Guardians of Magessa (The Birthright Chronicles Book 1) (25 page)

“Only those who have refused to surrender
will die,” Wellter shouted. “Forward, and may Elohim be with us!”

The soldiers surrounding the dwarves
pushed inward with a mighty shout. They parted as they reached the unarmed
enemies, leaving soldiers to guard them; then they hit the remnant of the dwarf
army. Though they were few in number, the dwarves fought fiercely, bringing the
charge to a halt. They knew that this was life or death, and this fear fueled
them.

Josiah saw the assault grind to a halt.
Before him, soldiers threw themselves at the dwarf line, trying to break
through, but nobody was able to succeed. He glanced around and saw his legion
broken apart, fighting in a confused fashion. Soldiers darted this way and that
with no strategy to their movements. Solitary men charged the dwarves, trying
to force their way through the wall of stout men. Soldiers without comrades to
watch their backs rushed into the fighting and were killed almost instantly.
The army was falling apart, and Josiah knew that if something was not done
soon, even a victory would be costly. He leaped onto a pile of dead dwarves and
waved his sword in the air.

“To me!” he shouted to the soldiers. He
noticed a standard of Magessa lying on the ground. It was torn and had blood
splattered on it, but the silver cross showed clearly through the grime.
Retrieving it from where it was being trampled underfoot, he clambered on top
of an abandoned crate from the dwarf camp. He raised the banner in the air and
again gave the rallying cry. This time the soldiers took notice and began to
gather around him. In only a few minutes, several hundred soldiers, both human
and elfish, had congregated. Absentmindedly, he wished that he could lead a
truly organized assault, but he knew that the group of men around him attacking
as one body just might be enough to destroy the dwarves. With the standard
still in his hand, he gave a shout, leaped from the crate, and rushed at the
dwarf line. With his left hand, he pulled his sword from its sheath, and raised
it above his head. When he hit the dwarf line, he blocked an ax with the banner
and smashed through the dwarves, his sword flashing. To either side of him, he
could see soldiers hitting the seemingly solid line of dwarves, forcing them to
give way. The soldiers swept forward, a wave impervious to any attempt to stop
it, and soon the fight was over.

Josiah raised the banner of Magessa in
triumph. Then he rammed the pole into the ground, marking the site of victory.
He slowly wiped and sheathed his sword, slightly dejected, but also very
relieved that the battle was over. His eyes swept the city that had been the
field of battle. Once it had been the proud center of training for army
officers, but now it was the scene of carnage and misery. The northern wall was
largely destroyed, and many of the buildings had been burned or knocked down.
Dead soldiers littered the ground, their weapons lying beside them and their
armor torn and dirty. The wounded cried out in pain, and the dying gasped out
their final breaths. Josiah’s jubilance slowly drained out as he took in the
other side of winning a battle. Death and agony were the companions of both the
victors and the vanquished. Josiah heard a cry for water and wasted no time in
heading for a well that was in the center of the city. He couldn’t take away
the agony of his comrades, but he could at least try to ease it.

******

Senndra sat with her back against a broken
wall. Her weapons lay on the ground beside her where she had dropped them when
the fighting had stopped. Her clothes were torn, and her armor was dented. The
left leg of her pants had been cut and rolled back to reveal a nasty-looking
gash that extended from just above her knee all the way down to her ankle. She
tore off a piece of her sleeve and painfully bent over to apply it to her
wound. Blood quickly soaked the make-shift bandage, so she placed the other
sleeve of her uniform over the first. The flow of blood, which had not been too
fast at first, eventually slowed to a stop, and Senndra tied her bandage in
place with strips of her ruined pant leg. Before rising, she retrieved her
weapons and replaced them on her back. Slowly she got to her feet and looked
around at the soldiers nearest her, hoping to see a familiar face. She didn’t
see any, so she started to hobble across the city, asking the soldiers she met
if they knew if there was a hospital set up yet. A man of about thirty years
told her that there was a hospital in one of the old barracks and offered to
help her there, but she declined the offer, assuring him that she could make it
on her own. The short distance to the hospital took her more than half an hour
to cover. She struggled on, gritting her teeth against the pain. Her vision
blurred, and she stumbled frequently, but she stubbornly continued forward.
Finally she met another man who offered to help her to the hospital. Again she
refused the offer. The man ignored her protest, put her arm over his shoulder,
and half-carried her the rest of the distance. At the door of the hospital, the
man released her, and she entered the building. Suddenly having to bear her own
weight again threw her off balance, and she staggered. She couldn’t think
through the buzzing sound that filled her head, but she knew that she was
falling and couldn’t catch herself. She heard a sound that seemed very distant
and felt arms catching her. Slowly her vision cleared and she found herself
looking at a cadet she thought she knew.

“Cirro?” she asked slowly.

“Yes,” Cirro replied. “Don’t worry. I’ve
got you. Here, sit down against the wall.”

He helped Senndra to the ground and
carefully examined her leg. Slowly he peeled the bandage away from the wound,
trying to cause as little pain as possible. Even so, Senndra’s leg jerked
weakly, and she slumped forward in a faint. Cirro removed the bandage from the
laceration and grimaced as he looked at it. The cut was very deep, even
reaching the bone at one point. Dirt and grime covered it, so Cirro reached for
his water skin and washed it out.

“At least it looks as though the weapon
that cut her wasn’t poisoned,”
he
thought.
“That's a reason to be thankful.”

He dug some thread and a needle out of one
of the pouches on his belt and turned back to Senndra. He carefully threaded
the needle and then sized up her wound. Though it was deep, it was bleeding
only a little and appeared as though the two sides would sew back together
cleanly. He started the operation, knotting the end of his thread and systematically
piercing the skin on either side of the gash with the needle. The tear in the
flesh closed steadily until Cirro put in the last stitch, expertly tied off the
thread, and cut it. He put the materials back into his belt pouch, lifted
Senndra from the ground, and carried her into the barracks in search of an
empty bed. Already the building was filling with casualties, but there were
perhaps several hundred beds left. Cirro left Senndra in one of them and headed
back out to the battle field.

******

Vladimir rolled a dead dwarf off of his
legs and left arm and wiped his sword on its tunic. He slid the weapon back
into its sheath and started to rise to his feet. Pain shot through his right
leg, and he slumped to the ground again. He tried to pull himself to a nearby
barrel, but when he put weight on his left arm, pain coursed through it. This
time he fell on his face. Carefully he worked himself into a sitting position
and looked at his arm. A knife handle protruded from the rear side of the upper
part of the limb. Vladimir carefully gripped the weapon, but he accidentally
bumped his elbow against his knee, jarring the knife. Pain swept up and down
his arm, paralyzing his movement for several seconds. The pain cleared and he
gripped the weapon again, but released it as he remembered the pain of
upsetting the wound. Steeling his nerve, he slowly wrapped his fingers around
the handle again and took a deep breath. Slowly he drew the knife out of his
arm, fighting the pain that shot through his body like fire. When he had
extracted the weapon, he flung it to the side and began to gently examine the
wound.

“Vladimir, what do you think you’re
doing?”

Vladimir looked up to see Timothy
approaching. He didn’t look at all the worse for wear despite the recent
battle. But Vladimir speculated that he had probably just healed himself with
magic.

“I was taking that knife out of my arm,”
he said and pointed at the discarded weapon. “It hurt like hellfire, but I did
get it out.”

“You should have waited until someone
could help you,” Timothy reprimanded Vladimir. He knelt down to examine the
wound. “I probably could have gotten it out with magic.”

“Nope,” Vladimir answered confidently. “It
was made out of silver. You know how silver is very, um, explosive when it
comes in contact with magic. If you had tried to take that knife out with
magic, my arm probably would have blown up. Which,” he added with a pain-filled
grin, “would have been pretty cool to see, but I think that I would have
regretted it later.”

The blank expression on Timothy’s face
changed to a smile. Then, with a shake of his head, he turned back to the wound
and placed his hand over it while concentrating. A tingling sensation traveled
from Timothy into Vladimir’s arm, and when Timothy took his hand away a second
later, there was only the faintest scar to show where the wound had been.
Vladimir flexed his arm and twisted it around, looking at it from all sides.

“Well,” he said with a shake of his head,
“that sure beats having it stitched up and waiting several weeks for it to
heal.”

“You’re as good as new,” Timothy said and
slapped Vladimir on the back. “Now let’s see about helping the rest of the
wounded out there.”

“I can hardly walk,” Vladimir answered. “I
think my leg may be broken.” Timothy made a move to heal his leg, but Vladimir
stopped him. “Don’t waste your energy on that,” he said. “There are a lot more
life-threatening conditions out there, and until all of them are taken care of,
I don’t want to see you wasting energy on a mere broken leg.”

“Very well,” Timothy said. “A hospital is
being organized in the barracks, so if you head over there, someone can
probably fix you up the old fashioned way. Good luck.”

“Don’t slow yourself down too much
thinking about me,” Vladimir called and began the painful trek to the barracks.

“Slow down thinking about you?” Timothy
said over his shoulder. “What makes you think that I care that much?”

Vladimir smiled at the lame attempt at
humor and hobbled toward the barracks with the aid of a broken pole that had
once held a standard. Every time he took a step, pain shot through his body
attesting to the many aches and pains he had received in the battle.
Absentmindedly wishing that magic could cure everything, he rounded a corner,
and the barracks were finally in sight. Someone had taken a cloth and nailed a
large red cross over the door of the middle building. As Vladimir neared the
building, he made out the form of a soldier that had fallen only a few yards
from the entrance. He hobbled over to the man and painfully knelt down next to
him. As he searched for a wound, he felt for a pulse on the man’s neck. He
could find no pulse and rolled the man onto his stomach, looking for the cause
of death. The sight that met his eyes made him vomit; the blade of a dwarfish
ax had carved an ugly gash from the right shoulder of the soldier down to his
left hip. In the middle of the wound, Vladimir could see the man’s spinal cord
had been smashed. There were hundreds of shards of bone attesting to its
previous existence. Vladimir vomited again and leaned against the wall of the
barracks, turning his eyes away from this gruesome sight of death. He slowly
pulled himself to his feet and staggered toward the entrance of the makeshift
hospital. Even as he moved, the moan of a wounded man floated to his ears, and
he turned to look out into the city. With a sigh, he began again his slow trek
into the hospital. Heaven knew that if he had had the strength to help the
wounded, he would have; but his own wounds had weakened him to the extent that
he could hardly stand. Moving toward the back of the barracks, he collapsed in
the first empty bed that he came to.

Josiah rubbed his eyes, trying very hard
not to fall asleep before he undressed. The day had dragged on as he had helped
countless wounded, both friends and enemies. By the time all of the wounded had
been moved into one of the barracks, the sun had set. And at the moment, Josiah
wanted nothing more than to crawl into a tent and fall asleep. Just after he
had pulled off his boots, however, Cirro stuck his head into the tent.

“What?” Josiah asked groggily. He rubbed
his eyes again and then stared at Cirro through blurry eyes.

“The grand admiral wants you at his
headquarters right away,” Cirro stated.

Josiah sighed heavily and began to pull
his boots back on. The thought of spending even more time awake didn’t appeal
to him, not to mention the fact that the grand admiral would probably want him
to be able to think.

“Do you have any idea what he wants?”
Josiah asked as he rose to his feet.

“Not officially,” Cirro answered.

“If I thought you knew officially, I would
have asked you what he wanted, not if you had any
idea
what he wanted,”
Josiah responded. “What’s the latest rumor going around?”

“Most people think he is going to discuss
what to do about the dwarves that are headed toward Belmoth,” Cirro said.

“Oh joy,” Josiah groaned with a shake of
his head. “That’s just what I need. We’ll be making decisions that could cost
people their lives, and we haven’t had a decent night’s sleep in more than
three days.”

“I suppose that’s the way this business
goes, Commander,” Cirro answered. He held the tent flap open as Josiah stepped
out into the open.

“When I come back, I’ll probably have bad
news for you, Cirro,” Josiah called over his shoulder as he left. “You’d better
get your weapons ready; my guess is that we’ll be chasing those blasted
dwarves.”

He heaved another sigh as he headed toward
the grand admiral’s office just to let anyone within hearing distance know that
he was not pleased.

“Not that there’s anybody out here,” he
said out loud. “Everyone with half a brain in his head is already in bed.”

“Thanks for the compliment,” a voice close
by said, startling Josiah. He spun around and saw Lemin emerge from an alley.

“Well, with all due respect, Admiral, what
in heaven’s name are you doing still awake?” Josiah asked.

“Probably the same thing you’re doing,”
Lemin replied. “The grand admiral of the academy asked for my attendance in his
office.”

“Yeah, that’s where I’m going,” Josiah
replied. “I just hope that we make the right decision,” he added as he started
walking again. “I mean, none of us has had a real night’s sleep in several
days. And I don’t know about the others, but I think it’s beginning to affect
my thinking.”

“You may be right,” Lemin answered. The
two companions were silent until they reached the headquarters of the grand
admiral. As they passed through the doors of the building, Lemin said, “Yes,
you are correct in saying that sleep deprivation might affect our thinking. But
one thing is certain, if we are to defend Magessa as we have sworn to do, we
have to decide what to do immediately. All we can do at the moment is what we
think is right, and may Elohim help us.”

“Amen,” Josiah responded and came to a
halt in front of the door to the grand admiral’s office. “Speaking of which, I
suppose that we should ask Elohim for guidance before we go into this meeting.”

“You are right,” Lemin said. He bowed his
head and began to pray. “Almighty God, we thank you for providing deliverance
from the dwarves, but now we are faced with another dilemma. Please give us
your guidance and wisdom as we go into this meeting. Help us to come to a
conclusion that is from you. Amen.”

Josiah raised his head and saw that Lemin
was already entering the grand admiral’s office, so he quickly followed.
Inside, seated or standing around a large, round table were the grand admiral
of Saddun, Grand Admiral Wellter, General Uriah, various generals of the army
from Gatlon, and the other four commanders of the Saddun army. Of these four,
Josiah recognized two—Velikogo and Smether. Josiah had heard that the other two
had fallen in battle, and he figured that these new faces were their
replacements. Other men that he didn't recognize were also present, bringing
the number of those present to just over twenty.

“I don’t think we can give chase to the
army at the moment,” was the first thing that Josiah heard as he entered the
room. This comment came from a man who was standing on the far side of the
room.

“I didn’t realize that whether or not we
chase the enemy was the question at hand,” Lemin shot back. Every head in the
room turned to face the newcomers who had apparently entered the room quietly
enough to prevent earlier detection. Lemin stepped up to the table that filled
a large portion of the room and leaned his hands on it.

“I know, General,” he said, addressing the
man who had spoken, “that you took an oath to protect Magessa; is that not
correct?”

“That is correct, sir,” the man answered
shortly.

“Then it would seem to me that it is your
duty to plan how you are going to counter this threat to the country, not to
cower inside your castle and hope that others will do the work that is
appointed to you.” Lemin glared at the general until the other’s eyes dropped
in shame.

“In my opinion,” Lemin said as he
straightened and clasped his hands behind his back, “we were put here in this
position at this time so that we can help defend Magessa. While others might
make the decision to ignore the threat due to personal safety, we have the
chance to make the decision that is hard to make: the decision to do what is
right. Indeed, what is right is almost always hard to do.”

“You said that we were put here for a
reason,” another general from the army of Gatlon spoke up. “Put here by whom?”
Lemin looked the man straight in the eyes.

“Put here by Elohim,” Josiah answered
before Lemin could speak. The general who had posed the question snorted.

“Well, it looks like someone here still
believes in bedtime stories. Don’t tell me that you actually believe in Elohim.
If he’s real, where’s your proof that he exists?”

“Look around you, man,” Lemin almost
shouted. “The trees, the hills, the animals, all of the races; who do you think
made all of these? If you do not believe in Elohim, then how did all of this
come into existence? And if that isn’t enough proof for you,” Lemin snapped his
fingers, and flames sprang to life on their tips. With an upward motion, Lemin
sent the flames floating toward the ceiling, changing shapes as they went. When
they reached the ceiling, they changed into a single column that shot downwards
and was absorbed by Lemin’s hand.

“Then again,” Lemin said as he finished
his display, “we aren’t here to discuss Elohim. We’re here to discuss what to
do about the dwarf army that remains.” He reached for a map that was rolled up
on the table and unrolled it to reveal Magessa and the surrounding lands. “The
dwarves left the city and are traveling west, probably staying very close to
the Apathy range. If we leave a small force here to protect the city, we can
take the rest of the army after the dwarves. A messenger can take a horse
further north, pass the dwarves, and take a warning to Belmoth.”

“Better yet,” Wellter said as he rose to
his feet. “We can split our army into two parts. The human part can follow the
dwarves along the range, and the elves can go further north, pass the dwarves,
and come up in front of them. This way, we might be able to force them to fight
on the plain where all of their siege equipment will be useless. Of course,
either way…”

“We’re in trouble if we don’t get dragon
support,” one of the new commanders of Saddun’s army finished. Wellter nodded
and sat back down.

“There’s a station of dragons somewhere in
the southern end of the Orc range,” someone offered.

“Yes, there is,” Lemin acknowledged, “but
by the time our messenger finds the station and the dragons fly up to the
battle, it could be too late. No, I think the Belvárd academy is our best bet.”

“One problem there,” Josiah objected.
“There’s no pass across the range, so the messengers will have to go around.
They’ll never make it in time.”

“The two cadets that I have in mind for this
task are exceptional,” Lemin answered. “They’ll cross the range, and if they
can get to the academy in record time, this crazy plan might actually work.”

The grand admiral of Saddun looked at
those around him as though searching for advice. He leaned his elbow on the
table and rubbed his face with his hand. His gaze drifted around the room again
and finally came to rest on Grand Admiral Wellter. Wellter gave a shrug and
spoke up.

“Personally, I think this plan is our best
bet for defeating those dwarves. Of course, our numbers are rather thin, but
there are still enough men to work with. Obviously we want to have a strong
force to strike the rear of the enemy. But on the other hand, we don’t want too
small of a force at their head. I’ll take maybe eight thousand elves around to
the front of the dwarf army, while the rest of the soldiers will strike at the
rear.”

“But that leaves no one to defend Saddun,”
a general objected.

“True,” Wellter admitted.

“On the contrary,” the grand admiral of
Saddun interjected. “That messenger said that one of his brothers had been sent
to the ogres.” He turned to Wellter. “Do you know if they are coming to our
aid?”

“I should have thought of that,” Wellter
said. “They are only a day’s march away.”

“How do you know that?” a general asked.

“We elves have our ways of knowing these
things,” Wellter said. “You can rest assured that the ogres are coming.”

“The ogres would be a great advantage in
the battle,” Lemin put in. “Perhaps we should leave some humans to defend
Saddun and take the ogres to the battle.”

“Two problems there,” Josiah spoke up.
“First, the ogres are a day’s march away. We’ll have to leave now if we hope to
catch the dwarves before they reach Belmoth. Second, while the ogres were
willing to come and help to defend Saddun, they may not want to march out
against the dwarves with us." A contemplating silence followed, but was
finally broken by Wellter.

“The fact that the ogres are a day away is
no problem,” he countered. “They are quick and can catch up to us easily. In
respect to the other worry, though you humans do not have the best relationship
with the ogres, we elves are very friendly with them. I think that if I leave
an elf here to voice the request, they will follow.”

“In that case, you should take all of the elves
to the front of the dwarf army,” the grand admiral of Saddun said to Wellter.
“If the ogres bring two or three thousand soldiers to swell our numbers at
their flank, that will more than make up for the elves.”

“Quite so,” Wellter laughed. “Considering
that I will only be taking about a thousand elves from the rear. Besides that,
I would count on between four and five thousand ogres. They may be a small
nation, but when they turn out to fight, their numbers are surprising.”

“That will put nine thousand elves at the
army’s head and six thousand humans plus the ogres and a few orcs at their
rear,” Lemin confirmed. “Make that three thousand humans plus the ogres and
orcs,” he corrected himself. “We’re going to have to leave someone to defend
this city.

"The enemy has an unknown number of
soldiers, but our estimates are that they could have anywhere from fifty to
seventy-five thousand. No matter which way you look at it, this battle is going
to go badly unless we get dragon support.”

“What about additional support from the
elves?” Josiah asked Wellter.

“The forest across the mountains is
sending an army that has probably three or four times the number of elves that
we have now, but they won’t get here for days. It could take as long as two
weeks for them to arrive.”

The Grand Admiral of Saddun finally spoke,
commanding the attention of every man in the room.

"There’s only one thing that worries
me. Why did the dwarves discontinue their attack against this city? They could
have crushed us if they continued the offensive.”

“Their plan depended on speed and
surprise,” Lemin responded instantly. “I assure you that I have thought over
these same events many times, and that is the only reasonable explanation. They
expected to take the city so quickly that we would not be able to send
messengers to the rest of Magessa. When we held them off, they made the most of
their situation by leaving a token attack force here to trick us into thinking
that they were still here. Our messengers would bring the armies of Magessa to
this place, while the main body of the dwarf army would attack Belmoth and take
it quickly since they would not be expecting the attack. With all of Magessa’s
armies here, they would be free to attack the rest of the country.”

"How in heaven's name could the
dwarves think that this would work?" the Grand Admiral of Saddun asked.
"You're trying to tell me that they evacuated 75,000 soldiers from the
city and hoped that we wouldn't notice? That seems unlikely."