Chapter-4-4

⁠—⁠—⁠— IV ⁠—⁠—⁠—

“Arghh!”

Down the line, terrifying screams erupted from the Mongauli knights.

’What in the name—”

“A swarm! A swarm of yidoh!”

“Pollak!” Astrias shouted to his right-hand man. “Let’s get out of here! Pull back!”

The captain had done his share of time with the Marches patrol, and he knew all too well the terror of the yidoh—bizarre creatures that could not be harmed by bow or blade. “Ride!” Astrias shouted as he yanked his horse around, heading back the way he had come without thought of pride or reputation. Against a human foe, he might well have acted differently, but where the foul creatures of Nospherus were concerned, there was no such thing as pride. There was only death, and the will to evade it. Where was the honor in getting crushed by a pale lump of animated jelly?

None of the invaders, not even the most experienced Marches veterans among them, had ever seen a yidoh colony like this. As far ahead as they could gaze, the Nospherus desert was covered by a solid sheet of the deadly white ooze, frothing and bubbling, a sea of terrible hunger—and how fast it moved! It rushed like a tidal wave pushed by some tremor in the bowels of the earth. It was as if the earth itself had turned on its children in a sudden blind rage, sending a living white poison to cleanse its surface of them. Faced with the terror of the yidoh, the entire corps of trained Mongauli elites went mad with fear. In an instant knights and soldiers were transformed into a common mob, desperately fleeing for safety.

“Yidoh! Yidoh!”

“They’re coming for us!”

The men farther back in the ranks saw the front lines wheeling and racing toward them. When they could make out their screams at last, they, too, turned their horses with frantic speed and galloped for the open desert beyond, occasionally stealing glances back at the rapidly approaching wave of death.

“Aaah! They’re following us!” The cries cut through the rising dust behind Astrias, who was retreating now at a full gallop, his mind seized with fear. Hearing another horrible scream, he chanced a look over his shoulder just in time to see something which made the bile rise in his throat and the tears come to his eyes.

“Help! Hel—”

Behind him, Leegan’s red knights were being swallowed by the wave of yidoh. They had not heard Garanth’s warning, and by the time they had noticed that something was amiss in the desert before them, it was too late. The pale, fluid creatures were already coming for them at full speed, and they had no time to turn around.

The yidoh overran Leegan Corps like an avalanche overwhelming careless mountaineers. First the horses’ legs were caught in the shivering violent jelly, and the beasts stumbled and fell with baffled whinnies of terror. As the steeds went down, the red knights who rode them were thrown, and faster than they could stand, the undulating, writhing, ravenous death engulfed horse and rider. The muffled screams and cries of the men being crushed sounded like the calls of perverse spirits through the muffling blanket of jelly. At the edges of the advancing yidoh, those who had tried to flee to either side were inexorably caught and dragged down, swallowed by the living mucous that crawled across their faces even as they reached in desperation for their companions’ extended hands. Soon all troops within the yidoh’s reach had been dragged under; knight after knight, shrieking and struggling, was sucked into that white hell.

Astrias saw what was happening to Leegan’s knights and quaked with fear. Suddenly he found his voice and shouted in dismay: “Leegan! Leegan is down!” He could see his friend’s horse, a handsome bay, kicking the air as the yidoh flowed around it. On the rearing steed was Leegan, his figure frozen in fear and desperation.

“Rescue!” screamed Astrias, and foolishly he turned his horse and attempted to gallop back toward the hive alone. But Pollak, who had been riding close behind him, cut him off with his horse.

“Out of my way, Leegan is in danger!”

“No—it is too dangerous!”

Astrias reached for Pollak’s reins to try and jerk the other’s horse aside, but Pollak grabbed his hand and pushed it back.

“No, sir. It is too dangerous.”

Astrias' bloodshot eyes met Pollak’s. Both men were as pale as corpses, and each was tense with fear and the fierce weight of his duty.

“No,” Pollak pleaded, his voice cracking. “I beg you, sir, no.”

“But, Leegan! It’s Leegan!”

“It is too dangerous! We must escape!”

Pollak let go of his captain’s hand and, without asking permission, slapped the flank of Astrias' horse with the flat of his sword. Wheeling toward safety, the horse bolted away at top speed. Astrias, now clinging to his crazed steed’s neck, shouted “Leegan!” once more, then began to scream out curses against the Nospheran wilds. His shouts, the cries of other knights calling for fallen friends, and the whinnies of the dying horses drowned out the sound of bones being crushed by the yidoh.

The swarm of yidoh had begun to change color. No longer pale white, they now showed through their translucent bodies the armor of the red and black knights they had swallowed. More dimly visible within their writhing bodies were the fragmentary forms of their victims, already so crushed that their original shapes were no longer discernible; the hive was blotched scarlet from the blood they had sucked from human and horse. Here and there among the yidoh was one so swollen from the prey it had swallowed that it bulged huge and taut as a vast and hellish pustule. To these amorphous creatures, against whom cold steel blades were harmless and armor offered scant defense, the pride of Mongaul were merely an exquisite and plentiful prey.

So horrible was the sight of the feeding monsters that, even when the surviving soldiers realized that the things seemed to have ceased their pursuit, they did not stop running. The entire invading army had lost its self-control to fear.

“Halt! Halt! Black Knights, halt!”

“What is this? Four great knightly orders, the very pride of Mongaul, running in fear from the no-man’s-land’s primitive monstrosities?”

Finally the surviving captains calmed their own nerves and, cursing under their breath, sought to control their troops.

“This is a shame we will bear for many generations!”

“Calm down! You—stop your horses! Get back into formation!

“Halt! Can you not hear me?”

Furiously the commanders galloped back and forth, waving their whips in an attempt to cut off the frenzied knights and their stampeding horses. For it was not just the soldiers but their steeds as well that were reluctant to arrest their flight. Indeed, many of the knights were now grasping fiercely at the reins, trying to regain control of their mounts, while other fellow cavalrymen had been thrown or were being dragged by the stirrups.

“Stop! Why don’t you stop?!”

Still roiling upon the desert sands, the hive of yidoh had slowed and spread out across the scene of the debacle. Distant as they now were, the surviving Mongauli could still hear the gruesome sounds of their comrades being devoured.

“What is going on?”

Despairing of ever regaining order, the lords and captains sought for the lady-general that she might give them directions. Had the Dragon Knights of Cheironia assailed them, or the deadly Tiger Knights, or the faithful of Niroc who fought with hurricane-blades, the Mongauli troops would not have been afraid. But here in the wildlands of Nospherus, they had discovered that they had neither a place to hide nor any means of fighting the horrendously alien creature. That knowledge unmanned them.

“We must find the lady Amnelis!”

“The general will give us the right order—she’ll know how to handle the situation.”

“What shall we do?”

The soldiers, finding that their training and experience had failed them, now looked for their general like children looking for their loving mother.

But Amnelis, sitting on her horse atop a rise in the land apart from the main body of her army, had gone whiter than the armor and cloak she wore.

“Oh, how horrible this is!”

General though she was, she was still a girl of eighteen. She had maintained her legendary self-control, but it required her utmost effort to hide her trembling and unease from those around her.

“How fearsome are these ‘yidoh’! Marus, Marus!”

“Yes?”

’What are they? I have never seen nor even imagined anything so horrible. Is this some fiendish devilry brought on by the Sem, or do horrid creatures like that just wander the sands of Nospherus?”

“Alas, such things are denizens here,” Count Marus replied. He had left his corps in order to protect the lady-general. “I only wish that I had realized the danger sooner. I beg your forgiveness.”

“But tell me: what are those things? Is there no way of driving them away? I am unfamiliar with creatures of this sort. But you, Marus, have been long on the Marches patrol, and you know of these things—do you not? If these monsters will not die by bowshot or blade—”

“I am afraid that is so.”

“Then they are a barrier to us—we will have to go around them!”

“Yes.”

Amnelis had gathered her officers around her for an emergency council of war. In addition to Count Marus, Gajus Runecaster was there, and Cal Moru, and the three captains of the white knights—Vlon, Lindrot, and Feldrik—whose faces were pale and haggard. Amnelis looked to each of them, hoping for answers to her questions, but each man as she looked at him hung his head in shame at his own powerlessness.

Just then Astrias, who had finished rounding up his forces, galloped up with Pollak at his side to give their report.

“General!” Seeing the young lady-general surrounded by her knights, Astrias breathed a sigh of relief. “You are well!”

“Losses?” Amnelis quickly regained her icy manner of supreme authority, and her voice was harsh.

Astrias replied without strength. “Leegan Corps took extremely heavy losses. My losses, too, are heavy, though not as bad as his. Viscount Leegan himself…”

“Leegan?” asked Amnelis.

Astrias' long face shook with sorrow, and he choked on his words as he spoke. “The yidoh, they…”

Count Marus raised his voice in pain. “So the viscount is dead.”

“Fire!” sputtered Cal Moru suddenly.

’What?” Amnelis looked over her shoulder.

Suddenly everyone turned to look at the mysterious spell-caster who had crossed the desert alone. Cal Moru’s hideous face remained hidden in his hood, but he raised his skeletal arm and pointed towards the yidoh. “The yidoh’s weakness is fire, my general. That is the only thing that can kill them. You cannot pierce a yidoh with a blade, but with fire…”

“Yes, of course!”

Depressed though the commanders were by the loss of Leegan, son of Ricard, the life returned to their faces at this hint of a means to fight back against their bizarre foe.

“Yes, fire!”

“Good thinking, Cal Moru!” Amnelis had calmed down as well. Out here in the wildlands, surrounded by the many unknown terrors of Nospherus, she had for a short time lost her confidence and had let herself become too much like any other fearful, worrying girl who had not quite attained womanhood. But now the shine of the proud and haughty Lady of Mongaul returned to her eyes. Whether her recovery owed more to the fact that Cal Moru had remembered the yidoh’s weakness, or whether it was because the young and handsome Astrias was now standing next to her, clearly as worshipping as ever, she herself did not know.

“Feldrik!”

“Yes, my lady!”

“Orders!”

“Yes, my lady!”

“The yidoh are vulnerable to fire! You will command the men to take all the torches from their packs and gather all the wood they can find, and prepare to drive off the yidoh colony with fire.”

“As you wish, my lady!”

“Marus!”

“Yes, my lady!”

“Return to your blue knights and gather them up. Astrias!”

Astrias looked surprised. “My lady!”

Amnelis’ mysterious emerald gaze met the glint of Astrias' deep black eyes. She gave him a cold look; but then, seeing that this had set him on the verge of tears, she faltered. When at last she spoke, however, it was with an authority that made Lindrot and Vlon, standing nearby, wither at the force of it.

“Astrias, you disappoint me. You disobeyed my orders during the battle today. This is your second failure in nearly as many days. Are you really the one they call the ‘Red Lion of Alvon’?” Astrias jerked as though he had been struck by a whip. But Amnelis, heedless, continued, “Fail me a third time, and you can consider your captain’s badge gone. Understood?”

“Yes… my lady.”

“Now, go—gather up the remnants of Leegan Corps, add them to yours, and fall back to the rear.”

“… I beg you not to assign me to rearguard duty, my lady.”

Amnelis’ eyes flared up. “Will you have me repeat myself?”

“N-No.”

Vlon and Lindrot looked with compassion at the drooping Astrias as he headed back reluctantly to his troops.

The Mongauli army, beginning to recover from its shock, began to swing back into action.

“A battle to avenge the fallen!”

“Death to the yidoh that killed our friends!”

“Fire! We’ll put fire to the filthy things!”

The footmen dropped their spears, the knights dismounted, and the bowmen laid aside their bows. Together all the warriors of Mongaul gathered everything burnable that they could find in the barren wastes. They prepared oil in pots, and they made a giant bonfire from which they spread the flame to their torches.

Meanwhile, the sun was beginning to dip into the west. A thin purple mist had begun to flow around the invaders’ army, tinting the crooked lines of the wasteland around them with sickly hues of death. Only half a tad away, the Mongauli could see the colony of yidoh, quiescent now and looking as if it had finished digesting all its prey, no longer moving but lying low and flat as a calm sea. The men could feel the presence of those amorphous creatures like a slumbering nightmare waiting for its chance to rage again.

“If we cannot drive off the yidoh before nightfall, we’re in trouble,” one soldier observed, spitting on the sand. His unease was shared by all those around him. And as though to justify that unease, a cry rang out…

“The Sem!!”

In no time, every Mongauli was shouting.

“They’ve returned!”

“Aaah! They’re here!”

Count Marus bit his lip and slapped his knee with his sword. “I knew it! The sly monkeys!”

Sem with eerie face-paintings came streaming down the sand dunes that were already fading in the dusk—two bands, a nightmarish vision, one from the left and one from the right.

“Aiii aii aii!”

“Hyaaa ai!”

“Yii yii yii!”

“They were waiting for the yidoh to distract us!” Count Marus shouted. “Men! To arms! Don’t let the monkeys beat us again!

“Mongaul! Mongaul!” shouted his men.

But just then yet another cry rang out. “Aaah! The yidoh move again!” This terrified shout was followed by a sound like rolling thunder. It was the sound of the yidoh rumbling along the ground, approaching fast.

The Tubai, creeping up to the far side of the vast yidoh colony, had poured the alika juice a third time, prompting the entire mass of yidoh to move. The amorphous creatures were at the end of their tethers, crazed by the smell of blood and the hated alika smell.

Yidoh from the front. From the left and right, ape-men.

“Ah… you crafty… grr…” the old warrior Marus grit his teeth and snarled helplessly. He lowered his faceplate with a snap, fixed his neckplate to ward off the rain of Sem poison arrows that was already beginning, and drew his sword with a wild flourish. Then the veteran of countless battles charged toward the enemies now approaching from the left.

“Keep-lord!”

“The count is in danger!”

The blue knights wheeled around on their horses and followed after their leader. In a flash, hand-to-hand battle was joined for the third time that day.

“The yidoh! Help, the yidoh!”

“Fire! Use fire!”

Both Irrim and Tangard Corps had fallen into mass confusion. Holding torches in their hands, they had been about to head for the yidoh when they realized that the approaching jelly-things were too many and coming too fast for them to combat effectively. Then, even as they raised their torches to fight the yidoh as best they could, a hail of Sem arrows came down on them. Men holding torches aloft in the growing gloom made perfect targets for the wildlings. Many a soldier was stricken by an arrow during the first few moments of battle and fell into the onrushing wave of the yidoh.

“Fire! Use fire!”

“Marus! Marus!” Amnelis shouted.

“Lady General, this place is too dangerous. The yidoh are close!”

Gajus and the captains of the general’s guard, Vlon and Lindrot, insisted that she move, and quickly she pulled back, protected by her flag-bearers.

“You… you… you!” she grit her teeth and spat. “Using the yidoh! How cowardly! Using the beasts! You… Guin!”

Just then, Gajus touched her arm to get her attention.

Amnelis looked up, and was stricken with unwilling awe.

The evening sun had become a giant orange disk balanced on the blade of the horizon, and against that backdrop, as though he were the Sun God Ruah himself, a warrior had appeared striding over the dune’s sandy crest. Behind him were arrayed the elite of the Sem. Guin’s leopard head formed a dark silhouette edged in flame as he gazed down on the battle beginning to play out below him.

“Guin…” Amnelis’ voice became a fiery breath across her lips. Her mesmerizing green eyes shone. Without blinking she gazed at that heroic silhouette, as perfect as though a master’s hand had chiselled it out of eternal stone.

Guin lifted his hand—and brought it down without a word.

“Riyaad! Riyaad!” rose howling cries from the Sem, “RIYAAD!” The leopard-headed avatar of war and his five hundred brave wildling warriors charged forward like a storm to the sound of that earth-shattering war cry. Irresistibly they came on, heading straight for the melee between the Sem forces and Marus’ blue-armored troops, driving into the heart of the fray like a bolt of lighting.

Within moments, Guin’s mighty sword was swinging in wide arcs to left and to right, reaping the bloody harvest of war.

“Vlon, save Marus!” Amnelis yelled. “Nay… I shall go in myself!” Then, at the head of her personal guard of one thousand knights clad in white, not one of whom had been lost, she galloped headlong into battle.

The battle had risen to a terrible intensity far beyond that of the previous clashes—a high tide of destruction in which the Mongauli army, the Sem combined forces, and the undulating yidoh fought with the violence of the damned. The flames in the hands of the Mongauli burned bright red. Screams, battle cries, shrieks of pain and death, the ringing of swords and the flowing of blood all mingled in one fearsome crescendo of war that seemed to have no end, a roaring flood that flowed out across the vast Nospherus wasteland.

Above it all, the giant sun dipped slowly, as though it meant to envelop them all. Deeper and deeper burned its crimson, ready to paint the entire world the color of blood.