Sentar looked over the defenders, lip curled in a sneer. "I have my answer. Prepare to die."
He floated slowly to the ground until he returned to his feet at the head of his huge army. He raised an arm and the warriors below cried out in one voice, a sound of rage and triumph. It was eerie, the synchronicity of their cry, and of their movements. Miro had led men into battle on more than one occasion, he knew how men behaved, and this was not normal.
"Cannon!" Miro heard the cry.
Sentar waved his arm forward, and the army surged ahead, covering the final hundred paces in seconds. Ladders rose up to lean against the walls, while the defenders waited until they were filled with climbing men before pushing them away with pole-arms. The siege towers rolled inevitably forward.
Miro drew his sword as a ladder touched the top of the wall in front of him. A Gokani came rushing forward with a pole-arm and shoved it away, but another took its place, and then another. Soon there were five ladders on the small patch of wall, and the man with the pole-arm couldn't keep up.
Miro longed to take battle to the enemy, but he knew that now it was clear who was leading them he should find Amber and flee, if it was still even possible to do so.
He looked at the sword in his hand, wishing it was a zenblade.
Miro turned to depart the walls.
The young recruit nearby cried out in fear, and Miro suddenly couldn't leave. Every part of his being screamed for him to fight; he couldn't leave this boy to face his enemy alone.
Miro faced the ladders as they trembled under the weight of climbing men. A hand reached the top rung and an enemy warrior came forward, a barbarian by his horned helmet.
He clambered up onto the wall and then stared directly at Miro, the whites of his eyes sending a cold stab into Miro's heart.
Miro realised then what he'd been looking at but been too blind to see. His gaze swept to the left and the right, where more of the enemy climbed ladders and poured onto the walls.
They were all revenants.
The largest army Miro had ever seen was an army of revenants.
Everything clicked into place. Sentar Scythran had somehow built the vats, and used one or two bodies to create essence. He'd used that essence to create revenants, and with his revenants beside him he'd killed a larger group of people. Some of those people fed the vats, while others became even more revenants.
He'd continued doing so until he'd conquered the barbarian nation of Oltara, and by then he was unstoppable. Muttara fell next and soon every barbarian was either feeding the vats or in his thrall. The next to fall was Narea, unable to halt the onslaught of a barbarian horde that was already dead.
Miro had seen bladesingers struggle to defeat overwhelming numbers of revenants. With no lore, the people of this continent were doomed.
The Lord of the Night's army was like a plague, feeding on those they killed and growing larger in the process, in a cycle that wouldn't end until Sentar Scythran stood inside the Sentinel and opened the way for his brothers to return. He wouldn't stop until every last human on the face of Merralya was dead or enslaved.
Miro shook himself out of his reverie as the nearby cannon boomed, tearing the revenants below into pieces, but they were inhuman, exhibiting neither fear nor hesitation.
Then the enemy trebuchets let loose, huge stones flying between the approaching siege towers.
A boulder hit the wall in front of Miro's feet.
The five ladders splintered in a heartbeat, and the barbarian warrior in front of Miro was torn to pieces.
The young recruit was hit by a piece of wall; his chest caved in and blood gushed from his mouth.
Miro was lifted from his feet as the entire section of wall exploded into the air.
33
HIDDEN somewhere deep in the Parklands, Amber heard the great horn call the men to their stations. She felt the ground tremble as the huge army marched towards the city walls. When the Lord of the Night spoke, she heard his words.
Now was the time to enter through the final gate and gain entrance to the second tier. They now knew who led the enemy; Amber had to find the alchemists.
She picked a direction and started walking, following the district in an anticlockwise direction, figuring that the last couple of turns had been clockwise.
She saw it instantly, a ramped pathway that split in the middle, the left hand side continuing high to the innermost circle, where the great tower called the Eye loomed down on the city below. The right side of the sloping path levelled off, taking the visitor away from the district called the Parklands and to the area the Alchemists' Guild called home.
Even from this distance, Amber heard shouts and screams, and prayed Miro would be all right.