Jim Butcher - First Lord's Fury

After the first three massive volleys, the mules began lighter work. Their loads were smaller, and they threw less often. It was the only way they could make the limited supply of fire-spheres last. The resulting attacks were smaller, if no less devastating to the vord hit by them.

It took several minutes for the vord to rush over the havoc the mules had caused in the field before the wall. At first, they arrived in scattered, irregular bunches, easily focused on and destroyed by the wall’s defenders. It didn’t last. Though an ongoing slaughter was being wreaked upon the vord by Octavian’s mules, the vord’s strength of numbers seemed undiminished. Soon, they were pressing against the wall again, and if they could not easily create footholds in the wall, their own dead began to pile up into ramps that grew closer and closer to the ramparts.

Bernard watched another flight of fire-spheres go sailing over the wall and nodded his approval. “Great furies, if it didn’t work,” he said. He shot his wife a quick, fierce grin. “Tavi said they would work when he sent me the plans.”

“When was that, again?” Amara asked.

Bernard scratched at his chin, then leaned his forearms on a merlon, casually crossed, like a man gossiping over a stone fence. The pose was intentional, Amara knew. The men around him were looking at him for indications of his state of mind every so often, and he showed them a mask of calm, almost casual confidence. “Three, four months after the Elinarch, I reckon. But I didn’t look at them again until he wrote about his idea to use the fire-spheres as ammunition for the mules. So I had Giraldi build one and test it and…” He spread his hands demonstratively.

“I know you said they’d be effective, but…” Amara shook her head. “I had no idea.”

“I know,” Bernard said.

“This… this is going to change everything.”

“Hope so,” he said fervently. “Means there’s something left standing to change.”

Amara looked steadily at him for a moment while his eyes shifted back to the battlefield. He knew. She could see it in his face. He knew what the mules represented. Not in and of themselves, of course, but as a symbol for the collective strength of the freemen of Alera—strength that could now be given deadly expression, if need be, now that someone had shown them the way.

The battle raged. Gargants fitted with huge baskets shambled up and down the walls, carrying more stones to the legionares . Legionares with spears began to fend off the vord as they came within reach of the longer weapons. Occasionally, a Knight Ignus would melt a corpse-ramp into a bubbling pool of slagged, stinking chitin, or a Knight Terra would simply cause it to sink into the soft earth. But they were holding. By the great furies, they were holding .

Another flight of fire-spheres went whispering overhead to bring down raging fire on the heads of the mantis warriors, when there was a sudden tremor in the ground, and a distant sound, a roar that rose up like some great beast voicing a warning.

Amara turned her face to the north and looked at the enormous, bleak grey mountain that loomed there, like some unimaginably huge bastion positioned to hold the Legions’ flanks. As she watched, she saw clouds of dust billowing forth from the mountain. An entire face of the mountain’s slope had apparently given way, causing a rockslide so enormous that it beggared the imagination.

The roll of the land kept her from seeing any details, but it wasn’t hard to imagine what had happened. The vord had circled around the end of the second wall, probably hoping to come at the Legions from the rear, or even to proceed toward the civilians back near Garrison. Instead, they had discovered what anyone who lived in the Calderon Valley knew from the time they were old enough to understand speech—that the mountain’s name was Garados, and that it did not tolerate visitors.

Amara had known the murderous fury was dangerous, but when she imagined what that meant, she hadn’t gotten the right scope of its overwhelming, malevolent power. Clearly, it would seem that Garados was the next best thing to a great fury itself, if not a full-blown superpower in its own right.

“Unbelievable,” she murmured.

“Bloody mountain has been a worry and an almighty trial to me for most of twenty-five years,” Bernard growled. “About time the thing started pulling its weight.”

A few minutes later, a new cry abruptly went up from the vord, a long slow wail that rose and fell in a steady cycle every few seconds. Amara tensed and leaned forward onto the merlon beside her husband, watching the enemy intently.

The vord rushed about, swirling in ranks past and through one another, falling into some sort of unthinkable, alien order and…

And withdrew .

“They’re running!” screamed a legionare .

The men on the wall went berserk with defiance and triumph, screaming imprecations after the retreating vord and raising their weapons into the failing light of the sun. While they did, the vord continued to fall back, and within a few moments, they had all vanished back in the direction from which they had come. A minute later, the only movement on the open field consisted of the still-twitching limbs of slain vord and the black wings of crows swooping down to feast upon the fallen.

“Giraldi,” Bernard said. “Sound stand down. Get a rotation going to get the men food, water, and rest.”

“Yes, sir,” Giraldi said. He saluted and went about his duties.

“That goes for the rest of you, too, people,” Bernard said to his command staff on the roof of the tower. “Get something in your bellies and find a spot to get a nap.”

Amara waited until they had all departed to say, “You did it.”

Bernard grunted and shook his head. “All we did was make them take us seriously. Before today, the vord had never had much in the way of tactics. They just threw more warriors at every problem.” He rubbed at one eye with his forefinger. “Today they tried to turn our flank. Tomorrow…” He shrugged. “They pulled back because someone over there is busy thinking of a way to bring us down. The next time we see them, they’ll have something nasty prepared.”

Amara shivered. He took a step closer and put his arm around her. The movement was awkward in his lorica, but Bernard managed.

“The important thing,” he said, “is that we’re still here. Once we fall back to Garrison, we should be able to hold out for weeks, if need be. We’ve successfully bought time.”

“For what?” Amara asked.

“For the boy to get here,” Bernard said.

“What good will that do us?” she asked. “No one’s sighted the Queen yet.”

Bernard shook his head. “He’s got something tricky in mind. Count on it.”

Amara nodded. “I hope so,” she said. “Love, you should have some food and rest, too.”

“Aye. In just a moment.” His fingers absently stroked her hand. “Pretty sunset, isn’t it?”

“Beautiful,” she replied. She leaned her head on his shoulder.

The sun was nearly gone, its ruddy light glaring into their eyes. Shadows spread long across the Valley’s floor.

And off in the distance, the shrieks of angry vord whispered from the Valley’s walls.

“Let me deal with this,” Invidia snarled. “Give me our earthcrafters and the behemoths, and that wall won’t last five minutes.”

“No,” said the Queen. She paced back and forth beside the pool of water, staring down at it. Her tattered old gown rustled and whispered. “No, not yet,” she said.

“You saw the losses they inflicted.”

The Queen shrugged a shoulder, the motion elegant, at odds with the stained finery she wore. “Losses are to be expected. Especially here, at the last. They revealed hidden capabilities without destroying us, which we will overcome in our next encounter. That is a victory.” She looked up at Invidia sharply. “However, I do not understand why you did not warn me about the great fury in the mountain.”