A Kingdom Under Siege Read online

  “We cannot wait any longer, Grady. You know it as well as I do.” Kwai-Lan’s tone was resolute. “The trap is set. We must now add the bait and attack when the monsters appear.”

  Grady ran a hand over his balding head, his eyes searching those of his Vallerton neighbors – men who had come to rely on his leadership. “What say you, men? Are you ready for this fight?”

  The men eyed each other in silence until Tindle cleared his throat.

  “Will it work? Can we kill them?” Tindle looked down, his long blond hair falling over his face as he spoke toward the ground. “I…I don’t want to die.”

  Grady put his thick hand on Tindle’s shoulder, his tone somber. “I cannot promise anything. We have done our best to prepare…” He turned and met Rena’s gaze. “And we have magic on our side. Perhaps it gives us a chance.”

  Rena turned away, her breath coming in rapid gasps. She tried to calm herself, but she could not stop imagining the entire village dead, torn apart by the monsters waiting outside…everyone betrayed by the monster lurking inside her.

  The night was still, no movement but a thin swirl of fog with each exhalation. Bilchard stood beside Rena, holding his wool cloak tight against the chill. Beneath the cloak, the tall wildcat wore his full armor.

  To Rena’s other side, Nalah leaned on a massive bow, thick and matching her in height. Arrows the size of ballista bolts stood beside the bow, the arrow points soaking in a bucket of naphtha. Rena pinched her nose to the smell of the accelerant.

  The trio stood atop the second-story inn roof. Waiting.

  It was dark, but the snow-covered ground made it easy to see the outline of the buildings across the street. To the south, a fire simmered in the middle of the road, the coals still hot. A metal stake stuck up from the frozen ground a few strides from the fire. There, a tethered goat stared nervously toward the darkness, bleating in fear. Even the goat realizes this is madness, Rena thought.

  Just past the fire was a barricade, standing two stories tall and connecting the houses on each side of the road. Similarly, the gap between every building on both sides of the street had been walled off, leaving the road from the north as the only way in.

  The destroyed smithy, or what remained of it, stood just behind the barricade. Beyond the smithy was the keep. That was where they were to go if anything went wrong. Rena prayed it wouldn’t come to that. She shivered when she recalled the mad constable who still lived there. Am I going mad as well? Will I become like Hardy? Somehow, the thought seemed worse than the idea of monsters eating her. Monsters. She could think of no better term than what they were to face. We have all gone mad for intentionally seeking out these beasts rather than fleeing.

  A call in the distance drew her attention. Moments later, two forms materialized from the night, tromping through snow as they ran into town. The men stationed on the rooftops across the road leaned forward as they watched Kwai-Lan and Kirk hurry toward the inn. Kwai-Lan stopped before the door and turned toward the waiting men, cupping his hands around his mouth.

  “Ready yourself,” he bellowed. “The lure is in place!”

  Kwai-Lan disappeared into the building. Moments later, Kirk emerged from the trap door they had cut in the roof, and Kwai-Lan followed soon after.

  Although Kwai-Lan was short of stature, the man was a weapon master and had more fighting experience than everyone else combined. His knowledge and skills were why he had been chosen to lead the expedition.

  The weapon master addressed the three wardens before him. “The stew is in place, simmering on coals. If things go as planned, the scent will draw them soon. When they reach town, they will go after the goat. When they do, we strike.” Kwai-Lan turned toward the tallest person in the group. “Are you prepared for this, Bilchard?”

  Bilchard, whose face was now covered by the patchy blond scruff of two-week growth, nodded. “I’ve been training hard, sir. I’m ready.”

  Kwai-Lan’s voice lowered. “Combat training and fighting rabid monsters differ greatly. Both a puddle and a storm are wet, but there is little to fear from a puddle.”

  “I’ll…do my best.”

  Kwai-Lan patted Bilchard’s shoulder. “That’s all we can ask.”

  Kirk squatted near the roof edge and looked down. “Thank Issal there is no wind tonight. It’s cold, but not as bad as it would be with a breeze.”

  “The lack of wind will make it easier to aim as well,” Nalah noted as she eyed her bow.

  Rena found her gaze drawn toward the dark end of the road, where she imagined monsters charging in from the darkness. She had heard stories about them – massive, psychotic rabbits with glowing red eyes. Images of the beasts tearing people apart arose in her mind, leaving phantom torn limbs on the street below.

  A hand on her shoulder made her jump with a start, drawing her back to reality. “Are you well, Rena?” Kwai-Lan asked.

  She shook her head. “It’s…nothing.”

  “You are the only arcanist we have. The only healer as well. I need you to focus and prepare yourself.”

  “I know.”

  “What I ask of you…it’s dangerous.”

  “Yes. It is a path only for the desperate. I believe this situation qualifies.”

  He nodded. “Stay away from the eaves. Distance is what will keep you alive. Besides, if you push too far, you are likely to faint, which would be bad if you were standing near the edge.”

  Rena took a deep breath, hoping she might inhale some courage. The cold air instead chilled her lungs and fed the fear inside her. Finally, she nodded and he stepped away.

  Her gaze shifted to the weapons piled atop the roof: spears made from long saplings sharpened to a point, rocks the size of her head, and arrows three times the diameter and length of a normal arrow. Naphtha from the mining tunnels had been painted on the spears. Heat runes marked each of the rocks, two dozen in total. Rena couldn’t imagine holding enough Chaos to charge them all, yet she was the only arcanist they had. These people have no chance without my help. Even then, what hope do we have?

  A gasp from Nalah sent a chill down Rena’s spine. She looked down the road as black shapes entered town, moving in fits and spurts. Their eyes glowed red, but otherwise the monsters appeared like nothing more than vastly overgrown rabbits – rabbits the size of bears. More rabbits emerged from the shadows, all advancing with caution. The bleating goat began to frantically tug at the rope around its neck.

  “May Issal strike me blind,” Kirk swore. “There must be a dozen of those things.”

  “Rena, it’s time.” Kwai-Lan said, his tone grim, his attention focused on the approaching monsters below.

  With the terror Rena felt inside, reaching for Chaos was as simple as drawing a breath. A torrent of raging energy filled her. She held it for a moment and wondered how long she could do so until it tore her apart. Her gaze fell on the symbol drawn on the back of her hand – a rune she had never tested before, a rune that carried a heavy price.

  She released the energy into the Stamina rune and it began to glow. Exhaustion replaced the Chaos as it flowed out from her, leaving her weak and her breathing ragged. The glow pulsed and faded from the rune. An icy shock of cold ran through her, causing her back to arch and her eyes to bulge. It then dissipated as quickly as it had risen, a warmth rushing through her as if she had just slipped into a warm bath.

  Rena instantly felt…refreshed. In fact, she felt wonderful. Turning toward Bilchard, she again reached for Chaos and, amazingly, it did not slip away.

  “By Issal’s breath,” Kirk swore again. “Look at them all.”

  With the Chaos expended and the rune on Bilchard’s cheek glowing, Rena turned toward the road. The breath caught in her throat.

  A tide of blackness rushed into Vallerton, amid which were hundreds of glowing red eyes. The monstrous rabbits rushed in, filling the street in a moment. Crazed and frenetic, they weaved about, smashed into walls, and broke windows as the swarm headed toward the frightened goat.

/>   “Bilchard, the tree!” Kwai-Lan ordered.

  “Right!”

  Bilchard jumped to the next building and continued north, hopping from building to building in Chaos-powered leaps.

  Kwai-Lan gripped Rena’s shoulder and spun her toward him. “Charge us. Now!”

  She nodded, grasping her fear and drawing Chaos in before charging the Power rune on the man’s head. Without pause, she drew in Chaos and charged Kirk before moving on to Nalah.

  The fore of the monsters reached the goat as its bleats became high-pitched with fear. The beasts at the front attacked the goat as one, tearing it apart in seconds. By then, the entire herd had entered town, rapidly filling the space between town’s edge and the barricade.

  To the north, Bilchard carried the massive pine they had cut down the previous day. Moving with haste, he laid it across the road and then disappeared.

  “Kirk, Nalah. Loose!” Kwai-Lan shouted.

  The combat master then hefted a ten-foot long spear and launched it toward the mass of monsters. With strength augmented by a Power rune, the spear became a missile, skewering the monster through the back and pinning it to the ground. The beast fought to break free but the effort was futile. Kirk joined Kwai-Lan, throwing spear after spear toward the mass of monsters below. Nalah joined them, using her oversized bow to launch thick, naphtha-coated arrows into the horde.

  Bilchard landed on the roof just two strides from Rena, startling her. He was panting, his breath coming out in thick puffs of steam. Their eyes met and he nodded.

  “I’m ready.”

  The tall wildcat then picked up one of the rocks and spun it so the Heat rune faced her. Two seconds later, the symbol was glowing red with Chaos. Bilchard cocked his arm back, turned north, and took aim. With a grunt, he heaved the rock and it burst into white flame, lighting the night as it sailed toward the far end of town. It landed just before the downed pine and crashed into it. The dead tree lit immediately, the intense heat of the rock turning the tree into an inferno that blocked the road and sealed the trap.

  Bending to grab another boulder, Bilchard held it toward Rena as she charged it. He then threw the boulder toward the milling mass of monstrous rabbits. The rock burst into flames and smashed into a rabbit, crushing the beast before it bounced into the next monster and set it aflame. Terrifying, high-pitched squeals arose from the rabbits as they frantically tried to escape the flames.

  As Kwai-Lan and Kirk continued to launch spears, Nalah fired arrows into the mob below. When fire reached the naphtha-covered weapons they would instantly ignite, burning hot and fast. The panicking rabbits began to climb atop one another, jumping up to reach the second-story roofs. Men stationed on rooftops urgently used long poles to shove the rabbits away. One of the beasts reached the top of the roof across the street and Grady attacked it, smashing the rabbit in the eye with an axe.

  All the while, Rena continued to charge Heat runes drawn on rocks that Bilchard then threw at the monsters. The barricade at the south end caught fire, as did one of the buildings across the street. Black smoke filled the air, causing Rena to cough and cover her face, but she continued to charge runes as the others desperately fought to keep the monsters corralled. The squeals grew in volume, and the monsters began to furiously slam into surrounding buildings. Massive thumps came from the inn below Rena’s feet and she staggered. The melee grew more intense, the smoke thickening, the squeals pealing loudly, the building shaking violently.

  A massive crack came from the building across the street, and it collapsed. The men stationed on the roof screamed as they tumbled into the mass of burning monsters. Everywhere Rena looked, buildings and monsters were on fire while black smoke rose into the orange-lit sky. Structures were collapsing, roofs caving in, lives ending.

  Weakness wracked Rena’s body – an exhaustion causing her to fall on her hands and knees, her vision turning to spots. She wobbled in a haze of smoke and weariness, struggling against the invading darkness.

  “Everyone off the roof!” Kwai-Lan shouted in alarm. “Now!”

  The others turned and leaped away to land somewhere behind the building. Rena tried to crawl but fell on her side, her face striking the rooftop. Kwai-Lan appeared, standing over her.

  “I’m here, Rena,” he said, reaching toward her.

  A loud crack came from below, the shock of it causing Kwai-Lan to stumble. The building beneath them shook again and collapsed.

  Rena felt herself fall into the abyss, the darkness consuming her. Death beckoned as her nightmares welcomed her, enveloping her in a chilling embrace bereft of hope or light or love.

  3

  Despair

  Death was cold – cold and lonely – much like the box Rena’s father had locked her in when she was nine years old. Trapped in that dark box, she had feared she would never see the sun again. This box was worse, nebulous and undefined, leaving her unable to grasp its nature. She pounded on invisible walls and screamed in silence. It wasn’t that she believed she might escape. There was no escape from death. Rather, she wished to discover if the afterlife had anything more to offer. Other than despair, she found nothing.

  She grew aware of a light and realized it had been there for some time, hanging dimly at the edge of her vision. Slowly, the light shifted until it was directly before her, bright and intense and…warm.

  The heat of the light soothed the side of her face. It felt like…life. Is this Issal? Has god come for me? Will he judge me for what I’ve done – for what I am? Rena knew condemnation would follow such a judgement. She was evil. Her father had been sure to hammer that truth into her brain.

  Something wet dropped into her eye and caused her to blink. She opened her eyes to the morning sun shining on the right side of her face. A drop of cold water ran down one cheek as another drip landed on the bridge of her nose. Snowmelt, she thought.

  When she tried to move, she found it very difficult. Something, no, someone lay on top of her, limp and heavy, weighing her down. She tried to shift toward the sun, but something sticking up beside her prevented it. Feeling it with her hand, she found it to be wood, damp and sticky. Sliding away from it, she was able to pull herself from beneath the other person and roll onto her stomach, jerking her hand away when a splinter impaled her palm. She pulled it free and tossed the shard of wood aside. Broken and charred boards surrounded her, jutting up in every direction.

  When she spun around, she found Kwai-Lan staring at her, his gaze lifeless. A broken board, the end covered in blood, stuck up from the man’s back. Rena realized that he had fallen with her when the roof collapsed and ended up on top of her. Somehow, she had survived, despite the fall, the fire, and the cold weather.

  Rising to her feet, Rena studied what remained of Vallerton.

  Most of the buildings had collapsed and burned. The barricade was nothing but a pile of charred wood, similar to the front wall of the inn. The charred remains of the monstrous rabbits littered the street, many pinned to the ground, others lying atop one another in piles, charred and pink with burns and occasional patches of black fur. Nothing stirred. There was no sound, not even the wind. Rena found herself wondering if anyone had survived. She didn’t even know how long she had slept. A jolt of terror shook her core when she realized that the survivors might have already left town, thinking her dead.

  Alone. I can’t be alone.

  With a sense of urgency, she climbed from the wreckage, over what was left of the blackened front porch, and onto the gravel road. The snow was gone from the area, melted away by the fire. She picked her way through the slain animals, unnaturally oversized but now appearing as innocent as any other rabbit. Seeing them in the daylight, she found their numbers beyond what she had anticipated, exceeding a hundred in total.

  Dead men lay among the monsters – or parts of men in some cases. Bloody, broken, burned, every one she passed was undoubtedly dead. The bright sun above seemed out of place amid such horror.

  A pile of ash is all that remained of th
e massive tree they had set ablaze. The heat of the Chaos-charged rock, coupled with the naphtha applied to the trunk, had fed the inferno and left less behind than one might expect. The rock, so blackened it seemed to absorb the surrounding light, lay among those ashes like a marker for the pyre that had consumed the tree.

  Once she was thirty feet beyond the remains of the tree, she found the road covered in snow – snow filled with massive rabbit tracks.

  She followed the road to the intersection and turned east, stepping in the tracks created by frequent trips between town and the mines while the men were constructing the trap. Despite the surrounding snow, the sun was warming her and causing the surrounding pines to drop white clumps from their boughs as she passed by. The forest was quiet without even a bird chirping as Rena followed the trail down into the mining pit and crossed to the familiar tunnels.

  The darkness of the tunnel welcomed her, and the fear of being left alone bubbled up, rising to a crescendo as she reached the door. She took a deep breath, said a prayer to Issal, and knocked.

  Silence.

  With her heart racing, she knocked again. The echo made the tunnels sound hollow, lacking the life she prayed would be waiting.

  Tears began tracking down her face and she slumped to her knees, her head hanging as she stared toward the tunnel floor. Hope had fled her, despair returning in full force.

  A sound caused her to open her eyes. She looked up and found Tindle holding a glowlamp in one hand, an axe in the other. He blinked in shock.

  “You…you’re alive?”

  Rena looked down at herself. Her coat was covered in Kwai-Lan’s blood, her hands blackened with soot. I wonder how bad my face appears, she thought.

  Swallowing in an attempt to wet her dry throat, she gazed up at him and wiped her eyes dry. “I guess I am.” She croaked. “Did anyone else survive?”