The Rage Within Read online

  Kellan made his way back through the assembled army, still enveloped in the calm cocoon with which he had enshrouded his mind. It was with an effort of will that he forcibly surfaced from that state, he could never communicate meaningfully with anyone anyway when he gave himself to that place in his head.

  It was not that he was not in control of his body; it was quite the opposite. Rather, it was a different sort of control; far finer and more precise. The act of forming and imparting simple sentences, or even making sense of what those around him were saying was a skill that was quite beyond him during those periods. The areas of his mind that dealt with other people became as if they were packed with wool and of no relevance to the all-important control of the body. With the extraneous babble of the self curbed, he was free to master the physical.

  He was a man now. Fifteen winters had passed since he had nearly drowned in the river, but that moment in free-fall from the waterfall had given him an anchor in tranquillity that he held onto at times like this.

  Normality slithered back into his mind like an unwelcome guest as he made his way to Blunt’s tent. It was pitched on the highest piece of ground on their side of the shallow depression that separated the two armies. Kellan welcomed the warmth of the brazier that burned in the centre of the tent. The day would heat up as the sun rose, but it was still cold in the early hours.

  The rebel army formed a defensive arc around the only access to Hadaiti. With the Adorim Sea to the west, and the black sands of the Stygian Desert to the south and east, it would funnel the Heavy Infantry towards a narrow gap of some two hundred yards wide. Of course it also meant that there was nowhere to run to should their gambit fail.

  Kilarn ‘Scurrilous’ Bluntis, Scurrilous Blunt to all who knew him or knew of him, looked up from the map. He was leaning on his fists, thick arms rigid. His shaved head glistened in the heat of the tent.

  “Have you seen them off then?” he asked.

  “Just the one,” Kellan replied.

  Scurrilous Blunt eyed him for a few seconds before speaking to the man to his right, King Rashun of Dashiya. “Young Kellan Aemoran, Your Majesty,” he introduced Kellan. “A demon on the battlefield; seems to hate the Empire more than any one of us. Is that not so, Kellan?”

  “There will be plenty of time for killing Koratheans,” Olimar Bluntis put in before Kellan could answer.

  “Your son is right,” said King Rashun. “But clearly this young man is blessed with the impatience of youth. And I applaud him.” The king clapped his hands slowly, smiling appreciatively.

  Kellan gave a shallow bow. “I have scores to settle, Your Majesty.”

  “Then you have come to the right place,” the King replied. “Take your fight to the steps of the Kodistai’s palace in Kor’Habat itself with my blessings. As I have told Mister Bluntis; I will personally double whatever he is paying his men for this day’s battle; should you win.”

  “Oh, young Kellan is not in this for the gold,” said Scurrilous. “He chose to join my band of hired swords for free. Two meals a day and a bedroll near the fire is all he asks. I insist on his accepting a small remittance.”

  “You see this as recreation then?” asked the King.

  “It keeps my mind occupied,” Kellan replied. “Forgive me; I was looking for the Historian.”

  “Last seen heading for those bloody contraptions,” Scurrilous said before remembering his company and making an apologetic gesture.

  Also in the tent were four of the engineers from the Eastern Kingdoms. They appeared not to be offended by the comment, but those Eastern types were hard to read, with their dark skin and narrow eyes. They had brought with them great war engines that Kellan could not hope to understand; but Dashiyan gold had bought their services, and Dashiyans never spent unwisely. This was a kingdom built on trade and not military prowess and so Scurrilous Blunt had been hired to command the assembled army.

  The only woman present was the mercenary, Valia. She was part of Blunt’s band and a keen tactician, as well as a fearsome fighter, broad shouldered and a head taller than the average man. She drew their attention back to the matter they had been discussing before Kellan’s arrival.

  “The challenge will be to draw them in here,” Valia said, pointing to the map. She had been squeezing her long, dark braid in her fist impatiently, but threw it back over her shoulder now.

  “No challenge,” said Olimar. “There is nowhere else for them to go.”

  “Merat Fol’Ashar is no fool, Olimar, he will see that he is being sucked into a funnel,” Valia replied, shaking her head.

  “He will be confident in the Heavy Infantry, and will happily commit numbers here,” Olimar said as he pointed loosely to an area on the map.

  “Perhaps, but I would be happier if we moved the Mecians here, and drew their cavalry here.” She slid some markers across the map. “That way we can be sure of their committing the Heavy Infantry to a frontal assault, whilst tempting their horsemen with our archers’ flanks.”

  “Valia is right,” said Scurrilous Blunt. “We should lighten the eastern defences just enough to be tempting without being too obvious.”

  Olimar stiffened a little, but nodded his agreement.

  There were others in the tent: some Dashiyan Generals, obviously uncomfortable at having a mercenary in charge of their army; as well as some of the officers from the various other factions opposed to the Empire. Kellan did not know their names, nor did he wish to know them. He was here for one reason alone.

  With the return of the tactical discussion, he slipped from the tent.

  In the distance the Korathean Army was visible. They were apparently unhurried despite his early attack. He knew that they would not rise to it, but could not resist sending a message of his own. They would attack at the appointed time; such was the lunacy of their war.

  We will burn your villages and slaughter your children, but it would be discourteous to attack a moment before the designated hour.

  He spotted Elan among the Dashiyan archers and waved. Elan was easy to spot in a crowd. He was not particularly tall or broad, but he had the faint green hue of a forest dwelling Lythurian. Most of the other archers were keeping a wary distance between this strange man and themselves, but the few who knew him were easier in his presence. When he was close enough, Kellan threw a quiver of arrows to him. Elan caught them easily.

  “Have you seen Granger or Truman?” Kellan asked without stopping.

  “By the catapult,” Elan replied, pointing towards one of the war engines. “And Kellan…?”

  Kellan slowed and turned his head.

  “Be careful, my friend,” the Lythurian said.

  Kellan gave a dismissive wave. “And you,” he said as he walked away, “Look after Valia, or Truman will have your head.”

  The rebel army was forming up as commands were barked from the general direction of the tent he had just left. Once out of the company of royalty, Scurrilous Blunt’s language returned to its usual base level, and curses were shouted at the various officers and soldiers under his command.

  Kellan found the Historian with the poet, Truman, admiring an unlikely looking contraption, half covered with a heavy, mottled sheet.

  “Kellan,” the Historian said warmly. “How are you feeling?”

  “In control,” he replied with a smile.

  The Historian put his hand on Kellan’s shoulder in a fatherly way and studied him, concern etched on his face.

  “‘Boldly and without guilt’s burden, the righteous march into battle’,” said Truman

  “One of yours?” asked Kellan.

  “Fate! No,” he replied, “From Athur’s ‘The Undaunted Spirits’.”

  “You can give me the full version at the end of this,” said Kellan.

  “I wouldn’t subject you to that particular horror, dear friend,” the poet laughed.

  “What have we here, Granger?” Kellan asked, nodding towards the war engine.

  The Historian shrugged. “F
ascinating. A catapult of one sort or another, though I think it is the projectile itself that holds most interest in this case.”

  “How sad that a culture should put so much effort into mechanising death,” Truman said, smoothing his moustaches with a thumb and forefinger.

  “Projectile?” Kellan raised an eyebrow, ignoring the poet’s interruption.

  Granger indicated the huge shaft resting on the cradle. It looked like a slender tree trunk, as thick as Kellan’s thigh and at least five strides long.

  “Not a standard siege weapon at all,” he said. “Though I am fairly sure that it could put a dent in a defensive wall or paling, I suspect this is designed to be used against men. Particularly those men.” He nodded towards the Korathean army.

  One of the Eastern engineers muttered unintelligibly as he pushed past them to fully conceal the device from prying eyes. He snapped the sheet back over the thing curtly, and placing himself between them and the weapon, crossed his arms defensively.

  “No more than they deserve,” said Kellan, ignoring the secretive engineer.

  “Perhaps,” said Granger. “But all the same I would counsel against getting too far ahead of the main body of the army. The engineers will be aware of the positions of our battalions, but not one man on his own. Please, try to be restrained today.”

  “You know it is not easy,” said Kellan, staring at nothing.

  “I know how hard you have worked to control it,” said Granger. “You have tried to explain to me how you are able to channel those urges differently. But I still see you swept away by it.”

  “I am in control,” Kellan said again. “And this way, it is as though I am able to release the pressure in small amounts before it builds. I need this outlet.”

  “Of course,” said Granger nodding solemnly. “I still worry for you. For all of us.”

  “For them?” he asked looking at the Korathean army.

  “Even for them.” Granger replied with a sad smile.

  “How many?” asked Truman, his hand resting on the pommel of the slender blade at his side.

  “Some are saying eighty thousand all told,” said Kellan.

  Truman shook his head slowly. “It seems hopeless.”

  “There is always hope, Truman,” said Granger. “There is always hope.”

  Sorrel held his broad, curved sword and square shield in white knuckles, barely able to refrain from charging when the pipers took up their tune. This time the boy musicians remained where they were standing and the columns of Heavy Infantry filed past them into battle. He stared grimly ahead at the thin line of defenders strung out across a two hundred yard gap. A mixture of pikemen and swordsmen with archers to the rear, and a pitiful collection of mounted cavalry made up the defences. At most, the line was fifty men deep, thinner in places, and if those cavalry allowed themselves to be hemmed in behind the foot soldiers, this would be over by mid-day.

  Five hundred yards.

  He would have revenge for the cowardly attack. There was to be no killing before the appointed hour. To attack before then was the lowest form of treachery. These rebels clearly had no honour, and Sorrel Fol’Rudein would make them pay with their blood.

  Four hundred yards.

  Sorrel felt his heart begin to pound in his chest. It was not through fear, but eagerness: the thrill of the advance; the expectation of deeds to come; fervour almost sexual in its potency. He could feel those same emotions building in those around him by the second. It was tangible.

  Three hundred yards.

  They would be quaking now. If the weakness at their knees did not have them turning to flee, then the footfalls of sixty thousand armoured men should shake the ground enough to throw them from their feet. They would know fear before they died.

  Two hundred yards.

  No volleys of arrows yet. At least they were not foolish enough to try and pierce armour at this range, and soon, with shields locked together the Heavy Infantry would render themselves impervious to arrows until they were upon the hapless defenders. On a low tower, behind the foolhardy rebels, a signaller waved his flags in coded message to his captains, their commander at his side, bellowing orders that were drowned out by the sound of the Korathean army.

  One hundred yards.

  Sorrel raised his shield against the threat of archers and watched the line of defenders break. At first he felt a surge as he thought they were fleeing, but they were merely creating gaps in the line to expose…

  What?

  Sorrel almost faltered when he saw what poured from those gaps.

  Scurrilous Blunt bellowed his orders from the low tower. He needn’t have shouted; he was too far away to be heard and the signaller was there to relay those messages by flag.

  “Break the line! To your markers, you lazy dogs!” he yelled.

  At the front of every war engine, a hole appeared in the defensive line, wide enough for the shrewd eyed engineers to fire their ordnance.

  Olimar Bluntis had taken up his position as captain of the mercenary band, and stepped aside just in time to see a massive disc, some five strides across, skim past him and down the gap, blurred by the spin. He felt the wind of its passing and watched as, by some artifice, it maintained its height above the ground towards the approaching Korathean soldiers. It was rimmed with blades and chains, hissing as they passed.

  The gyrating disc sailed lazily towards the enemy no faster than a man could run, and smashed into armour, its rapid rotation transferring overwhelming energy into the Heavy Infantry. Armour buckled and bodies shattered under the weight of the spinning disc and its whirring weaponry. The disc scattered bodies and weapons as it carved its way through the column, finally losing its measured trajectory and bucking into the air when one of the blades bit the ground. It crashed down again, still spinning, on its edge and ploughed on into the side of an adjacent column, crushing and maiming as it went. From his vantage point, at that distance, it looked to Blunt like a wheel thrown from a cart and rolling through a field of young barley, crushing the delicately regimented stems beneath it. It finally came to a stop, balancing on its edge for a moment before falling flat, crushing half a dozen more men.

  A bolt from a massive catapult arced towards the Heavy Infantry, splitting in two as it approached but joined by a chain at the tip. The chain ripped into a column at waist height, tearing the first three rows of men in two while the trailing ends of the bolt whipped round, smashing their steel studded lengths into yet more men.

  Boulders the size of carts rained down on the columns, crushing the slow moving infantry into the soil, bouncing and rolling into others.

  Then, with the normally ordered columns stumbling over the bodies of their dead brothers, and struggling to lock shields with their neighbours, the deadly hail of arrows arrived.

  Sorrel watched in horror as the first whirring, humming disc glided over the ground at chest height and smashed the column to his right. He was struck by flying pieces of armour, some still with body parts in them, and immediately covered in blood. It rang off armour and screeched as it tumbled back out of view leaving carnage in its wake. Then to his left, that column was crushed back by some sort of giant chain weapon. All the while, rocks and great steel boluses too large to fend off crushed men.

  He raised his shield just in time to defend against the volley of arrows that arrived unheeded. He, like all those around him, was too stunned by the shock of the heavy weapons to look beyond that threat. But armour-piercing arrows killed just as surely at this range. He fell to one knee, feeling the arrows drum into his shield, and saw his comrades fall for failing to notice.

  The huge weapons still poured from behind the defenders, smashing dozens at a time, but Sorrel found that with most of his column devastated, he was not constrained by his formation and was able to dodge and duck. It was with some relief that he heard the call to charge, the same shrill three notes played three times over by the trumpeters. There was still nearly a hundred yards to go, heavy work in this armour, b
ut he would have run a hundred miles to face the enemy man-to-man instead of this hellish rain.

  Those around him were clearly of the same mind as they broke formation and charged, bellowing their fury at the enemy. He knew he should save his breath for the fight, but could not suppress a shout of rage. Catapults still launched over the tops of the defenders’ heads, but that ordnance was landing on those behind Sorrel, and he cared little for them now.

  Only revenge.

  Fifty yards.

  The defensive line had closed again. A wall of lightly armoured pikemen stood between the charging Heavy Infantry and the soft throats of those infernal engineers with their cowardly engines. They would be made to suffer.

  Sorrel had fallen behind some of his fellows in the race to draw first blood. The defenders stood firm, each man rooted to the spot; and Sorrel was glad that they would have time to know fear.

  Then a man stepped through from behind the front rank and gracefully trotted towards the Korathean soldiers.

  Unarmoured? Through vision clouded with rage and fatigue, Sorrel watched the man calmly step and weave, stabbing with a dagger in his left hand and thrusting with a shortsword in his right. Every jab found a weak point in armour; the mail at the neck and armpit, sliding the blade under plate to pierce vital organs, and always avoiding the Korathean weapons. As the man worked his way towards Sorrel, the Infantryman prepared to strike him down. He scythed the vicious blade through the air at the man’s midriff, but the fighter easily danced around the attack and drove the dagger upwards into Sorrels throat. Sorrel dropped his sword and tried to grapple with the man even as he died, but his scrabbling hands slid off of his attacker feebly. As he died he thought how odd that man’s face had been: not just for the dark mark that covered the left side, but for the utter lack of emotion evident in his eyes. He could have been herding sheep as much as killing men.

  Merat watched with growing disquiet the ease with which the war engines were killing his men. Even from his meagre vantage point the carnage was evident.