Werik Meets the Sky Read online

left demanded his focus. Three armed men staggered from a smoky doorway, two supporting an unconscious third by his long hairy arms. The closest soldier raised his crossbow levelling it at a yellow haired human clad in a long shirt of rough made iron rings. With a growling curse the human lifted the axe he had been dragging into a backhanded swing, it caught the crossbow and the hands that aimed it from underneath. The crossbow went spinning upward, firing into a nearby chimney as it did so. The soldier staggered away leaving a few of his fingers at the furious human’s feet. The humans quickly lowered their companion to the cobbles and readied themselves for battle. Only just fast enough they were too. A soldier with a mole tooth war-club charged the other man, a tubby thing with a head of black stubble. He responded with a half broken spear. Mounted on a splintered shaft, its iron head pointed in an odd direction. Now useless for thrusting, he opted instead to break it over the soldier’s skull with a stomach-turning crack. The soldier folded limply to the street and the human discarded the shattered spear shaft with a careless flick, before drawing a narrow rusty shortsword. The one they had carried from the smoky ruin began to cough and the human with the black stubble crouched and spoke to him in the grunting tongue of their race. Yellow hair spied Werik and perhaps guessed he was of some importance or high rank, he advanced axe raised. Taking up his granite headed mace Werik took a careful swing for the helmetless head, but the man swayed back beyond range. Werik danced back rapidly as the larger human took a forehand then backhanded cut at Werik’s neck. Marik’s mind touched his, concerned. The humans had tried to breach the gatehouse winch room, but roama reinforcements cut them down from behind as they streamed into the castle from their tunnels. Now the southern gatehouse was quiet. Marik’s thoughts urged him mentally.

  Shelter yourself. It is for the soldier caste to do battle.

  Werik had no arguments, he did not wish to duel with a towering human and soon he would be facing two! He gave a rallying cry hoping to draw some help to him and whirled his mace at the yellow haired man in a menacing figure eight pattern. The fingerless roama crossbowman had drawn a flint knife with his off hand and tried to work his way inside the axeman’s guard, but he lacked the range. The human with the black stubble was just turning his attention back to Werik when a crossbow bolt struck him in the calf and he cried out, looking about for his attacker. Werik circled right trying to put the yellow haired man between himself and the flint knife of the soldier. Abruptly Major Soriv danced into view, his gecko skin cape a swirl of greens and browns and his flat mole tooth war-club chopping at the human’s exposed face and hands. Yellow hair countered with a mighty overhead swing, aimed to split the iron caste band upon Soriv’s smooth tapered head. It missed by a fingerbreadth. As he bounced backward, Soriv took the opportunity to snag the fingerless soldier by his hide jerkin and propel him at the axeman. Yellow hair’s backswing angled up directly into the unfortunate soldier’s groin, bouncing him into the air. Blood soaked the cobbles and the flint knife fell from a limp three-fingered hand. His weapon firmly lodged in the dying soldier’s belly, yellow hair tried kicking at the soldier to pull his axe free. Soriv was too quick, his war club came down on the humans forearm with a wet thud and he raked back on it, the sharp rows of mole teeth tore the muscle from the bone. Hissing his scream through clenched teeth, the human left his axe in the dead soldier and tried to back off, drawing his dirk. Soriv’s war club looped once around his head and connected with the axeman’s neck, leaving it a match for his mangled forearm. His lifeblood joined that of the fingerless soldier. Werik tried not to stare blankly as the human twitched and bubbled on the ground. Another crossbow bolt hit the stubble haired man as he tried to drag the coughing man around a corner into cover, he cursed loudly. Major Soriv indicated the small building from which the bolt had come, suggesting Werik shelter there, then he turned and stalked after the two. Werik tore his sore eyes from the convulsing man in the shining bright pool of blood, lit like a beacon by the numerous fires. He dashed for the door. In the cramped building, he found two soldiers, their crossbows resting on the sills of ruined windows. One wore the tin studded caste band of the sharpshooters and a thin veil of spider-silk over his eyes to protect from light blindness. He could feel Marik and Gurik’s anxiousness since the fight; but now a hint of amusement crept in as he remembered his own spider-silk veil. Removing it carefully from a pouch, he tucked it under his caste band and knotted it gently behind his head. It wasn’t perfect, but he supposed it helped. Looking over the sharpshooter’s shoulders, he frowned. A corroded iron lattice blocked the gate to the inner keep. Usually kept raised during the night, the plan had been to storm the inner keep before the lowering of the portcullis or the sounding of any alarm. Tunnelling in had not been an option, the inner keep was built over an ancient well on a motte of hard rock without cellars. Through his brother’s eyes, he saw the queen frown and all three felt deeply worried. Werik was still staring bleakly at the closed gatehouse when Soriv strode in, waving a blood crusted war-club in one hand and a looted iron shortsword in the other. He glanced at Werik, the sharpshooter and the regular soldier.

  “You.” He indicated the regular. “We have two battering rams prepared, you’ll be on the second, go speak with Sergeant Beask.”

  The soldier sped off. Soriv joined Werik at the window.

  “Two rams will be enough, but we’ll lose many before breaching that gate.”

  Well-manned battlements topped the inner gatehouse, heads would intermittently bob into view for a look or long enough to fire a bow down at the roama in the village. The first ram was approaching the gatehouse and abruptly the soldiers began to be peppered with a steady rain of arrows. Once closer the rocks began to fall. That is when the strange mist first appeared over the gate. It looked like fog, but it didn’t move or swirl. It was like a frozen grey haze. It grew bigger without seeming to move at all. From it came an arm. A massive arm it seemed, it looked human, aged with loose skin and a few liver spots. Sleeved in pale blue silk with a pattern of black and gold cats, it made a surreal sight. Some cats were chasing other cats. Others toyed with balls of string and more cats were catching mice or fish. Werik blinked. The sight of frolicking felines seemed at all odds with the bloody carnage around him. He could sense Marik looking through an arrow slit at this apparition and feel his disquiet; this was foreign magic to be sure. Gurik was stammering, trying to explain what he saw via Werik and Marik’s eyes. The great hand held someone like a child would hold a doll. With a gentle tap, it placed the giant doll into the village courtyard in front of the closed gate that protected the inner keep. Its work seemingly done, the ancient arm retreated into the fog and the mists faded away. Werik regarded what it had left. A thing shaped much as humans and roama, but over three times the height. It was mostly an earthy brown, except where plates of bone and horn armoured it and this was most places but its joints. It had no face, no eyes or mouth. Its chest did not rise or fall with breath and it stood still, unnaturally still. To their credit, the battering ram team tried to circle around it and attack the gate. Werik was not at all surprised when the great titan turned on them, lashing out with great spiked gauntlets. Impaled through the thigh, one roama dangled upside down from a spike for a few moments before its swinging arm stopped and reversed direction. The momentum threw the little soldier howling into the burnout roof of a cottage. The battering ram abandoned, soldiers scattered. It did not give chase. This thing was content to guard its post. Crossbow bolts were glancing off its armour, a few found softer targets in the brown skin of its joints, but this produced no reaction, and it seemed to feel no pain. Distant laughter and whoops of celebration echoed from the gatehouse behind it. The men of Gurneyhill Castle had a new champion and it seemed unlikely that simple roama weapons of rock, tooth and bone would prevail against it. Werik could hear Soriv outside, rallying his soldiers and calling upon them to gather up weapons of iron from the fallen humans. Others he had gathering wood and plants or lamp oils; intending to test the titan’s
mettle against fire. Gurik had been speaking very fast to the queen, trying to find words for all that Werik’s eyes witnessed. The Queens face was calm and unreadable as it so often was.

  Sergeant Beask lead a charge on the gigantic thing, he thrust an iron tipped spear into the soft brown knee half a second before his neck snapped. The rest of his phalanx did less damage and six more died; one crushed beneath the things great flat foot. It seemed beneath this things notice to have weapons impale it. Its huge spiked arms could swing with sufficient power to lay waste to any force, even in the strongest armour. This was powerful magic Werik had no doubt and he was at a loss, unable to think of a way to deal with it. Gurik’s thoughts came to him urgently.

  The queen names this thing golem and bids her soldiers move far from it, have them take shelter as though a tunnel were caving.

  Werik shouted to Soriv and any soldier he found, he ordered them back. He and Soriv lead them away to harbour in a solid looking stone building with a wooden roof.