The Belromanticum

Chapter 44

The Heacharid army marched upon the gates of Castellandria a little more than a month into spring. This chapter will be far from a comprehensive history of this brief war. This chronicle is about my paramours, as you well know, and I happened to find a torrid reunion in the midst of the carnage.

The later histories would link this with my campaign that became known as the Breaking of the Tides. A few histories correctly point to this as a central inspiration behind that war, and look at the Heacharid siege upon the great city of Castellandria as mere preamble. As the siege was happening and stretching out over the course of a little over two years, it felt far more than preamble at the time.

For those looking for a history of this engagement, several sources exist, including theHistoriae Heachariaein its thirteenth volume. Although it unfairly lionizes the Heacharids rather than depicting them as the rapacious locusts they were, I admit that I enjoy some of the volume's more breathless descriptions of me.

A far better history can be found in Micephoran'sCity of Walls, though he concentrates less on the minutiae of the battles themselves than on the struggles of the great city's people. He devotes a lengthy passage to my Tanyth, whom he refers to as the Angel of Castellandria, and describes her in the kind of flowery terms generally reserved for goddesses. You can imagine that I am biased in its favor.

The best military history can be found in the journals of Ryphas Dell, a Kallisite who oversaw much of the city's strategy during the siege and had intimate knowledge of every sortie. I can be found in those journals as well, and though we never truly trusted one another we held a mutual collegial respect. I regard his depiction of me as, while not especially flattering, entirely fair.

As the Heacharids began to mass beyond the eastern walls, I was enjoying a carefree day in my home. I sat out on the main courtyard of my house, overlooking the Castelpont, with my son Faustan in my arms. Arkohnus, clever and adventurous as he was, had begun attempting to stand upright while supported by a chair. Across the flagstones, Shaluvia sparred with Threch. The warmaid was getting the best of my son, I suspect because she had chosen to fight with bare breasts. Quiyahui coiled in a sleepy lump, watching us with unblinking eyes.

My boys could not be more different than one another. Threch was the only half-orc among them, and the only one for many years. He was a bit taller than I, though age had not yet put bulk on his body. His skin was a handsome pale green, and he had only begun to cultivate scars. His hair, shaved into a mohawk, was a deep brown that was almost black. His tusks were small, and he had a narrower face than his mother, taking after me. He showed off his lean physique in a pair of linen breeches and fought with a wooden sword and axe.

Arkohnus's small face was locked in concentration as he tried to rise. The boy was undeniably a darkling, though his demonic features were not quite as pronounced as his mother's. His horns were still small then, and his skin a light blue and striped darker. His eyes were a bright emerald green, the whites a glowing yellow. I saw my face in his, and whenever I looked upon him I felt a great blooming of love.

Faustan was still in that unformed state of very small children. His eyes were a bright blue and he had a small halo of strawberry blond hair. Most striking, though, was the night eft that was never far from him. I should not have been surprised that the child of two wizards would be a potential wizard himself. I thought that between the two of us, Lysethe and I could train him well.

Belazei was out. She had made friends with a group of girls from Darktown who for obvious reasons were untroubled by my daughter's inhuman nature. Though I missed having her home, I was pleased that she had friends.

"Good," Shaluvia said, parrying Threch's attacks with ease. The two of them shone with the wholesome sweat of hard work. "Don't fall into a pattern. As soon as you do that, your enemy will cut your throat."

"Go again," he said, and his eyes fell once again to Shaluvia's chest. She took that chance to step inside his guard. I lost track of them as a din rose in my ears. Shouting came from the street above and behind us. I stood, cradling Faustan, and went to the balcony. Below was the bay leading out into the Azure Ocean.

Castellandria's warships, a fleet designed to keep trade flowing, was heading for the Turquoise side of the Castelpont, and others still docked were alive with activity, with sailors scurrying over their rigging like ants. An alarm had been raised. The defenders of Castellandria were mobilizing. Behind me, Shaluvia and Threch had ceased their sparring.

"What's happening?" Shaluvia asked.

"I plan to find out," I said. I handed Faustan to Threch, who accepted the baby without protest. Quiyahui followed me as I rushed from the courtyard. I found Sarakiel and Lysethe in our bedchamber, deep in their loveplay. Lysethe was bound to the bed, and Sarakiel was in the midst of her sweet torture. She could keep Lysethe on the precipice of relief for hours.

They both looked at me, their smoky eyes filled with confusion. "Forgive my interruption," I said. "Something is happening out in the city, and I need to leave to find out what."

"Something? What kind of something?"

I held up a hand. "Keep enjoying yourselves. I'll find out everything I can and be back presently."

"Where are our sons?" Sarakiel said.

"On the balcony with Threch and Shaluvia. They'll be well looked after until the two of you are finished." I pulled Ur-Anu from its rack and left, closing the door behind me. I hoped that taking my weapon wouldn't worry them too much.

I ran to the north wing of the house where the stables were located and saddled my qobad. She squawked, pawing the floor of her stall. I believe she sensed the impending violence in the air.

"Bel, the city is under attack." I turned to find my wife Tanyth standing at the entry to the stables. Her face was thoughtful, without an ounce of fear despite her disturbing words.

"How could you possibly know that? I was going out to find what was happening."

"I am Kharsoomian. I know what the beginning of a siege feels like."

"I'm going to the Basilica then," I said. "I will learn what they know."

"No," she said. "Go directly to the walls. You will learn more there and when the defenders see you join them, they will love you for it."

Her council was wise as always. "And you will--"

"Don't worry about me. Go."

I nodded to her, and my eyes told her how much I loved her. I swung myself into the saddle and my Kharsoomian riding bird bolted from the stable. The streets were in a state of confusion. Half of the people were panicked, running to and fro. The other half were calmly going about their business. It was as though the city could not quite decide what to do.

I rode hard through the streets of my adopted city. Everywhere was the same, heavy with an eerie feeling that while things might be fine now, soon they would be irrevocably different. The closer I got to the eastern walls, the more oppressive the foreboding. The walls were covered with guards, jittery as they stared out over the Silver Road leading into the interior of Aucor. Wide staircases went to the ramparts. There were no defenses on this side of the walls: if attackers ever made it this far, the city would be lost. No guards stopped me, or even noticed me as I joined them.

The Heacharid army touched the horizon. The flaming rose banner flapped across the sky from a thousand different poles. They advanced up the Silver Road to our gates, but they sent no delegation ahead to demand surrender without bloodshed. It was the way of the Heacharids to always attack first, throwing the lives away of their vanguard just to show that they could. Every defender they cost us was well worth a hundred of them. If they managed to break us with this shock attack, so much the better. I remembered these tactics of fear from the Turquoise Conquest. They had not worked against Amazons fighting for their very civilization, but I did not have the same respect for Castellandrian morale.

If we fell, then the Heacharids could not be stopped. Castellandria was the gateway into Chassudor, and there was nothing in my homeland that could stop them. The Heacharids would stretch over two continents, and it would only be a matter of time before they crossed the Lapis for a third and fourth.

The closest guards muttered superstitiously. They were inches from breaking in the face of the endless Heacharid hordes. The nearest guards noticed me standing beside them with my spear in hand and my feathered serpent flying overhead like a war banner of my own.

"Master Wizard," he asked. "What do we do?"

"We visit a plague of ruin on the Heacharids, so that evermore when they hear the name of our city, they pray to their god for deliverance," I said.

The closest of the guards stood a little straighter, gripping their spears more easily.

Diotenah's whispers threaded through my mind. The ring wanted what I was about to unleash. I had not felt this sensation since the Turquoise Conquest, and I would come to know it well once again.

I murmured an incantation, opening my hand. A tiny sparrow sat there, its feathers blue and white. When it moved, lightning crackled over its wings. I whispered a message to my brides, and the bird took flight, winging its way to Azureview.

I looked out over the concentric rings of the Hallian Walls. Collapsible bridges connected one to the other, separating each ring of defense and turning the chamber between one wall and the next into a killing ground. In Castellandria, invasions were reckoned by which layer of the wall the attacking army managed. The weak point, as with any city, were the main gates themselves, and the great city had but two, with one on the Chassudor side and the other on the Aucor. This latter gate was the Heacharids' destination.

Part of me wished that I didn't crave the feeling flooding my body. That damnable war in Axichis made a killer of me, and I would never find a group I more relished visiting death upon than the plague of Heacharium.

"Men of Castellandria!" My words echoed down the walls on wings of thunder. "Belromanazar the wizard stands with you! The man the Heacharids know as the Dreadstorm! And today, I am going to teach them the folly of attacking our city!"

My incantation spilled from my lips. Diotenah's ring exulted in the rush of power through my body, winding its own poison serpent about it. The ring, if it had been slumbering, had awakened. The rind of her soul purred its promises, its own power swirling over mine.

Thunder snarled across the sky as slate-gray clouds swallowed the sunlight. I had not truly embraced my power like this since I took it back and the feeling was sublime. I felt myself once again buried in the goddess Errishti. Indescribable pleasure exploded across every sense, wrapped in the feathered coils of my familiar.

Lightning spidered over the swollen clouds. Rain began to fall. I ignored it, my incantations calling to the lightning. I felt it in my limbs, a delectable shiver that ignited my body. My heart thundered with the storm. I raised Ur-Anu to the sky. A bolt crackled down catching the obsidian tip of my spear and halo my body in sky fire. The storm was part of me.

A battle horn sounded from the Heacharid ranks. Their men went from a march to a jog, picking up speed as they approached. The guards let fly with the first volley of arrows. The land leading to the city walls narrowed as it came to the Castelpont, concentrating the attackers into a mass that could scarcely be missed. Hundreds died before they reached the walls, some feathered with arrows, others merely fallen and trampled, but that was nothing to the Heacharids.

I pulled lightning from the heavens and hurled it through the Heacharid ranks. Where one fell, he clambered to his feet once more, lightning playing over his ruined body. It had been many years since I had seen my stormwights, and now they once again rose from Heacharid corpses to kill their fellows.

I could not kill enough. One never could with the Heacharids, and I had learned that lesson well in the Turquoise Conquest. It was not about mere death: it was about sowing terror in the ranks of the attackers who were forced to fight their suddenly undead comrades. I put the storm on our side, my fell incantations booming like the beat of a bard's war drum.

The Heacharids swarmed over the first walls with their siege ladders. The defenders fell back, disabling the bridges to the second layer. By that time, more defenders had joined the walls. Not merely guards, but members of the regular army, Kallisites, and even citizens. A shaft of sunlight freed itself from the clouds, and like the finger of a vengeful god, it ran through the attackers, turning them into screaming embers. I knew then that Lysethe was among the defenders now.

We battled on through the night. When the first rays of the morning sun reached from the east, it was in the faces of the fleeing Heacharid vanguard. We cheered as they withdrew beyond the range of our defenses. Watching them erect tents, though, took some of the joy out of our victory. They were ready for a long siege. But then, this was Castellandria. So were we.

I collapsed against the wall, sliding down to rest on the flagstones. Hunger, thirst, and exhaustion gnawed at my bones but I could not decide which one to sate. I wasn't even certain I could move.

"Bel, are you well?" Ulrika knelt next to me. I had not detected her approach, and I wondered how long she had been on the walls next to me.

I tried to speak and merely nodded instead.

"Stay there. You're spent." She lifted her head and called for water. Moments later a boy fed me a dipper from a bucket. After two, I found the strength to stand.

"Get home," Ulrika said. "We need you rested for when they come back."

I could not find my qobad, and learned later she had made her own way home when the violence started. Clever bird. Clever, cowardly bird. I staggered my way to my bedchamber and before I could explain to Zhahllaia what had happened, I fell into a dreamless sleep.

***

***

As the siege entered its first months, the Heacharids blocked the Silver Road entirely and flooded the Castelpont from the Turquoise side. They never managed more than a small landing on Chassudor, but it was enough to keep caravans from resupplying us. The Azure side of the Castelpont was blockaded from time to time but never consistently. That was how we managed to take supplies into the city.

Those first months were before shortage had set in, but we could all see the lean times coming. We rationed in preparation, but it would not be enough.

The Order of Owls immediately offered our services, and whatever else the Doge was, he was no fool. The Dreadstorm returned to war against the Heacharids.

Each of us contributed in our way. Zhahllaia and Sarakiel kept our household functioning. Belazei, over my objections, scouted the Castelpont from the water to give regular updates on the disposition of the Heacharid fleet. Threch joined me on the walls, and soon enough was following elderly Clodomyr around like a puppy. The wizened adventurer took my son under his wing and taught him numerous lessons that would serve him well.

Tanyth began the task that would make her famous in the great city. Along with Shaluvia, and sometimes Ujaala and her handmaids, she organized relief. She collected supplies, dealt with smugglers for more, collected donations from the citizenry, and distributed everything out of Phrantolos Plaza, which would soon be better known by its nickname, Mercy Square. I do not know if the name would have stuck if not for the statue of Tanyth erected there. She fought to keep everyone fed, and the city loved her for it. In these early days her fame was only just beginning to spread, but by the end of the war she would be known throughout every corner of Castellandria.

Ujaala warmed my bed most nights, as she was the only one with any energy for loveplay. Thanks to the shortage of night tea, we turned to our old road ways. She was just as skilled at Arthan style as she was at the knight's kiss, and her love helped me forget myself after battle.

I spent those months exhausted. I was given day shifts, but I was often called in the middle of the night. The Heacharids attacked at all hours, attempting to keep us off balance. One of these nights I was sent to the western walls. This was during their first attempt at landing on the Chassudorian shore, and we knew the dire stakes of letting the Heacharids get comfortable on the other side of us.

I spent a night and half the day whipping them with storm and butchering them with lightning. The Castellandrians sent out sorties, herding the Heacharids into the killing ground of the storm. They broke and ran around noon, a fact we did not know until I let go of the storm and the clouds began to dissolve, freeing the bright beams of the sun.

A ragged cheer rose up from the defenders as the Heacharids fled back to their ships. My shoulders sagged. I did not even want a tumble with my loves. I wanted only sleep.

"I thought it couldn't be. Then I saw those abominations hacking up the Heacharids." The voice spoke directly to my memory. I turned and saw a face that I assumed until that moment I would never see again.

I knew her strange combination of features was due to her ancestry, one parent half-elf, the other half-orc. Her skin had a slight grayish cast, her ears came to delicate points, and her canine teeth came to points. Her auburn hair was streaked with gold, one temple shaved to show new tattoos along her scalp. Her magenta eyes were hard, but affection leavened her gaze.

"Talynore?" I managed. "Talynore Tazo?"

"And here I thought you might have forgotten me," she said.

"What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be on the other side of the lines?"

"I'm a freeblade, Belromanazar." She smirked. "And I was in the city when the Heacharids invaded. I'll not turn down easy coin for a siege job. What are you doing here?"

"I live here. On the other side of the Castelpont."

"Bad luck. The Heacharids won't leave you be."

"I had a similar thought." On impulse, I said, "Come. You must be hungry."

"Don't get any ideas. This isn't an island and I'm far too tired for a buggering."

I laughed. "I'm too tired to give you one."

The ferries crossing the Castelpont were restricted for guards, but the two of us qualified. Along the way, she asked me about Quiyahui, and I gave her a shortened version of the story. Such a tale was not for a walk. It would require at least a little wine.

Azureview was in a state of chaos. We had expanded several times, but the work linking the properties wasn't done. The place was a labyrinth, and that was compounded by the numerous crates of supplies Tanyth was storing, as well as a section she had turned into a field hospital. Zhahllaia served as her wazira in this, and was always by the Kharsoomian's side. I was happy to see how close they had become. I brought Talynore out onto the courtyard where she could look out over the Castelpont. I thought Quiyahui might take the opportunity to play on the wind, but she coiled up and rested.

"This is your home?" she asked. "Done well for yourself."

"The spoils of adventuring," I said.

I fetched a loaf of bread, some cheese, dried figs, and a pitcher of wine. "I hope this is adequate."

"Oh, it's more than enough. After last night, I'd eat sawdust."

We started to eat and a little strength came back to me, but I was still exhausted. On the water below, we watched the patrolling ships in the Azure.