The Champions (16 page)

Sara shot to a standing position faster than the human could
blink and drove the pommel of one small sword under the man’s chin with
devastating effect. So forceful was the blow that both her hand and pommel tore
through the flesh under his chin and neck up into the cavity of his skull. With
a jerk Sara removed the man’s head as his body still stumbled a step before
falling twitching to the ground. She leapt into the air once more.

Twisting and leaping, striking and dodging, Sara spent the
morning bringing death to one feeble human after another. Though she related to
them on many levels, Sara had begun to realize that they were no longer her
people. She had become more, or perhaps less, and now there were a growing
number of others like her. She could feel them. She knew when they fed. She
knew each time a new member of her race was created. She had started a process
that she might never end, and because of it she had brought a plague to the
world. From such an action there was no redemption and though princess to
Valdadore, Sara felt more like the queen of the damned.

It was odd, the vast mix of emotions within Sara. For as
unnatural and inhuman as she felt, she could never remember feeling so alive.
Perhaps her alteration was both a blessing and a curse. One thing was for
certain: Sara needed to find a way to stop the spread of her condition. She
needed a plan.

Passing the day killing like a graceful predator, Sara
thought mostly about how she might stop those she had created. It was not until
near midday when Borrik landed nearby that Sara was broken from her anguished
thoughts of self-redemption. Seth it seemed had called a regrouping of his
troops. Sara knew better than to ignore his warning and immediately turned and
began working her way back to her loving husband. She wondered how she could
continue helping him with the struggles and burdens he had, when her own
threatened to drown her. If nothing more, she would at least do her best to
assist him here upon the field of battle.

It was not long after receiving the order to fall back that
Sara approached Seth. Growing ever nearer, she was within a hundred yards of
him when the enemy’s mages unleashed a magical storm of attacks unlike anything
she had ever seen. So relentless and furious were the attacks that Seth was
completely lost from view for many minutes. Not daring venture any nearer, Sara
simply stopped to watch how things unfolded. Nearly the entire battlefield came
to a screeching halt. None had witnessed a display quite like this. Even James,
Seth’s own father, had faced less than a third of this power.

Sara watched as suddenly the barrage appeared to break
through an unseen barrier and then Seth became visible. Sara smiled. Her
husband was a man of immense power. Some thought him invulnerable to any
attack. Some thought him a god. Literally thousands of magical projectiles were
snuffed out at having come into contact with the death mage. After a moment of
him just standing under the assault, obviously focused, he raised his arms, his
hands becoming visible from his sleeves.

Sara realized he planned to direct whatever attack he had
prepared, and being directly in front of her husband, she decided to move
before he obliterated her. Crouching low, Sara sprang to the side at the same
time invoked her enchanted boots.

“Jump,” she shouted and rocketed into the air over the heads
of thousands of men. Landing, Sara watched as her husband unleashed more death
than he had ever done before. With an immense tearing sound the ground was rent
apart and thousands fell instantly into a giant chasm created in the earth.
While the chasm swallowed those who stood where once there had been land, a
great howling magical wind sprang forth, tearing thousands more off their feet.
The currents within the wind were so violent that those caught upon its
currents were torn limb from limb as flesh was stripped from bones and body
parts were thrown to rain down upon those who survived.

Next, from even further away, screams arose as more crushing
and cracking sounds tore through the air and the giant frozen lake began to
break up, the water beneath the ice spilling into the chasm Seth had opened.
Sara thought that it was over, her husband having obliterated over ten thousand
men, but she was mistaken as a tidal wave of fire was unleashed to quench the
life of those who remained near to her husband. Those were the victims that had
the worst of the situation. None of them died immediately, their screams
turning to clouds of smoke as they wandered about like living torches until
their lives snuffed out.

For a moment, after Seth had single-handedly dropped near
fifteen thousand men, the battlefield appeared calm as almost no one moved.
Then the mages loyal to Sigrant unleashed their will upon Seth once again. With
lower numbers of opposing mages, Seth remained visible under the onslaught this
time and Sara could not believe the enemy mages were naive enough to repeat the
same mistake twice.

The attack lasted only a minute or two before Sara watched
her hopes and dreams, as well as those of her nation, crumble beneath a single
bolt fired by an invading siege engine. Sara saw the bolt before it penetrated
the magical blasts of all the enemy mages, though it vanished for an instant
before the magical attacks slowed and then ceased.

There stood Seth, impaled upon the ballista bolt that had
hit him square in the heart and pinned him in a near standing position to the
ground. Sara’s heart skipped a beat. Her husband’s troops saw their god,
injured as he was, and it appeared they went insane. Roaring and howling like
mad beasts the werewolves began tearing anything that moved to pieces in an
effort to get to their fallen master. Sara, though in disbelief, needed to be
at her husband’s side. She crouched and again summoned the power of her
enchanted boots. In less than a second she stood before Seth, watching his life
blood trickle down the wooden shaft.

Not knowing what to do, Sara ripped her helm off her head.
As the sunlight began to burn her flesh, for just an instant her eyes and the
eyes of her husband locked before his became unfocused and rolled back,
lifeless. Sara strained her senses. Seth’s heart had ceased beating; his
breathing had stopped as well. Her husband, the most powerful man upon Thurr,
was dead. She shrieked in both anger and pain, tears streaming from her eyes as
her flesh burned away from her face.

*****

Borrik stomped a path through gore and bodies to the fallen
king. Heaving Garret off the ground, Borrik wrapped his two left arms around
the king and together they slowly moved towards the rear lines. Borrik could
feel the king failing and made a suggestion.

“Your majesty, if you will release your blessing I can fly
us to the healers and get you treatment,” Borrik half growled loudly over the
battle.

“I…can’t,” Garret replied. “My blessing is all that is
keeping me alive.”

Borrik damned his luck, and unfortunately he did it
prematurely. No sooner had the king replied, than he collapsed. Not even the
strength of two of Borrik’s inhuman arms, even in his blessed form, could keep
the huge man upright. Like a sack of boulders the king fell, and so heavy was his
body in its blessed form that when he hit the ground he left an impression
almost a foot deep in the already trampled soil. The king lived, but was
unconscious.

Borrik did the only thing he could do. Reaching down he
grabbed the king by his ankles and began dragging his near lifeless body across
the battlefield. The inhuman leader of Seth’s inhuman army could never have
imagined how hard his task was going to be. The beast of a man had dragged the
king less than fifty yards, and already he was forced to pause to catch his
breath and relieve his cramping muscles. The giant steel king weighed more than
he had thought possible, but even so Borrik did not have much time to rest.

Just moments after he stopped, the battlefield changed
tremendously as mages by the hundreds began flinging spells from everywhere. It
was at times like these where being taller than everyone else upon the
battlefield was a disadvantage. Grabbing the king again Borrik pressed on and
began dragging him anew. Only a second passed and Borrik knew telepathically
that his master was the focus of the fury of the mages. For now, however,
Borrik could be of little help to his master and as such he continued to drag
the king.

Time and again Borrik was forced to stop and dodge magical
ballista before continuing. After each incident he hurled dual fireballs back
at the attacker out of spite before grabbing the king again and moving on.
After several minutes of pulling and jerking the king by his legs it became
quickly apparent that his true master, Seth, had finally put up with Sigrant’s
mages long enough.

With an earth shattering sound like thunder a hundred times
over, the ground began to shake and heave and Borrik witnessed through his
soldiers’ eyes a great chasm opening up in the ground. Following that was yet
another unnatural sound as an unworldly wind blasted across the plain ripping
soldiers from their feet and shredding their bodies, sending them to rain both
into the chasm and upon the remaining troops across the land.

Moving as fast as he could, Borrik dragged the fallen king
as far as he was able before his master unleashed a giant tidal wave of fire
decimating even more of the enemy. From then on pandemonium broke lose over the
field of battle. Enemy mages began casting again, and even a few brave soldiers
picked up the fight where moments ago they had paused for fear that they too
would be destroyed by the death mage’s wrath. Once again Borrik was forced to
dodge magical attacks whilst dragging the king. Seeing his predicament, a
common soldier, perhaps an officer of some sort, took up the call for a healer
as Borrik passed. The call was echoed throughout the battlefield and a clear
path was opened for Borrik and Garret.

No sooner had Borrik felt he might actually reach a healer
before the king died than an image flashed across his conscious. A mournful
howling erupted over the battlefield to which Borrik lent his voice. Anger and
hatred filled Borrik as he dropped the king and leapt into the air.

Though the right thing to have done might have been to
locate some healers and fly them to both Garret and Seth, Borrik was overcome
by his feral instincts. Pack mentality dictated that he had to see his dead
master for himself, and immediately. Already the surviving troops under
Borrik’s command began to gather around their fallen deity.

Only a minute and a half after the bolt impaled his master,
Borrik plummeted from the sky. Spreading his wings at the last moment, he
landed within a great cloud of dust. There before him, after the dust settled,
were his master’s corpse and the body of his master’s wife which was smoldering
as her flesh burned away beneath the sun. Borrik raised his wings casting the
area in shadow, protecting the princess. Falling to his knees Borrik growled in
anguish, a mournful, sorrowful call that was taken up by his men who then began
to kill anything that moved. Naught but Borrik and Sara remained at Seth’s
side, both willing to die beside the man who had made them the monsters they
were.

*****

The call for a healer had come through the lines of soldiers
like a battle hymn that had picked up volume each time it was repeated. The
king had fallen somewhere upon the field, and the call was as yet unanswered as
nearly every healer in the Valdadorian arsenal had fled far behind the lines.
Rising from his current patient, Ashton reached down and helped the soldier
back to his feet. The man had been lucky. Had he not found Ashton he likely
would have bled to death upon the field after sustaining a slash wound through
the artery in his armpit. Now the man clasped wrists with the healer who had
saved his life, and grabbing his spear and shield he rushed back through the
lines to the fight.

Ashton looked around the field to determine where the king
might have fallen. Climbing a slight rise in the terrain he could see sunlight
gleaming off a large mass a few hundred yards away. With no time to waste
Ashton began running full tilt through the crowd, ducking and dodging any
obstacle that stood in his path. Against his oath, Ashton forced himself to
pass two other injured soldiers in his attempt to reach the king. With his
bloodstained robes flapping as he ran, Ashton sprinted the last several yards
as the king came into view and he was finally certain of his destination.

The scene was a mess. The king lay unconscious upon the
ground in a massive twisted heap. A great smoldering hole lay upon his ribcage,
and on his opposite side his entire arm was missing, shoulder and all. In its
place was a gaping hole from which copious amounts of blood had been lost, but
now barely trickled. Ashton did not even know where to begin.

Unsure what else he could do, Ashton dropped to his knees
beside the giant of a king and began to pray to his goddess. Within an instant
Ashton exploded in white light, his entire body becoming enveloped in power. In
the past few months Ashton had grown immensely as a healer. He had surpassed
all of his instructors’ expectations, and now had outstripped many of their
abilities as well. Even Ashton had limitations, however, even if he didn’t know
them all. But first things first, Ashton needed to assess the king’s injuries.

Placing his hands upon the king Ashton felt more than looked
for many moments within the fallen body of his friend. So great were Garret’s
injuries, Ashton wondered how he had survived at all. Besides the fact that
Garret had lost an arm, shattered a collar bone, and had a gaping hole where
that arm should have attached to his body, the lung upon that side of his body
had been torn as well and had filled with blood and other fluid. His opposite
lung had been charred, as had been his heart and several major blood vessels.
Another hole had been blasted in the king’s side; the only thing holding his
insides within him were the charred bones of his ribcage upon that side.