Chapter 22

Asher stared at Vitari’s border. It was easy to spot. The underbrush inside Vitari's city limits had all been cut away and the grass carefully cut and kept short. There was also a magicked wall of plants that encircled the city-tribe and was spelled against Rooks. The towering wall of vegetation was useful but it also hid the enemy from Vitari's defenders.

Something we don’t need right now, he told himself.

Even though Asher and everyone else couldn’t see through the spelled wall, they knew the Rooks were there. They could sense it in the way the earth around them seemed heavy with tension. They could feel the unusual vibrations in the air. They could feel the trees quivering with anxiousness. Vitari was filled with the sounds of nervous creatures, big and small.

“What are they waiting for?” he whispered.

A gentle hand rested on his shoulder and he looked up at the face of his mother.

“Opportunity,” she replied. There was a faint crease in between her eyebrows as she stared at the border too. “They want to catch us off guard. They want to storm our homes and kill us all before we can put up a fight.”

“How do you know?” Asher asked, curious.

His mother’s face became like a rock, stony and unyielding. He saw anger lurking in her eyes, which was odd for him. She was not a very angry person. His whole life, he could count how many times she’d yelled at him on one hand and still have fingers to spare.

“Because that’s what happened at Ledun,” she whispered.

Asher could tell that she was replaying that horrible battle in her mind. It had happened long before he’d been born, but his mother had been there. Ledun was where she’d been born. She’d grown up there. Just after she had passed into womanhood, however, the Rooks found Ledun and attacked.

She never liked to talk about it, but Asher knew the experience had scarred and traumatized her. When the battle was over and Ledun began rebuilding, she’d left her home and came to Vitari with the Chieftain at the time. There were too many bad memories there, she’d said at one point. Too many things that reminded her of everyone she’d lost.

“Do we have enough warriors left to push them back?” Asher asked. He squinted his eyes to see a little better as nervousness roiled around his stomach. He wished that Blink were with him, but once again, he hid the machine so it wouldn't be destroyed. It would be comforting to have some Rook technology next to him especially considering that Rooks were about to invade his home.

“Leave that to me,” Aeole answered, her voice iron hard.

“What are you going to do?”

“Take the fight to them,” she answered.

She raised a hand, palm open and facing out. It was the signal for everyone to hold their positions.

Asher glanced around and found the grim faces of Vitari’s remaining warriors. Behind them, ready to jump in as needed, were three Callers that had stayed home to protect those that were left behind.

He looked back at his mother and quickly jumped away from her, scared. The soft, kind woman that he knew and loved was gone. Someone…or something…else had taken her place.

Her eyes were glowing with soft, green light. Her skin seemed to radiate it as well. Her arms were out to either side, their tips lengthening into wicked claws like a cat’s. A pattern of tiger stripes appeared on her skin and her face started taking on subtle, feline features.

“Mom?” he asked, terrified now.

She’s a Caller! he screamed inside his head, his world shattering around him. All this time, and his own mother was one of…of…them!

“Be ready,” she said, her voice soft, almost soothing, and yet filled with an immense power he could barely understand.

All of a sudden, the dense foliage and leaves just beyond Vitari erupted into chaos and noise. Roars, bird shrieks, insects, and a host of other animal sounds filled the air. Then came the screams. Very human screams. It wasn’t long after that when everyone could see the bright pulses of Rook weapons firing. The sound of human screams were joined by screeches, howls, and roars of pain from the animals.

“I’m not done yet,” Aeole said, her power radiating even more.

When Asher looked up at her, he was shocked to see a thread of grey in her hair. Her face looked like it had two or three new wrinkles. Whatever power she was unleashing, it was draining her life.

“Stop!” he yelled.

“No! I’m not finished with them yet,” she yelled as her eyes flashed a bright, brilliant green.

Horrible ripping sounds drew Asher’s attention to the ground. Lurching and tearing their way free of the earth were some of the most nightmarish creatures he’d ever seen. Some of them were made entirely of rock, others were made from a mix of rock, leaves, and branches, and others looked like living trees. Despite how much they terrified him, Asher was astounded.

“Golems,” he cried, giddy with excitement. Callers used the creatures very infrequently because they required a great deal of energy to make and even then they usually only called forth one to do whatever job was needed at the time. Looking down at them now, he saw nearly two dozen of them, each one called by his mother!

The effort, however, was enormous. The strand of grey in his mother’s hair was joined by four others. More wrinkles appeared on her face and if Asher had to guess, she looked like she’d aged three or four years in the span of a handful of minutes.

“You have to stop this!” he tried yelling at her. After seeing what calling the golems had done to her, he wasn’t quite so eager to see them anymore. “You’re going to kill yourself.”

Aeole looked at him, her weird cat/human face terrifying.

“They took my daughter! They killed my family! They are coming here to kill all of us, just like they tried to do at Ledun!” she nearly screamed. “This time…this time I won’t let that happen. This time I will stop them!”

The golems waded into the forest proper, ripping and tearing at anything even remotely Rook. Light flashed again. There were more screams. They heard immense booms, like thunder. The golems were in the fight now and judging by the sounds, they were doing a lot of damage.

At the same time, though, Asher wondered how much damage his mother was taking.

Lord Guilder was angry. Lord Guilder was, more to the point, furious. Of all the soldiers in Wilhelm's army, the General had chosen him to lead the expedition into the Qarri Forest. It was infuriating but he wasn't going to say that to the completely terrifying Wilhelm Coran.

Lord Guilder stomped through the thick leaves, bushes, plants, flowers, animals, and anything else that got in his way in an effort to find the Terra city as fast as he could. The faster he found the cursed place, the faster he could level it to the ground. He relished the thought of watching their silly buildings being burned to the ground, hopefully with tons of the savages along with them.

He hacked at a broad-leafed plant with his machete.

If he was lucky, this venture would be over soon and he could go back to the opulent luxury in Roanoke.

“How much bloody further?” he snarled.

A blank-eyed man turned around and faced him. He stared at Lord Guilder with a bored expression, as if he stormed Terraqouis cities on a daily basis.

The rest of the men in the company halted as well. They all stared at Lord Guilder with identical blank expressions.

He gulped nervously.

“According to the General’s report, another mile straight ahead,” the soldier responded, his voice equally devoid of emotion or depth. The company Lord Guilder was currently with had been instructed, by Wilhelm via com-link, to destroy the Terraqouis city of Vitari. “If it pleases you, sir, I would like to get there without further interruption.”

There was something menacing lurking in the soldier's tone, which was about the only emotional expression there.

Lord Guilder looked at each soldier in turn and found the same menacing undertones in them as well. He decided that it was probably safer if he kept his mouth shut.

And look for a way to escape, he thought silently.

He was starting to realize that there was no going back to Roanoke. Wilhelm wasn't doing all this for vengeance against a King that failed him. He was doing this to destroy everything. The blank-eyed expressions on the soldiers' faces was proof enough of that. Wilhelm didn't want free-thinkers. Not anymore.

Especially after what he did to that Terra warrior, he thought to himself with a shudder of revulsion. There were no words to describe how utterly horrified he was to see that gaping hole open up in Wilhelm's palm. Or the fat, disgusting spider-thing that emerged from it. Or the terrifying way it clamped onto the Terra's brain stem and left the boy with no mind whatsoever.

Lord Guilder was not letting that happen to him. Which left him with two choices.

Become a mindless drone.

Or escape and save himself.

He knew that if he was caught trying to desert he would probably be killed immediately, but in that scenario, there was also a chance that he could get away clean. If he continued on with the company of blank-eyed automatons and went up against the Terraqouis on their own ground, he was sure he would either be killed or stay alive long enough to have one of the spider-things clamp onto his own spinal cord.

If there was one thing he was willing to admit to himself, it was that he was a coward and nowhere near Purga’s premiere combatant. During his stint at the Collegiate of Roanoke, he’d nearly failed all of his courses dealing with combat, weapons, battle strategy, and anything else that even remotely dealt with war. It was required, by law, that nobles attend the Collegiate and it was also required, by law, that they study every aspect of war. The only reason he managed to squeak in passing grades was through manipulation and a hefty amount of blackmail.

His chances of surviving against the Terraquois were ridiculously low.

His chances of surviving with his mind intact were even lower.

“Let’s get moving then,” Lord Guilder finally said.

The soldier nodded and then barked an order to move out. As one, the rest of the soldiers began walking, eerily synchronized in their movements. Every swing of their arms, every step it seemed, was in sync with all the rest.

Lord Guilder suppressed a shudder of fear and began moving.

What exactly did Wilhelm do to them? he wondered and not for the first time. When he’d first joined up with the Blak Army, he’d never really noticed any significant oddities with its soldiers. But now, things were definitely off. Everyone he came in contact with was blank inside like the soldiers around him. They lacked almost everything that made them human. There were times, very infrequent times, when he would catch glimpses of the people they’d been before Wilhelm corrupted them. Those times, however, were quickly fading. The soldiers in the army, put simply, were getting worse. At first, whatever power Wilhelm commanded was just a sort of nudge or a push to guide them over to his cause. Now, it felt more like a brutal assault on their minds as Wilhelm just crushed any semblance of humanity out of them.

“We are nearing the border to Vitari, the largest of the Terraqouis cities,” the soldier leading the company whispered, keeping his voice extremely low. He was, Lord Guilder noted, the same man that had threatened him before. Captain Casius Blodren if he remembered correctly.

A queasy feeling hit his stomach. Now he was stuck for it. He’d never found his opening to escape. The soldiers had all been watching him closely, as if each one had been expecting him to run. Now it was too late.

No, it’s not, his mind whispered to him. As soon as the attack begins, they’ll be too distracted to keep track of you. When the time comes, make your escape. But be ready!

He kept his face guarded and impassive, so as not to indirectly give his intentions away.

Captain Casius gestured with his hands for the rest of the soldiers to remain quiet. He motioned for them to split off into two groups and arrange themselves quietly behind a wall of thick vegetation, bushes, and leaves. They all moved almost completely silently. When they were in position, the Captain held up a fist. Every soldier came to a complete standstill, their blasters held over their chests and their eyes cast forward, into the dense underbrush. Not one of them moved. Not even an inch.

Lord Guilder, wondering what was going on, moved closer to Casius, despite the Captain’s obvious ire to see him moving around when he wasn’t supposed to be.

“What is this? Why are you all just standing here doing nothing?” he whispered harshly.

Casius turned toward Lord Guilder. His hand flashed out, too fast for the other man to do much more than blink in surprise. He caught Lord Guilder by the throat and squeezed. Lord Guilder immediately began coughing and making thick, gagging sounds.

“If you jeopardize this mission, I will cut off your legs and leave you here for the savages. I'm sure you'll make a fine meal for them. A veritable smorgasbord,” Casius said, his tone even and bored. “Now shut your mouth.”

Lord Guilder’s face started turning purple.

Casius yanked him closer, their noses almost touching.

“Can you understand that, you ignorant twit?”

Lord Guilder nodded vigorously.

Casius let him go.

The Lord took in big, heaving gulps of air. His eyes were wide and frightened. Anger surged forward, but it was useless at the moment. He was outnumbered and Casius had proven stronger and faster than him.

Casius held up a fist and then opened it twice. The other soldiers all responded as one. They put their weapons at the ready and prepared to move through the dense foliage and into the Terraqouis city.

Before they could take a step, however, the forest suddenly came alive and attacked them. Animals of every shape and size exploded out of the trees, bushes, grass, and even out of the ground. They were caught off guard and were completely unprepared to deal with an assault like that. Almost a dozen soldiers were mauled to death in the first couple of minutes.

A gigantic, shaggy bear grappled with a soldier, eventually crushing him to the ground and slicing him open with long, sharp claws. When it was finished, it got up and attacked another Rook. Several snakes clung to one unlucky woman. Her terrified, green eyes were wide as various venoms pumped through her system. She grabbed hold of a long, black snake that had bitten her on the cheek and tried to yank it off. Before she could, however, she dropped to the ground and started convulsing. A family of gorillas smashed into four Rooks trying to hold them off with laser fire. Two of the big animals went down, but the other two smashed into the soldiers and beat them to death. Several large birds of prey dropped out of the higher branches and raked their talons across eyes and faces.

Screams filled the air, both animal and human.