The Crowned (The Blood and Brotherhood Saga, Book 6) (15 page)

Sigrant paced around his camp, the sun no more than an
aggravation upon his skin and eyes. It was like a dryness that simply will not
go away. Even his harem could withstand the sun now, and the whores below them
could manage it, though not without some scalding, boils, and blisters. So it
was up to Sigrant himself, and the dozen women he shared seed with to keep all
the troops in camp. The thirst was driving them to extreme lengths and some
even attempted to brave the sunlight in search of blood. “Only a few more
hours,” he reminded himself.

Deciding to get things moving a little earlier, and knowing
that the gnomes’ machines needed time to warm up, Sigrant wrote his orders on a
sheet of velum, the only way he could communicate with those who were significantly
weaker than he. Frightening the abyss out of the messenger he walked up to, the
poor wretch probably unable to see him coming at such speeds, the messenger
read the order and dashed off like a snail, eliciting a glaring look to his
backside.

* * * * *

Sara reached the temple just as Seth arrived with a handful
of his new rat troops. Behind them they pulled a cart covered with a canvas
tarp. From the way they strained, she knew something heavy was in the thing,
and thinking back to her recent journey she had a fairly good guess what might
be beneath the tarp.

Smiling to her husband as she passed, Sara floated down the
stairs like a graceful dancer, admiring the statues of herself, Borrik, and her
husband in the entryway. Gliding into the main hall of the subterranean temple
she spotted Borrik quickly, who stood grumbling, an elderly woman leaning
dangerously close to him, petting his arm as if it were a cat.

Nodding to the giant wolf man and his comrades, they took
the cue and evacuated the building to stand guard in the street. Then, trying
her hardest to be gentle, Sara stepped behind the old woman and grasping her
head she pulled it back daintily and sunk her teeth into the old woman’s neck. Having
sworn to herself not to feed upon another person, Sara did not latch onto the
woman, drawing blood into her mouth, instead allowing the blood to naturally
flow from the wounds, mixing with her own through the deformity in her jaw.

Having been bitten, the old woman fainted, but Sara caught
her easily and lowered her to the floor. The congregation watching, a mixed
audience of shock and horror, Sara left the room without so much as a good bye,
a thank you, or a fuck you very much. One of her late mother’s favorite
sayings.

With a single leap she was up the stairs and out of the
temple. The door slammed closed behind her as she passed, and Borrik and Jonas
both slid a huge timber into place, barring it closed from the outside. In an
hour, maybe two, the old woman would rise and begin to feed. Her victims
falling unconscious, she would have free reign to change the entire
congregation, serving her, Seth’s, and Valdadore’s purpose perfectly.
Thanks,
Ishanya
!

Joining her husband, she grabbed him around the neck in a
hug before planting her lips in his.

“Whatcha got in the cart, love?”

“A torture device from Valdadore’s dungeons,” Seth replied,
an odd smirk on his face.

“Aww!” Sara replied. “For me?” she added with a giggle.

“No, for your progeny,” he answered pulling the tarp from
the cart, revealing the device beneath. “It’s like a coffin, but solid iron and
barely big enough to fit a person in. It locks closed with these seven clasps,
and turning each of these knobs tightens a chain wrapped around each extremity
and neck.”

Sara looked the device over. It did resemble a coffin
slightly, except that it was iron and had a distinct human shape to it. Inside
the device there were grooves for the arms and legs to fit into, allowing them
virtually no movement. The head area was similarly fashioned, and loose loops
of thick iron chain sat within the device.

“That should hold her,” Sara approved. “But I don’t think
the chains will hold her if we open the lid when it is time to kill her.”

“We won’t need to open it. I already have a plan that will
take care of that problem.”

“Of course you do,” Sara joked. “What was I thinking?”

They both smiled at the jest, but with little time for
dawdling, Seth began anew.

“I hope we have enough time to see this through. I expect
Sigrant to attack tonight. There will be no sun tomorrow,” Seth said, pointing
to the sky, careful, like Sara to keep himself deep in his cowl. “Even now the
moons catch up. With the winter eclipse, Sigrant will have two nights and a day
of total darkness. It’s what he has been planning for. Now that he is ready, he
will attack as soon as the sun sets.”

No more than Seth had said the words than a trumpet blared
from the west wall, to be picked up and repeated all around the city. They were
under attack.

Garret watched as the great, metal-clad beasts began their
slow approach to the city. He had already tried to combat the things, but it
was beyond his abilities. They were great hulking creatures and so far as he
could tell, impenetrable to harm. Seth had killed one, but even in death the
creature reached back to the plane of the living to do even more destruction. There
was nothing Garret could do but watch them come, and test the tower defenses on
them.

Already, Valdadore’s great ballista were being drawn and
loaded, their massive cranks being turned by crews of men upon every tower. Into
them, giant, steel tipped bolts were loaded before the mechanisms were swiveled
upon their bases to be aimed. Finally, a wheel was turned that raised and
lowered the angle of the weapon’s shot. As Garret watched the beasts come,
every ballista team trained their immense weapons upon the nearing line of fire
breathing demons.

Below, in the courtyards behind the wall, catapults were
being loaded and drawn to fling huge stones weighing hundreds of pounds over
the wall. These machines could not be aimed, at least not from behind a wall. All
the men could do, who operated the catapults, was follow orders shouted down
from above.

From down the wall a cheer arose from the new troops Seth
had created, and Garret looked on as his once twin winged in from above, the
petite form of Sara leaping from somewhere unseen to join him. Demons to fight demons,
Garret thought, shaking his head. What has become of Valdadore?

Above, the great were-beast, Borrik circled in the sky, his
own troops, as few as they were, climbed to the top of the wall to join the
rest of the defenders gathered there. The wall was defended well, though in
order to accomplish the feat, the other three walls of the city only retained a
skeleton crew of defenders. Garret could only hope that Sigrant attacked
directly.

Closer and closer the armored demons lumbered across the
fields, their hot breath pouring from their nostrils. Garret watched closely as
they came into range.

“Fire!” the king shouted, invoking his blessing to be sure
his voice carried.

The twangs of a hundred ballista sounded as the city’s wall
vibrated slightly, and a hundred bolts twice as long as a man and as big around
as a forearm sailed through the air. Again the cranks began to clank, their
teams drawing the weapons once again to be loaded. Then down the ballista came,
many falling far short of the mark, but yet others began to strike around the
beasts, some driving deep into the ground.

Garret watched as several deflected off the armor of the
creatures, but nonetheless, some bolts struck true.

One bolt struck a demon dead center from above, driving
through the beast and into the soil below it. Garret smiled in victory, but
quickly his smile faded. The beast lumbered on, apparently undiminished by the
savage wound. Behind it, a deep cut in the soil trailed where the spear tilled
the land like a horse-drawn plow. Dropping his head disappointed, Garret was
about to give the order to save their ammunition, when another cheer arose. Looking
out upon the field, he saw where another bolt had struck true, its shaft sticking
out of the head of one of the beasts. Steam and smoke poured from the beast
before fire burped from its mouth and nose once, and then the thing exploded.

To either side of the creature its nearest companions were
thrown aside from the blast, one of them overturning. A moment later the
overturned beast also began to whistle in an increasing pitch before it too
exploded. Those on the wall cheered, finding the creatures’ weakness. But still
the demons lumbered on, and there were more of the creatures than the ballista
teams could pray to get a head shot on. They needed something more accurate.

* * * * *

In the light of day Seth could see the creatures better than
he had been able previously. They were frightening things, all armor and gaping
maws. Smoke spewed from their nostrils and on they came at a steady pace. He
watched as Garret’s men managed to take two of them down, their corpses
exploding after they died.

“They’re not what everyone thinks,” Sara said, watching over
the field beside him.

“How so?” he asked, turning to face her.

She looked very much like the role she would be playing
later in the day. Dressed from head to toe in skin tight, black leather, with a
deep cowl and cape, she was the epitome of what Seth thought an assassin should
look like.

“They are gnomish mechanisms. Wheels and cogs and steam. I
saw them on my… well… journey to the west.”

Seth could not believe that he had not seen it sooner. Multiple
independent auras within one creature. It made perfect sense. Reaching out now,
it took him only a second to confirm it. Seth could simply rip the life from
the drivers of the mechanisms, but he had already seen that they would simply
keep coming. Seth had no idea if the wall could survive the creatures crashing
into it, tipping, and blowing up all along the base. It was a risk he could not
take.

“Should I mention that they have a design flaw? Of course
what gnomish machine doesn’t?” Sara added, before Seth could respond.

“Take your time, we have all day,” Seth replied
sarcastically.

“Their bellies leave the cogs that makes them move exposed. If
you can somehow tangle something in them, or perhaps jam something in there,
then they won’t be able to move.”

Sara was to be their savior, if only Seth could devise a way
to get something under the machines. He looked around for something he could
fling upon the field that might become entangled, but to no avail. On the
mechanical creatures came, and still Seth couldn’t find a solution. Looking up
and down the wall, it became obvious. All along the wall were his new troops. Formed
from melding humans and rats. Rats that could burrow anywhere and chew through
anything. Seth shouted his orders to the nearest werewolf, where they were
instantly relayed. Then the wolves shouted to the rat children and down they
wall they scurried.

It was an odd sight, all those bodies climbing head first
down the wall of the city to dive into the defensive pits dug at random beyond
the walls. Once in the pits, and out of danger from the fire from the gnomish
mechanisms, his warriors began to burrow.

Down on all fours they scratched and clawed at the soil,
working together to begin digging small tunnels near to the surface. Onward the
mechanical demons came.

Seth could no longer see progress of the burrows visually,
but switching vision he was surprised to see just how fast the tunnels were
progressing. It was no wonder how the creatures found their way into just about
everywhere.

Within moments the fire-breathing machines were too close to
be in range of the ballista, and as such the twangs and clanks ceased as
everyone watched to see what would become of the rat men’s counter attack.

The minutes passed slowly as the machines droned on, ever
nearing the city, but when their approach met the burrows of Seth’s child troops,
it became evident fast that he had made the right call.

Watching with his god vision, Seth looked on as his men did
not shove something into the drive gears of the machines, unable to carry
anything with them while burrowing. Instead, they themselves found entry into
the machines from below, and judging by how quickly the gnomes were dispatched,
Seth was left to assume that the gnomes had not been armed. One by one the
machines began to act erratically. Some began turning in circles and others
stopped in their tracks, simply spewing fire in whatever direction they halted.
Still others began to turn and head back the way they had come.

Seth smiled
. Children were bound to play with the giant toys
after all, were they not?
Apparently learning the basics of propelling the
machines within a few minutes, many more began turning to lumber back in the
direction of Sigrant’s camp as they each began to spew copious amounts of fire
from their jaws.
How nice of them to share with the enemy.
Then, trap
doors began to swing open from atop the creatures and out climbed Seth’s
creations, dropping to all fours and scurrying back towards the castle. Just
minutes later they climbed back up the walls and watched with their maker as
the beasts were returned to Sigrant. More than one went off course, but the
vast majority, it seemed, were right on target.

Seth was the first to see the commotion, the bloated aura of
Sigrant himself, moving at speeds beyond measure. If it had not been for his
god vision he would have seen what everyone else witnessed. The reptilian
machines began to fly from the ground, exploding upwards like so many leaves
upon the wind. Caught up and thrown, the things were flung one into the other
like a great hand had descended from the heavens and simply swept the mechanical
beasts away. In truth, Seth imagined that King Sigrant simply kicked and shoved
and threw the things one at a time, but so fast as to look simultaneous. It was
frightening, the power of his enemy.