Caillean on the Nexus Battle
I don't remember how we got there, but the memories of the day will live with me forever.
As Lord Hemlock touched his finger to the crystal, tracing the pattern just so, it turned, and we felt the surge of Glamour that heralded the alignment of the trods. We saw the Kithain converge, and we followed, knowing that the battle was nigh. Our steeds awaited us, as Uncle David promised, and I mounted Flame with a familiar creak of saddle-leather. I paced him forward and watched it unfold.
It would have been breathtaking, seeing all of the Kithain assembled on the battlefield. Thousands of them....Knights, Counts and Dukes stood shoulder to shoulder with the Commoners, united by this dark threat. Faerie Steeds pranced and pawed at the earth, waiting for the signal to charge, their barding gleaming in the light of the Dream. Armor clanked and shields were held at the ready as the infantry prepared as well, covering the field before us. The war machines, constructed by Dougal and Nocker alike, hissed and rumbled side by side behind the ranks. It would have been breathtaking, had there not been a shadow cast over the field by our enemy.
On the horizon loomed our foes, growing steadily more repulsive as they approached. Hideous, twisted creations rendered of the darkest of Glamour, their guttural growls and grunts carried to us on the wind, as did the stench of their hides and the chill of their very nature. Their beasts clawed at the earth, and sometimes at their comrades, chafing at being restrained from the fight. Their war machines rumbled forward slowly, sounding not unlike vicious beasts before they sprang.
But that wasn't the worst of it.
Behind it all loomed a dreadful Machine, a tower of stone that rose above the ranks with a crystal atop it that swirled with darkness and malevolence. It was from this stone that a dark cloud of banality emanated, chilling us with its shadow even as it gave the Fomorians the power they needed to take shape in the Dreaming. At the base of this tower was a huge wheel, turned by nearly a hundred Trolls, heavy chains holding them in bondage to their painful task. Their sheer size suggested that they had been turning this wheel for years, knowing nothing but the task, and the whips at their backs should they falter.
The revulsion and rage rose in all of our gorges at the sight of this tableau, but even as we tensed to charge, the banality surged across to us, and with it a wave of despair. How were we to combat a force that was comprised of banality itself? That could enslave the most powerful of us to their dark ambitions? The despair made us falter, and that faltering rocked the earth itself.
The ground rumbled and shook, sending even the most experienced riders to the earth and scattering our troops. I don't know how I managed to keep my seat; perhaps the weight of despair was lighter when not coupled with fear, perhaps it was my experience, perhaps it was my D'an, but the effect of the quake was terrible.
Horses screamed, paddling with broken limbs at the now-cracked earth. Their riders screamed beneath them, struggling to escape. All around there were cries of fear and pain, and to our horror we saw our ranks begin to crumble in the wake of the despair. A few battalions of Kithain clung to their courage and began to advance, but they were in the minority as the destruction grew. The growl of the Fomorians grew to a roar of triumph as they saw our brethren succumb to the fear that emanated from them. I looked to Lord Hemlock, and saw a face as bewildered as mine. How could he command a force that was dissolving before our eyes? How could anyone? I felt the fist of despair begin to tighten around me as well.....
Then it happened.
I don't know what made me turn around, but when I did I saw Nuala. Death-pale, skeletal Nuala, made even more so by the power of the Dreaming, unfurl a glorious banner that shone with the colors of the rainbow. Emblazoned on the banner was the device of the Tuatha de Danaan, and the sight of it filled my heart with triumph, as if we had already won. As Nuala planted the banner into the earth, the earth itself healed, the cracks that the Machine had made sealing, the battlefield leveling in our favor once again. Our troops rallied under the banner, and we turned to face our foes with new determination, all thoughts of desertion banished by the favor of the Tuatha. I looked to my right and saw Brekke hold the lantern Fardir aloft, shining its beacon of light upon our troops. As the light shone on them, the battle cry rang out, and I heard Lord Hemlock call the charge.
The war machines from both sides rained fire on the battle lines, each side trying to do maximum damage as well as destroy the enemy's machines. The infantry charged amid the smoke and flames, shouting death at their foes.
It was begun.
I waited with the cavalry and watched our troops engage the dark forces of the Fomorians in a black and bloody crash. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Brekke, Nuala, Celeste and Chet skirt around the battle and head for the Machine. That was good; if anyone possessed the cunning and resourcefulness to destroy it, it was they. Lord Hemlock, myself....our place was on the battlefield.
The earth beneath the front lines was soaked with blood from both sides of the battle. Swords flashed, teeth gnashed, all around the field rang with a war-torn harmony of battle cries and the screams of the dying. I saw faces, both familiar and monstrous, twisted in hatred, twisted in pain....I, who had never seen true battle before, suddenly found myself in the middle of war. Even as I shuddered, I felt the stirring of remembrance, the part of me that recalled similar battles from another time, another life, and it gave me strength.
Flame pawed at the earth, and I could feel his muscles beneath me, bunching in readiness. I was to wait with my unit for just the right moment to charge, to scatter the line of troops into confusion, unable to reform and regroup. At Lord Hemlock's command, the cavalry looked to me, a fifteen year old Knight for the order to advance. It gave me pause as much as it excited me, I -had- to get this right. Even as I worried, I watched.....there. An unearthly calm settled over me, and though my shout rang through the air all I heard was a whispered
"Now..."
The line of riders thundered towards the enemy, and our foot troops scattered at the sound, leaving the Fomorians momentarily triumphant that they had routed us....then they saw our horses.
My world narrowed at that point to my first opponent, then my next opponent as the first fell under Flame's hooves....then the next....then the next....and endless stream of Fomorians, Thallain, dark chimera. Their blood darkened my blade and splashed me and Flame until we were both slick with it. But we fought on with the rest of them, mindless of anything but the next opponent, until some odd prescience made me look up.
I saw the tower, the horrible tower of the Machine, as it toppled with a shriek of grinding gears and twisted metal. I saw the crystal atop it shatter on the earth, it's power snuffed as sure as the Machine's destruction. And somehow, in my mind's eye, I saw my Oathmates, and their grim satisfaction as they watched it fall.
And then I heard a sound......
It was a cacophony of voices, the triumphant cheers of the Kithain and the pain-filled shrieks of the Fomorians as the banality that sustained their presence in the Dreaming was gone. And a horrible -tearing- sound, as a chasm opened beneath our enemies and sent them spiraling out of the Dreaming in a whirlwind of sound and light....I can't describe it, I just can't. I only know that I'll never hear another sound like it for the rest of my days. Then all was quiet....and it was over.
The quiet was short lived; soon the cries of the wounded rang above the cheers, and the healers were dispatched. I helped where I could, bandaging, splinting....or simply saying goodbye, passing on the messages of the dying and commending their souls to Arcadia. The day belonged to the Kithain, but it was hard-won, and for hours we remained on the battlefield until our bodies were exhausted, our hair and skin crusted with the blood of Fomorian and friend alike.
I found out later what had happened with the Machine. Celeste's sharp eye had enabled her to take out the taskmasters that kept the slaves turning the wheel. Two of the three fell with her crossbow bolts in their eyes, and the other fell beneath the dance of Brekke and her axe, Speaker, and the Trolls that they freed from their hellish task. It was Chet who managed to disable the Machine, tossing a wrench into the heart of the thing in the midst of it all. And it was Bruce, the strange, gleefully repulsive Sluagh that gave us the banner for our triumph. We gave him suspicion, all but one of us, and in return he gave us his life so that the Kithain would win this day.
Were it not for them, my body would have littered that field, as well as the rest of the Kithain who fought that day. Were it not for them, all of Hemlock's glory and command would have been for naught, crushed by the banality of the forces against us. I honor them all, and give thanks to my D'an for leading me to them not long ago. But my heart remains heavy for the losses that were sustained, of the pain that I will remember for years to come.
And what happened then? Well, that's a story for another time.....
No comments:
Post a Comment