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dochermesATRUMO THE CONQUEROR II: The Sharp Edges of Hope
3/12/2015
I.
Valera kept herself visible to everyone as much as possible, knowing her fame made her a valuable rallying point. Along with the absent Sulak and Galvan, she was bearer of the Legacy of Malberon which charged her body with gralic force. Valera looked like a tall, athletic woman in her middle twenties but she was impervious to nearly all physical harm and was strong enough to throw boulders as sport. She had changed into her bright blue arena unform with its white leather boots and gloves, a wide white mantle across her shoulders bearing three vertical red bars showing her rank.
With her golden hair hanging straight past her shoulders and gleaming in the sunlight, Valera paced the walkway atop the outermost of the three concentric semi-circular walls. Behind her, twenty-five feet below on a paved courtyard, the soldiers of the permanent garrison were hustling about their duties. This stronghold normally housed five hundred soldiers, officers and craftsmen, with an additional eighty farmers and herdsmen who lived in cottages around the fortress.
Directly behind the stronghold, the Bulgane Mountains themselves loomed up more than a thousand feet high. Jagged raw peaks topped sheer cliffs that had never been successfully climbed, the mountains extended for miles in either direction before dropping down to become less imposing terrain. With the mountains as a backing and the rest of the valley all cultivated farmland and grazing fields, the fortress had been planned to offer any attacks no cover. Bulgane had been built during the initial occupation of Evaho by the Melgarin to defend against the native Cojobe.
Valera glanced down at the courtyard behind her where a handful of the Androval officers were conferring with one of her teammates. Josef Jubilec was a Blind Archer of Chujir, the most dreaded counter-assassins in the Midnight War. He was a lean, even gaunt man with short sandy hair and an unreadable poker face that gave away nothing of what he thought. Next to him was a short wheeled cart he had brought with him from the outside world. It held one hundred arrows in vertical slots for instant access, as well as a second yew longbow which matched the one he seldom let be out of reach. Across his back was a Y-shaped leather quiver holding twenty of the steel-tipped arrows. Seeing how well-prepared he was reassured Valera. She knew and respected his capabilities.
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a dark figure trotting briskly up the steps from the courtyard. Jeremy Bane was wearing the black KDF field suit with its inner layer of flexible Trom armor. Tucked in the crook of one arm was his visored helmet. Even under peaceful circumstances, his pale eyes were stern but at the moment they were quite intimidating.
"How are you doing, Princess?" he asked.
As the youngest daughter of King Holmir, she was in fact a princess but Valera didn't care much for the title and never insisted on it. "I don't know what's worse," she answered, "if those Ghulgol attack here or if they attack some other realm where we're not present to help fight them."
"I know what you mean," he responded. "Our teams are scattered in the adjacent realms where we think they're most likely to invade. And I've called in as many of our allies as we can find. The Seven Swords are in Colegdar, Tang Ming and Sheng are on alert in Chujir. Megan and Jocelyn are in Signarm, Galvan and Jin went to Zheka. Even Gornak is standing by if we call him."
She glanced back around the courtyard. "Where's Timothy? I haven't seen him for a while."
"I gave him our travel crystal," said the Dire Wolf. "Tim is hopping from one realm to another to keep everyone up to date. I really wish there was a way to communicate between realms but there isn't. In most of the realms, modern technology won't function at all or I would have brought a truckload of assault rifles and grenades here. Not even a flashlight will work in Evaho."
Valera abruptly straightened and stabbed a finger out toward the north. "Horsemen! Looks like at least a dozen! They're Melgarin! They're my people!"
As Bane leaned forward to see for himself, Valera leaped down from the wall. She dropped twenty-five feet to land on the flagstone courtyard as casually as if stepping down off the bottom rung of a ladder. The startled garrison offices stared openly. They knew of her abilities but hadn't actually seen her in action before.
The huge front gate was secured by a bolt thicker than a Human body. It took several men pulling on the ropes secured to it to draw the bolt but Valera simply reached up and slid it to one side and then pulled the massive gate inward without seeming effort. Soldiers in their mail coats over leather tunics stopped short, having expected that she would need their help. A minute later, ten Melgarin came through the gate, both riders and horses stricken with arrows standing up from their bodies. One horseman fell from his saddle, dying as he hit the ground. From all directions, soldiers rushed to help.
Being assisted down from his horse, pressing one hand in a vain attempt to stanch the bleeding from his side, General Fanthor yelled, "They're coming! There are thousands of them!" Valera slammed the gate shut and drew the bolt closed without pausing to confirm his words.
Atop the outmost wall, Bane shouted, "There it is! The Yellow Fog!"
II.
Seeing a vast horde of thr unliving covering the fields, Valera said, "So much for seeing tomorrow's dawn."
Bane could not keep disapproval from his voice. "It isn't over yet, Princess."
"Ah, the sharp edges of hope. But you are right, Jeremy. It is those living filth who should fear us." She held out her hand. From where it had been leaning against a post, the six foot spear Shai Tazam whirled through the air by itself to slap into her grasp. "My Brightbolt has not lost its fighting spirit."
Atrumo's forces overran the first line of defense. Led by Josef, the Melgar defenders launched one volley of well-aimed arrows after another, but the attackers' numbers were so great that they literally scrambled over stacks of their own fallen to press on. The invaders had to attack immediately because Ghulgol lacked enough discipline to maintain any attempt at a siege. But they were capable of crawling rapidly up the sheer walls like spiders.
Skirmishing commenced with a first attempt at breaking the gate with a wheeled iron ram, but this was repelled by vats of boiling oil being poured down on the Ghulgol from above. Large rocks and timbers were also flung down with deadly effect but it seemed that for every Ghulgol killed, three more were eager to take his place. The monsters did not feel pain in the slightest and did not even seem aware at first of having lost an arm or leg.
Most unnerving of all was that the Ghulgol laughed constantly, as if they found the carnage unbearably amusing. This was not a forced effor but simply the way their unliving minds worked.
Valera was moving quickly along the top of the wall, swinging her spear Shai Tazam as a bludgeon or a blade as needed. Bane was weilding his matched daggers. Because they were made of the ensalir silver blessed by the immortal Eldanarin, the slightest scratch from them negated the spell animating the Ghulgols, who fell apart into vile sludge on contact.
Unnoticed by either attackers or defenders, a flash of blue light flared and Timothy Limbo appeared on the inmost wall for the barest second before he used the Eldanar travel crystal to vanish again.
III.
The next assault using ladders, coordinated with some Ghulgol appearing atop the wall via Yellow Fog, failed. The second wall was breached with splashes of a potent Alchemical corrosive mist which opened a hole fifteen feet across in the stone. The defenders were forced to retreat from the second to the third line of defense. The number of Melgarin slain was mounting rapidly.
IV.
The Gate to the citadel was breached by another Alchemical potion which degraded the wood into soft pulp but the surge of Ghulgol into the building was countercharged decisively by the remaining Melgarin, led by Bane and Valera. Josef was most effective scurrying along the third wall, snatching up arrows that had been fired by the Ghulgols and using them against the creatures.
Atrumo's forces were driven inch by inch all the way back to the first line and eventually back outside the walls entirely. The defenders found themselves encircled by thousands of Ghulgol and even the Melgarin's prowess was not enough to keep from being swarmed. Because even an ordinary Melgar was stronger and hardier than a Human, they held their own against the cackling horde longer than seemed possible. The Ghulgol had little fighting skill and no discipline but their numbers and savagery made up for that.
V.
Even seething with bloodlust and with triumph at hand, many of the Human soldiers and Ghulgol paused as they felt a thumping in the ground beneath their feet. What was that rhythmic thunder from behind them? Those at the rear of the fighting turned to see their doom.
Galloping swifter than eagles were twelve hundred Melgar riders on the great war horses bred for thousands of years. Virtually tireless, virtually fearless, those steeds would charge any enemy. The Melgarin wore burnished steel breastplates over leather garments, with spiked helmets and with round bucklers on their left arms. All had their long lances couched and ready as they charged. In the forefront, unarmed and unarmored in his blue arena uniform, rode Sulak. The Champion roared in a deep voice that drowned out the fighting, "Death! Death to the foes of Androval!" and the Melgarin knights echoed his cry.
Before the Ghulgol seemed to care nothing for their own safety and recklessly threw their lives away to get a better strike at their enemies. But before those mighty beasts and that bristling storm of steel tipped lances rushing at them, the Ghulgol shrieked in utter panic and made little attempt to defend themselves. They tangled each other up in their attempts to run off in every direction. The riders of Androval trampled them under their hooves as if they were mere blades of grass. The crunching and screaming and plunging of lances through moist bodies was a sound never to be forgotten.
Riding among the Melgarin was the slight figure of Timothy Limbo. As soon as he had seen the battle, he had returned to Androval where he knew Sulak was waiting.
Leaping off his mount directly into the enemy, Sulak became a blur of tight precise motion. Every time his fists struck, Ghulgol heads flew apart and chests caved in, but the crude weapons of the monsters bent or broke entirely against his body. Like Valera, Sulak's every cell was charged with immense gralic force that made him as close to being indestructible as flesh and blood could be. His strength was difficult to measure. Sulak had been known to crush stone in his hands and to uproot oak trees without strain. The Ghulgol could not even slow him down.
Brandishing her own spear, Valera shouted, "Androval! Androval!" and the bloodied battered Dire Wolf grinned fiercely. The desperate gamble to locate Sulak and have him mobilize Androval knights had paid off. More than a thousand armored riders had appeared by god-gates less than a mile away and had charged full tilt the whole way. Careful not to get run down themselves, Valera and Bane resumed cutting down the panic-crazed soldiers of Atrumo.
The defeat turned into a complete rout as the human soldiers tried to surrender and the Ghulgol were utterly slaughtered. The fighting mad Melgarin were not inclined for the most part to take prisoners. But their vastly greater numbers did not help the invaders Confused and disorganized, the vile creatures sought only escape from the crushing hooves and the bright slashing curved swords that struck them down.
An estimated eight thousand Ghulgol died throughout the course of the battle, with perhaps five hundred Human soldiers, but exact numbers would never be known. So many of the creatures collapsed into thick heaps of sludge upon death that the remains blended together in nauseating pools.
Eventually, only dead and dying Ghulgol remained piled on the ground. Nothing would ever grow again where those foul bodies had soaked into the earth.Most of the Human invaders fled back out of the valley. Sulak led his cavalry to see if they could track down those of the enemy who had fled.
Valera's arena uniform hung in tatters that barely provided decency and she was splattered with black tarlike blood from the enemy. When she leaned on her spear for support, her teammates realized it was the first time they had ever seen her weary from exertion. The Melgar princess still managed a grin of triumph. "Watching another dawn will indeed be sweet."
The surviving soldiers were obviously exhausted. Many dropped down to sit panting on the ground, binding their wounds as best they might, while a few stayed alert in case the Ghulgol might return. One officer slowly made the rounds to identify the dead, grief plainly visible on his face.
Josef Jubilec joined them, raising the black silk blindfold. He had not even been scratched during the fighting. His reflexes and perception had enabled him to sway so that enemy arrows missed him by an inch each time. But Timothy Limbo was limping badly and using a shattered Lance as a crutch. He explained to his partners how he had returned for an instant during the battle and then immediately gated to Androval to fetch Sulak and the cavalry.
Bane carefully cleaned his daggers before sheathing them, coldly furious that they still had not even laid eyes on Atrumo. To himself, he swore to find the renegade Melgar and end his threat permanently. To his fellow Tel Shai knights, he said only, "When Sulak returns, we'll have a quick debriefing. Then I'll have to go from realm to realm and tell our teams what happened. They'll be able to go off alert and return home."
"I could use a hot shower and a few day's sleep," Timothy grumbled. "Even with the Trom armor, I feel like one giant bruise. I think I tore a tendon in my leg."
Valera said, "I will remain here to observe my people's customs."
"You're right," agreed the Dire Wolf. "We need to show respect, too. All of us will come back here tonight to toast those who gave their lives here."
12/22/2022
3/12/2015
I.
Valera kept herself visible to everyone as much as possible, knowing her fame made her a valuable rallying point. Along with the absent Sulak and Galvan, she was bearer of the Legacy of Malberon which charged her body with gralic force. Valera looked like a tall, athletic woman in her middle twenties but she was impervious to nearly all physical harm and was strong enough to throw boulders as sport. She had changed into her bright blue arena unform with its white leather boots and gloves, a wide white mantle across her shoulders bearing three vertical red bars showing her rank.
With her golden hair hanging straight past her shoulders and gleaming in the sunlight, Valera paced the walkway atop the outermost of the three concentric semi-circular walls. Behind her, twenty-five feet below on a paved courtyard, the soldiers of the permanent garrison were hustling about their duties. This stronghold normally housed five hundred soldiers, officers and craftsmen, with an additional eighty farmers and herdsmen who lived in cottages around the fortress.
Directly behind the stronghold, the Bulgane Mountains themselves loomed up more than a thousand feet high. Jagged raw peaks topped sheer cliffs that had never been successfully climbed, the mountains extended for miles in either direction before dropping down to become less imposing terrain. With the mountains as a backing and the rest of the valley all cultivated farmland and grazing fields, the fortress had been planned to offer any attacks no cover. Bulgane had been built during the initial occupation of Evaho by the Melgarin to defend against the native Cojobe.
Valera glanced down at the courtyard behind her where a handful of the Androval officers were conferring with one of her teammates. Josef Jubilec was a Blind Archer of Chujir, the most dreaded counter-assassins in the Midnight War. He was a lean, even gaunt man with short sandy hair and an unreadable poker face that gave away nothing of what he thought. Next to him was a short wheeled cart he had brought with him from the outside world. It held one hundred arrows in vertical slots for instant access, as well as a second yew longbow which matched the one he seldom let be out of reach. Across his back was a Y-shaped leather quiver holding twenty of the steel-tipped arrows. Seeing how well-prepared he was reassured Valera. She knew and respected his capabilities.
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a dark figure trotting briskly up the steps from the courtyard. Jeremy Bane was wearing the black KDF field suit with its inner layer of flexible Trom armor. Tucked in the crook of one arm was his visored helmet. Even under peaceful circumstances, his pale eyes were stern but at the moment they were quite intimidating.
"How are you doing, Princess?" he asked.
As the youngest daughter of King Holmir, she was in fact a princess but Valera didn't care much for the title and never insisted on it. "I don't know what's worse," she answered, "if those Ghulgol attack here or if they attack some other realm where we're not present to help fight them."
"I know what you mean," he responded. "Our teams are scattered in the adjacent realms where we think they're most likely to invade. And I've called in as many of our allies as we can find. The Seven Swords are in Colegdar, Tang Ming and Sheng are on alert in Chujir. Megan and Jocelyn are in Signarm, Galvan and Jin went to Zheka. Even Gornak is standing by if we call him."
She glanced back around the courtyard. "Where's Timothy? I haven't seen him for a while."
"I gave him our travel crystal," said the Dire Wolf. "Tim is hopping from one realm to another to keep everyone up to date. I really wish there was a way to communicate between realms but there isn't. In most of the realms, modern technology won't function at all or I would have brought a truckload of assault rifles and grenades here. Not even a flashlight will work in Evaho."
Valera abruptly straightened and stabbed a finger out toward the north. "Horsemen! Looks like at least a dozen! They're Melgarin! They're my people!"
As Bane leaned forward to see for himself, Valera leaped down from the wall. She dropped twenty-five feet to land on the flagstone courtyard as casually as if stepping down off the bottom rung of a ladder. The startled garrison offices stared openly. They knew of her abilities but hadn't actually seen her in action before.
The huge front gate was secured by a bolt thicker than a Human body. It took several men pulling on the ropes secured to it to draw the bolt but Valera simply reached up and slid it to one side and then pulled the massive gate inward without seeming effort. Soldiers in their mail coats over leather tunics stopped short, having expected that she would need their help. A minute later, ten Melgarin came through the gate, both riders and horses stricken with arrows standing up from their bodies. One horseman fell from his saddle, dying as he hit the ground. From all directions, soldiers rushed to help.
Being assisted down from his horse, pressing one hand in a vain attempt to stanch the bleeding from his side, General Fanthor yelled, "They're coming! There are thousands of them!" Valera slammed the gate shut and drew the bolt closed without pausing to confirm his words.
Atop the outmost wall, Bane shouted, "There it is! The Yellow Fog!"
II.
Seeing a vast horde of thr unliving covering the fields, Valera said, "So much for seeing tomorrow's dawn."
Bane could not keep disapproval from his voice. "It isn't over yet, Princess."
"Ah, the sharp edges of hope. But you are right, Jeremy. It is those living filth who should fear us." She held out her hand. From where it had been leaning against a post, the six foot spear Shai Tazam whirled through the air by itself to slap into her grasp. "My Brightbolt has not lost its fighting spirit."
Atrumo's forces overran the first line of defense. Led by Josef, the Melgar defenders launched one volley of well-aimed arrows after another, but the attackers' numbers were so great that they literally scrambled over stacks of their own fallen to press on. The invaders had to attack immediately because Ghulgol lacked enough discipline to maintain any attempt at a siege. But they were capable of crawling rapidly up the sheer walls like spiders.
Skirmishing commenced with a first attempt at breaking the gate with a wheeled iron ram, but this was repelled by vats of boiling oil being poured down on the Ghulgol from above. Large rocks and timbers were also flung down with deadly effect but it seemed that for every Ghulgol killed, three more were eager to take his place. The monsters did not feel pain in the slightest and did not even seem aware at first of having lost an arm or leg.
Most unnerving of all was that the Ghulgol laughed constantly, as if they found the carnage unbearably amusing. This was not a forced effor but simply the way their unliving minds worked.
Valera was moving quickly along the top of the wall, swinging her spear Shai Tazam as a bludgeon or a blade as needed. Bane was weilding his matched daggers. Because they were made of the ensalir silver blessed by the immortal Eldanarin, the slightest scratch from them negated the spell animating the Ghulgols, who fell apart into vile sludge on contact.
Unnoticed by either attackers or defenders, a flash of blue light flared and Timothy Limbo appeared on the inmost wall for the barest second before he used the Eldanar travel crystal to vanish again.
III.
The next assault using ladders, coordinated with some Ghulgol appearing atop the wall via Yellow Fog, failed. The second wall was breached with splashes of a potent Alchemical corrosive mist which opened a hole fifteen feet across in the stone. The defenders were forced to retreat from the second to the third line of defense. The number of Melgarin slain was mounting rapidly.
IV.
The Gate to the citadel was breached by another Alchemical potion which degraded the wood into soft pulp but the surge of Ghulgol into the building was countercharged decisively by the remaining Melgarin, led by Bane and Valera. Josef was most effective scurrying along the third wall, snatching up arrows that had been fired by the Ghulgols and using them against the creatures.
Atrumo's forces were driven inch by inch all the way back to the first line and eventually back outside the walls entirely. The defenders found themselves encircled by thousands of Ghulgol and even the Melgarin's prowess was not enough to keep from being swarmed. Because even an ordinary Melgar was stronger and hardier than a Human, they held their own against the cackling horde longer than seemed possible. The Ghulgol had little fighting skill and no discipline but their numbers and savagery made up for that.
V.
Even seething with bloodlust and with triumph at hand, many of the Human soldiers and Ghulgol paused as they felt a thumping in the ground beneath their feet. What was that rhythmic thunder from behind them? Those at the rear of the fighting turned to see their doom.
Galloping swifter than eagles were twelve hundred Melgar riders on the great war horses bred for thousands of years. Virtually tireless, virtually fearless, those steeds would charge any enemy. The Melgarin wore burnished steel breastplates over leather garments, with spiked helmets and with round bucklers on their left arms. All had their long lances couched and ready as they charged. In the forefront, unarmed and unarmored in his blue arena uniform, rode Sulak. The Champion roared in a deep voice that drowned out the fighting, "Death! Death to the foes of Androval!" and the Melgarin knights echoed his cry.
Before the Ghulgol seemed to care nothing for their own safety and recklessly threw their lives away to get a better strike at their enemies. But before those mighty beasts and that bristling storm of steel tipped lances rushing at them, the Ghulgol shrieked in utter panic and made little attempt to defend themselves. They tangled each other up in their attempts to run off in every direction. The riders of Androval trampled them under their hooves as if they were mere blades of grass. The crunching and screaming and plunging of lances through moist bodies was a sound never to be forgotten.
Riding among the Melgarin was the slight figure of Timothy Limbo. As soon as he had seen the battle, he had returned to Androval where he knew Sulak was waiting.
Leaping off his mount directly into the enemy, Sulak became a blur of tight precise motion. Every time his fists struck, Ghulgol heads flew apart and chests caved in, but the crude weapons of the monsters bent or broke entirely against his body. Like Valera, Sulak's every cell was charged with immense gralic force that made him as close to being indestructible as flesh and blood could be. His strength was difficult to measure. Sulak had been known to crush stone in his hands and to uproot oak trees without strain. The Ghulgol could not even slow him down.
Brandishing her own spear, Valera shouted, "Androval! Androval!" and the bloodied battered Dire Wolf grinned fiercely. The desperate gamble to locate Sulak and have him mobilize Androval knights had paid off. More than a thousand armored riders had appeared by god-gates less than a mile away and had charged full tilt the whole way. Careful not to get run down themselves, Valera and Bane resumed cutting down the panic-crazed soldiers of Atrumo.
The defeat turned into a complete rout as the human soldiers tried to surrender and the Ghulgol were utterly slaughtered. The fighting mad Melgarin were not inclined for the most part to take prisoners. But their vastly greater numbers did not help the invaders Confused and disorganized, the vile creatures sought only escape from the crushing hooves and the bright slashing curved swords that struck them down.
An estimated eight thousand Ghulgol died throughout the course of the battle, with perhaps five hundred Human soldiers, but exact numbers would never be known. So many of the creatures collapsed into thick heaps of sludge upon death that the remains blended together in nauseating pools.
Eventually, only dead and dying Ghulgol remained piled on the ground. Nothing would ever grow again where those foul bodies had soaked into the earth.Most of the Human invaders fled back out of the valley. Sulak led his cavalry to see if they could track down those of the enemy who had fled.
Valera's arena uniform hung in tatters that barely provided decency and she was splattered with black tarlike blood from the enemy. When she leaned on her spear for support, her teammates realized it was the first time they had ever seen her weary from exertion. The Melgar princess still managed a grin of triumph. "Watching another dawn will indeed be sweet."
The surviving soldiers were obviously exhausted. Many dropped down to sit panting on the ground, binding their wounds as best they might, while a few stayed alert in case the Ghulgol might return. One officer slowly made the rounds to identify the dead, grief plainly visible on his face.
Josef Jubilec joined them, raising the black silk blindfold. He had not even been scratched during the fighting. His reflexes and perception had enabled him to sway so that enemy arrows missed him by an inch each time. But Timothy Limbo was limping badly and using a shattered Lance as a crutch. He explained to his partners how he had returned for an instant during the battle and then immediately gated to Androval to fetch Sulak and the cavalry.
Bane carefully cleaned his daggers before sheathing them, coldly furious that they still had not even laid eyes on Atrumo. To himself, he swore to find the renegade Melgar and end his threat permanently. To his fellow Tel Shai knights, he said only, "When Sulak returns, we'll have a quick debriefing. Then I'll have to go from realm to realm and tell our teams what happened. They'll be able to go off alert and return home."
"I could use a hot shower and a few day's sleep," Timothy grumbled. "Even with the Trom armor, I feel like one giant bruise. I think I tore a tendon in my leg."
Valera said, "I will remain here to observe my people's customs."
"You're right," agreed the Dire Wolf. "We need to show respect, too. All of us will come back here tonight to toast those who gave their lives here."
12/22/2022
