War of Shadows (43 page)

D
AMN THE MAGIC!” NIKLAS MUTTERED
.

Midday, and the battle was taking its toll. Bodies covered the valley so that it was hard to step without putting a foot onto a corpse. Blood made the ground sticky in some places and slippery in others, and the whole thing smelled like an abattoir.

Bodies hung on angled pikes, a macabre forest of bitter fruit. Not a candlemark before, Niklas had seen dozens of his men charge ahead at full speed, believing they were ambushing a feckless group of stragglers. They ran at full speed, swords raised, a victory cry on their lips. Magic hid the truth. Only when the sharp stakes ripped into their chests and savaged their bellies did the illusion waver and fail. By then, dead eyes no longer saw, dying soldiers were past caring.

“Be glad magic comes with limitations,” Ayers said, sounding just as weary.

“It didn’t seem very ‘limited’ when they were gigging themselves like frogs,” Niklas muttered.

The battlefront was shifting. Several candlemarks’ hard
fighting drove Rostivan’s soldiers back, and Niklas’s mages were making a counterstrike of their own. Rikard was able to make blazing fireballs appear out of nowhere, and he harried the enemy troops for as long as he could, scattering their formations and lighting unlucky soldiers on fire.

“I hate battle magic,” Niklas growled. “Saw too damn much of it on the Meroven front.”

“We all did,” Ayers said as they moved with the rest of the unit, re-forming for the next strike. “It’s sloppy. The mages can’t send a plague of boils or some such unless the two sides are separated, which means they can’t do much in a pitched fight. Using magic drains mages so badly they’re not good for long, and with the way the magic is now, even a strong mage can’t do what he used to.”

Niklas grimaced. “Be thankful for that last bit. We’ve seen what mages can do.” He was thinking of the green ribbon of flame that descended the night of the Great Fire, magic that worked too well for the battle mages on both sides, and left a shattered, cindered Continent in its wake.

Niklas heard the thud of distant catapults. “Incoming!” a voice shouted.

Dozens of white, stone-like lumpy balls rained down on them from the enemy catapults. “What in Raka—” Niklas muttered.

The ‘stones’ unfurled crab-like legs tipped in lethal claws, moving with infernal speed. Niklas and Ayers slashed with their swords, finding the beasts’ carapaces as hard as any cuirass.

“Where in the Sea of Souls did the
ranin
come from?” Ayers yelped.

“Nowhere good,” Niklas said grimly, swinging two-handed at the creatures. “They’re fast sons of bitches.”

The
ranin
scuttled toward him, waving its dangerously sharp claws. Niklas jumped out of the way, but a claw tore at his pant
leg, and he did not want to think what it would have done to soft flesh.

“I can’t even find the eyes on those damn things!” Ayers said, slashing with his full might as two of the beasts came at him at once. Niklas was holding three at bay. Down the line, dozens of the miserable creatures had popped through, sent by Rostivan’s mages.

“What in Raka are our mages doing?” Niklas demanded.

“That, I think.” Ayers nodded in to his left, since he dared not stop fighting.

Dead men jerked down from the pikes that killed them. Staggering like drunkards, a line of corpses shambled their way toward their last mortal task. Eyes unseeing, stumbling on their own entrails, the fallen soldiers slashed their swords at anything that moved in front of them.

“We don’t have a necromancer,” Niklas said, wide-eyed.

Ayers shook his head. “Don’t need one. Didn’t bring the dead back to life, just moved their bodies.” He gave a jaded chuckle. “Puts on a good show, doesn’t it?”

“Enough of a godsdamned show right here,” Niklas muttered, bringing his sword down hard to snap the leg from one of the crab creatures. The
ranin
reared up on its other legs, slashing with a long foreleg, and gave an earsplitting shriek.

All around Niklas, soldiers battled the shelled monsters with any weapon available. Niklas and Ayers kept hacking away with their broadswords, crippling the beasts to slow them down, then smashing their hard bodies with rocks.

The crab-things burst apart, spraying a sticky ichor that burned like lye and stank like shit. Niklas swore as the foul liquid sprayed him, giving the dead
ranin
a kick for good measure.

“We’re in for some weather,” Ayers said with a warning glance at the sky.

“Figures,” Niklas said darkly, and just then, snow began to fall.

Behind them, rank upon rank of soldiers fought down the last of the crab-things, or dispatched the dying enemy soldiers with a mercy strike.

“Re-form!” Niklas bellowed, trying to shout above the wind. “Ready!” Voices carried his commands down the line, and footsteps pounded as soldiers got into position. “Charge!”

Niklas and Ayers led the way, flanked by a sea of soldiers. Rostivan’s troops, gathering their nerve after the assault by the dead, closed ranks, angry and ready for vengeance.

More catapult thuds echoed, and rocks pelted Niklas’s soldiers like rain. Tiny pebbles and stones the size of a man’s fist fell out of the sky. Men fell in their tracks, struck in the head, and did not rise. Niklas winced as a rock clipped him on the shoulder; hard enough he was certain he would bruise. Dodging the falling stones slowed their advance, buying Rostivan’s forces a few precious minutes.

Niklas looked up to see one of Rostivan’s commanders blocking his way. Ayers skidded to a halt, facing a challenger of his own.

“Cut off the head, and the beast dies,” Niklas’s opponent said with a nasty smile. “What becomes of your army if I cut off your head?”

“Too bad you won’t find out,” Niklas muttered, lunging at the man before the other could strike. The exchange of a few sword blows made it clear the two were evenly matched in strength and skill.

Niklas blocked a series of savage strikes meant to maim. Shouting his anger and cursing the wind, Niklas gave as good as he got, taking cold satisfaction in the blood his sword raised on his attacker’s arm.

The enemy commander returned the favor, coming at him fast, with hard strikes that nearly knocked Niklas’s sword out of his hand. A few paces away, Ayers was holding his own with difficulty, struggling against an opponent who seemed to be enjoying every bone-jarring swing.

Murderous focus glinted in his enemy’s eyes as Niklas dodged and parried, trying to get inside the man’s guard. An instant too late, he moved to block a swing and took a deep gash on his upper arm, sending a rush of blood down to soak his hand.

Niklas drew back a step, ready to make a run at the officer, when his opponent froze, eyes glazed. As Niklas and Ayers watched in consternation, their attackers suddenly turned on each other with lethal frenzy, oblivious to the two men they had just been about to kill. They swung at each other like mad men as blood sprayed into the air, carried on the merciless wind, tingeing the snow crimson. The man Niklas had been fighting gave a roar and brought the blade down so hard he cut through the other soldier’s shoulder, sending the severed arm flying into the fouled snow. The maimed man scythed low, his blade connecting so hard with the officer’s thigh he hit bone.

The same thing happened all around Niklas and Ayers: Enemy soldiers on the edge of victory suddenly attacked soldiers on their own side with mad-dog ferocity. Niklas had no magic of his own, but he had soldiered long enough to know it when he saw it. He and Ayers backed away from the fight.

Somewhere in the distance, Niklas heard Rostivan’s commanders shouting for order, screaming at their soldiers to stop killing each other. Heedless, the soldiers fought with deranged fury, their bloodlust not satisfied until their opponents had been chopped to bits.

As suddenly as it began, the fog lifted from the crazed
soldiers’ eyes and they looked about themselves in utter confusion and horror, finding themselves maimed, bleeding, and soaked with the blood of their slaughtered comrades.

“Now!” Niklas shouted, descending on the enemy in their moment of disorientation, finishing the job their madness had begun. Niklas waded into the fray with the grim determination of a butcher culling the herd. His sword swung like a reaper, splashing him with gore. He paused only long enough to wipe the blood from his eyes.

The bewitched soldiers gave little resistance as the realization of their treason sank in. Cursing and wailing like damned men, most of the soldiers either rushed unarmed at Niklas’s soldiers or fell on their own swords.

“Poor, sorry bastards,” Ayers muttered.

“Pity them as much as you want, as long as they’re dead,” Niklas replied. A space had cleared in the fighting as Rostivan’s troops fell back, desperate to avoid whatever had entranced their fighters. Snow fell thick and fast, whipped by wind that had grown bitingly sharp.

Niklas yelped in alarm. He had been shivering with cold a moment before; suddenly his skin was as hot as if he had been in the summer sun, blistering with fever. Ayers felt it, too, and a sheen of sweat broke out on his forehead.

Niklas was panting, eyeing the falling snow longingly, wishing he could breathe it all into him to slake the raging fever. He stumbled, vision blurring, his tongue swelling in his dry mouth.

“Torven take my soul!” he murmured, sure that he would burst into flames.
This is how we die
, he thought,
broiled in our own juices when our blood boils. Damn the mages!

From what Niklas could make out, the entire front line
staggered with fever. Niklas fell to his knees, expecting at any moment to hear the swish of a sword’s blade angled at his neck.

A frigid wind swept across the bloody field, swift enough to nearly take men off their feet. Shapes rode the wind, and in his fevered haze, Niklas thought perhaps the spirits of his family had come to gather him to the Sea of Souls.

The figures grew closer, and Niklas gasped. These revenants had not come to collect the dead. They came to reap the living. Their forms grew more distinct, and Niklas realized that they wore the battle armor of the recent and long-gone past. Some of the ghosts bore their death wounds. Others were ragged skeletons with sundered armor. Rage animated all of them.

Primal instinct made Niklas duck as the spirits swept past, but they did not come for him. The ghost horde rushed toward Rostivan’s men like a flood, clawed hands grasping, teeth chattering, hungry for vengeance.

“They can’t hurt us! They’re just ghosts!” one of Rostivan’s men shouted. He turned to face the spirits, squaring his shoulders and planting his feet, sword held in front of him.

“Come and get me,” he challenged.

They came. The gray ghosts swept over the soldier, shrouding him in their mist. The fighter began to scream, terrified shrieks that continued as his skin lost its color, fading to the gray of the dead. His screams filled the air until the breath was gone from his lungs, and the spirits dropped him behind them as they passed.

Another soldier fell, and another. The gray tide grew dark like the storm clouds overhead, and as it darkened, the ghosts became more solid, as did the weapons they carried. Beyond harm, beyond pain, the spirits advanced. The pounding of marching feet filled the air.

Niklas struggled to his feet and shouted for his men to fall back, giving the ghosts room to attack. A few of his soldiers, pale with fear, ran for their lives. Most retreated warily, watching the ghosts with suspicion.

The spirits of the dead marched forward, ignoring Niklas’s soldiers altogether. Niklas saw the centuries represented in the different styles of their armor. Some looked to be the recent dead, others wore the armor of a generation or two past. Many were outfitted in clothing from centuries before, and a few might have been barbarian fighters from a time before Donderath was civilized enough for such things as uniforms.

On and on and on the dead came. No battle cries rose from the revenant soldiers, just an uncanny silence remorseless in its purpose. The living screamed and cursed, powerless against the onslaught.
Odd that when the ghosts passed me, I felt no tingle of magic in the air
, Niklas thought,
yet now the air feels charged with power
.

Maybe the ghosts don’t need magic
, he mused.
Maybe that’s Rostivan’s side, trying to muster up enough magic to lay the ghosts to rest
.

The wind had grown vicious, whipping the snow that was falling and the snow already on the ground. Against that background, the gray ghosts seemed even more fantastical. Niklas was tempted to dismiss them as yet another illusion, but the screams of dying men—men whose very solid, bleeding bodies fell at his feet—persuaded him of the spirits’ reality. Rostivan was in full retreat, yet the ghosts pursued him, moving as fast as a swift courser, easily overrunning men on foot.

Snow masked the distance, but screams carried on the cold air. Hearing the massacre when he could not see it made the slaughter more terrifying. Niklas was surprised that anything could terrorize him anymore. The carnage mortal soldiers had worked upon each other no longer distressed him, although
it haunted his dreams. The charge of the dead soldiers almost made him feel sorry for the enemy. Almost.