Chapter 32
The thundering of hooves rumbled across the battlefield. Myrne’s cavalry caught up to him within seconds, and he effortlessly joined their formation as they charged across the dimly lit wasteland around them.
Despite the cold, the ground was clear. If snow had covered the ground, this battle would have played out very differently. No grand cavalry charge—at least, not if Myrne wanted his horses to keep their legs.
Thousands of boots clattered as the rest of Avolar’s army followed behind the cavalry at a brisk pace. Given the distance, they hadn’t broken out in a sprint yet.
The Ashen popped up on the walls beside Rys. Fireballs appeared in their hands, but they didn’t hurl them at the enemy yet. Margrim appeared to be coordinating over mindspeak and looked over the Kavolaran army behind him.
Over five hundred archers notched arrows and took aim. Several demons and Kinadain bellowed orders to fire.
Only then did Margrim and his Ashen throw their balls of hellfire. Rys conjured up a pair of flaming orbs, each the size of his torso, and joined in with the volley.
The dark sky lit up with the arcing flames. Avolar’s army didn’t falter in their advance.
Shouts rose up from the cavalry. A surge of magic rose from the knights, and five hundred shields glowed in sympathy. Myrne and the captains of each cavalry detachment raised their swords.
“Shit. Fara, do you recognize the spell?” Rys asked, hastily gathering power for a barrier.
If that was an offensive spell, he’d need to block it himself. His handful of Kinadain sorcerers couldn’t maintain a barrier across three fronts.
“They’re not attacking,” Fara said, her tails spinning behind her as she analyzed the battlefield. “But you won’t like this.”
Right after she said that, Avolar’s knights finished their spell. Their shields glowed blindingly bright, and a golden barrier appeared in front of the entire army. It stretched across the battlefield.
The hellfire and arrows exploded futilely on it. Rys’s blasts caused the light to flicker and crack, but the knights merely roared in response. The barrier glowed brighter and seemed to repair itself instantly.
“That’s a lot more magic than I expected,” he said.
“Even if they’re not trained mages, five hundred spellcasters is a lot, Rys,” Fara said. “I can still punch through it with my magic, but there’s no chance I can disrupt it long enough. Can you do something?”
“Not yet,” he said.
Or more accurately, he didn’t want to play his trump card so early in the battle. If this was Avolar’s opening move, what else did they have up their sleeve.
“Margrim, can you cast your hellfire past the barrier?” Rys asked over mindspeak.
“You bet,” Margrim responded. “It’s just a wall of magic. Nowhere near as complex as the stuff built into walls and fortresses.”
The Ashen had the ability to summon hellfire indirectly using ritual magic. Rys could do the same thing, but his method was more complex and time intensive. Unlike the Ashen, he didn’t have a Gift dedicated to casting hellfire.
Seconds later, plumes of fire burst forth from beneath the cavalry. Some of the horses panicked, but Avolar used trained warhorses. The casualties mounted, but with only 15 Ashen, only so many knights could be taken out using rituals like this.
Myrne roared again. His army picked up speed, even though the remaining distance was too far.
Roughly a thousand of Avolar’s soldiers stopped. It took a few moments for Rys to realize they were archers, by which time they were lining up for volley fire.
The rest of the army kept moving. Myrne’s knights were rapidly approaching the fortifications and their barrier suddenly shattered as they stopped maintaining it. The infantry jogged forward behind them. They would be vulnerable to arrows now.
Rys’s force maintained formation behind the dirt walls and ditches they had built over the past couple of days. His elites were spread across the army. The exception were the elite Kinadain swordsmen from Alsia’s dain, who held the center along with Grigor.
“Brace for a charge,” Grigor roared. “We fight for the kingdom, and for the honor and glory of victory over the defeated.”
A rough cheer rose up from the ranks. The demons and Kinadain were enthusiastic, but the newer recruits less so.
Fara gave Rys a look.
He shrugged. “Once they win a few battles, they’ll never want to fight for anyone other than Grigor. Anyway, look.”
Myrne’s knights glowed once again, but this time their weapons were the foci of their spell.
This was bound to be an offensive spell. Each unit of cavalry appeared to be casting a different spell, but they were each some form of ritual spell.
These knights were mounted battlemages, capable of casting hundred-man rituals while charging forward on horseback. Rys wanted his own Kinadain knights, just like them.
A shame he’d probably end up killing most of these ones.
Rys drew heavily on his own magic, and a glowing circle appeared around his feet. Fara reflexively moved away from him.
When the knights unleashed their spells, Rys cast his own.
Two blood red barriers snapped into existence in front of him. One stood in front of the fortifications, and the other close enough that he could touch it.
Fara did exactly that. She swore when it crackled and burned her skin.
On the battlefield, the collective spellcasting of five hundred knights spawned three surges of light. Rys blinked as recognized what they were.
Gigantic magical lances, formed from the collective power of the knights. Ordinarily a spell for talented mages, magical lances were solid blasts of summoned magical energy. Normal lances blew holes through enchanted steel plate.
These lances would blow a hole through a city wall, barrier and all.
They slammed into Rys’s infernal walls of light and exploded. He felt the shock wave hit him and his hair blew in the resulting wind. Fara’s tails hit him in the face more than once.
When his vision cleared, his outer barrier had vanished. Although his inner one still stood, it crackled violently, and he felt it begin to dissipate. Rys dispelled it.
Then he took in the devastation. The dirt walls and ditches had been ripped up. A shower of dirt began to fall and patter against him.
Myrne shouted orders to his cavalry and they slowed down. The crater they had produced was too rough for them to charge over. Hellfire rained down on them.
“Forward!” Grigor roared.
He was joined by the guttural roars of his demons, shouts from Kinadain officers, and the loquacious “Have at them!” from Fat Fred.
Hundreds of soldiers poured across the shattered ground. Myrne’s knights responded with spells, sending fireballs, blasts of wind, and a few magical lances into Rys’s army.
Within seconds, the battlefield transformed into a massive melee. Avolar’s charge had failed, and their cavalry attempted to peel away. Their infantry rushed forward, trying to catch up. Both sides traded arrows, but it was a sideshow compared to the main event.
Fred commanded the right flank. Rys spotted him easily due to his enormous bulk, and the fact he appeared to be eating the enemy lieutenant, including his horse. Damn glutton.
The weapons and spells of Avolar’s knights bounced off his fatty armor like butter knives against steel. Fred lazily cut down enemy knights. It seemed Rys’s worries about Fred being hurt were unfounded.
Although a gigantic magical lance like the one fired earlier would have hurt Fred a lot.
On the left flank, Elder Jaime led his Kinadain elites. Rys understood that his dain had sent the most warriors, other than Alsia. A number of noble demons supported him, providing the ridiculous sight of elite monster hunters fighting side-by-side with ten-foot-tall bestial demons against other Kinadain.
And in the center stood Rys, Fara, and Grigor. Myrne and his armored Kinadain knights fought like beasts, unable to retreat from the melee they were bogged down in.
Grigor swept through the enemy lines in his human form. His axe cleaved through enchanted plate and flesh alike, forcing the enemy back. He held back on using his Gifts, as he wasn’t well known to be a demon.
Rys ignored the ordinary soldiers. His target was the enemy commander, Myrne. At some point, he had lost his griffin.
Said commander was a whirlwind of death. Literally.
Myrne’s armor glowed as he fought several of Alsia’s swordsmen as once. Cutting blades of wind circled him, shredding the clothes and armor of Rys’s men and sometimes removing entire limbs.
Only the magical protection of Alsia’s swordsmen kept them alive, as they were all capable spellcasters. The difference in ability was apparent. Myrne competed on a level far beyond any other Kinadain on the battlefield.
Every slash of his sword knocked somebody down or removed body parts. Myrne pushed forward while screaming about victory and valor in his native tongue.
“Fara, keep the other knights off me,” Rys ordered as he vaporized an enemy knight that blocked his path.
She nodded wordlessly, and her tails whirled. The knights near Myrne stumbled as they were blasted aside, their armor crumpling. Fara scowled.
“Tough bastards,” she muttered. “Go on. I’ll handle them.”
Rys could probably incinerate all the knights himself, but that wasn’t the point of a battle. In the future, he couldn’t fight every battle himself. If his soldiers never gained experienced in true conflict, they could never match the elites of more dangerous enemies.
But Myrne needed to be eliminated by either him or Grigor. Rys suspected that his old friend was leaving the enemy general to him.
“You!” Myrne shouted. A pair of black wolf ears twitched through his helmet.
So he was a wolfkin. Rys had thought those ears had been decorations, but he now saw the long bushy tail as well.
Would it be cheating if Rys lit Myrne’s tail on fire?
“Your treachery toward your own warriors will not be forgiven!” Myrne said.
Damn, was this wolfkin a huge ham. Rys felt the exclamation marks in every sentence that Myrne shouted across the battlefield, even though they were only a dozen feet apart.
“I think you and Grigor would get along,” Rys said. “Then again, Barul didn’t appreciate him.”
He unhooked his axe from his belt. It immediately turned black due to Krisanem’s Gift. From the way Myrne’s sword and armor glowed, Rys wasn’t sure if simple hellfire would be enough.
Besides, where was the fun in winning with a single spell?
“Barul… Who are you?” Myrne spat. He peeled away from the soldiers next to him.
Warriors from both sides of the battle gave Rys and Myrne a wide berth. Fara erected force barriers to keep the knights away, whereas Rys’s soldiers knew who he was. They probably wanted to see their king fight.
For his part, Rys wanted to have a good fight as well.
“If you don’t know who I am, then you’re not important enough,” he said with a grin. “If you survive more than a few blows, maybe I’ll tell you.”
“Arrogant bastard!”
Magic gathered in Myrne’s sword. A moment later, he covered the distance between the two of them.
Unlike Barul, Myrne didn’t teleport. He wasn’t a spiritualist, and instead relied on sorcery. His sword glowed with what felt like some sort of explosive spell. Rys could probably dispel it.
He did exactly that. His wrist snapped, and the glow vanished from Myrne’s blade.
Rys’s axe snapped up and knocked Myrne’s blade aside. The wolfkin stumbled.
Luckily, Myrne kept his footing and rolled away before Rys took his head off with a backhand swing.
Since breaking the last power conduit, Rys had recovered a significant amount of his knowledge of infernal sorcery and had greater knowledge of disruption magic. Although his trump card, Absolute Disruption, was the only technique he truly trusted to stop major spells.
Rys wasn’t Fara. He didn’t have four big fluffy tails dedicated to disruption magic attached to his ass.
Clicking his tongue, Myrne summoned more magic. This time, he kept his distance and attempted to fire a trio of magical lances.
Rys charged this time. His axe glowed eerily red with a charged infernal blow. The wolfkin’s eyes widened as he saw death.
The world exploded. Rys cursed as he was sent flying, and rolled end over end.
“Rys!” Fara screamed. A moment later, he sensed her next to him, but he pushed her hand away.
He grunted and jumped to his feet. Another huge surge of magic suddenly erupted nearby. Rys looked around and saw his soldiers scattering as dense balls of pure magic rained down on them. A few barriers flickered up in an attempt to protect his lines, but the blasts were too powerful and blew straight through them.
Fara’s magic shuddered next to him, and he saw her standing next to him. A huge ditch tore up the ground where he and Myrne had been. The wolfkin lay on the ground, looking shocked. His weapon was missing.
A glowing orb of blue magic shimmered in the air beside him, obscuring Rys’s vision. Whoever was casting it then hurled it at Rys. Fara cast her array, biting her lip and thrusting her hands forward.
The orb warped in response but only shrunk a little. Masses of prismatic light shot off it. Fara had removed enough magical energy from the spell to disrupt a dozen lesser spells, but this attack kept coming.
Rys summoned another infernal blow, this time drawing on his full power. His axe turned incandescent as he stepped in front of Fara.
He swung at the orb of magic right before it hit him.
The explosion nearly blinded him. His vision returned rapidly, and he saw a gaping crater deeper than Grigor in front of him.
Fara grabbed his arm. Her eyes locked onto the two individuals standing next to Myrne, who still lay on the ground in shock.
Chief Enforcer Mave stood in full armor next to a grizzled old man in a battle robe. The old man held no weapons, but his body exuded magic like no other human that Rys had met. His one good eye glowed with blue light and an eyepatch covered his other.
The Malus League had finally shown their hand.