Rain of Terror
by Donna Hellmuth
“Warlady Gabriela Tolmie, you are under arrest for the crimes of murder and treason to the crown. What say you?”
“Aye, I say, and what crown would that be?”
The Argylemen had followed them from Deannanburg and set upon their camp at dawn just outside of Kane, half a day’s ride away from Stirling Keep. It was clever: stay one step behind and then slash the heel before it could reach home. It meant the vultures were circling Stirling, waiting for a signal from their commander to strike while it remained vulnerable.
Gabriela Tolmie sat pretty atop her warhorse, gilded in her battle regalia: leather and steel and a proper kilt of green and blue argyle. Proud and confident, flanked by a small regiment of loyal Argylemen – cocky. She thought she had the Stirlingmen pinned down; she thought the fight already over before it had even begun.
“The royal crown of Icenia, where Falkirk rightfully belongs.” There was a chorus of haughty laughter from all sides but hers.
“I’ve always respected your sense of loyalty, Vacht, even for a Gorbe.” Gabriela flashed a smile over the head of her horse before raising her sword high into the air. “That’s why I’m giving your men this one chance: come freely to the right side, and we shall show you quarter. Stay, and ye shall have none.”
Vacht didn’t need to turn her gaze to know none moved. But how many of them considered it, she wondered? How many thought this tiresome war a worthless effort? Her paw tightened upon her blade, yet still she remained stalwart where she stood before their camp; their horses had already been taken and the Argylemen had every advantage, but they would fight to the death if need be. Even then, staring death or worse in the face, Vacht refused to kneel or flinch. Her sense of honor dictated she could not, would not, shed first blood upon brethren – upon a woman she had once sworn an oath of fealty beside, a woman she had once fought and died with.
“Then respect this: I challenge you, the war criminal Gabriela Tolmie, to a duel to the death. To the victor goes the day. No one else need die.”
This brought a heavy pause upon the soldiers and Gabriela’s smile evaporated like ash in the wind. What was it to be? Refuse and lose the respect of every Falkirker, or accept and risk losing a precious opportunity? After a long moment of pregnant silence, the warlord dropped down from her horse.
“I accept your challenge, and I name my weapon of choice: flail.” Now there were new sets of smiles flashing between the Argylemen. Everyone knew too well what Dame Gabby was capable of with a flail in her hands, and it was far from a pretty sight. She knew she had yet another advantage here – Vacht had never used a flail in her life. But if her death meant saving the rest of the Stirlingmen from being cut down where they stood, so be it.
As both opponents sheathed and stripped their swords, there was a small commotion to locate a second flail in the clan before one disgruntled soldier stepped forward. The weapon he offered Vacht was crude and rusty, less than half the quality of what Gabriela produced from her steed: a wicked-looking creature, so well-oiled and polished to a shine that its three chains barely whispered a sound as it moved. A single wooden buckler was provided to each of them from among their own men, and then a wide berth was allotted. Space enough for bloodshed, space enough to die.
For that moment, locking eyes across the swath of grass between them, the silence was deafening but for the foreboding groans of the darkening sky overhead. None dared speak, even breathe, as if all stood upon the edge of a knife. Vacht could smell the fear and anxiety upon her own men, and something else. Something oddly familiar, yet impossible to place.
At once, all fell back into motion: Gabriela lunged forward in a near sprint, whirling her flail into a whirlwind frenzy and moving like a force of nature herself – she had won many a melee tournament in just this fashion, Vacht herself had seen it. But the weight of the war regalia on her made her slower, more cumbersome; with the first swing, Vacht danced out of the way of the bull’s charge, quick and light on her feet. Brute strength would not win this for her, but quick reflex might.
Yet they would not see the end of their match: just as Gabriela spun around to counter Vacht’s evasion with a shield-shattering blow, there was a howl from the sky and a bloodcurdling scream in the woods, promptly followed by the roar of explosive impact. For just that moment, all were taken off guard and Vacht turned her gaze -- and Gabriela seized the opportunity to swing spiked steel into the vulnerable cap of her opponent’s knee.
The pain was blinding hot, enough to bring tears to the war-weathered sarr’s eyes as she fell to the ground. She was dimly aware that something was happening beyond her periphery, a frightened commotion and startled horses fleeing, the smell of fire and burning wood and an overwhelming odor of something so strange yet so familiar. There was heat and something booming, red streaks tumbling from the sky – fire? But Gabriela stood over her, grinning wildly with bloodthirst in her eyes as she raised the flail to strike again –
It was a yellow blur, an unearthly howl. Wild and fast and snarling from black-bleeding jaws, it sprinted to Gabriela and seized her from behind – claws as sharp as razors in her chest, teeth like daggers in her neck, and she screamed, she screamed like nothing Vacht had ever heard in her life. Somewhere in her mind, she recognized the sheer horror of watching Gabriela Tolmie be torn to shreds before her by a rabid, relentless animal, but it was far away now, silenced behind a wall of pain and shock. Her rational mind balked; she knew this could not be possible, she knew that was not Marwolaeth or an ogre at all but an unnatural beast of unfathomable hunger.
Something had changed it.
There was a hand on her shoulder, dragging her, pulling her from the ground. Unable to take her eyes off of the grisly, ruined carcass that had moments earlier been Gabriela in all her arrogant glory, Vacht knew not who pulled her up, who raised her onto that horse to escape – she could see only the incomprehensible scene of lurching yellow monsters bleeding black from eyes and lips as they tore through every living thing in their path. Her people, her brethren, her home. Her life.
“No!” She tried to gather her wits, seizing the reins of the horse she’d been put on. The pain was yet excruciating, but she dragged the horse back around, paying no mind to the mysterious lizard man in sable and orr that had appeared from the shadows to pull her from the all-too-real fire. He reached to seize control of the horse from her but she narrowly eluded his grasp, charging back into the carnage with claws extended. “I’m not leaving them behind!” Not again. No more death. No more.
Fire rained from the skies and there seemed a crackle of electricity in the air but there wasn’t time to question why; there were yellow monsters seething and chasing down her people, and they cared not for any wound inflicted upon them. Her claws tore through meat and gristle to little avail, and to much pain of her own. She could hardly remain seated on her horse but for the strength of adrenaline searing like fire in her own veins.
“Fire! We need to light them! Quickly!” She motioned over her shoulder at the silent lizard man with the sergeant’s sash – despite the chaos around them, he remained stoic, signaling to the squad of men at his command. Almost instantly, they had disappeared into shadow once more, as if they were nothing but silhouettes and wind. Baroness Bonnie had mentioned something of the Firwood Wardens once before, but Vacht had never expected such swift saviors.
Monstrous teeth and claws caught her steed by its throat and it reared, throwing her from the saddle. Surely the fall had done something to her back, but she felt nothing anymore, no pain, no fear. There was only the righteous anger left behind, scalding her flesh and lifting her back to her feet to cut through her assailants – nightmarish monsters made of the very Argylemen that had only moments ago been laughing at her. Who was left alive? Who was dead – or rather, should have been dead?
And then there was burning rain – no, not the fire falling from the skies, but arrows. The shadowy men and women were in the trees, lighting every ravenous beast in a hail of flaming points. There were inhuman shrieks, wails of despair at every turn, but there was a reprieve. Just for a moment, Vacht could look around, she could reach down and lift a fellow wounded Stirlingman from the ground. And then, just down the road, she saw it: Kane. The town was about to be consumed in fire and teeth.
“Get up, soldier. The fight’s not over.”