Chapter Fourteen: Cannon Fodder
The sun was hidden. It had to be sometime around midday, but the sudden onset of thick storm clouds made it as dark as evening. South and east of Ullek, the Qarat was hard at work erecting defensive fortifications and trenches. Unfortunately for them, there was a large force of what appeared to be vampyres, werewolves, and death knights advancing from the southeast. They would reach the city boundaries before the Qarat finished constructing them.
However, the Qarat had thought of this ahead of time. They needed someone to incur a preemptive strike against the oncoming monsters in order to buy them some time. They needed someone to be thrown into the meat grinder so that the defenses would be strong enough to withstand an attack. The problem was that this was practically a suicide mission, and the Qarat was unwilling to sacrifice any of its regular units, so a substitute had to be found. Who better than criminals to do the job?
It was genius, really. During the course of a normal battle, the criminals would simply be left to sit in their cells. If the enemy broke in, they would be slaughtered. If the enemy was kept out of the city, they would simply continue to sit in jail for the rest of their sentences. But now…the Qarat General in charge of the Ullek garrison had conscripted all of the city's criminals into penal battalions. These units of criminals would then be thrown into the horde of monsters. Most, if not all, would die, and the ones who survived would then be granted pardon.
Instituting the penal battalions supplied the Qarat with cannon fodder to keep the monsters at bay for a time, and if Ullek survived the battle, it would come out the other end with empty jails. That would also save a lot of money. The plan was genius.
Despite all of its inherent pros, the ingeniousness of the penal battalions was lost on Avis as he found himself marching ever closer towards an advancing group of death knights. The main horde of monsters seemed to be hanging back behind this group. Not that it mattered, really…one look at those death knights was enough to make Avis break out in a cold sweat.
They didn't even look human. They were tall, menacing figures clad in dark suits of armor adorned with wicked-looking spikes. They had no visible body, being completely encased in their armor. The only thing that was visible through their helmet visors was darkness. They wielded two-handed blades of black metal and marched in perfect sync with one another.
"Mm…" Nasser, the tattooed criminal with whom Avis had shared a cell, murmured as he eyed the oncoming death knights, drumming the blade of his scimitar with his fingers. "I know this is the perfect time for me to say, 'I've been through worse'… but I don't think it gets much worse than this."
"You could be stuck with this thing instead of a real weapon…" Avis muttered, waving his dagger through the air. Because he was still a child, the armsmaster back in the city had only given him a small dagger. Either that, or Ai-Jhabour had ensured that Avis did not get anything more effective. Either way, Avis was stuck on a suicide mission with nothing to defend himself with except for a knife. Not very good odds.
"Yeah, that would be worse," Nasser agreed with a shrug.
The drum that was marking our pace began to increase. Someone shouted, "Double-time, boys!" The prisoners started moving faster, going at a light jog. People who had been muttering and talking before fell silent, getting into the mood of the fight. They were about to be in the battle of their lives, and odds were that they weren't going to make it through alive. Still…if they did survive, they would gain a full pardon of their crimes. They sure as hell were going to try.
"Hey…hey!" Avis sxclaimed, tugging on Nasser's shoulder. "The Qarat archers; they're gone!"
Nasser flicked his gaze around, noticing the absence as well. The archers who had been assigned to guard the penal battalion must have remained back at the defenses. "Yeah," the tattooed prisoner shrugged. "So?"
"What do you mean, so? Without them here we can run!"
"And where would we go?" Nasser asked. "Death lies behind us as well as ahead of us. If the Qarat sees us retreating, they will kill us."
"Oh…" Avis said, disappointment evident in his voice. "What are we supposed to do, then?"
"Try not to die?" Nasser shrugged again.
Avis tried hard to keep himself from hyperventilating as the death knights drew nearer and nearer. How had everything gone so wrong? Things had been so simple before…surviving from one day to the next without losing a hand for thievery. Then Farrah had told him that he was going to be instrumental in bringing the God Wars to an end. A friend of Farrah's was on his way to Ullek to get Avis out of the desert and train him in the art of elemental magic.
Now, Avis found himself marching towards his own death, armed with nothing more than a wimpy little knife. How was he supposed bring the God Wars to an end if his destiny was to get skewered by a death knight's blade? Whoever created that so-called 'divine prophecy' must have messed up big-time.
The line of death knights raised their dark blades, holding them out and upright. A low, menacing hiss seemed to radiate from the armored wraiths. It was a horrible sound, one that seemed to seep straight into a man's soul and spark a primordial fear.
Avis instinctively tightened his grip on the dagger he wielded. The men around him started wringing their hands around the hilts of their weapons in discomfort. That noise the death knights had been making had gotten to everyone in the penal battalion.
Unfortunately for the men, the death knights leveled their weapons and charged.
One of the prisoners further on down the line shouted, "Let's give 'em hell!" The cry was taken up by dozens of others and eventually the entire battalion. The prisoner warriors grouped up and charged as well, running at full clip towards the opposite line of death knights.
Avis did not run. He felt no need to throw his life away. Even if he had been running, he would have been overtaken by the rest of the prisoners, anyway. The criminals and the scum of Ullek slammed into the death knights head-on…and paid for it with their lives. Anyone who was in the very front of the charge was utterly butchered by the death knights' blades. The dark metal sliced through flesh and bone like an Ainu katana through papyrus.
The men who were not at the forefront managed to get a frenzied jab or thrust in at the death knights before they, too, met their ends.
Not all of the prisoners were meat for the grinder, however. Some actually knew how to use their weapons. A handful had even served in that Qarat at one point in their lives, and were more than proficient with a blade. Despite the death knights' intimidating exterior, they were still just as killable as the next man. Of course, the problem was actually killing them…
Nasser had grouped up with three other beefy criminals—Avis noticed that those other three also had the mark of the Qarat tattooed onto their shoulders. These men were veterans. Together, they surrounded one of the death knights. It took all the skill and concentration of three of the men to fend off the armored wraith's savage attacks. While they did this, the fourth man would find an opening in the death knight's guard and strike, driving his cutlass or short sword into a crease in its armor.
Nasser and his comrades actually managed to take down at least five death knights in this manner before their luck ran out. One of the criminals moved to stab at another death knight's leg, but the death knight actually stepped forward, allowing itself to be impaled. The criminal had not been expecting this, and in his moment's hesitation the death knight brought its blade swinging down, cleaving the criminal from his left shoulder to his right hip, slicing him diagonally in half.
Avis nearly threw up at the sight. He turned around, only to come face-to-face with another criminal. The man was gurgling and blood was dribbling from his mouth. He fell forward, crumpling to the ground. A death knight stood behind him, its blade slicked red with the now-deceased criminal's blood.
Nasser stepped out from the side and drove his scimitar under the helmet of the death knight. The monster gurgled once, black vapor wisping from its visor slit. It collapsed to the ground.
Nasser had one friend remaining; the other two were most likely in pieces. The remaining Qarat veteran was also missing a hand—his arm simply ended in a bloody stump.
At least half the penal battalion was now dead…over a hundred men, gone in minutes.
Nasser discarded his scimitar and picked up the fallen death knight's black sword, whirling it through the air a few times to get a feel for the weapon's weight and balance. As he did this, two more of the armored wraiths lunged towards him from behind. Nasser's companion raised his scimitar and parried one of the death knights' blows. Just as he accomplished this, however, the other death knight slid its blade neatly through the criminal's side. The dark blade came out under the criminal's opposite arm, and the man went limp.
The death knight pressed an armored boot to the criminal's corpse and kicked it off of its blade. Nasser let out a roar and swung his blade towards the death knight's helmet. The death knight blocked the blow with its own blade. Sparks flew and a horrible screeching sound rang out as the two dark blades grated on each other. Nasser adjusted his grip and smashed the death knight in the helmet with his hilt, causing the monster to stagger back a few paces. Nasser then inverted his sword and stabbed it right through the death knight's heart.
Nasser yanked the sword free and whirled to strike at the second death knight. He turned and stepped forward...right into the second death knight's thrust.
Avis had already been moving forward to help, but he was too late. The tattooed criminal had stopped breathing by the time he slid off the blade. The ten-year-old watched Nasser die, skidding to a halt, his mouth hanging open in an expression of horror.
The ten-year-old watched the death knight turn towards him, but found he was unable to run. He looked all around him, watching as the other death knights slaughtered the surviving prisoners. Men screamed and howled like animals as they were utterly torn apart. Blood was everywhere, staining the sand scarlet. Gore crows circled high above in the sky, waiting patiently for the fighting to end so that they could begin their meal.
Two men scrabbled across Avis's line of sight, but three death knights converged on them, kicking them down and stabbing them over and over again. Their blood spattered all over Avis's face. This seemed to snap the boy out of his shock.
The pale-skinned boy locked his gaze with the death knight that had just killed Nasser, the same one that was striding towards him now. Pure hatred ripped through the boy's mind and a high-pitched, nearly inhuman scream rose from his throat. He sprinted forward, heading right into the death knight, dagger raised.
Avis leaped into the air, hurtling towards the death knight's helmet, bringing his dagger stabbing forward, aiming for the visor slit. The death knight brought up its arm and used its armored gauntlets to backhand the boy, deflecting his dagger thrust and sending him flying backwards.
Avis slammed into the sand, blood dripping from his mouth and a bruise forming on his cheek. The world was spinning from the force of the blow that had sent him flying. The boy wiped some of the blood away with one hand, propping himself up with the other.
A grip of iron closed around Avis's throat. The death knight lifted the boy into the air, holding him by the throat. Avis managed to give out a choked gasp, but that was it. He pulled at the death knight's armored hand, trying to lever it away, but it was useless. The monster was too strong.
The death knight cocked its head. It did not raise its sword; it simply observed the boy, like a scientist poring over a specimen. It drew Avis in close until its faceplate was practically all the boy could see. It hissed again, but this time words came out. Cold, icy words…words that Avis seemed to feel more than hear.
"You are the one whom my masters want…" the death knight hissed.
Avis's vision began to darken. He couldn't breathe. The boy forced what remained of his non-panicked self to calm down. He squeezed his eyes shut. An image of a lone willow tree on a hill appeared in his mind, presenting itself to him. The boy concentrated on it, imagining himself on that hill. It was what he usually pictured when he needed to summon the winds. Well, he used to have to picture something like this; lately, his skill with Air Magic had grown a great deal. He could tap into the elemental energy inside of him just like that, without having to set aside time to concentrate and center himself. The present situation, however…getting strangled by a death knight tended to change things up a bit.
Air is an interesting element. Not many mages used it very much, but if used properly…wind could be just as dangerous as flame. If enough air was compacted into a small shape, it would get denser and denser…eventually becoming strong enough to deflect arrows, or even slice through metal. Avis had demonstrated this when he had used concentrated wind to break open the shackles Ai-Jhabour had put on his wrists over a week ago…the same ones Avis still wore now; he had no way to remove the iron bands.
Avis opened his eyes. The death knight hesitated. The boy's eyes almost seemed as if they were glowing. Avis let go of the death knight's gauntlet with his right hand, steadily curling it into a fist. He guided the flow of elemental energy from his inner Anima Mundi and into his fist.
The energy built up, straining to be released. Avis did exactly that; he thrust his fist forward, flattening his hand out and shoving all five fingers into the death knight's visor slit. Black ichor painted the inside of the helmet as the blast of super-concentrated wind blew apart the death knight's skull.
Unlikely as it seemed, something had existed under that armor.
Avis fell to his knees, choking and gasping for breath. He did not have much of a reprieve, however. Other death knights took note of their comrade's demise. There were around thirty or so left, and at least a dozen of them dropped whatever they were killing and started to converge on the boy.
Avis quickly regained his breath and rose to his feet. He took one look at his dagger, which was lying in the sand, but he did not make any move to retrieve it. It was worse than useless in this situation.
A black blade whistled through the air, dead set on separating Avis's head from his shoulders. It was an easy blow to dodge—Avis had dodged much quicker strikes from the guards in Ullek's Plaza. Not for the first time, Avis wished he knew how to invoke Fire Magic. Air suited him well, but his movements were more attuned to the element of Fire—fast, deadly, and from all sides.
The rest of the death knights joined in the fray, and Avis found himself leaping, rolling, and ducking through a labyrinth of sword strikes. There were at least twelve blades trying to hit him; Avis wouldn't last another five seconds. A blade scored a hit on Avis's upper left arm, slicing open a neat laceration which began to bleed openly. The boy stumbled, but did not fall.
Acting almost of its own accord, Avis's right leg shot out and planted itself In the sand, preventing the boy from falling. The next few seconds went by very quickly. Within an instant, Avis became aware of a new force bubbling up inside of him, like boiling water gushing out of a tea kettle. Later on, when he looked back on this moment, he would be able to remember opening his mouth and screaming, and then a bright, blinding light that whited out the entire world.