Chapter 31

Every person in the Terraquois camp could see the Rook advance coming. They flowed over the desert like a black wave. Their numbers were even higher than the previous attacks. There were hundreds of thousands of them, maybe even millions. There were Rook soldiers in their black battle gear. There were thousands of war machines rumbling over the sand. A hundred or so flyers swept through the air, strafing the campsite with red pulses of light and bombs that did untold amounts of damage.

Tarvo watched them come, trying to figure out an effective battle plan. His army’s supplies were nearly depleted. Food and water was being strictly rationed now. There simply weren’t enough Callers to create more. The cadaris were gone and so were the catapults. Most of them had already been destroyed in previous attacks. The few remaining ones were now engulfed in flames as the flyers overhead targeted them specifically.

This was a losing battle. He’d come here out of revenge and a sense of duty, but the only thing he was accomplishing was to get most of his people killed.

“What are your plans?” Chibbi asked, standing next to him. Her war hammer was hefted across one shoulder.

“Go and get Beltar,” he said. “Their time has come.”

Chibbi nodded her head and ran off, war hammer and all. Despite how ridiculously huge the weapon was, she carried it easily even while running.

“How long do you expect Beltar’s cavalry to hold out against that?” Wiosha asked, scratching at his beard. He looked much better, but he was still weak. Numerous bandages covered the wounds he’d suffered, which were still oozing blood. The Callers had been able to heal much of the injuries, but they couldn’t heal them all the way.

Wiosha shifted somewhat, a grimace of pain flickering across his face.

“Long enough to stall them,” Tarvo replied. He looked at the big Warlord. “Can you fight?”

Wiosha didn’t look like he was able to fight, but he nodded his shaggy head anyway.

Tarvo was reluctant to let him, but he knew better than to try and stop him. Wiosha had always been stubborn. If he set his mind to a course of action, not even a mountain could get in his way.

“Are you sure?” Tarvo asked.

Wiosha laughed. “Don’t baby me, Tarvo. I’ll fight every blasted last one of them.” His face suddenly went cold as he glared at the enemy army. “After what they did to Aertia, not even Damnation’s fire can stop me.”

Tarvo just nodded.

“Ready your men then. And you too, Soqart.” The other Warlord nodded his head slightly. “As soon as Beltar sounds the retreat, I want both your warriors in there trying to take advantage of the confusion. Do as much damage as you two can.”

Wiosha smiled broadly.

“Damage I can do,” he said.

A horn call suddenly blared through the air. It was almost lost in the sounds of explosions and blaster fire. But Tarvo heard it just fine. He felt a little relief as he watched a herd of horses come galloping out from behind a large sand dune where they’d been hiding. Thanks to some clever earth manipulations by the Callers, they’d even managed to evade detection from the Rook flyers.

Each one was being ridden by a howling Terra toting a long spear and shield.

The wave of horses crashed into the Rook advance’s flank. Tarvo watched as the enemy scattered and tried to get away. Most of them were cut down but to his disappointment, so were a lot of the cavalry. They weren’t strong enough to stand against the deadly machines that the Rooks had with them. Their tanks and one-man assault vehicles fired thick, deadly beam of light after thick, deadly beam of light. Some of his warriors were able to evade the enemy fire but a lot weren’t so lucky. Tarvo watched as the latter were lost in blazes of red light. When the light was gone, nothing was left but ash.

He gritted his teeth, his hand gripped almost painfully around the leather wrapped handle of his mace.

The situation didn’t improve at all. The cavalry gave it their best shot. They managed to maim, severely wound, or kill a chunk of Rooks but taken as a whole, it was just a minor fraction of their army.

Tarvo couldn’t stand it anymore. If he let this go on much longer, he risked losing the entire cavalry altogether. He raised his mace and brought it down in a diagonal slash. Immediately, three horn calls sounded. The call to retreat. For a moment, he was afraid his men hadn’t heard the signal. They kept fighting, and dying. But then one horse, one that bore no rider, broke away from the rest of the herd. It rose on both hind legs, neighing. Tarvo couldn’t hear it from his position, but he could tell it was trying to get the other horses’ attention.

It took the riderless horse a lot to get the other horses to follow him. All they seemed to want to do was trample as many Rooks as they could. Finally, however, it managed it. It rose on its hind legs again and then took off in the direction they’d come. Five other horses and riders fell to the Rooks cursed weapons, but they managed to get away.

Less than a third of the cavalry was left alive.

“Now!” Tarvo shouted, slashing his mace across the air again.

Wiosha and Soqart both let out battle roars and charged across the sands with their respective warriors. Soqart was all smooth grace while Wiosha (although slow due to his wounds) resembled a rampaging elephant. They waded into battle, trying to take advantage of the confusion the cavalry had left, but unfortunately, there wasn’t much of that. The only ones to really be effected by the attack were already back in formation, marching with stony faces across the sand to decimate and slaughter the rest of the savages.

Like Tarvo feared, Wiosha, Soqart, and the Terras they’d taken with them didn’t fare any better than the cavalry. In fact, they did even worse. They fought bravely, but they were getting hit hard. Both groups were sustaining heavy casualties and the Rooks didn’t seem to be showing any sort of compassion or mercy at all.

They killed ruthlessly.

Tarvo gave the order to sound the retreat again.

When they came back, Wiosha wasn’t there.

“He died like he always said he wanted to,” Soqart explained, “with his weapon buried in an enemy and blood flowing around him. He died with honor.”

It was a bitter defeat. Tarvo had lost yet another Warlord and a lot of other, good warriors had met their deaths. It was disheartening to see and crushed not only his morale but the morale of his entire army. He could feel his shoulders slump in defeat as he watched the relentless horde of Rooks coming for them. Their weapons were still firing, taking even more lives.

“Can the Callers muster up another defensive structure?” he asked, desperate now. He knew well enough himself that the Callers had practically been decimated. Only about six of them were left alive and that included a crone that looked like she was going to wither into dust at any moment.

“There aren’t enough of them and the ones that are left just aren’t strong enough. Heari might’ve been able to whip something up by herself, but she’s on the edge now. No one knows how much longer she’ll last,” Soqart said. There was a bloody gash to his temple but he didn’t seem to notice it. The only thing he did to even acknowledge the wound’s presence was to wipe blood away from his eyes occasionally.

“Then we can only stand and defend ourselves for as long as possible. Ready the men. Give the order to form a defensive line. I want to push back against the Rooks. I want to make them pay in blood for every warrior they kill. Is that understood?” Tarvo turned to look at the wispy-like Warlord. His chain scythe was wrapped around one of his lean muscled shoulders.

Soqart nodded. Then he turned and went down the lines bellowing out the orders. There were a lot of grim faces, but they all nodded. None of them would disappoint Tarvo.

Chibbi came racing back, her face red and sweaty. If it was possible, she looked even younger than she was.

“Where do you need me?” she asked, her breathing only a little labored.

“Front and center,” Tarvo said, disgusted with himself. He never wanted to send someone so young to battle, but he knew that if he put her anywhere else she would simply find a way to get to the heart of the fighting anyway. The anger she harbored over the deaths of her parents still burned deeply and the only thing that would quench it was getting her vengeance. Despite his better judgment, Tarvo wanted to give her a chance to get it. “We need to hold them off. Think you and your warriors can do that?”

Chibbi only smiled. Then she winked and made her way down to the defensive line. Ledun’s warriors followed after her, arranging themselves in such a way that they would be the first Terraqouis the Rooks encountered.

It’s not just Chibbi that harbors hate for the Rooks, Tarvo thought to himself as he watched their faces light up with anticipation.

Tarvo called out to his own men and made his way down to the front lines. He stood there with a strange and eerie calmness. His mace was down at his side.

The Rooks were getting closer. The flyers screamed overhead, still trying to wipe them out with their weapons. The tanks and assault vehicles were shooting those insanely thick beams. They killed and vaporized anything in their path. The soldiers themselves were starting to fire now. One bright beam of light came streaking right at him. He raised his shield almost absentmindedly. The light hit it and it absorbed the damage, leaving him uninjured. There was just a slight vibration that thrummed up from his arm and into his shoulder.

Tarvo held his mace up high.

Every Terraqouis warrior saw that mace and excitement rushed through them.

“Are we going to stand here and wait to die!” Tarvo yelled.

There was a loud, resounding chorus of, “NO!”

“Are we going to stand here and wait to DIE!” he shouted even louder.

The roaring NO! was even louder the second time and was followed by the sounds of weapons clashing against their shields.

“Then let’s fight!” Tarvo roared, bringing his mace forward.

Before any Terra could march forward, however, something moved out into the desert from behind them. It came from out of the Terra encampment. Whatever it was, it was inhumanly fast and too hard to really see. It stopped when it was in the exact middle between both sides, standing with its back to the Terra army. The unexpectedness of its arrival caused all the warriors to halt. They stopped, looking at each other in confusion.

Tarvo could hear whispered words spreading through the ranks but he didn’t really pay attention to them. All the blood in his body had suddenly went cold. His mind seemed to seize up on him. He recognized the figure, or rather figures. The one that had been running was carrying the other, presumably so he could get them there faster. He set the other figure on its feet and they both stood facing the Rooks.

One was Rone...

And the other was Keiara.

“Keiara!” Tarvo shouted. He dropped his mace and immediately started running, trying to get to her before the Rooks could kill her.

Before he could get even a couple of feet, a wall of flame suddenly erupted out of the sand. It cut him off from her. He thought he could get around it but it just seemed to follow him, always staying between himself and Keiara. He could just make her out through the hot, shimmering wall of fire. She looked almost apologetic.

Then she turned her back on him.

Together her and Rone faced the Rooks alone.