In no time ladders had been laid against the walls and the first of Tilogorn's warriors were scaling the defenses to grapple with the handful of plucky soldiers left in charge of the northern gates.
Tilogorn watched as Idoslane's flag was raised on the ramparts. He buckled his helmet and pushed down the visor. "For Girdlegard!" He and his five thousand cavalrymen pounded toward the open gates.
The first block detached itself from the parapet and shot toward them like a missile from a catapult. The slab of stone, as long as a forearm in its shortest dimension, struck a soldier in the chest, his body compressing like honeycomb beneath the mass of granite.
It was the start of a bombardment more gruesome than anything the men had ever witnessed. Most of them weren't destined to survive it.
Block by block, the city wall was coming undone. Starting from the top, the stone slabs hurled themselves from the parapet, hitting the attacking army with such force that neither shields nor armor could save them. The massive projectiles crashed straight through the wooden barricades, flipping them over or smashing them to pieces and showering the nearby troops with a lethal hail of wood and stone.
Each of the blocks met its target. Everywhere armor was shattering, bones splintering and granite embedding itself in the ground. Shouts of terror gave way to screams for help and the anguished howls of the dying. Soon there was nothing left to support the ladders and they toppled back among the troops.
"Pull back!" commanded Lothaire, wheeling his horse about. A block struck his stallion's head and it fell to the ground, twitching.
The king tumbled from the saddle and was trapped beneath the fallen mount. When at last he dragged himself free, he realized that his leg was wounded, perhaps broken. Barely able to stand, let alone walk, he was rescued by two of his guards, who carried him to a ditch, the only place that offered any protection against the flying granite.
"Curse the magus and his wizardry," muttered Lothaire, gritting his teeth as pain shot through his injured leg. The situation was worse than anything he had imagined: Nфd'onn was using his terrible powers to bring death and destruction to the allied troops. He tried not to think about the quantity of blocks in the wall; it was a formidable arsenal by anyone's standards.
At last, when the thudding and pounding had ceased, the king raised his head and looked out of the ditch.
The flat ground at the foot of the gates was littered with stone slabs of varying sizes: Even the base blocks, each the length of a fully grown man, had lifted from the foundations and hurled themselves at the troops. Limbs, broken lances, warped shields, and snapped spears protruded from beneath the masonry, the hunks of stone providing grisly markers for every corpse.
Lothaire's gaze traveled over the debris and settled on the unprotected streets and houses beyond. Bereft of its wall, the capital of Lios Nudin lay defenseless before him. Only the watchtowers on either side of the gates were still in place.
"This is our chance," he said, straining to speak through the pain. "We've got to attack." With the help of his guards he left the trench to spur on his army.
Barely three thousand of his twenty thousand men had survived the bombardment, and over half of those had taken flight, their courage defeated by the invisible malice at work. Who can blame them? he thought bitterly.
The sight of their leader strengthened the soldiers' resolve and Lothaire was soon surrounded by a loyal cohort of fifteen hundred men, all determined to invade the city and storm the palace.
Just then the masonry came back to life. The biggest blocks were the first to move, rising one by one and lowering themselves into position. Next came the smaller slabs, piling one on top of the other until the wall loomed once again above the horrified troops, only this time it glistened red with the blood of their comrades.
That was the moment when Lothaire stopped believing that Nфd'onn could be defeated. Lowering himself onto the blood-drenched grass, he stared at the insurmountable obstacle in their path. Fragments of armor, broken weaponry, and mutilated body parts stuck to the wall like trophies, daring the army to launch another doomed assault. Ye gods, what can I do?
Weapons at the ready, his soldiers hesitated. Lothaire was still praying for inspiration when the voice of the magus sounded from above.
"How thoughtful of you to bring me an army, King Lothaire."
"Enjoy your monstrous work while you can," Urgon's ruler shouted furiously. "Your cruel dominion will soon be over."
There was a flash of dark green cloth and the magus came into view through an embrasure. Lothaire looked up at the great white oval of his bloated face.
"You thought you were invading a defenseless city. It wasn't your only mistake. The human eye is easily misled." He raised his arms and gestured with an elegance belying his bulk. "All the best with your final battle, King Lothaire. Don't worry: This time you'll be fighting humans, not stones." He withdrew and disappeared behind a merlon.
On looking round, Lothaire was rooted with horror. The grass beneath him was turning gray before his eyes. All around him the trees were drooping, the branches shedding their richly colored leaves, whose pigment faded as they fell. This was the true face of Lios Nudin, disguised by the magus to trick them into setting foot in the Perished Land.
Lothaire knew what it meant for him and his fifteen hundred men.
The Perished Land knows no such thing as death. Lothaire had heard stories about the northern pestilence and the thought of it made him shudder with horror. Closing his eyes, he prayed to Palandiell and other benevolent deities to deliver them from their fate.
His desperate prayers were cut short by the sound of low groans from all over the battlefield. The dead soldiers were rising, clambering clumsily out of block-shaped craters and pushing their way through shattered blockades. Depending on the extent of their injuries, they crawled, limped, or staggered toward the surviving troops. A few walked without impediment, but their open wounds and terrible deformities gave them away. Already there were a hundred of them, each clutching a sword, lance, or other weapon, and their ranks were swelling all the time.
"But they're… It's impossible! What are we to do?" cried a terrified officer.
"We fight our way out," ruled Lothaire. "If we stay, our courage will be of no greater use to anyone than it was to these men; the Perished Land will enslave us. We'll head south." His loyal guards had been waiting for his signal and offered him their shoulders to lean on. A dozen warriors surrounded the trio and shielded the wounded king. "Make haste! And may Palandiell be with us!"
With that, Lothaire and his men surged forward to break through the ring of undead soldiers who had once been their allies.
The cavalry thundered through the deserted streets of Porista with no regard for their own limbs or the safety of their mounts. Tearing round the corners, many of the horses skidded on the treacherous cobblestones and careened into houses. Those behind leaped over the bodies and galloped on.
Their goal was already in sight. Towering above the rest of the city, Nфd'onn's palace, once the seat of the council of the magi, pointed them on their way.
To Tilogorn's relief, the citizens of Porista did nothing to halt the charge. The assault on the gates had gone according to plan and now the invaders could focus on the purpose of their mission-subduing the magus himself.
The king trusted entirely to the power of numbers, believing his army to be stronger and more powerful than any wizard's spell. To think otherwise would be irresponsible-the men would sense his hesitation and an anxious army was easy to defeat.
The riders streamed through Porista like a torrent of shimmering water, channeled by the streets into three separate tributaries, which flowed toward the palace walls and collected in the marketplace outside the palace gates.