Vitiosi Dei (Heritage of the Blood Book 2) (3 page)

              The Grand Master let loose a shrill whistle, and the monks split off from the front line, climbing the buildings on both sides of the streets like monkeys. It took them about three seconds to reach the top of the second story, where they ran along the edge of the building, their legs moving so fast it was hard for many of the soldiers' eyes to track them. When they reached the end of the building nearest the wall, they leapt the twenty feet from the corner of the building to the top of the wall as if it were a small stream.

              The Dracair began climbing the buildings, apparently thinking that they would be able to duplicate such a feat. Nim signaled the Mages before the first Dracair reached the roof, and fire rained down upon the buildings all along the wall. Several of the Dracair were able to attempt the jump before the flames became too dangerous for them to navigate, and one of them would have even made it had it not been for the Grand Master's foot catching the thing's head on its downward arc, sending the Dracani sprawling to the ground in a boneless heap. It would be a while before that one recovered enough to be any trouble, if it ever did.

              As the sun began to descend on the western horizon, Nim thought that they might have a chance at holding the line until reinforcements arrived. The monks of the Order of the Griffon had turned the retreat from a hopeless gambit into a viable option. A lot of men had died, and a lot more were sure to in the coming days, but they had held the line—maybe it wasn’t such a terrible day after all.

              It took the better part of four months to break the will of the army that the Dracair and the Blood Mages had assembled. Reinforcements had started arriving from Safeharbor and some of the outlying townships of the Protectorate during the weeks after the initial battle, but a large portion of those troops were diverted to the battle to the north. Winter came on in full force as well, playing no small role in the enemy's retreat.

              With the onset of winter, the Protectorate forces reinforced the wall, sending only small engagements into the Dracair controlled portion of the city. Spring brought with it a new frenzy of activity, with both sides preparing for the battle that was to come. The Protectorate forces waged a block by block extermination of the Dracair controlled eastern portion of the city of Asylum.

              The Dracair had been busy looting the city over the winter, and much of what the Protectorate took back were empty, defiled husks. Much of what could be burned, had been, and anything delicate and not worth packing back home had been broken. The systematic removal of the Dracair forces took the greater part of the year, with the last battle ending seventeen months after the first engagement.

              The death toll was staggering, and thousands died in the first few days of the war alone. The Wardens took the heaviest casualties during the withdrawal to the inner wall, losing a full third of their fighting force. By the end, more than one hundred thousand of the Protectorate's fighting forces were killed or missing in action. Estimated losses for the enemy forces were estimated at more than triple that of the protectorate, but only a small portion of that number were Dracair, and only a hand full were Blood Mages.

              The Protectorate's lightest casualties had been among the Mages and the Monks, both groups able to choose their engagements well. The greatest hit to the Monks came in the last month of the battle; the enemy that took the Grand Master's life was time itself, his body finally consumed by the ravages of age.

              They had pushed back the enemy and retaken the city, but there would be no celebration. Too many comrades had fallen, and there was too much left to do.

Year: 3044 AGD

Month: Year's End

Third Fifthday

Continent of Terroval

Asylum

              “I have never heard of the like,” Dunnagan said as the group enjoyed their first night of real rest in nearly a year and a half. The battles had ended a few eightdays prior, but between taking care of the dead and the wounded, securing the city, and making sure that the enemy was well and truly gone, there was still much work to do, and it had taken them this long to all gather around a fire together.

              Dunnagan looked haggard. Nim was sure that they all looked more or less like the walking dead, but the dwarf was nearing his sixth century of life. The old cleric still had at least a few good decades left in him, centuries if he was lucky, but the years were beginning to take their toll. To have survived and thrived in a land like Terroval for so long was a testament to the old Dwarf’s tenacity.

              “Nor have I,” Zander Halcyon said as he looked up from his book
.
“I have been reading as many of these books that contain records of past engagements as I can get my hands on, but I cannot find anything to compare to this assault. This book is from before the Great Disaster that forced our people into the caves below Safeharbor. There are many tales of full-scale battles, but oddly enough there are relatively few that mention a large contingent of Dracair.”

              Nim wasn't used to seeing Zander shaken up. Zander Halcyon, Tetriarch of the Sorcerers and perhaps the most powerful Battlesorcerer that had ever lived, had few reasons for doubt.

              “Why, if we have been fighting a
War
with the Dracair for more than five millennia, are there so few reports of full-scale encounters with
actual
Dracair?” Ashur poked at the fire with a stick, obviously perturbed by his thoughts. “Furthermore, why has no one thought of this before now?”

              Nim was glad to have Ashur around. Twenty years before, David Theromvore had been on the fast track to becoming a great military commander. Luckily for Nim, however, he had managed to drag the man along on one journey after another, where he had become a stalwart companion and ally. The man still possessed the keen military mind that had been drilled into him ever since he had been able to hold a sword, but he had seen more things in his travels with Nim than he would have ever seen had he served with the Knights for those twenty years.

              “I like to call it positive thought, wrapped in a layer of pride, with a coating of ignorance,” an unexpected voice intoned from the dark expanse of night that blanketed the city.

              Moments later, the slight shape of Stewart Cantel materialized beside one of the stone-worked walls at the edge of the firelight. The High Commander of the Knights of the Protectorate looked more haggard than anyone else Nim had seen in the last year. It was no surprise, really: the man had lost more than a hundred thousand men and women since the war began. There was nothing Stewart Cantel could have done to prevent those deaths, but they still fell heavily upon his shoulders. Not only did the deaths of those men and women weigh down on him, but a city of the Protectorate had nearly fallen to the enemy on his watch. Nim knew that trying to console Cantel would do little good, but he might buy him a pint or two the next time he was able.

              “What do ye mean by that?” Dunnagan asked as the heads around the campfire turned towards their newest arrival. Several of the men had to resist the urge to snap to attention.

              “We never wanted to face up to the truth,” Cantel said as he found an empty spot, joining the circle of friends around the fire. “Oh, we thought about it several times. I have found the question posed a handful of times in my studies of history, but I don't think any of them truly wanted to answer the question.”

              Looking at his friend's face, Nim knew that these thoughts had been plaguing the High Commander's mind a lot recently, and Nim thought the man might have settled on his own answer.

              “What question?” Nim asked.

              “The question being, have we truly been fighting a war all this time, or have we simply been cleaning up the table scraps that have been left for us?” A long knife appeared in Stewart Cantel's hand, and he began to whittle away at a small piece of timber.

              “Ye think we've been fightin' whatever the Dracair haven't had a use fer, in order to make us think we were fighting the good fight?” Dunnagan asked, clearly bothered by the prospect.

              Cantel sat quietly, staring at the piece of wood in his hand for some time before looking up into the eyes of each person sitting around the fire. “I do.”

              Ashur stood quickly, throwing a rock at a nearby wall. The stone bounced off the wall, hit the side of a nearby wagon, and ricocheted into his shin. The litany of curses that he had been spewing forth intensified as the rock hit home. Everyone around the fire was feeling many of the same emotions, but they seemed content to watch Ashur vent enough for all of them. Enraged, Ashur seemed to come to the conclusion that the wagon and the wall had conspired against him with the rock. Nim had been around the man long enough to know what was coming, so when Ashur stalked towards the wagon he began to erect a wall of force between the wall and the group around the fire.

              Ashur kicked the wagon into the wall, surprising everyone around the campfire except Dunnagan and Nim. Pieces of wood, metal, and stone rained down on the invisible barrier. As the dust cleared, Nim noticed that one of the axles from the wagon was lodged in the wall with one of the wheels still connected.

              “I wish you wouldn't do that, David,” Cantel chided. “We really need every wagon we have.”

              Ashur turned back towards the group around the campfire, a long sliver of wood sticking out of his hair. As Stewart Cantel's words sunk in, he turned back to the wall, raising his hands as if he wished he could take back the gesture, before dropping his head in defeat. “I'm sorry, Stewart, I don't know what came over me. I haven't lost it like that in...”

              “Five years,” Nim supplied. “Five years and three months. We were in Freeport and...”

              “Ok, ok, we don't need to tell
that
story now,” Ashur said as he regained some of his composure.

              “Oh, I don't know, I'd have to say that it was the finest reason that I’ve ever had to be in jail before.” Nim laughed, trying to add as much cheeriness to his tone as he could muster.

              It worked. The grin that took over Ashur's face released a lot of the built up tension in the man. “It was a fun night, wasn't it?” The two shared a quiet moment as they relived an old memory, but the reason for Ashur's anger slowly reasserted itself in the atmosphere around the campfire, and the talk turned back to the Dracair.

              “So, what exactly are you saying, Stewart?” Zander asked.

              “I'm saying that for our entire history, we have been fighting only those troops that the Dracair deemed expendable, and I have a feeling that this last attack was no deviation from that plan.”

              “A force to soften us up a little before the real push?” Nim's voice came out in a whisper, but it was loud enough for everyone around the fire to hear.

              Several deep breaths accompanied Stewart Cantel's nod. “And here we are, a fifth of our fighting force dead and another two fifths not fit for duty. Our second largest city lies partially abandoned and in ruins. Who knows how long we have to prepare for the
real
push.”

              “Probably a few years still, knowing the Dracair,” Nim said, before adding, “maybe not even in our lifetimes, but it will come, and I’m willing to bet it is closer to the few years than the lifetime.”