Ravenwild: Book 01 - Ravenwild (103 page)

“Is she awake?” Jessica asked Maxilius Bravarus for what had to be the tenth time within the hour. He had stopped answering her and merely shook his large head, “No.”

“She
needs
to wake up,” growled Jessica. She looked at Blake. “How did we let this happen? We could already be home. This is insanity.”

Orie, Gracie, and Ryan walked up the stone corridor to the door behind which Stephanie lay quietly in the Bindu-trance, oblivious to her surroundings. Gracie began to open it without announcing herself, and three blades inside were bared before she had finished.

“No progress?” asked Orie.

Mrs. Strong shook her head, “No,” as the three of them sheathed their weapons.

“Tomorrow is supposed to tell it all,” said Orie. He sat down and pulled out his honing stone, applying it to his sword. Jessica shuddered when she noticed all the blood on the blade. “The good news is we won’t have to be near the gap in the Wall, thanks to Forrester. He hasn’t slept the entire time, and he’s recruited nearly four thousand now, using the tell-all. So we’re actually in pretty good shape. The Trolls have shown no change in the pattern of their attack, and the military bowmen are optimistic they can hold them in check. It’s impossible to think they can pitch more ladders than they did today, and we held them. So, Erik is moving all civilian fighters away from the Wall.”

“Then what will you, we, be doing?”

“Well, we’ll be in the third line of defense, in by the entrances to the trees, which the Trolls should never get to if the first two do their job.”

“Thankfully,” said Blake.

“Amen,” agreed Jessica.

“Come on guys,” said Orie, then, “Where’s Jacqueline?”

“She’s helping to feed and care for the Wolves with Cinnamon,” said Blake. “You’ll pass her on your way out.”

The three trudged out, the weariness only too evident in the way they dragged their feet along.

“You tell her to get her butt back up here when she’s done tending them,” called out Jessica. Orie saluted and they disappeared around a corner.

“How much longer?” asked Jessica.

Blake surveyed the murk around them. “Two hours,” he said, “Maybe three.”

Jessica folded her arms across her chest and said, “I have a bad feeling about today. A very bad feeling. We have to get out of here.”

“No argument here,” said Blake. “If there’s any way you can think of to wake her up that we haven’t already tried, I’m all ears.”

Jessica stepped to her bedside and began hollering at her as loudly as she could. She gave her the traditional “sternal rub,” digging her knuckles forcefully into Stephanie’s sternum and twisting them back and forth hard, the ubiquitous move performed daily in every Emergency Room across their world for attempting to raise the level of consciousness of a person arriving with a depressed mental state. Nothing worked. She was hopelessly unarousable, and fear fell across them like a wet blanket that they might, in fact, have to survive yet another day in the face of what would most likely be the deadliest assault of all.

“I don’t have any more tricks,” said Jessica. “Come on. You’re the ER doctor.
Get her to wake up
!”

“I believe she will,” Maxilius said softly. “Soon,” causing Jessica to spin towards him.

“Why do you say that?” she asked.

“Well,” he answered, “I’ve been watching her eyes. You see there? She’s started moving them, like you do when you’re in a dream. That only started about an hour ago. It’s almost as if she’s fighting to wake up, but something, or someone, won’t let her.”

Their conversation was brought to a halt by three Ravenwild soldiers half-carrying, half-dragging Forrester Wiley Ragamund down the short stone hallway that led to Stephanie’s room, Orie, Ryan, and Gracie following.

“He passed out,” said one.

“Exhaustion,” said a second.

“Hasn’t slept in days,” added the third. “Almost a week. Erik sent us here. We needed a place to put him as far away from the battle as possible. He doesn’t respond at all.”

Orie went to his side and took his hand, his face white with fear.

They quickly fashioned a simple cot and mattress for him and laid him gently upon it in Stephanie’s temporary bedchamber. As they were finishing up, the Troll war drums started up again. It had the desired effect, as fear was struck deep into the hearts of all.

“Maxilius,” Jessica half-whispered, half-groaned, “Would you please keep an eye on them. I’m sure Erik will have somewhere he wants us to be.”

Blake was again surprised that Jessica would, for the second time in as many days, leave their daughter in the care of somebody else, but when he thought about it analytically, it made sense. If the Trolls made it this far, the most important thing to have at her side would be the best sword arm, and that was clearly Maxilius Bravarus. But the point became to prevent it from ever getting to that and, to that end, the castle defense effort would be best served with each of them on the end of a stout bow with a quiver of straight arrows in front of them.

Without a moment’s hesitation, she walked briskly down the hallway to find out where their military leader thought they could best serve the cause. One thing was certain. She was going to kill a lot of Trolls today.

Rolan swung his sword in a mighty upward thrust, striking the much larger Troll on the underside of his arm and severing the artery, causing blood to squirt wildly all about. In doing so, the unified Ravenwild-Vultura troops finally broke through the Troll flanking forces. Hundreds of squads of Gnome archers rained thousands of arrows down on the Trolls below as more of the alliance forces charged through the sliver of a gap cut by their King, racing ahead to secure their position. Troll after pursuing Troll was cut down as the Gnome archers kept up their ferocious barrage of aerial death. In a few minutes, the number of coalition soldiers that had slashed their way through the Troll battalion in front of them numbered in the hundreds, then in the thousands, as they ran towards the southern aspect of the Knife Edge.

While the main force kept the Trolls busy behind them, those that had managed to break through formed ranks and pressed forward, and in the same way as the sound of the Troll war drums had sent the message of imminent death to those defending the castle not hours before, the sound of the Ravenwild attack horns sent a wave of hope through those presently doing battle at the Wall. Too engaged to do much in the way of cheering, nevertheless, there were isolated shouts of joy. Help was on the way.

Knowing that the coalition forces were going to have to gain access to the flat in front of the main gate by fighting their way up single-file, the Trolls dropped off a sizable contingent to the south to defend this position. This had the effect of dramatically lessening the attackers to the front who, despite no let-up whatsoever in the ferocity of their assault, had not managed to breach the Wall to any significant degree. Apparently the labors of Stephanie and her throng of followers had gone a long way towards improving the defensibility of the structure after all. Troll after Troll was methodically cut down by the archers as they walked around in a confused state, not knowing what they should be doing. In time the great rent in the Wall became free enough of attackers so that they were able to wheel two of the cannons up to the gate itself where they pointed them out through small holes that they had already cut days before, aiming them towards the Trolls on the far side of the flat. Soon, round after round began to rake the backs of them. Even with all the smoke, it became evident that their ranks were beginning to thin. There was hope!

Nobody, except Maxilius Bravarus, was aware when Stephanie awoke. Without a word, she threw off the blanket that covered her and stood up.

Maxilius, his eyes wide, asked, “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” she answered calmly. “Quite. Thank you for asking.”

Strapping on her sword, and placing her daggers in the tops of each boot, she walked down the short hallway in front of her room. She turned left at the end and, coning down her vision, surveyed the carnage hundreds of feet below her and off in the distance out beyond the top of the Great Wall. Suddenly furious, she leapt up onto the short wall in front of her and stepped off … into thin air … and was rewarded by a flight that years later would be remembered as “Stephanie’s Great Leap.” Screaming downward as might a falcon pursuing prey, she soared with lightning speed over the tops of the trees and all the way to the Wall, landing atop it with perfect control.

Cupping her hands in front of her, she screamed,

“Enough!!!”

The sound was dreadful and caused every soldier to drop, holding his ears.

All looked up at her.

She extended her arms in front of her, and from her fingertips shot forth a firestorm of red-hot flames, tearing into the earth a smoking trench, easily ten feet wide, that she directed closer and closer to the Troll army on the far side of the large clearing. When she got within twenty feet of them, she stopped and bellowed,

“Lay down your weapons, all of you. Anybody who does not, will burn.”

In case anybody doubted her ability to do as she said, she directed a massive discharge towards one of the mountaintops
miles
in the distance, cleaving off a monstrous section. In seconds, smoke was all that remained of the giant promontory.

Then she aimed one at the giant breach, melting the stone as though it were candle wax. Weaving the deadly fire back and forth, she repaired the defect in a matter of minutes.

“It is over!”
she shrieked like a person gone mad. She kept her arms extended in front of her as if daring anyone to disobey her, then,

“Everybody stop fighting. Stop fighting … or … I… will … kill … you … all!”

Warriors from both sides wasted no time in disarming themselves. Weapons were cast aside like yesterday’s rubbish. All knew that a power had been unleashed upon them that was beyond anything they could possibly imagine, and even the primitive minds of the Trolls understood the concept of impossible, so the fight that had gone on for three days now ended in an instant.

Thousands that day stood in silence. It was over. Now what to do?

Some of the Trolls started talking amongst themselves about the long march home. Massive Trolls could be seen hugging skinny Gnomes. It might have been comical, if not for the carnage all around them. It was a sight.

Stephanie, standing on the Great Wall, never having lowered her arms, roared,

“
Bring the Emperor of Slova to the … the Throne Room of the castle! The one named Leopold Malance Venomisis. Have him caged. And have him there within the hour.”

She walked to the edge of the Wall, once again stepping off into thin air, and soared on the wings of the the Bindu-ward art of magic and spell over the awe-stricken troops below.

In a dead upright position, she slowly floated forward, calling out praise to the valiant Ravenwild soldiers. Then, in a neck-bending arc, she swooped up so fast there was a loud boom in the air. She finished with a dizzying loop and flew back to the castle, setting down in the same stone hallway outside of the room in which she had spent her second Bindu-trance in the way of the Bindu-ward art of magic and spell. Now it was time for her third, and she barely made it to the edge of the bed, where she collapsed in a sweat. Maxilius Bravarus tenderly placed her in the cot in a comfortable sleeping position and removed her boots.