Chapter XXVII

The conscripts that the Nihilites had brought with them worked quickly at building fortifications in Ten-Red Pass, with Meriel's soldiers constantly keeping the whip at their backs to casually remind them of the urgency of this endeavor. Between them and Muri they built spiked barricades of wood, like a fence of spears that pointed out towards any who would approach. On the tops of cliffs they built watch-towers, and fenced in areas that their archers could duck behind. They filled in the holes in the ground from where the golems had been, and cleared away the rocks that had crumbled down when the cliff-side was being bombarded with the trebuchet.

Meriel also sent a few messengers back into Nihilus to tell the main body of the Nihilite forces that they'd taken Ten-Red Pass, and could now begin the full invasion of Arx.

With all of the forces settling in to protect the pass from the Arxian army, Lorna pulled Meriel and Cory aside to talk to them about strategy. “Listen, from what I know about the Arxians their next step will probably be to try to seal off this pass. They have the geomancers to do it. They could bring the cliffs down on us, blocking the way.”

“This will not stop us!” Cory scoffed. “We can clear away the rubble in time and keep coming through.”

“But if we wait that long we lose a certain advantage we have now,” Lorna said. “You see, the Arxians didn't know that we were going to attack through this particular pass. There are many mountain passes we could have used, many ways to get into Arx, some far quicker, but we chose this one. That means that at the moment their forces are spread out, prepared to defend against an invasion should we come through one of the others. If they seal us off here they'll prepare to fight us on the other side when we break through. In that amount of time they may very well gather all of their legions there, and we'll be leading our men through a bottle-neck straight into their arms. The casualties will be enormous!”

“So what do we do about it?” Meriel asked.

“We send some forces ahead, particularly some of mine, both archers and warlocks. They'll hide out in the brush not far from here and wait for the enemy to arrive and attack them from both sides. Then, Meriel, you can send in your own forces, charge straight at them. We cannot merely stand in the pass and defend it. It will easily become an obstacle more than a natural fortress if we do. We have to take the fight to them, force them to defend themselves on open ground. Another thing I would suggest is that we move that trebuchet of yours as high up as it will go so that we can bombard them as they approach. If we hit them hard enough before they even arrive they may retreat before they enact their plan at all.”

“It would be difficult to get the trebuchet on top of one of the mountains...unless...” Meriel turned and looked at Cory.

“What?”

“Perhaps some of your daemonic legions would be willing to lend a hand to their human brethren?”

Cory shook his head. “No! That's so demeaning! You want me to ask them to be beasts of burden? Summon them here just so they can carry something to the top of the mountain? They're not laborers! How dare you even ask me this?”

“How much more humiliating will it be if we don't win this war even with you, our savior, here? Even with Malkira himself helping us? Especially if we fail here, before the invasion has even really started!”

“Lorna's plan of taking the fight to them sounded great! Why not just do that? I could even ride out close to the front lines and conjure a legion of daemons right on the spot to fight their geomancers!”

“And then we'd be showing our hand,” Meriel said. “The survivors would return home to tell everyone that we have one man who's capable of conjuring legions of daemons instantly, and then they'd be prepared for that. We want to save that, hide that fact for as long as we can. It'd be best to only reveal that when we attack the capital.”

“Why not have the conscripts move the trebuchet up the mountain?”

“The mountain's already difficult to climb, especially difficult if you're trying to haul a huge trebuchet along. If they drop it then it'll break and then we'll have lost a siege weapon. My army's going to be bringing more, but not in time to stop the geomancers from collapsing the pass. Now, do you want to win this war or not?”

“Fine! I'll at least ask,” Cory said. “But if Malkira refuses there's nothing I can do.” Arrogant as Cory was, he still understood that he was not truly in command of Malkira. The arch-daemon and he had entered into a sort of partnership, working together. A partnership that Malkira had the power to end any time he wished, especially since he was far more powerful than any mortal. All the power Cory had was his merely because Malkira let it be so, so he could not make demands, he had to ask. He'd asked Ormond to perform such a demeaning task for him as digging, but Ormond was his servant and guardian, that was apparent. He didn't really wish to test Malkira.

Fortunately for him Malkira agreed. The same daemons who had finished off the golems in the previous battle, the ones with heads of bulls, torsos of men, wings of eagles, and lower bodies of snakes, appeared and carried the trebuchet and the soldiers to operate it to the top of the mountain. They immediately began to set it up and gathered rocks to throw at their enemies. This time rather than throwing large boulders they would toss hundreds of much smaller rocks, including sharp pieces of shale and obsidian, at a time, pelting the enemy lines.

Magdiel had gathered together the soldiers needed to seal the pass, a collection of knights, volunteer soldiers, paladins, and geomancers. The geomancers helped prepare for the battle ahead by covering the weapons of the common knights and volunteer soldiers in charcoal and then transforming the charcoal into diamonds. This made the weapons heavier, though nowhere near as heavy as weapons fully made of diamond would be. The geomancers warned the soldiers that while these weapons would now be more effective against daemons, they would not be able to cut through enemy armor and shields as easily as diamond weapons did. If they swung too hard into the center of an enemy shield the diamonds would likely cut right through the blade or mace long before cutting through the shield. The archers were not given diamond-tipped arrows. The extra weight on the end of an arrow that diamonds would create was so great that they'd have to completely re-learn how to shoot a bow, how to adjust their aim to compensate for the extra weight. Magdiel was able to use diamond-tipped arrows because he had trained for years with them, he didn't have time to re-educate all of the other archers.

Having learned that the Nihilites had at least one trebuchet with them, Magdiel's soldiers sent back to the Marquise for a few trebuchets of their own. She sent three, and enough soldiers to operate them.

Magdiel arranged the soldiers into specific marching lines. Every other line held large tower shields, which they would hold up over themselves and the soldiers nearest them whenever arrows came raining down from the enemies above. The lines in between kept the geomancers in the middle, with the edges guarded by paladins, and the knights standing further in. They had been told that if the enemy were to bombard them with huge boulders that they should immediately disperse, but break into groups, all surrounding the geomancers, and each group should have at least one shield-bearer. The shields, Magdiel told them, were more important even than their weapons. Since the Nihilites had the high-ground advantage their tactics would mostly rely on firing arrows down at them from above to keep them from getting within range for the geomancers to shake the cliffs. Since the shields were so important, all were instructed that if they saw a comrade carrying a shield fall they should pick up that shield and continue in his place.

After consulting with engineers, geomancers, priests and even simple geologists, Magdiel had decided the specific point where the geomancers should focus their spells to make the cliffs collapse and block the pass. There was an area where large granite stones were held in weak layers of dirt and soil, the perfect conditions for a rock-slide.

Before marching out, Berne, the very large paladin wielding the massive war-hammer, commonly called a maul, talked to Magdiel aside. “I'm having a thought of another tactic we could employ to win this battle.”

“If you have an idea then by all means, speak your mind,” Magdiel said.

“I know of a few tunnels that lead from the base of the mountain up into Ten-Red pass, and they're not far from here. We could send some of our soldiers in through there to hit the enemy by surprise.”

“It sounds like a good plan, but we'll be shaking those cliffs. The last thing we want is some of our people in tunnels while the cliffs are breaking apart.”

“The tunnels I'm referring to are on the other side. They'll be far away from the tremors.”

“It's still a suicide mission,” Magdiel said. “We couldn't dedicate a large enough force to do anything other than show up behind enemy lines, kill a few Nihilites, and then die. I'm not sending anyone to their deaths, especially since this would let the Nihilites know about the tunnels. If they don't already know about them I'd prefer to keep it that way. It may even be best to seal those off as well.”

“I suppose you have a point,” Berne said.

“Or, if we do manage to seal off the pass, then we could use the tunnels afterward to lead the Nihilites into a trap. Send a small number of golems through to attack them. Then, when they attempt to go through the tunnels, we’ll have our geomancers ready to collapse the tunnels on top of them. The casualties would be relatively small, but every little bit helps, and the risk of losing our own people is still pretty low.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” Berne said.

“Glad you thought of it,” Magdiel said, patting Berne on the back. This was intended to boost Berne's confidence, but Berne just found it condescending, perhaps even a little patronizing.

. . .

At first light the next morning Magdiel's army was ready for the long march to Ten-Red pass, and he ordered them to begin. Drummers were set up at the back, in the very middle, and at the four corners of the formation. Their drum-beat helped keep the pace of the march. It was a steady pace, just quick enough to help them reach the pass in short time, but not so fast that those wearing heavy armor would be totally exhausted by the time they arrived.

The Nihilites in the watch-towers in Ten-Red pass sounded the alarm the moment they saw the army coming, which was still a long ways off. The Nihilites operating the trebuchet up in the pass knew what to do. Years of training with that particular piece of equipment had taught them how to calculate the exact distance it could fire under special circumstances. They'd learned how to account for the increased range a trebuchet had when in high ground, the distance whatever it launched would travel before it started to arc downward due to gravity, and even how to account for the wind resistance that affected different types of missiles. With the tiny stones they were launching at their enemies they knew that the missiles would scatter long before reaching their targets down below. Those operating the trebuchet made the necessary adjustments, accounted for the speed that the advancing enemy army was marching, and let loose the stones.

“SHIELDS UP!” one of the Arxians shouted, having spotted the rain of stones heading straight for them. The order was repeated throughout the ranks and the shield-bearers raised their tower shields to defend themselves and those nearest to them. For a few seconds there was a series of loud bangs, clangs, and pops as the rocks collided with the tower shields. Some made some serious dents in the shields, some managed to hit the shield in just the right place to send force right through and break the shield-bearer's arm, others struck the shield-bearers in the leg or those they were protecting in the head. Rocks split open on shields, or bounced off. The sharpened pieces of shale and obsidian shattered into hundreds of smaller pieces that scattered like shrapnel and struck many of the soldiers with superficial wounds or otherwise broke again into dust against their armor. Once the bombardment had stopped, the Arxians marched on, in some cases stepping over their fallen comrades. The drummers increased the beat and the soldiers marched a little faster now.

In the back the Arxian soldiers moving along their three trebuchet realized their terrible disadvantage. Even with such great ranges as trebuchets had, they could not launch anything back at the enemy trebuchet on top of the mountain, not from where they were. They had no way of launching anything that high and that far. They'd have to move much closer before they could attempt any sort of counter-attack. By then they would have been moving through the enemy trebuchet's range for over an hour, long enough for the enemy to bombard them many times over. Some considered abandoning the trebuchet since they were big, obvious targets. They may as well have been carrying banners with bulls-eyes embroidered into them.

The constant bombardment slowed the march to a crawl. There were few enough casualties from the shrapnel raining down on the advancing Arxians, but the stones falling from the sky meant they had to stop and hide behind the shields every few seconds.

“Focus your fire on the enemy trebuchet!” Meriel shouted at her men up on the mountain.

The men below, moving the trebuchet along had their worst fears confirmed as rocks came pouring out of the sky at them. They tried their best to jump out of the way, but several of them felt sharp shards of shale or obsidian pass right through their faces or fist-sized stones smack them in the chest. The trebuchet themselves suffered only minor damage on that first hit.

Magdiel, seeing that the focus was now on the trebuchets in the back rather than on his soldiers, shouted “CHARGE!” as loud as he could. His soldiers all broke into full runs, but kept formation.

Meriel smirked at this. “One volley on the soldiers and then continue hitting the trebuchets!”

It was a clever move that took the Arxians completely by surprise. As they charged few of them even noticed the rocks coming down out of the sky, and those who did certainly didn't have enough time to raise their shields over everyone else. In fact, those who stopped to shield themselves from the falling debris suddenly became obstacles, as their comrades crashed into them and knocked them onto the ground. Those knocked down were then trampled by those behind them, who had been so focused on charging at the pass that they didn't notice their comrades on the ground. Others were struck hard by the falling rocks and thrown onto the ground, tripping up more people behind them in a big mess. The ranks were broken, and Magdiel's force was in chaos.

Lorna's forces took advantage of the situation. They came out of hiding and fired volleys of arrows at the Arxian soldiers from both sides. The shield-bearers scrambled to get their shields in the way of the arrows, but they found themselves having to make the choice that is no choice, be hit by poisonous arrows from the archers on the ground, or by rocks falling out of the sky.

“Gather 'round the geomancers!” Magdiel shouted. Shield-bearers circled the still living geomancers and held up their shields as a sort of shell to surround them, protecting them from nearly all missiles fired at them. “Now, start shaking the mountain!” The geomancers began to chant. A spell of that magnitude took time to cast, and would require them to maintain it for an extended period of time in order for them to achieve the results for which they were hoping. Deep under the mountain, the ground barely began to tremble as the geomancers worked their magic.

General Meriel signaled her infantry to begin moving in to attack the Arxian forces head on. Meriel's forces ran at a speed that she had trained them all to match evenly. After countless training sessions, training the slowest runners to run faster and training the fastest runners to run a little slower, she had gotten them to the point where even when they ran they could time their steps with one another perfectly. This made sure that none of them crashed into each other, tripped up one another, or fell behind. They soon met the Arxian forces, who were forced to defend themselves from the swords and axes of the soldiers charging them as well as mind the arrows of Lorna's archers.

Again, disaster had befallen the Arxian troops, and many of those on that battlefield began to lose heart, even lose faith. Meriel's forces were especially well-trained at wounding enemy morale, and often when they had killed an enemy soldier they threw his body, or parts of his body, at another soldier, cackling madly and howling like rabid wolves. The trebuchet down below had just finally gotten into range when the one on the mountain finally managed to break them and kill or injure the remaining Arxians operating them. The tower-shield walls protecting the geomancers were broken as Meriel's forces smashed them with war-hammers and flails. The paladins, however, began to turn the tide, as they lashed out with their diamond blades. The armor the Nihilites wore simply couldn't protect them from such an onslaught, and they found their breast-plates torn asunder, their sternums split, and their shoulders removed. Magdiel's own crossbowmen landed shots between the Nihilite soldiers' armored plates. Berne rushed through the battlefield. He swung his massive maul around and launched groups of three or more Nihilite soldiers off the ground and into the air. Seeing what a threat he was, several of Lorna's archers focused their fire on him. They filled his armor with arrows, but his armor was too thick to be pierced so easily. One of the advantages of being such a big and strong man was that he could wear armor into battle that most men couldn't even move in.

“Conjure daemons into their ranks!” Lorna called out. Immediately the warlocks obeyed and daemons began to appear amongst the Arxian soldiers. They tore through the tower shields and devoured the geomancers. Their teeth tore through metal, flesh, and bone. Swarms of locust daemons slipped in between the plates of armor the Arxian soldiers wore and stung them all over, their poisons killing the soldiers. The paladins were forced to turn their attention away from their human enemies and to the daemons destroying their ranks, but by this point the battle was most certainly lost.

With stones raining down on them from the sky, enemy infantry in their faces, enemy archers on either side, demons breaking their ranks, and most of the geomancers dead, Magdiel was forced to cry out, “RETREAT!” yet again. Of course, by this point, not everyone was even in a position to retreat. So many of them had enemy soldiers or demons between themselves and their escape route. Many others had taken too many arrows to their legs to run. Others simply refused to retreat, determined to go down swinging. Berne was one of these who refused to retreat.

As Magdiel and those soldiers who could run away fled the battlefield, Berne charged into Meriel's army, wildly flailing around with his maul. Swords and maces smacked against his armor, denting it in and bruising his skin, but this did not even slow him down. As he retreated, Magdiel turned his head back and saw his friend still fighting the Nihilite forces. Silently, he said a prayer for the soon-to-be-departed, asking that he be allowed to see his friend again in Heaven someday. Even this was not such a comfort anymore, though, because if battles against the Nihilites kept going like they had been then eventually the Nihilites would destroy the capital, and then it seemed like it would only be a matter of time before they brought enough demons through the Firmament to destroy both Erets and Heaven itself. Once they'd done that all souls would be lost in the Void, prey to the demons there. It was the first time Magdiel began to doubt what he believed in; in salvation, in an eternity in Heaven, in the inevitable victory of God over the demons, in anything.

Even a man as strong as Berne was couldn't flail around with that heavy maul in that heavy armor forever. Fatigue set in, and soon Berne was barely able to lift the maul, let alone swing it. Every step was laborious, and each blow that dented his armor hurt more and more. His helmet, once protection for his head, was now simply blocking his view and dragging his head downward. Maces struck his helm repeatedly, denting it and cracking his skull. Berne fell on his face, with Nihilite soldiers bashing away at him to make sure he stayed down. In his last moments he thought only of the paradise that awaited him. Suffering as he was a place without pain, without violence, without war sounded more wonderful than ever before.

Less than half of Magdiel's soldiers managed to escape the battlefield. Most had died. Many were wounded. Some were foolish enough to surrender. Meriel's soldiers moved in and shackled the prisoners of war, chained them all together, and brought them before Lorna's warlocks. The warlocks knew that any chance to reinforce their soldiers they had to take, so they conjured up seekers and turned the prisoners of war into daemon thralls.

After that the rest of the Nihilite forces soon joined their brethren in Arx, traveling through Ten-Red Pass. By sundown the next day, over two-hundred and fifty-thousand Nihilite soldiers stood on Arxian soil.