Tales of the Three Kingdoms: Silver Falcon Falls

Three battles I had fought against these creatures now: once in the place they would eventually call the Blood-Offering Bowl, the origin of a calamity that would seem more folklore than history when all was said and done; a second time in the trails and gorges surrounding Black Altar – more of one man's struggle for his life than an actual battle; and a third once the feral humanity had amassed around that stone-walled village and we had fought our way out.

Each time they came, they had started out questing, gurgling and babbling with half-life, but eventually, when they spotted fresh meat, or at least keyed in on the sounds that indicated uninfected were nearby, their voices changed in pitch. They were no longer questing, but hunting in truth. Enraged by the existence of life untainted.

And they were always single-minded in their pursuit of the nearest object of interest.

So, as the hundreds upon thousands of feral creatures amassed on the hilltops surrounding the dry lakebed we had placed ourselves in – hoping to escape notice – the fact that their hateful cries already reached the Heavens was already straining my understanding of these creatures created by that Mandate. The fact that they had stopped upon the hilltops, despite seeing us, shattered what was left of my assumptions.

Whether they had once been the people of the City of Lanterns, villagers from the surrounding hillsides, or soldiers wearing any number of colors or armor, these were now rabid dogs. They had no master but instinct. Yet here they were, staring down at 40-ought pitiful souls, and seemingly awaiting an order of some sort.

"Into the lakebed," I hissed at Sheriff.

He looked around, made the same calculation as I had, then nodded wordlessly.

The hills surrounding us were crammed full of feral creatures, shoulder-to-shoulder like an army ringing a wall, looking inward. But within that ring of hills, there was a second ring of old, dead trees, dried out by the sun and dust where a lakeshore had once been. Then, after a short, gradual slope there was a bare, flat portion that had once been the bottom of that lake, now cracked and dry where the last of the moisture had drained away long ago.

As Sheriff urged his people out of the dead trees and toward the slope, I was cognizant that putting what little forces I had in the middle of the low ground would have been a terrible idea if we faced a traditional foe, with cavalry and archers or even infantry with their wits about them.

But the feral masses – once they were to advance – wouldn't halt themselves at the banks of the lake, hemming us in tighter to then pick us off with arrows. No, I was still confident that whatever held these creatures back, once they we're unleashed, they would attack as they always had, with tooth and nail and no restraint.

Putting my paltry forces in the only unbroken ground available to us was the best chance we had of keeping a formation. And against a disorganized foe, a hard formation was almost as good as a walled city or the high ground of a crested hill. Almost.

Besides, if I couldn't break the encirclement – and with one last glance around the hilltops, a focused push for freedom seemed futile – I had one more idea as to how we could use the terrain to our advantage.

As the last of the villagers disappeared over the edge of the lakeshore and I could spy the first of them gaining the center of the dry bed, River spun her horse to look at me questioningly. She was serving as a rearguard and it was not lost on her that Windshear and I hadn't moved when the rest of our encampment had. I nodded her to follow them, and with a grimace she kicked Forgotten Empress down the lakeshore, trusting me.

With all my people now away toward the low ground, I turned to the nearest dead tree, and pulled flint from Windshear's saddlebag, striking it against the Son-of-Heaven Saber. It sparked but didn't catch.

Again. Nothing.

I cut a length of hemp from Windshear's saddle and wadded it up to catch the sparks then tried again.

Glancing up briefly at the creatures who still hadn't charged, I saw, in one place upon a high hilltop, the mass of humanity parted like any good soldiery would. No, more like dogs slinking back before the alpha.

A horse – a dead, bleeding, starvingly gaunt horse – walked casually through the gap. Head low and mouth foaming pink, it seemed as sick or afflicted as the rest of the creatures that surrounded it but the man sitting atop of it was straight and proud and glimmered with clean metal from boots to iron mask. I recognized him as the same man that had appeared at the battle of the Blood-Offering Bowl. This was the man who had created these creatures with his Rabid Dog Mandate!

The smoke from my hempen wad drew my attention back down, and I began to blow on it, the first flames licking up. I gently pushed it into a crevice of dead wood and the flames grew greedily. But it would need time to spread, or even the wind of a single creature rushing by might put it out.

I looked up at the man atop the dead horse, and there was something final about the way he drew up and stopped.

I need more time.

I shot to my feet and pointed my sword at him.

"Name yourself, evil one!"

The man was hooded above his mask of iron, but he cocked his head at that and seemed to be listening. So I went on.

"I would know who set this blight upon the land! Speak your name! Even if it only be heard by the ears of dead men."

Flames licked up the side of the treetrunk beside me. It wouldn't be blown out now by the swirl of a passing body or a stray wind. But lighting a single tree on fire hadn't been my purpose in all this. The more time I could buy, the better our odds would be.

The man atop the dead horse made a wet, wheezing chuckle, and then mocked a bow from horseback. He held out his pendant formally as if I could inspect it across the space between us. Even across the distance I could see something dark flicker across his pendant like blood from a liver, as if there was an evil revelation upon it of a flavor I had not yet seen upon these pendants. Alas, I was indeed too far to make out anything of consequence.

"I am called Feral King. Marquis of Harbinger Hill and adopted son of the Gray Wolf clan."

I waited for him to go on but he did not. A true formal introduction included star, fate and Mandate, and I was a little disappointed to receive the truncated version. Disappointed but not surprised. It would have been an absurdly long thing to speak aloud, while my villagers huddled in the lakebed awaiting their death, and a thousand or more monsters shrieked their hunger for human flesh.

Absurdly long was exactly what I was going for, and while the flame grew higher in the deadwood forest beside me, I bowed, held out my pendant as if he could see it across the distance, as well, and gave him the long version.

"I am called Sparrow, Noble Officer within the Silver Falcon clan and heir…"

He could have ignored my request for his name. He could have simply said 'I'm Feral King and you're as good as dead'. But he was oddly polite for one who commanded the basest of beasts. It was almost as if he craved inclusion in that high society to which his current rank should have given him access, but his unsavory Mandate, or perhaps whatever affliction he was hiding beneath that mask, had denied him.

He didn't seem to rankle at the long-winded respect I paid him with my formal introduction. Indeed he seemed to be enjoying it. And all the while flames leapt from tree to tree.

"…My latest distinction came in the Coalition East of-"

"What trick is this, you dog?!" Feral King had noticed the smoke and his demeanor had instantly changed. "Enough of your ruse! Stop yammering and die with dignity."

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Looking around, the smoke was now undeniable. I shrugged.

Feral King snarled, knowing that my cordiality was false and no doubt hating me the more for pretending to give him what he craved. With that, he reached for a sack of flesh that hung from his horse's saddle and heaved it in my direction.

Whether that was the command, or whether his Mandate urged the creatures onward by some means I could not perceive, the mass of feral humanity lurched forward as if released from a leash.

Their enraged shrieks reached a pitch yet higher as they flowed down the hillsides as one.

At this point I was finding it hard to breathe in the crackling woodsmoke, and the heat from the fires spreading around me was almost unbearable. Windshear took no issue with my mounting and kicking him away down into the low ground of the lake bed.

***SPARROW'S BAND MISSION UPDATE: BATTLE OF BURNING LAKE***

Primary Objective: Survive the hordes.

Secondary Objective: Save some of the Black Altar villagers.

SUCCEEDED Bonus Objective: Figure out a plan to cut the odds.

Fail Conditions: Everyone dies.

In the lakebed's center, the villagers had formed a tough knot of spears and cudgels, wooden rattan and boiled leather, and old cast iron shields made from doors with cooking implements nailed on. It was incredible what people could put together when necessity drove them. Now, Sheriff had them in an almost perfect tortoise formation, ready to hold off an overwhelming force from all sides.

There was no place in that formation for two horses, unless we were willing to take our two best fighters – mounted ones at that – out of the fight entirely, so River and I wheeled our horses in concentric circles around the formation, two moons orbiting a central mass.

It was a fine formation given what we were, but in truth, I didn't think any of it would matter. Everything from our flight, to our strategy, to the fire I had set among the deadwood forest was nothing but the twitching of limbs when the neck was already broken. Men, women and children, soldiers and villagers, we were all as good as dead already. We just refused to go limp while the fluids leaked out.

We lost sight of the charging creatures in the smoke rising to high Heaven, but thanks to the lowness of the ground we had placed ourselve upon, the air in the lakebed remained mostly clear. As I circled one more, allowing Windshear to keep anxious muscles warm, I saw that my ring of fire had almost closed completely. The creatures that came from where I had started the fire, came into view burning like living torches. Most of them fell motionless before even making it down the shores of the lake.

But if the apparent success of the plan in one quadrant gave me some sense of hope, the fact that the fire hadn't spread entirely around the lake in time, confirmed that our doom was sealed. Hundreds of creatures sped through the only faintly smoking trees on the far side, stumbling down the lakebed and bunching up as they rose to continue the chase. I tied the reins tight around my injured arm, so I had some sense of control with just my elbow, then I drew the Son-of-Heaven Saber once more and accelerated my mount in its orbit around Sheriff's makeshift infantry.

I was not fool enough to crash into the line of closing feral beasts, once they began to draw near but Windshear curved along the face of the first line of creatures to come close. My saber cut through dozens on that pass, and already my tired and strained body shook with the effort. As I revolved to the hotter side of the lake, I saw that the creatures still hadn't managed to penetrate the wall of fire, here. I had respite while River, on the opposite side of the waiting tortoise formation, made the same oblique cut I had made.

Because the creatures were senseless, it had the unintended effect of stalling their charge. Given the choice between a distant knot of quiet, motionless people, and a very near, very fast horse slashing by, they all made an attempt to reorient themselves toward the hot rushing beast. Of course they had no hope of catching a horse in full flight, so once River was past, they lost interest and resumed their advance toward the villagers. Stopping and starting again, they had barely gotten back up to speed by the time Windshear came back around and it was my turn to cut into them. Another dozen fell by my hand, and the saber shook in my weakening grasp. But again, just by virtue of making a pass, I had distracted them enough to slow their charge.

Even so, we were only two horse, and our orbit was getting tighter and tighter, our respites shorter and shorter, and I barely had time to tie my sword to my hand with a length of silk before I came around again.

I didn't even notice that the ring of fire was complete because enough had made it through, or were making it through despite the heat and flames and smoke, that the battle had been well and truly joined, like a wave from the sea washing over a turtle-back.

One moment I was making a tight pass around the tortoise formation, Windshear practically brushing the spearpoints of the Black Altar villagers, and the next we had crashed sidelong into a knot of bloody monsters.

The moons violently ceased their orbit.

No more slashing from the relative safety of a speeding horse. No more counting the heartbeats and the bodies until our next respite. There was no more safety. There were no more respites until we were dead or the thousands upon thousand of enemies that had flooded the dry riverbed were one and all cut down — which was to say, from this point on, River and I would last only as long as the strength lasted in our sword arms.

Windshear lurched to the side in a way I had never felt before, and even as the Son-of-Heaven Saber rose and fell within my numb hand, almost of its own accord, some clinical part of my mind reasoned out that Windshear wasn't in control of himself.

Horse and rider were adrift on a sea of feral humanity.

He pawed at the air, stamped on bodies when he could, just to keep his balance. And if an 800 jin warhorse couldn't even hold its ground…

The tide turned us against our will even as I killed — no, butchered — the undead creatures. I saw that, while some of the tortoise formation held, one side had caved in and feral creatures stumbled over and trampled the stalwart men and women that had formed the outer ring on one side. A pregnant woman plunged a kitchen cleaver through the nearest monster, again and again, with all the ferocity of one who fights for an unborn child, trailing the attacker's brains with each savage hack and pull-back.

Moments, my ring of fire had bought us. A few more breaths of life our circling cavalry moons had earned, as well. For only a few extra heartbeats the tortoise formation had maintained its integrity against the wave of monsters. It was all honestly more than I could have hoped for with these odds and with these poor villagers. In the long run it didn't matter a wink, I thought as the Son-of-Heaven Saber cut too deep into a rotting skull and didn't come out clean.

It was all the delay the forest of clawing fingers needed to latch onto me and drag me from my horse. In a motion I had practiced a hundred times before I pulled by knife from my scabbard in back and did my best to control my fall to the ground.

None of it mattered. No one had ever killed a thousand enemies with a side knife — even a side knife with a good story.

The mass of humanity blotted out the stars above and I could feel fingers and teeth come away with chunks of metal armor. Chunks of padded silk. Chunks of my own flesh.

I felt nothing as surely as if I had Sheriff's Mandate. The Youngest Brother Blade found the throats and faces and hands of my attackers only based on that pure animal instinct to fight on until the last. For the sane, rational part of me was already dead.

***

Thunder cracked. Arrows pattered like rain on the dome of flesh atop of me. The creatures lifted their heads and screamed as if, as one, they had been skewered through the chest by a thousand thousand synchronized spears.

Darkness edged in again as the sickeningly distinct feeling of fingers buried in my abdominal muscles receded sharply. There was a sucking sound as the claws of my killers left me.

I was deafened by a stampede of, not hooves, but human feet as, one and all, the feral creatures that had descended upon the burning lakebed took off in a new direction.

The moment I felt the weight of a thousand creatures recede I was clambering to my knees, Youngest Brother Blade cutting wildly at air.

The creatures to left and right of me passed me by like a fish facing into the current. They cared nothing for me. Some new order had overridden that chase-anything-that-breathes instinct and now I was nothing to them. As the last of the creatures passed me by, I found I was clutching my stomach.

I looked down.

No entrails streaming. That was good. There was a hole in my side where I could see white fascia and muscle when I took my hand away. I put my hand back before the blood could really start pouring out of me. I didn't have much to spare after the events of the past few days.

A figure bore down on me and I immediately recognized River as she skidded to a dismount and fell down beside me, already dressing my wounds.

"You're fine. You're fine. Sparrow? You're fine."

I hadn't noticed slumping back to the ground. I hadn't seen how my hands hovering before my stomach wounds were quaking with shock.

There was a sound somewhere in the distance but consciousness was ebbing and I couldn't place where I had heard it before.

River was talking to me, too and words were hard just now.

"Sparrow!"

She tied something tight around my midriff and that brought me back around. At least for the moment.

"Take my horse. Lead the people away from here. We don't have forever."

"Forever…" I echoed dumbly. Words had no meaning. But they sounded nice coming from her.

Suddenly I was very high up and only because I had been riding since I could walk was I able to stay mounted. Even so, the world teetered.

"Mm. River…"

"Get them out of here. I can take care of myself. Innocents will just get in the way now."

I reached down and clung to something on her. Maybe an armor strap. But my attempts to hang on were child's play to her.

"You'll just get in the way now."

She dislodged my hand, placed in on the saddle horn, and slapped the horse on the rump. It took all I had to stay in the saddle as it took off. It took everything else to stay conscious. In the end, I only succeeded at one of the two.