Last Stand of the Blood Land Read online

  Last Stand

  of the

  Blood Land

  By Andrew James Carpenter

  Copyright © 2019 Andrew Carpenter

  Published by Carps Tale

  All rights reserved.

  Cover and second map by Stephen J. Catizone

  Edited by Cassie McCown

  Interior design by Rodney Miles

  ISBN: 9781096885795

  For my grandfather

  No regrets…

  Chapter 1

  I t was the very beginning of spring and two Cherubim sat cross-legged high upon the rocky bluffs above the western shore of Devil’s Lake. The Cherubim were a winged race of forest dwellers, smaller and lighter than their Angel forefathers but gifted with the speed and lightning fast reflexes of the female Nymph’s who had interbred with the Angels. At one hundred and eighty, Nestor was the oldest of his tribe and now blind, his feeble wings useful only for insulation and feeling his way around the trees that made up the village.

  Oberon was young, just twenty-three, and honored that a revered member of the Council of Elders had asked him to be his guide up the rocks so the ancient leader could at least feel the sunrise on his wrinkled skin. Oberon’s grey wings poked through holes in his buckskin vest, resting comfortably on the rocks behind. The Cherub watched in anticipation as the elder produced two small clay cups from his robe and filled them with black coffee from a wineskin with the care and mindfulness that comes from the loss of physical sight. Nestor breathed in the earthy aroma of the drink, a rare gift from the Dwarves, and handed the second cup to Oberon.

  “Now,” said Nestor, “tell me what you see.”

  Oberon took a deep breath of his drink and gazed out at his homeland. Much had changed since he had left the safety of the forest on a mission from the Angels with Ignatius and Donus just one year prior. They had spent that summer fighting and bleeding across the north, learning about an outside world that had passed his people by. He remembered looking over his shoulder at his home when they had left. The homeland he could see now looked very different from that day.

  “I see the first rays of the morning sun, peaking over the bluffs to the east. There is steam coming off the lake where the hot springs run down.”

  The Elder Cherub grunted, unsatisfied. Oberon continued, crossing his legs to mimic Nestor, whipcord muscles ripping under pale white skin. He placed his hands on his knees and took a deep breath, wondering what the failing leader was getting at.

  “I can see Wotan’s bucks and his daughter fishing at the waters edge.” A small group of the Centaurs had spent the winter, learning their ways and making plans to excise the remaining Southlanders from Fort Hope and Therucilin in the spring. Most of them were gone now, preparing to attack the former capital of the Old Alliance.

  “Is that all you can see?” asked the Elder.

  Oberon looked around the ancient caldera, the homeland of his people. He could see the tree homes where they lived, each new arrival planting a tree for the next generation. He could go on about the gardens being planted for summer, hunters flying in from across the water. Then Rebus, one of the Elves who, like the Angels, could be killed but did not age, appeared on the sand training grounds where the fights took place.

  “I can see Rebus in his red armor, the plates tied on him and his horned helmet on his head. He has a curved sword of folded steel. He is leading our warriors in morning exercises.” Rebus had spent the winter with the Cherubim as well, giving the one hundred or so fighters training on the fighting tactics of the South.

  Nestor shook his head and Oberon was starting to wonder if being blind had made the Cherub endlessly hungry for visual description. When he finally closed his own eyes and started looking from the Elder’s perspective, his mind stopped and he grasped the answer.

  “Change,” he whispered, feeling the heat of his cup and taking a sip.

  Nestor smiled, nodding as he drank.

  “What do you see?” asked Oberon.

  The oldest member of the council of Elders shook his feeble wings, finally hearing the question he had been waiting for.

  “This will all be changed,” he motioned with his hand, “and you will change it. Fishing and art will share a place with weapons and war. The old ways will yield.”

  Oberon realized he hadn’t been brought along as a guide. Nestor was the guide. He thought of all that had already changed. The Council of Elders had worked since they had first learned of the Giants entering their lands, preparing the people for war. Provisions had been stock piled to account for farmers and hunters turning into warriors. Weapons and training had become a normal part of every day life. War councils had been held with the Nymphs, a key ally at their backs. Nicolo, a human Northman, had been sent back to Ryogen with plans for war. The old ways had already yielded, but the new ways were just a return to still older ways, the ways of the Angels. Oberon knew peace had not always been the way.

  “Would you have it stay the same?” asked the young warrior.

  “All races want to defend their way of life, to keep what they have, what they believe in. But this is not practical in the face of a threat from another civilization. We cannot stop the change if we are to survive, we must settle for being able to choose how our lives change, to have a say in the change.”

  “Then that is what I will fight for. I will change this,” he swept his arm across the panorama before him even though Nestor could not see his movement, “how it must change so that we may survive, but I will keep some of the old ways alive. We will keep the freedom to choose a portion of our path.”

  “The Southlanders are coming.”

  Oberon stopped, his cup halfway to his mouth, fear of the infinite and unknown power that lay to the south pushing away his idealistic dreams of maintaining the freedom, the art, the hunting and fishing that they held so dear.

  “They are coming,” he admitted.

  “We could run,” said the Elder. “The Nymphs would take us in, moving ever deeper into the mountains, hidden by the forest.”

  “They would follow us there,” said Oberon. He knew the character of men from the South.

  “We might be safe,” said Nestor flatly.

  “It is not in our nature to trade safety for freedom. We were born to fight these people, it is in our blood. We are the Blood Born.”

  It was a name Rebus the Elf had given the Cherubim. He had taught them tactics to defeat Southlanders and had watched in awe while Fritigern, the Dwarf warrior, had taught them to perfect their fighting style through repetition. Having fought in the outside world the instructors knew that the Cherubim, born in isolation but possessing the warrior’s gifts of speed and flight, were meant to spill blood.

  “Some might run, yes,” said Nestor. “But you will not and with that stand you bring on our doom.”

  “Eventually there comes a time when a tribe cannot run. I would rather fight here, for our home, than be pulled from a hiding hole like a rabbit.”

  “Are you willing to do whatever it takes?”

  Oberon thought for a moment about Donus’ definition of willingness, that only those who were willing to do anything could defeat anyone. One part of him wanted to keep things he was unwilling to do, acknowledging that the beautiful parts of his people came from what they would not do. But he remembered a fight at a fort, in the north along Hadrian’s Wall, where he had snapped, killing and killing to protect what he loved- the daughter of Ryogen, a northern war chief. He thought of Caldera, safe in his tree home and he knew he was not like Donus even though he was capable of the same things the massive warrior had been.

  “No, there are some things I will not do,” he said, haunted by the knowledge that the
statement was as much aspiration as truth.

  Donus and Ignatius were willing to kill; they didn’t need to be pushed to the limit. He had to be pushed to unleash the murderous power of his people.

  Nestor breathed in, nodding, and the pair were quiet for a moment, a blind past of purpose and freedom sitting with an uncertain future of war and suffering as the sun poked across the opposite ridge. After a time the Elder broke the silence.

  “The Elders cannot lead the people through these changes. Organizing our defense, ensuring we have the supplies we need, working with the other races; we need a chief.”

  “Ignatius,” said Oberon with a nod, certain the warrior who had proved himself a daring survivor and courageous leader in combat was the right choice. It was Ignatius who had spent the entire winter training for a special mission that would allow the capture of Therucilin. It was Ignatius who had been sent back to war with six of the best fighters while the rest of the tribe continued to prepare. It was Ignatius who had done what had to be done when he killed Donus, his friend, the greatest warrior the Cherubim had ever known.

  Nestor turned his blind eyes, locking them on Oberon’s bright blue orbs, unable to see the curly black hair hanging down the young warriors back. He pulled a leather headband with a single blue gemstone from his satchel and reached out to the startled youth.

  “The council has decided it will be you. You will be war chief, with total command of the tribe until the danger of the South has passed.

  “Why?” he asked, taking the headband from Nestor’s grizzled hand.

  The Elder unfurled his greying, tired wings, wings that would never fly again, and used them to push himself to his feet. Oberon joined him, standing behind and looking out at his changing world.

  “Because you care what others can see and you do not go to war willingly. Because the Elders still share the Angel’s dream of a land of peace, knowledge and freedom. Because you came back after contacting the Giants as the Elders instructed. Because the Southlands will send an army north to destroy us, and because Ignatius is too much like Donus.”

  Chapter 2

  A breath in. Nothing.

  Are my warriors ready?

  A slight breeze, cold spring mountain air ruffling the feathers tied in his curly brown locks, his father’s white feathers dancing with the black feathers he had received from Wotan for sparing the Centaur’s life. The wind reminded him to quiet his mind, to bring his soul back to mindful stillness and he closed his speckled green eyes.

  A breath out. Nothing.

  For a time his mind was free, quiet to the future and totally present in a moment of satisfaction. An empty mind, just like when you killed Donus. With a start he remembered the emptiness of the mind that had come over him when he had forgone all unwillingness, a moment of freedom that had given him the power to kill his friend. Shaking his head to clear the thought, Ignatius returned to the moment.

  He was sitting cross-legged, his hands resting palm down on his bare knees. The Cherub looked east towards the mountain range that separated the valley from the plains, a prairie that ran all the way to the ocean. Where he gazed, the tops of the snowcapped peaks were turning pink, telling him the time had nearly come.

  Taking one more breath of the cool air, he spread his gold and brown wings, feeling the feathers ruffle for just an instant. The wind was rising, out of the west, just as he needed. He sensed the Cherubim behind him spread out like geese in a V. Some sat, others stood, looking at the only Cherub in the group who had seen combat.

  Ignatius knew they were anxious, wondering how they would perform in the battle they had spent the entire winter training for. While they had their doubts, he did not. These were the Blood Born, the perfectly blended warriors who had inherited the ability to fly from the Angels and lightning quick reflexes from their mothers, the Nymphs. The mix of the two abilities had never been seen outside of their forest homeland, but Ignatius, Oberon, and Donus had proven their race to be unstoppable warriors.

  Each of the Cherubim was naked save for a loincloth, their faces painted black and blue. On their backs were twin tomahawks, on their belts three daggers they had received from their Nymph mothers when they left the Angel’s castle as youths. This early in the spring Ignatius would have preferred to wear his normal fox fur vest and buckskin pants, but their mission required a long flight and he knew with the added weight they would never make it. Unlike their fathers, whose massive wings allowed them to carry great weights and fly massive distances, the Cherubim were better designed for tight corners and short glides through the forest. Ignatius’ hand strayed to his neck, feeling for his missing katanas, longing for his customary black curved blades more than the added warmth of his discarded clothes.

  They had spent the winter growing stronger and getting leaner so they could make the long-range flight and take the defenders of the city by surprise. Wotan had left Devil’s Lake several days before the special Cherubim strike force, taking the longer way east past the homelands of the Giants and turning north where he rallied his Centaur hordes. Ignatius had led his Blood Born on the shorter, more direct route over the mountains that ringed the northern border of his forest homeland before finally climbing the mountain and waiting for this, the agreed upon moment, to launch his attack.

  Ignatius felt the three extra throwing knives on his belt, taken from the body of his best friend after he had killed him, and knew a changed warrior was about to go to battle. His face was marked by scars, from the fight with Donus, from a griffin’s claws, and from a match against Fritigern, the Dwarf. Scars marked his heart and mind as well, from his father’s death, from nearly losing his life in battle with King Theseus, from those who had died at his hand. Killing Donus didn’t bother him often and this worried him. I should feel worse. Perhaps wishing he felt worse would be good enough to keep him from sliding into the madness that had consumed his friend.

  He frowned as he recalled the monstrous image his people had of Donus. They, who had never been to war, had judged his friend in death, and judged Ignatius in life, too dangerous for the Cherubim’s society. Too dangerous to lead anyone but warriors, that position had gone to Oberon, but not too dangerous to fight and die. Resentment for his people filled his chest and he recalled his vision for his life, a vision that had come to him after nearly dying in battle. To find a Nymph lover, to sit with friends and enjoy the simple pleasures of food and beer; this had been his promise to himself, a promise he had made on the brink of death. He took a breath, emptying his mind and dissipating the resentment of an unfulfilled promise.

  Oberon and the Elders had replaced his simple dream of a life of peace and little pleasures deep in the forest with a vision that recognized the reality faced by all the tribes. They could unite in a new way around the lands of the North, forming a new alliance based on a common enemy rather than common blood, and fight the Southlanders as one. Or they could be subjugated, enslaved, or eradicated individually as the South saw fit.

  Far to the east the Cherubim spotted movement in the foothills beyond Therucilin. It was time. Ignatius took one last breath in, enjoying the air and the strength of his body, the knowledge that he did not need to look back to know his companions would follow him into battle. Months of work and anticipation propelled him as he jumped into the air, accepting his people’s vision for a united North even as his own dreams slipped away.

  The warriors rocketed out over the mountain just as they had practiced in the mountains to the south that winter. The air vibrated across their wingblades, causing the long flat blades attached to the front of their wing bones, and the daggers pointing backwards, to hum. Beneath them the bounty of the high valley speed past. Stretching from the Dwarf kingdoms, never conquered by Centaur or Human, to Ryogen’s tribe of North-Men living in cliff homes to the North, Therucilin controlled the center of the valley and access to the Eastern plains. Vast herds of buffalo and elk, rivers filled with trout and gold, and rich farmland and Therucilin itsef were all prized r
esources that had brought the Southlanders north to contest the rugged Blood Lands.

  The gliding Blood Born Cherubim saw none of the beauty being illuminated by the cresting sun as it rushed below them. They had eyes only for their target, the red walled city, held by the surviving half of the now dead King Theseus’ army. Ignatius remembered leaving the king to be tortured and killed by Wotan’s clan when he rescued Parfey, the previous Pathmaker of the Giants. He knew Donus had killed Alexander, Theseus’ heir, but didn’t allow himself to wonder who was commanding the walled city. The construction of the city had begun when the Angels were still guardians of the Giants and Dwarves, when only a few scattered Men, refugees of the South, inhabited the North. The first Alliance had finished it using the labor of the Giants under the protection of the Southlander’s phalanxes and now the ancestors of those who had started the city would retake it with the help of the Angel’s ancient enemy, the Centaurs.

  The Horse-Men rushing the gate had no hope of entering the city; it had been built to keep them out. The defenders would know that the Cherubim could fly to the wall, but they could not suspect they were capable of making the longer flight to attack from above. Below, Ignatius spotted archers on the battlements, prepared to shoot down any Cherubim who might be joining the attack as they flew up to the wall. Their attention was focused in the wrong direction, and sailing over the heads of the defenders, the Cherub spotted the gatehouse across the city.

  Their momentum carried them over the rooftops, adrenalin overcoming the effects of the cold spring air on their naked skin. The city, filled with Southlander traders, soldiers and their families, as well as Giants and Dwarves who were still loyal to the Old Alliance, had raised the alarm at the sight of Centaurs on the horizon but did not know that this time their walls would not protect them from the merciless heathens of their nightmares.

  Ignatius smashed into an archer with both feet, sending the man tumbling from the battlements. His wings, rushing forward, stopped the rest of his momentum before sweeping back to drive the points of his wingblades into the unprotected throats of two more Southlanders. Around him he could hear his companions engaging in the first fight of their lives. He felt the blood born rage boiling in his veins and suppressed a war cry, instead uttering a low growl, a snarl of hate and rage that was more controlled than the cries of his companions. This was his home now.