The End of Surrender, page 33
part #4 of The Stalwart Link Series
There was a young teen next to Andar, probably Leo’s age, but the boy’s father soon took the young man’s place at the very front. Andar listened to the conversation between them. The boy didn’t want to fight, and the father assured him that no one here did. Andar was hoping the father would give some good advice afterward, but he seemed too afraid that the barbarians might hear.
It was up to Andar to initiate what had to be done.
As soon as his allies were close enough ahead for him to pick out his father and brother, he knew it was time.
“Listen to me, everyone who can hear this.” Andar spoke quietly so only the few around him could hear. “I know what the king’s army will do. As soon as they charge at us, drop your weapons and run toward them with your hands in the air.”
A few people murmured sounds of disagreement.
“Trust me,” Andar said. “It’s the only way to survive this. Drop your weapons and run toward them with your hands in the air. They will let you by. They do not want to harm any of you. Spread the message quietly.”
No one said a thing.
“Do it!” Andar spat out with rage. “They know the barbarians have been forcibly recruiting. They will spare you! It’s the only way to live!”
Finally, he heard them spreading the message to his left and right. He knew that farther down, Mavrim had issued the same instructions.
Andar stared at his family. They were too far for them to notice a nod or any signal. They would just have to trust that he had spread the message.
There was a blast from a horn. Andar looked behind him, as did many. Perhaps a thousand barbarians down the lines all opened rifts near them. Monstrous beasts came out, many with the large forms of lions or bears.
Skyfire and ash, if the odds weren’t bad enough already.
“I expect the bravest of you to turn back around after you are spared by the king’s army,” Andar said. “You will pick up a weapon and join the good side in this fight.”
“Aye.”
“Gods willing.”
“They will pay,” said a bunch of them.
There was a thrum of something heavy moving quickly behind Andar. Overhead, a massive boulder flew toward his allies. Another trebuchet fired, a second chunk of death hurling toward his family.
He heard his father shout something as he and Leo began to charge, their army behind them. The two boulders crashed down, and a cloud of dirt splashed up.
It had begun.
“Drop your weapons and put your hands up, now!” Andar yelled.
He was pleased as all the men as far as he could see dropped their weapons, threw their hands in the air, then ran toward Andar’s charging allies. Andar stayed put. He watched as the first line of citizens weaved around his father and brother safely.
The barbarians behind Andar screamed in fury, many issuing threats about what they were going to do to these men when this was over. Andar turned as someone pushed him.
“Go or die!” said the barbarian, ready to pierce Andar in the stomach with his blade.
But during this time, Andar had been gathering Artistry around as many limbs as he could. There was no way to count just how many barbarians he linked as he locked the Artistry in place, but it had to have been in the hundreds.
“Rot in hell!” Andar said, then ran past the barbarian threatening him. The large man tried to turn to grab Andar, but he—along with the rest of the barbarians—fell with shouts of confusion.
Andar could hear his father and brother not too far behind him. He wished he had a moment to stop and help them butcher the barbarians who deserved much worse than a swift death, but Andar was about to deal with enemies who still had control over their limbs.
Fortunately many of the barbarians rushing in his direction were distracted by the strange occurrence of their allies being felled by a mage they couldn’t locate, not piecing together that the young man from Halin was really responsible. They ran past Andar to aid their wounded, meeting Andar’s allies in a massive crash of steel and screams.
Andar had to let go of the intense link as one barbarian met his gaze, and Andar could see that this barbarian wanted to kill him for fleeing. But a quick link to the man’s legs gave Andar an easy victory as he stabbed the man in the top of his chest and kept going.
Seeing what Andar had done, the four barbarians charging in Andar’s direction all honed in on him. But he linked their legs together and prepared to watch them fall.
Only they didn’t. A mage broke the Artistry of Andar’s link before it came to fruition. He had just a moment to find Gadran rushing in from the side, cursing Andar with fury in his eyes.
Andar’s stomach turned over. Having expected to run past them all, he didn’t even have time to get his weapon up. He skidded to a stop and leaned back, narrowly avoiding the first of the four men, this one swinging his massive cleaver at Andar’s throat.
Andar jumped and ducked as he retreated, his focus poured into breaking the bonds of Artistry trying to form around his legs. Gadran stabbed at Andar with a long two-handed spear. He turned, but it caught the edge of his side. Something slammed into him, knocking him over sideways. He noticed the man he’d stabbed earlier holding his hand over his chest wound, but this man couldn’t follow up as he fell to his knees.
Andar knew he was going to be overwhelmed any moment now. He just had to do what he could before then. He stopped trying to run and got up his sword, blocking the slash of a barbarian as their steel weapons clanged. Andar kicked with the bottom of his boot, striking the barbarian in his stomach and giving Andar a moment to duck under a wild slash at his head from another. Andar counterattacked with a stab into the man’s thigh, then he pulled his weapon free and blocked another blow that could’ve taken his head off.
The damn mage wouldn’t relent, standing back now as he tried to wrap Andar with Artistry. But Andar found his footing as he fought off the two uninjured barbarians and the two injured ones, and swung as he spun, forcing them back. It finally gave Andar enough time to force the cloud of Artistry around him into connecting tendrils around the five barbarians’ legs.
He locked them in place. Gadran shouted something, and all the barbarians stopped. They clearly knew not to move or they would fall. Andar could feel Gadran trying to rip the links apart, but Andar was much stronger. He charged the mage, dodged Gadran’s panicked attempt to stab Andar with his long spear, and buried the edge of his sword into the side of Gadran’s neck.
The sword had been given to Andar by the barbarians, and it was old and rusted. He gladly left it in Gadran’s neck as he took the long spear from the dying mage’s hands.
There was just a moment to look around. Andar’s allies had created massive holes in the ranks of the barbarians, but the larger army had shifted to keep Andar’s allies from getting behind all of them. Now everyone faced each other at different rows across the field. He couldn’t tell if one army was winning. He had also lost track of his family. A horde of barbarians were fighting between Andar and where he’d last seen them behind him.
He was horrified when he looked back at not only the two injured and two healthy barbarians about to engage him but hundreds more charging in from the reserves, many summoners with their giant beasts running beside them.
“Skyfire and ash.”
Andar was ready to die, but he would take out as many as he could first. He gathered a tremendous cloud of Artistry above his head. But as he looked up, he saw massive talons coming down from the sky.
He screamed as he ducked, unsure how he’d missed a summoner’s creature flying over him. The animal grabbed him with strong claws and plucked him off the ground. He tried to squirm free, but the familiar screech of the creature stopped him. He looked up and recognized the face of Rygen’s eagle.
Ivy looked down at Andar and screeched again.
“No, put me down!” Andar said as he realized that he was being taken out of the fray.
Ivy didn’t change directions. The most Andar could do from here was link the limbs of each group of barbarians he passed over. It was difficult to only grab them and not his allies fighting closely with them as he was carried overhead, but he downed dozens of them at a time and watched with satisfaction as the king’s army tore through.
Suddenly he spotted Rizan in the middle of it all. The barbarian leader had come forward out of the reserve. He was about to overwhelm Andar’s allies with the most elite barbarians and beasts beside him. Man and animal alike were huge. Even the creatures were fully armored, some of the humanoids carrying weapons.
Andar cursed as he knew what he had to do. He pointed and shouted, “Ivy!”
The creature looked down.
“That’s their leader. Put me down on top of him! Do you understand? Drop me on top of him! Drop me there!”
Ivy veered. Andar was so surprised it worked, he wasn’t sure if he was ready.
*****
Leo had seen his brother some time ago, but he didn’t know what had happened to Andar. The stalwart link told Leo that Andar was still alive. It fed him bursts of Andar’s emotions, now suddenly telling Leo that Andar was about to do something extremely dangerous.
Leo looked to the sky. He saw Rygen’s creature carrying Andar, but it wasn’t in the direction everyone had spoken about. Mavrim had told Darren, before leaving, that Andar should be rescued by Ivy soon after the battle began, and it might need to be against Andar’s will. They had not told Andar.
Leo’s father had told him and Rygen about this during their journey to Halin. Of course Darren had agreed with Mavrim’s plan to rescue Andar, but he had expressed concern as to how they would then rescue the king. Apparently he had refused to even discuss the possibility of needing assistance.
Leo feared for both of them, but mostly his brother as he watched Andar fall out of the sky with his sword ready to slam down onto some opponent. Leo lost him immediately after.
He couldn’t focus on Andar any longer as he and his father were outmatched by swarms of barbarians and beasts. Leo spotted a smaller creature the size of a dog leaping toward Darren from behind. Leo intercepted the maw of the animal with his blade, putting a quick end to it. But something powerful smacked into Leo’s side.
He was thrown through the air, but thanks to his training managed to keep hold of his sword even though he didn’t land on his feet. The beast that had hit him was moving through Leo’s allies with slow and strong swings of its massive arms. The humanoid was like a man but behemoth in size. When it saw Leo gaping as he got up, the black eyes of its bestial face seemed to hold great rage. It clomped toward him as if it knew who Leo was and had been told to kill him above anyone else.
Leo moved his hands to mimic the Artistry that he wrapped around the legs of the beast, but some mage broke it immediately. A quick look revealed a man who was small for a barbarian, but was still about the size of Leo’s father, who Leo had lost in the chaos. The mage made a circle with his hands as Leo felt Artistry trying to take hold of his body. He dispersed it with ease, but he didn’t know what to do about the beast.
The creature stopped short, then leaned down and roared in Leo’s face. Leo couldn’t keep his eyes on it as he was blasted with a hot and terrible stench. He got his sword up in hopes of defending himself, his vision blurred, but everything became clear again as he saw his father now on the back of the creature with his fingers in the monster’s eyes.
“Kill it, Leo!” Darren was yelling.
Leo could only guess where the creature’s heart was. He took his time to put everything he had into a deep stab. The beast’s roaring was suddenly cut short as it grabbed at Leo. He backed away, leaving his sword within it. Slowly the beast stopped thrashing and started to fall back. There was a heavy crash as it hit the earth. Darren pulled Leo’s sword free and handed it to him.
Leo looked in the direction of the mage, but the man was already hidden behind two more beasts of the same size. When Leo heard his father curse, he realized this could be the end.
The animals charged together. Leo and his father got their weapons ready. There was not enough time to create a link, especially because Leo was busy dispersing the Artistry that the mage continued to wrap around them.
Erisena ran between them and the beasts. She put out her hands and yelled, “Stop!”
The woman had blood staining her violet hair, but Leo didn’t know if it was hers or someone else’s. The beasts came to a stop. They growled as if they might attack, but Erisena didn’t budge. Rygen was back with the medics; at least that was where she was supposed to be. She had promised she would only send her creatures into combat, but Leo was starting to hope she had broken this promise as he saw Erisena struggling to keep the beasts controlled.
Erisena spoke no words, but Leo knew she did not need them to talk to the animals. Slowly, they turned around. The barbarian mage started to back away. He yelled something at the creatures, but it did nothing.
One beast grabbed hold of the summoner, shocking the man. Leo could hardly look as the two quickly put an end to his screams.
“I have them,” Erisena told Darren with a look over her shoulder, a bleeding cut down her forehead.
“Then we charge.” Darren put up his sword and let out a battle cry. Leo joined him as they rushed toward the most clustered of the barbarians around them.
*****
Andar soared down from the sky. It wasn’t a long drop, but time seemed to pass slowly as he feared Rizan would look up and move. But in a flash, Andar was so close that it no longer mattered.
Rizan did glance up. He had just enough time for his eyes to widen as Andar came down on top of him and slammed his spear deep.
There was pain radiating throughout Andar’s body, mostly in his ankles and knees. He was on the ground now, half-remembering falling and rolling, but he was already scampering to his feet as he expected to be impaled at any moment. Landing in the middle of so many armored barbarians and beasts was sure to lead to his death. He just had to make sure he killed Rizan first.
He found the barbarian somehow still on his feet, but Andar’s spear was buried so deep through the top of his shoulder that hardly any of the staff could be seen. There was no way Rizan would live through this.
Rizan fell to his knees as he grimaced. The fat barbarian who had wanted to rape Yune tried to pull the spear out of Rizan, but it didn’t budge as the barbarian leader screamed in agony, and soon the fat barbarian gave up.
“I’m Andar Quim, you idiots,” Andar announced proudly as so many of his enemies were gaping at the scene. Even the beasts seemed dumbfounded, all waiting for an order to attack. “I might die here, but I’ll see all of you in the afterlife with me soon enough.”
He screamed in effort as he locked them in place with Artistry. He had no hope of linking the beasts, however. They were too powerful and too different from the men for the Artistry to hold them. He grabbed Rizan’s fallen sword and moved with incredible speed is he stabbed one man, then another, then a third, all while dodging snarling beasts as they tried to claw and snap at him. Soon they were knocking over the frozen barbarians, every man falling in unison.
That just made it easier for Andar to inflict a grievous wound in each of the fallen men. With no mage around Rizan, and the leader too weak to even get up from his knees, Andar made quick work of all the barbarians in the vicinity.
He turned to deal with the swarm of beasts that were all bumping into each other as they tried to get at him. It was a difficult link, but he finally managed to hold their legs with Artistry. They thrashed and growled, none of them remotely similar to any creature in this world, with their excessively long fangs, their mangled fur, and the burning rage in their beady eyes.
He was about to put an end to the nearest one when something pierced him. He screamed as he fell, but he was able to keep the link together. He saw that a barbarian had come behind him and stabbed him in the back. Andar knew right away that it was the worst wound he had ever suffered. His body sent alarm bells through his mind that something was very wrong, but Andar managed to get up in time to block the second attack. He finished off the barbarian with his own stab, this one into the man’s heart. But there were many more coming.
Andar felt slow as he stuck his blade into the head of the nearest beast. He might not have time to finish off all the creatures that he had linked. He checked behind him once more. His father and brother were charging toward him with troops at their side, including Erisena, who seemed to have control of two gargantuan beasts.
They crashed into the barbarian army as Leo veered off and helped Andar finish off the trapped creatures in front of him.
As soon as they were done, Leo looked at Andar’s back, and his eyes bulged. Darren came over to join them, but the same shock could be seen on his face.
“You have to get to a medic!” Darren said.
“I can still fight!”
“You’re losing too much blood!” The tension in Darren’s voice broke Andar’s heart. He knew it meant the end of battle for him.
Andar did realize just how slow he was becoming. He put his hand over the wound on his back and was surprised to find his glove completely covered in blood.
He muttered a curse. Darren picked him up over his shoulder and ran him toward their allies. Darren weaved through men fighting each other, taking a glancing blow on his arm without even lifting his sword to defend himself. But it hardly slowed him, and soon he and Andar were out of the fray.
Andar saw Rygen standing among the medics. She put her hands over her mouth at the sight of him.
The sharp pain was starting to get to Andar by the time his father put him down.
“His wound needs to be cauterized,” Darren said.
Andar was surprised to see one of the medics already with a glowing hot sword in her hand.
He still felt like he could fight, though. Perhaps after this was done he could get back to the battle.
But when she put the blade against him, and the pain sapped every ounce of his adrenaline, he knew his fight was over. The sound he made was a scream unlike he’d heard ever from his own throat, the agony too much to bear.
