Ronan: Night Wolves by Lisa Daniels (99)

Chapter Five - Erlandur

He froze as the awful, sonorous noise ripped out of the Black Tower.  All around him, his units died, his witches fell, until he had only been reduced to less than three thousand fighting undead, having taken the full brunt of a ravenous horde of Shadows, which seemed incensed to meet the undead, to feel his magic radiating over the battlefield.  Holding each of the individual minds was easy.  Like an extension of his limbs.  He felt every one of their lights gasp out, felt them fall – and he had no idea what was happening to Helena's army.

He saw them under the Black Tower, fighting desperately against more Shadows, a horrible number of them, including the ones from the tunnels, but there was no sign of the Supreme, icing the battle with her peculiar brand of magic.

Erlandur had held out longer than expected.  He found that anyone who fell in battle due to magic, rather than a Shadow's touch, he could reanimate, and attach them to their army.  He'd been doing that with Helena's army of werewolves, though they'd been confused, and even attacked the blue eyed reanimations, before comprehending the reach of his power.

It still wasn't enough.  And now, something was happening in that Tower.

He floated beside Kell and his undead witch, absently ordering his undead army to ring and try to push through once more to Helena's army.  Echo's Monster shifted to protect their rear again, lashing out and obliterating dozens of Shadows at a time, but still barely making a dent in the numbers.

He didn't know what had happened to his sister or Faith and he grimly accepted the possibility they might be dead.  If he was animating their bodies now, he had no way of telling if it was them.  They were simply empty shells, after all.

Everything they'd done seemed to crumble around them.  The numbers of the Shadows proved disheartening, vicious, and prone to fill the human and werewolf members of their armies with despair.

More died.  Hundreds of his undead exploded from one devastating attack from a fire caster, before Erlandur made his forces spread out again, and got one of his lightning witches to take out the caster.

It's over.

The thought weighed on him.  It also made him determined to reach Helena's dying army, to muster up a last form of defense.  A last laugh.  Some way to spit in their eyes whilst the greatest army the werewolves had ever mustered turned to dust.

Finally, they punched through, making it to the foot of the Black Tower, but not without sustaining dreadful losses.

He couldn't see his sister.  No Faith, either.  He spotted with a wave of sadness that he was now animating the werewolf chieftain, Targun, who ripped into the enemy lines with mindless destruction, as if emulating the last emotion the great warrior must have felt before he died.

Kell gasped beside him, her eyes wide and shining.  “They did it.” She looked up to the Black Tower, though it was far too high at this range for them to see the top.  “I sense it.  Whatever was in that tower is gone.  They reached the top floor.”

Erlandur closed his eyes.  A smile invaded his lips.  “Good.  I had...  I couldn't reach here for so long.  I thought we'd not be able to do it.  Helena must have made the choice to go ahead.  What a bitch.  Stealing all the glory.”

Kell laughed at Erlandur's stab at humor.  “Yes.  You could say that.”

“She told me the defenses in that place were likely to kill anyone who were spotted.  She wanted me there, to reanimate her if she died without her body being destroyed.  She said she absolutely needed to survive – but goes and suicides, anyway.”

He felt more of his fighters die, saw the desperate surge of their combined armies press against the Shadows that outnumbered them at least three to one.

“Maybe they'll sing songs about us,” Kell whispered.  “Maybe...”

Then, Erlandur noticed something peculiar happening.  He saw the attacking Shadows just stop and stand listlessly, even as they got mowed down.  Others milled about in confusion, as if drunk, and the push of their numbers against the tiny force defending the Black Tower stopped, putting no effort into fighting.  Other groups still fought, but a big percentage of them had stopped, before suddenly turning upon the others.

Erlandur stared in astonishment at the fighting, listening to the screams of the Supremes who didn't understand what was happening.

Their own army had stopped their desperate struggles as well, aside from the few Shadows that made it to the last line of defense.

He then shouted as ice materialized out of the front door of the Black Tower, and Helena came zooming out of the door at a ridiculous speed, her body sliding over the smooth ice.

“Help meeeee!”

The Supreme was arrested mid air by Kell, who was now forced to drop Erlandur and the undead shielder down to handle this.

“There's more coming!” Helena said.  “I hope you have enough energy to grab us all!”

“What?” Kell said, then hastily used her magic on four other people who came whizzing out of the building on the ice slide Helena had created.

Echo had by now reached their group, to greet her mentor.  “Are you insane, Helena?”

“It was a good idea at the time!” Helena panted, shoving her way towards them.  “But I underestimated just how blasting fast we'd go.  Not to mention the stomach churning effect.  Awful.” She stood in front of them, hair wild, eyes expanded like stars.

“Hey,” Erlandur said.  “I was a little late, sorry.”

“No...  no problem.” Helena waved one hand, watching as Kell arrested the reckless descent of several more of the tower expedition.

“Is this your doing?” He pointed at the Shadows who now battled the others, which retreated, along with the baffled Supremes.

“Yes,” Helena replied.  “Some of their original controllers died, and I took advantage of that before the others claimed possession.  We need to focus on getting out now.  Our job's done.  We destroyed the Heart.”

Erlandur sighed.  “No more Supremes will be making it to our world?”

“None,” Helena said.  “We've sealed the way for them for a long time, at least.  Creating something like the Heart takes a good few centuries.  Their numbers can only dwindle from here.”

“Great!” Kell said, sounding rather irritated, as she seized more high flyers from catapulting themselves into the enemy.  “But we still have this massive army to deal with!”

“Yeah...  which is why we should back out.”

“You won't bargain with the remaining Supremes, Helena?” Erlandur asked.  He knew this was part of her original plan.  To eradicate the caste that hated humans, and try and bend the will of the rest to her cause.  She'd end up ruling the Fractured City, seeking an alliance with the humans, rather than subjecting her people to endless war.

A truce.

That was the aim.  But only after destroying the way home for them forever, preventing more from invading their planet.  Only after she subjected as many mindless under her control, by targeting the Supremes with the largest numbers.

“Retreat!” Helena roared.  “We've done what we came here for! Let's get as many survivors to safety as we can!”

The Shadows she controlled now cut a path of retreat for them, pushing back the tide, allowing the weary werewolves to gather together, allow the witches to clamber on them, and go.  Kell arrested the last two members of the expedition, the fire witch and the overprotective wolf clinging onto her with his teeth by the scruff of her neck – Erlandur noticed only sixteen of them had made it back.

They should have felt victorious, but the heaviness stamped upon his heart as the knowledge of the sacrifice of everyone who'd chosen to follow him sank in.

He couldn't tell the numbers from here, but their army, once hovering at around seventy thousand or so troops, now numbered less than six thousand.  The Shadows had been at just over double that number, which didn't include the ones in the tunnels, which almost tripled it.

They ran for the rest of their lives, and all Erlandur wanted to do was sleep.