Legion after legion, long face after long face, they came. With shields on their arms, bows on their backs, swords slung over their shoulders, they came. In numbers vast and with bodies blackened by soot and flame, they came. They filled the ring, rushing until they came exactly halfway between the Shen and the forest and assembling into lines.
And there they stopped.
From the top of the steps, no sand could be seen. The ring had become a sea of purple skin, lit by the white of hundreds of empty eyes and hundreds of jagged-toothed smiles.
“KENKI-AI!”
The call boomed from Shalake’s mouth like a drum, echoing down the line. The Shen assembled on the steps drew arrows from quivers, nocked them into great bows of wood and bone. The Shen on the sands below seized their clubs in both hands, banged machetes against shields made from turtle shells and dried leather as they hunkered behind barricades brimming with sharp coral spines.
Lenk felt his attentions drawn to the center of the line, an insignificant white speck of froth amidst the purple sea. From this distance, he could pick the figure out. From this distance, he could see Sheraptus sitting there, smoke still trailing from his fingers and leading to the bleeding sky behind him.
And from a place tenderly close, Lenk could feel a scratching at the back of his skull.
“Kill him,” he hissed. “Kill him now. He’s right there. Shoot him.”
“Not close enough,” Jenaji muttered.
“Then rush out there and kill him.”
“Any chance we have relies on them coming to us,” Mahalar muttered. “We wait.”
Lenk knew the wisdom in that. He could see the line of shields and swords stretching out before him. He could see the arrows being drawn back by netherling bows. Any charge would be brief, futile, and end in him lying in a puddle of his own fluids. At the very best, he would die with his sword in a netherling’s chest. Probably not Sheraptus’s. It was a very messy suicide.
But something inside him dearly wanted just that.
“Roughly what we expected,” Yldus commented, “a small number in a fortified position. No other choice for them, really. The ring winds down at the other side, meaning we can only put so many of our warriors there before they start trampling each other.” He gestured to the brightly-colored coral fortifications. “And they set up those. . things to try and funnel us further. Smarter than we’d given lizards credit for.”
“Not a problem, I assume,” Sheraptus muttered, though only half paying attention. His attentions were turned outward, over the heads of his warriors, over the spiraling coral thorns, out to the distant sea. Something out there drew his eye as an itch draws a scratching hand.
“It was nothing we weren’t prepared for,” Yldus replied. “We can rip through those defenses with the. .” He paused and glanced at the monstrosity of metal and spiked machinery that stood at the center of their line. “What did you call this thing again?”
A female loading a star-shaped blade into the thing’s flexible, side-mounted arms looked up and shrugged. “I don’t know. It shoots stuff.”
“Of course.” Yldus sighed. “At any rate, the blades are thick enough to shred those barricades. Given time-”
“How much time?”
“A few hours or so. We’ll need to put the low-fingers and their bows up ahead so that-”
“And how quickly can you get this done?” Sheraptus asked, turning to the side.
Vashnear looked at him, then turned a stare out to the Shen assembled at the other end of the ring. He sniffed.
“Quickly,” he answered.
Sheraptus swung his gaze over to Xhai. The female grunted and turned to her nearest subordinate, another Carnassial clad in the storm gray armor of her rank. The Carnassial snorted in response, looking up through the thin slits of a skull-hugging helmet rife with spikes and jagged edges.
“Three fists,” Xhai grunted. “Three Carnassials. Whoever can get to the front first.” She spurred her cohort with an iron boot to the flank. “Go.”
The Carnassial snarled a response, barked an order to the rest of the netherlings. The hungriest ones fought their way to the front, leaving the weaker ones to clean up the soon-to-be mess.
Sheraptus wasn’t sure how they decided who got to charge. Amongst males, it was generally considered wisdom not to try to understand the finer intricacies of the females’ hierarchies. Sheraptus didn’t care, either way. His concerns were beyond the sea.
And drawing ever closer.
“Quickly, Vashnear?” he asked.
“Quickly, Sheraptus,” Vashnear said, spurring his sikkhun forward to take his place at the center of the assembling netherlings. “And with a great deal of mess.”
“What’s that they’re doing?”
“They’re moving. . fighting? Yes, fighting. No, now just moving again. . faster. . closer. Oh. Oh dear.”
“They’re grouping up, are they-”
“Attala-ah-kah, Jenaji. Attala-ah-kah.”
“They’re definitely-”
“KENKI-SHA! ATTALA! ATALLA JAGA!”
“Oh sweet Silf, they’re coming to-”
“QAI ZHOTH!”
They were all talking at once. The mass of green and yellow blending together around Lenk, the great wave of purple washing across the sands toward them, the blobs of pink and blue and black that reached and grabbed at him as he pushed his way down the gray slope.
It was hard to hear them. It was hard to see them. There were too many of them all and he only cared about one of them. And he was far away, seated atop a pitch-black beast and dressed like an angel from hell with a halo of fire and shadow.
And between them came the purple, countless bodies intertwining, countless mouths howling, countless swords in the air. There might have been a lot, there might have been a few.
He had to hurt them. He had to make them bleed. He couldn’t care about numbers or jagged-toothed smiles or the great metal birds flying overhead.
Arms caught him about the waist, a pair of bodies brought him low as the air was cut apart in a metallic wail. Flesh and bone exploded in a bouquet of red and white flowers as the great, jagged star tore through the Shen behind them, carrying through bodies and screams to impale itself in the stone stairs.
“Down! Down! Keep him down!” Denaos cried.
“There’s more coming, Lenk! Stop moving, you idiot!” Asper shrieked, trying to hold him down.
“JAHU! ATTAI WOH!” Shalake howled.
Shields went up around them, a poor defense against the jagged stars descending from the air. In the distance, between the scaly green legs, Lenk could see them hurled from great wooden arms on the netherlings’ ballista. He could see them fly into the air, whirring violently before falling like falcons, ripping through coral, shields, flesh, bones, sand, stones.
And still, the screams were drowned out. And still, the blood spattering the earth around him was nothing. Nothing compared to the rush of purple flesh and black metal charging toward them.
“ATTAI-AH! ATTAI-AH!” Jenaji screamed from the steps. “ATTALA JAGA! SHENKO-SA!”
His warcry was echoed in the hum of bowstrings, a choral dirge that sent arrows singing through the sky. Fletched with feathery fins and tipped with jagged coral, they rose and fell in harmony, their song turning to battle cry as they tipped and descended upon the charging netherlings.
They sought. They found flesh, digging into necks, thighs, wriggling between armor plates and jutting out of throats. Some fell, some stumbled, some tripped and were trampled by their fellow warriors. But one still stood.
A great hulk of a female, armor stark gray like an angel wrought of iron, swinging a massive slab of metal over a helmet flanged with spikes and edges. She embraced the arrows like lovers as they found a bare bicep, a flash of thigh, a scant spot of skin just beneath the collarbone.