the remaining two caused as they crashed through their ranks with unrelenting speed.

Like bees with their hive struck, the army rushed to prepare, scurrying about grabbing shields and swords. Meanwhile, rows of orcs scurried over the hills. Tarlak stopped estimating after the second thousand. More and more rushed over, and with a ferocious cry they charged, the hill increasing the speed of their assault. Tarlak wanted to give them an old-fashioned wizardly greeting, preferably with fire, but couldn’t as twelve more stones shot over the hill, the catapults just barely visible even with his enhanced eyesight.

“One caterpillar, two caterpillar, three caterpillar, four,” Tarlak said as he flung more chunks of earth. “Come on, you can do better than that!”

The exclamation was to himself as he watched three make it past his defenses. The orcs slammed into the hastily prepared line, numbering at least five thousand, and Tarlak watched another volley of twelve boulders soar into the air. His mind focused, he hurled more chunks of earth, the area around him looking like a great carved groove. All twelve he shoved aside, killing their momentum or shattering them entirely. He let out a cry, wishing he could see the faces of the orcs as they watched their ambush falter.

And then another twenty catapults rolled over the hillside on creaking wooden wheels.

Tarlak scratched at his goatee.

“Shit.”

Over thirty stones hurled into the air, and Tarlak found himself glad that they couldn’t see his face. His arms were a blur, curling and throwing, the movements helping to focus his mind. Giving up on using real earth, he started hurling great balls of ice from his palms. Conjuring matter out of nothing was a greater tax on his strength, but he couldn’t afford to delay. In a great barrage they flew every which way, some missing, some connecting. Ice shards fell upon the army as the stones slammed through tents and snapped bones, bouncing and rolling as to make a mockery of Antonil’s growing lines of soldiers.

“Get up the damn hill!” Tarlak screamed, using magic to increase the volume of his voice. Antonil’s soldiers were swarming toward the front, and despite the casualties and lack of preparation, they still outnumbered the orcs nearly five to one. They surged ahead, trying to push through to the hill beyond, where they could attack the catapults. Tarlak let out a whoop, then took in a deep breath as another volley unleashed. Whoever commanded the orcs, Tarlak knew the man had them working double-time loading and releasing those enormous stones.

As boulders and rocks fell from the sky, he wished he could see himself from afar. It had to be impressive. He laughed as the stones shattered, laughed as he felt himself slowing with every spell, the catapulted stones landing all around him, only a few missing due to so many men packed into such a small area.

That’s enough, Tarlak thought as Antonil’s army gave chase up the hill, nearing the halfway mark. In the short reprieve between attacks he cast a spell, gathering power above the hillcrest. Great blasts of lightning tore through the orcs working there, splintering three of the catapults. Tarlak let out a gasp afterward, and deep in his forehead he felt a throbbing.

“Could really use you here, Harruq,” Tarlak said, thinking of the last time they’d had to deal with orc catapults. With a wind spell he’d sent Harruq and Haern over a great chasm, letting the two expert fighters slaughter the defenseless orcs. What he’d give to have either of them with him now.

More heavy stones. Tarlak tried to predict which were the most accurate, and therefore do the most damage. Flexing his fingers, he gripped the stones in his mind and crushed them to powder. It was a far slower process, but a more certain way to counter. He was only able to stop six that time, the rest crashing down all throughout the emptying camp.

Tarlak watched the fight, hoping Antonil’s men would reach the catapults before another volley. That hope died when the orcs in flight suddenly turned and charged. Joining them were several thousand more that appeared over the hill, obviously kept in reserve for such an occasion. As Tarlak’s eyes widened he saw groups of a thousand coming around the far left and right flanks, the orcs running as fast as their bulky legs could carry them. The distance was such that it’d take a couple minutes to reach the fight, but they’d slam into both sides of the vanguard, which was currently lacking even the slightest defensive formations. Meanwhile, orcs continued to swarm over the hillside, using their weight and the height of the hill to fling themselves into the human lines.

Trapped in the middle of all those orcs, there was little Antonil could do, and nowhere for his men to go. Another volley of catapults released, and it took immense willpower for Tarlak to continue his defense. A flawlessly executed ambush, and even though he guessed Antonil to have twice the number of men compared to the orcs, they’d still take devastating casualties. What had happened? Who in the world was this orcish commander?

Tarlak let the next volley hit, knowing those deaths wouldn’t matter if the greater bulk of their forces upon the hills were destroyed. Opening a portal, he stepped through and appeared at the base of the hill, where the soldiers were still trying to force their way up.

“Left and right flanks!” Tarlak screamed, pointing toward the distant orc forces. “We need lines, shields at the front. Move!”

He heard commanders relaying his orders, and he turned his attention away from them to the fight up top. The last volley of stones had smashed through the remnants of their camp, taking few casualties with so many making their way to the hill. Praying the next volley was as foolishly aimed, he summoned the last of his magic. Fire burst around his hands, and with a dark grin he began to hurl balls of flame toward the orcs along the top of the hill. Over a dozen slammed into the hillside before detonating. The fire spread in all directions, leaving enormous gaps in the orc assault. The men, once they reached the crest, found their enemy thinned and without reinforcements, and with such an advantage they quickly chopped them down.

When the last of his fireballs burned out, Tarlak fell to one knee and vomited. He glanced to either side, saw the conflict had begun in earnest. The outnumbered orcs fought with ferocity, but Antonil’s men were well trained, and despite all that had happened, they still had numbers on their side. Upon the hill, the thousands of men pushed on, with Antonil at their forefront, his golden armor shining. Antonil wished him the best of luck.

With his enhanced eyes, he scanned the hill, searching for the commander. As another volley released, he caught sight of a man in red armor, with black wings curled around his sides. Tarlak’s blood ran cold.

A war demon, leading an orc army?

The catapults had not pulled back as far, and the stones rained down upon the hill. Their speed was less, but it didn’t matter, not with such weight. Tarlak clenched a fist, trying to force out one more spell. At the nearest projectile he hurled a bolt of red lightning that struck the boulder’s center. Instead of halting it, it exploded into heavy chunks which rained down upon the men.

Tarlak caught sight of one such piece heading toward him. He raised his hands, summoning a shield to protect himself, only to find his well of magic empty. The rock continued unslowed past his hands, striking him across the head. His body spun, the world shifting at sickening speed.

His body struck ground. All around him he saw feet rushing ahead, continuing to join the fight.

Then darkness.