Told In Stone Chapter 3: Warcaster

The two hundred Leybound broke, fleeing swiftly up the hillside. Fifty feet from them, the driver of the prince's carriage cracked the reins and the white horses snorted and hauled as Worthy and the other officers mounted and fled toward the safety of the tree line on the top of the hill.

Riot ran, focussing on finding firm footing. A misstep here would be the last thing he ever did. Ahead of him the golden wagon bounced wildly. It wasn’t making good progress and there was a chorus of shrieks coming from inside. The carriage hit a rock that was half concealed by dry grass and the front axel snapped, sending one of the wheels careening away down the hill.

“It’s going to go over!” Loic warned.

The corner of the carriage carved into the earth sending up a spray of dirt and with a groan the carriage slowly tipped over and crashed onto its side.

The fleeing regiment swarmed over, around it and under it. The two white horses pulled free of their harnesses and bolted, their white manes flowing in the breeze.

“Leybound to me!” Riot bellowed and pumped his legs harder.

The screams of terror from inside were ear splitting and Riot pulled himself up onto the side of the carriage and wrenched the door open to find the Prince of the Faelen cowering inside, hiding behind a scantily clad woman who wielded a letter opener like a dagger. “Get out, now,” Riot shouted.

He hauled the girl out first and pushed her roughly off of the carriage to Loic who caught her, then he reached in and pulled out the Prince. The boy hardly weighed a thing.

“Lieutenant Riot, my saviour!” The Prince crowed, gripping onto him tightly.

“Soon have you out of here your highness,” Riot said, pushing the prince unceremoniously off of the carriage where he landed sprawled out on the grass.

A Faelen dart thunked into the side of the carriage and Riot looked up to see the long line of one hundred and fifty charging horses only sixty yards away at full gallop, clumps of dirt flicked up by their thundering hooves.

Around twenty Leybound had come to Riots call, half of them wore the dark blue uniforms like his own, and the other half wore the light blue of the Arcanum regiments. They were too few, but it was too late to reach the woods now.

They were going to die. The Prince might survive, Riot might even make it if they noticed the cheap Lieutenants pendant, but he knew he looked worse than the lowliest rank and file and they would likely kill him. If Colonel Worthy were a better commander he could rally the survivors in the woods and lead charge out to save them, but he wasn’t and he wouldn’t.

“Take cover behind the carriage, they’ll have to split to go around, take as many out as you can as they pass,” Riot ordered.

The riders split around the carriage and leybound charges battered into them. Half a dozen were unhorsed, crashing to the ground, unmoving. Loic stepped out and swung his axe, smashing one rider clean out of the saddle.

“Get around the other side,” Riot yelled, scrambling back over the golden carriage.

The cavalry charge had carried the enemy into the fifty yards of grassland in-between the fallen carriage and the safety of the forest. In this dead ground the horsemen hunted the fleeing Leybound, slicing down with their curved sabres. But while the Mazral cavalry careened about, the riders who wore the rust colored robes and wide brimmed hats milled about as if unsure what to do now that the charge was over.

“They don’t look like much do they?” Loic said.

Riot watched as the leader of the riders in the rust coloured robes met a Colonel of the Mazral cavalry. They appeared to be arguing, the Colonel gesturing wildly over at the carriage, and then at the flank of the army that was moving further away to cut off their escape. The two separated, the Mazral in their fine red uniforms galloping for the gateway, while those in rust coloured robes formed up once again facing the Prince's carriage.

“They’re coming for us!” Riot said, striding back to the carriage. There was still no movement from the forest. Billygoat was sitting on his hands while they got killed.

A horn sounded and the line of horsemen moved into a fast trot.

“Sir, look!” Loic called, pointing to the distance where the gateway to the Echo loomed.

A rider on a black horse thundered toward them.

At first Riot thought it was an Erudoran officer, but as they came closer, he saw it was a young Wikkan with short cropped blond hair and a severe face that looked to be carved in stone.

One Wikkan against over a hundred cavalry. She was certainly brave, but wikkan bolts formed no faster than the Leybound charges and though they carried their own poison, it wouldn’t be enough.

Then the Wikkan raised her hand and the sky above her turned black as pitch. Screams came from the darkness and Loic clutched the symbol of the Prior that hung from his neck while other Leybound dropped to the floor, covering their ears.

“It’s a Warcaster!” The Prince yelled, clapping his hands and jumping up and down with glee. “Go, my protector!” He cried as she thundered toward their attackers.

Dead creatures dropped from the darkness, hitting the ground with sickening thumps, some of them had broken wings, the feathers covered in blood. A hundred screams rent the air and a flock of monstrous birds flooded from the darkness. They had the faces of men, women, and children with ravaged and cracked skin and sharp blood crusted teeth.

The Warcaster reined in her horse and swept her hand down giving a piercing scream in a tongue that made the hairs on Riot’s neck stand up, and the bird like creatures fell onto the Faelen cavalry.

Riders were plucked from their horses by razor sharp talons and hauled into the air to be dropped screaming to the floor. Those who tried to turn and flee were pursued and brought down, their bodies swarmed by the creatures who ripped and tore at them, quickly silencing their screams.

Beside Riot, Rimmer vomited noisily while a younger boy clutched his knees and rocked back and forth with his eyes closed.

But Riot’s eyes were locked on the Wikkan. She screeched another curse and the creatures all looked up at once, flapping their foul wings and returning to the black hole in the sky many of them clutching their prizes in their talons.

Then the hole was closed, and the blue sky was unblemished, and the dead whimpered and groaned. What ragged remains were left of the rust robed Faelen thundered toward the gateway.

Nearly, a riderless horse bent its head to graze and Riot grasped the Prince by the arm. “All of you, get to the woods,” he shouted.

The leybound scattered and Riot hurried to the horse and pushed the Prince into the saddle, but before he could haul himself up, a flicker of movement caught his eye at the bottom of the hill.

“Gods, Fletcher. Stay down you mad bastard,” Riot whispered.  

Instead of running, the old boatman must have preferred to take his chances laying still among the dead at the foot of the hill. But now he stood, trying to help a wounded boy to his feet, neither of them aware that three rust robed riders now swung their mounts around.

“Go,” Riot shouted, slapping the horses backside and sending it galloping away taking the Prince to safety.

Riot formed a charge in his hands as he ran, the leypower was pitiful, the last of what his body held and the last of what his body could handle for at least a day. As the charge flared between his hands he released it with a crack and it soared over the heads of the riders.

 He knew he would never hit anything at this distance, but it got the attention of  Fletcher, who dropped the wounded boy and drew his sword.

It also got the attention of one of the riders, who peeled away and bore down on Riot.

The rider held a curved sabre raised high, ready to slash down, and Riot waited until he could see the foaming spittle on the horses muzzle before he ducked sideways across the face of the charging animal. It was a soldiers instinct and forced the rider to strike across his own body. The swing went wild and Riots hand seized the tassled rope that tied the sabre to the riders wrist and pulled with all his strength, sending them both tumbling to the ground.

Riot blinked black spot from his vision, seeing a hundred or so yards away, Fletcher and the young boy were limp forms slung over the back of the two horses, already riding hard for the looming gateway.

Riot stood, unsteadily and drew his sword. “Where are they taking them?” Riot growled.

The Faelen riders face was twisted in agony, the bright white shard of bone stabbing out from his thigh had ripped through robes that Riot could see now were actually off-white, but coated in a thick layer of red dust.

The Faelen hissed something in his own language and drew a long bladed knife and turned the point to his own chest. With a flick of his wrist, Riot easily knocked out the blade of his hand before he could take his own life.

“Where are they going?’ Riot asked again.

The mysterious rider wasn’t long for this world and they both knew it. The Faelen spat, hissing whatever he felt he needed to say in death, and Riot sent him to whatever afterlife awaited him.