David Dalglish - Wrath of Lions

“Archers, forward,” she said loudly, and sixty men stepped to the front of the procession, fanning out wide, thirty on either side of her.

“Did they think that shoddy wall would protect them?” asked Malcolm.

“I don’t care,” Avila snapped back. “They kneel, or they die.”

Heads began appearing over the wall. She counted seventeen.

“With me, archers,” she said. “March.”

Gently snapping the reins, she walked her mare toward the walled village. Malcolm remained beside her, and the archers kept in stride with the horse, their feet moving in unison, a perfectly tuned machine of her creation. Pride filled her belly with warmth. Father taught me well, she thought. A slight pang of sorrow followed when she thought of him. The man’s gorgeous platinum hair was gone now, his body warped by the presence of the otherworldly demon inside him.

Think. Concentrate. Lead.

When she was a mere fifty yards from the village, she shouted the order to stop. All came to a silent halt. She could hear the archers breathing heavily, and she knew it had little to do with the day’s warmth.

Malcolm glanced at her and nodded.

“The moment is yours, Lord Commander,” he said. An expectant gleam shone in his milky eye.

She lifted her chin to the sky and spoke.

“People of Nor, hear my voice! Open your gate and let us enter. None shall perish if you bend your knee to Karak, the rightful god of all Dezrel. We come here to release you from the bonds imposed by your hateful deity. Do not turn us away. Refusal to kneel is tantamount to blasphemy, and we shall not hesitate to batter down your weak wall and run you through.”

Behind her legions, the raging inferno of the crops sputtered and hissed. A light rain of ash had begun to fall all around them.

Pausing, she edged her mare a few steps forward. She heard voices raised in panic on the other side of the wall. The front gate creaked open, catching on the dirt, and someone cursed in a familiar yet foreign tongue. Grunts came next, and the gate swung outward as far as it could go.

The gate was only six feet tall at most, and beneath it ducked two Wardens to join the third who had shoved open the substandard entryway. She was unsurprised to find she knew all three. They were Benedictus, Azrial, and Gabriel, Wardens from the east who had relocated to Ashhur’s Paradise after Karak sent them away from Neldar. They stood tall and proud, their silken auburn hair hanging down to their waists. The simple hemp-spun clothing they wore made them look like absurdly giant elves, and the staffs they held in their hands, sharpened to points, made them resemble elegant barbarians.

All three stepped toward her, Benedictus taking the point, his two brothers falling to his flank. From the top of the short wall appeared human heads holding improvised bows, the stone tips of arrows aimed at Avila and her archers. It was a truly pathetic sight, and Avila couldn’t help but laugh.

“Avila, turn around and go back home,” said Benedictus. He stood before her, tall and proud, the porcelain sheen of his flesh so much like hers.

“You have heard my words, Warden,” she replied. “Your people shall kneel, or they shall die.”

The Warden shook his head, an action copied by the other two. “You have no place here, my dear,” he said. “I have known you since birth, and while I realize your heart is cold, you must see that these people have no way to defend themselves save the shanty wall raised by their creator.”

Ah, so it was Ashhur who raised the wall, she mused.

“It shall be as I said,” she replied. “They kneel or they perish.”

Benedictus took a step forward, and Avila’s archers tensed.

“These people are innocent,” he said in an angry whisper, leaning close to her. “You would kill them without cause?”

“There are no such things as innocents,” replied Malcolm. “The only virtue that exists lies in the glory of Karak.”

It was Gabriel who came forward this time, waggling his spear at Malcolm. “This is not Karak’s land,” the Warden growled, not attempting to hush his voice as Benedictus had. “You have no right to be here, let alone threaten the lives of seventy innocents!”

There are only seventy. This should be simple.

“We are well within our rights,” said Avila. “Our authority was given by Karak himself, who claimed this land after your beloved Ashhur broke his oath.” She trotted her mare before them, pulling out Integrity and wielding it above her head. “All three of you know me, so you know how I love my creator.…And you know that I am a woman of my word. If I promise them death should they not kneel, then nothing less will suffice.”

The Wardens glanced at one another, then huddled together. Avila waited patiently, letting the heat from the sun prickle her flesh while a light breeze played her hair. She felt preternaturally calm, just as she always did before an attack.

Benedictus separated from his brothers. “If we kneel, we live?” he asked her. “Is that a promise?”

Avila chuckled. “If they kneel, they live. That is what Karak decreed, that is what shall be done.”

“They?” said Azrial, blinking. “What of us?”

“The Wardens have no place in the Dezrel to come,” she replied. “Your time is passed, and you will now rejoin your brothers and sisters who perished so long ago.”

She turned her head slightly, lips locked tight, and nodded to Malcolm.

“Now!” shouted Malcolm.

Benedictus, Azrial, and Gabriel had no time to do anything but turn back toward the walled village, screams on their tongues, before sixty archers released at once, peppering them with arrows. The Wardens fell to the earth, wooden shafts still assaulting them, and their blood saturated the ground.

Avila sat tall in her saddle once their bodies had stilled. She lifted her chin high.

“People of Nor,” she called out, “I will say this only once more. You are no longer the slaves of your Wardens and Ashhur. Step out from behind your wall, kneel before your liberators, and dedicate your lives to the true god of Dezrel. Do this, and none will perish!”

There was no surrender. From inside the wall people shouted, and the archers of Nor loosed their own arrows from their crude bows. Most fluttered harmlessly to the ground, and only one flew true over the heads of Avila and her men. It clanked off Malcolm’s pauldron, barely missing his ear.

“They wish to fight!” Avila shouted, scooting her mare backward and summoning the horsemen from the flank. “Batter the walls, flood the gate, and kill them all!”

The horsemen sped past her, all galloping hooves and frenzied shrieks. Malcolm summoned the vanguard, which ran screaming toward the walls, those in front lugging a heavy oaken log with a curved tip. The villagers desperately tried to close the swinging gate, but it had been hung at an angle and the corner was wedged in the clay soil.

The men of Nor retreated inside, followed by those at the front of the vanguard, who’d tossed aside their ram once they realized the gate needed no cracking. Avila leapt from her mare when she reached the gate, arcing and slashing with Integrity as she ducked inside, finding purchase with each swing. Through her veins pulsed a sudden terror and excitement-with her words, her soldiers, the war against Paradise had begun. As her armored force streamed through the narrow gap in the wall surrounding the puny village, swords were drawn and pikes were thrust, her soldiers killing all they came across. The blood of Ashhur’s children leaked in streams from the wedged-open gate, ash sprinkling atop it from the burning fields.

It was a glorious moment, but through the deafening clamor of it all, Avila could swear she heard young Willa’s screams.