The Battle of the Round: A Tor.Com Original

by Peter Orullian

Overview

A Tor.Com Original short story set in the world of Peter Orullian's Vault of Heaven series

In wartime, what price honor, when the odds are against you, the enemy is remorseless, and it is the eleventh hour? A Sheason who lives to help his people faces a terrible choice on the battlefield when all defenses have failed and the only choice seems to be to do the one thing that separates him from his most hated adversary.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781429923361
Publisher:	Tor Publishing Group
Publication date:	04/12/2011
Series:	Tor.Com Original Series
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	32
File size:	358 KB

About the Author

PETER ORULLIAN has worked in marketing at Xbox for nearly a decade, most recently leading the Music and Entertainment marketing strategy for Xbox LIVE, and has toured as a featured vocalist internationally at major music festivals. He has published several short stories. His first novel, The Unremembered, has just been published. He lives in Seattle.

Peter Orullian works in marketing at Xbox, including leading the Music and Entertainment marketing strategy for Xbox LIVE, and has toured as a featured vocalist internationally at major music festivals. He has published several short stories. He is the author of The Unremembered and Trial of Intentions. He lives in Seattle.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

The Battle of the Round

Maral Praig knelt beside the bleeding soldier and examined his wounds. A sword or spear had punctured the man's gut several times. He would die if Maral did not heal him. But to make the lad whole — if it could be done at all — would cost him greatly; he'd have to use much of his own spirit to do it, leaving him with less of that spirit to use in tending to others, men whose wounds were less severe, who might be able to return to the battle right away. He looked down, helpless, into the face of the young man, feeling damned no matter what he chose to do.

Sounds of war filled the air. Metal rang against metal, and the unearthly cries of the inhuman Quietgiven foe unnerved him. The soldier locked eyes with Maral, pain and fear drawing his features tight. But the lad managed to nod perceptibly, lending Maral the strength to push through the clamorous din. Gently, he placed his hand on the soldier's chest, invoked the Will, and caused him to sleep. It took little energy to do it, leaving him still able to tend to many others today.

The lad would die. But at least he would feel nothing as he bled his last.

Maral bowed his head, wondering if the young soldier had a wife, maybe children, and silently hoped he did not.

How many? he thought. How many have I let die ...

Maral raised his eyes and looked around. Several of the Sheason he led were tending the wounds of other injured soldiers. Not for the first time, he questioned his decision to send some of his fellow Sheason to render the Will in battle, leaving others, like himself, to heal those who were wounded. He also felt some small bit of shame that he had chosen to lead from here, instead of from the battlefront.

But he was Randeur of the Order of Sheason, with certain knowledge and authority that he was duty bound to hold safe. He mustn't fall. Still, it did not diminish his feeling that he should be standing with those who, like this soldier lying before him, put their lives at risk.

With his hand still resting on the lad's forehead, a sudden stream of images flashed through his mind, the soldier's dying memories, familiar memories, comforting ones, images of a young boy, maybe five years old, and a little girl just learning to walk. Then a young woman, his wife, smiling at him as he wrestled on the floor of their home with their little ones. She joined the playful fray, which ended in a tender kiss as the children continued to tug at them. He thought he could smell minty beef stew and mild plum wine and hear a chorus of laughter, when abruptly it stopped.

Maral realized he'd shut his eyes as the images filled him. He now slowly opened them to see that the lad's face had relaxed, his struggle over. He looked up again, this time finding the face of his beloved, Laollen, several strides away, a question in her eyes. He shook his head: No, this one ... this young father ... was gone. She hung her head in a compassionate moment, mourning with him, her exhaustion and despair mirroring his own; her own Sheason hands were bloody where they rested upon the chest of another soldier felled by war.

Suddenly Maral was overwhelmed by the ache of death, the mounting loss of life, the images in his mind of now-fatherless children, and of parents whose children had perished here.

So much death. For so long. Centuries of war.

He couldn't, he wouldn't, bear it any longer. Inside him, a new feeling began to build: wrath. Without thinking, he stood, turned toward the battle line, and strode purposefully and without hesitation. Calls followed him: his fellow Sheason seeking guidance; his beloved, imploring him to stop. He ignored them all.

Into the fray he went, drawing the Will, releasing the power of his own spirit, and crushing as many as he could of the beastly Bar'dyn that had swarmed south out of the Bourne. He swept his hands in violent gestures at these Quietgiven creatures, forcing them back, casting them high into the air, driving them into the hard soil until their bones cracked.

In some he caused blood to boil, in others to freeze, and at a wall of the unearthly creatures he shot a maelstrom of fire and wind and shards of broken swords and stones.

He cut a path of blood and broken bodies through the battle, seeking King Sechen Baellor, meaning to stand beside the man and draw upon his own life's energy until he could spare no more. He meant for all those who followed him to see that to win, to preserve the lives of those who counted on them, they must let go all restraint and give themselves up to the fury of war.

He pushed through another dense line of men who were trading blows with Bar'dyn and other vile beasts he could not name, and climbed a low hill where the king and his most trusted guard stood looking north and west. Exhausted, he yet summoned strength from a reserve he hadn't known he possessed, and pushed through the waves of soldiers and Quiet locked in mortal contest, and finally broke free.

At the top of the bluff he paused and followed his king's gaze. His heart fell.

The land, as far as the eye could see, had been stripped of color and life. Shades of charcoal and desert brown mixed in a miasma of heat and smoke. In the distance he saw dark lines of more Bar'dyn marching toward them. The monsters were inexorable killers, each one stronger than any man.

But the brutish creatures were not responsible for the scorching of the land.

Maral again followed the king's gaze, to a line of dark-robed figures so emaciated that it appeared the wind might blow right through them. They came slowly, creeping over the plain toward the last remnant of Baellor's army.

So many. Where did they come from?

They were velle.

As Maral and his Sheason rendered the Will, so did these Quietgiven wraiths. But the cost of it they drew not from themselves, but from anything living around them.

He looked again at the stripped and barren land. This Bourne army had come much later than anticipated, but for weeks now King Baellor's army had been pushed south and east by the Quiet, constantly retreating, constantly regrouping. Mostly, they fled the unhallowed hands of the velle, who came on slowly, virtually unchallenged, drawing darkly upon the Will to burn and batter Baellor's men and the Sheason who were helping them.

But this ... their number had more than tripled. There must have been three hundred dark renderers skulking toward them. Had reinforcements recently joined their ranks?

Maral's arms felt suddenly very heavy, and he could see the defeat in Baellor's eyes. They simply could not stand for long against an onslaught of this magnitude.

Several hundred strides from the fray, the velle stopped. Standing in a great staggered line, they faced the vast field of conflict where thousands yet fought as battle calls and iron implements resounded distantly.

As one, the velle got to their knees, like a mass of pilgrims at a temple gate, each raising one bony hand and resting the other on the soil beside it. A sudden tempest leapt from the sky, and the earth heaved. Shards of lightning shot from the heavens, striking down everything they touched. Countless gnashing pits of root and rock opened in the earth, indiscriminately swallowing men and Quietgiven. Bodies flamed or were swallowed by the ground beneath them; others were whirled away like chaff in a high wind.

Will and Sky! He'd never seen the velle coordinate their renderings like this, a blistering display of destruction.

Thousands perished over the next several moments, human and Quiet alike, as the combined renderings of the velle, with their accumulated strength, scoured acre after acre. Half of the king's army was lost. And as Maral watched, the land beneath the velle blackened, the desolation spreading hundreds of strides, as the life inside the soil and all it touched was drained from it.

King Baellor turned a worried look on Maral, who finally dropped to his knees, the effects of his own rendering finally overcoming him. Weak and panting, he pitched forward onto his hands. Baellor motioned for one of his men to help Maral, before leading the rest of his captains in the other direction. They must fall back again. As they retreated, Maral knew it would be for the last time.

* * *

In the pale light of the moon, King Sechen Baellor knelt on one knee and grabbed a handful of parched, crumbled earth. It had been stripped of color and looked like nothing so much as funeral ash. He lifted it to his nose and inhaled. The soil held none of the familiar loamy smell that he savored in his own garden. It was sterile earth, in which not even the most skillful farmer could coax a seed to grow.

How will I lead an army against this? Their power surpasses that of even the Sheason.

"I thought we had ridden far enough to be past this ruined soil." He let the dirt fall between his fingers, charcoal dust slowly wafting up into the moonlight.

"It spreads," Maral Praig replied, the Sheason offering his king counsel as dark hour approached. "The taint of their rendering goes deep and wide. The effects of this day aren't through."

"I have ordered the lands behind us burned," he told the Sheason. "Since they won't draw their own spirit to render the Will, perhaps we can take away their source. There will be little left that they might use. Tomorrow will be a better day."

His friend said nothing to that.

"It's quiet," Baellor noted softly. "We've not had a night of peace for longer than I can remember. I fear it bodes only ill."

His friend looked away to the north and west, where a few leagues distant the Quiet had uncharacteristically paused in their advance. "They observe their own dark, unholy day."

Baellor stood and looked toward the enemy, finding the faintest hint of fire glow on the horizon. "For what?" he asked.

"They observe the anniversary of the day of Quietus's Whiting. Their god was not always as he is now." His counselor raised his gaze higher still to the night sky above. "In honor of the day he was marked, turned utterly white, they remember him." The Sheason shut his eyes and breathed deep. "When they come again, they will come, I fear, with renewed purpose."

Baellor laughed softly into the solemn quietude. He couldn't help himself. "Because they've only been flirting with us thus far."

The Sheason offered a slight grin, and the two men shared the briefest respite from their failing war.

The smile slowly faded from Baellor's lips. "This is our last stand, my friend. There is little more we can do. We lost half our men today. The convocation committed everything, every available man from every realm that answered the call. When we are gone, no one will remain to resist them. All that will be left of us is this ... scar." He swept a hand out over the stripped and barren landscape.

Baellor thought about the Convocation of Seats — rulers from almost every realm and nation, summoned to form a mighty alliance. If they failed here in what he felt were the last days of this war, the people it had been called to serve would be left with nothing but this wasteland.

"What of General Stallworth?" the Sheason asked. "Any word?"

Baellor shook his head. "He would have joined us by now. No. He fell beneath the heels of this army long before they entered our lands. May the Sky have received him."

"Send word to Y'Tilat Mor," Maral suggested. "Perhaps they will now be convinced to come to our aid. We will need the power of their song to win here. The Mor Nation Refrains may be our last hope."

Baellor's heart was empty. ... But a king is not allowed to lose hope. "They will not come. We must think of another way."

"And you've no word from across the Soren Seas?" His counselor turned and looked south.

"The ships have not returned. Perhaps the old stories are only that. Perhaps there are no nations beyond the shore. No sympathetic races as the stories claim." He drew another deep breath. "Regardless, they would not arrive in time. I sent those ships not to return with help, Maral. I sent them to preserve something of us, should we fall ..."

It was the Sheason's turn to offer a mild laugh. "You might have given me a chance to go with them."

"Almost went with them myself," he said, his own smile returning.

They then fell into a troubled silence, alternately looking off at the horizon where the plague out of the Bourne rested, keeping their unholy celebrations, and then up into the firmament, where stars offered some small comfort.

Baellor broke the silence with a question and request he wished he did not have to voice. "I've thought of a way," he said.

"To defeat them?" the Sheason asked, without turning.

"Yes. But it requires you to break a vow."

"You want us to draw our strength to render from the land, as the velle do," his friend and counselor said, voicing his sovereign's thought.

Baellor did not immediately speak. He needed Maral to consider this, but he knew he must tread lightly. Even in the extremity of war to which they'd been pushed, it was heresy to ask this.

"Only until we have either sent them to their earth or pushed them back where they came from." He paused, considering. "I know what I am asking."

"Do you?" Maral replied. "Some might tell you that the only thing that separates Sheason from velle is the unwillingness to render by using the world around him —"

"Not forever," Baellor interrupted gently. "Our swords are outnumbered more than ten to one, and would not be enough, in any case, to stand against these velle. We need you and those who follow you to do more." He raised a hand to forestall argument. "We are grateful for your presence: the healings, and those who do fight among us. But you saw what happened today. Things have changed. We can't afford to have your Sheason resting to regain strength before returning to battle as they do now. If they can restore themselves by calling up the strength of the land, as our enemies do ..."

"If we do as you ask, then we will have betrayed the principles that we came first to defend."

"If we are defeated, no one will be left to debate those principles!" Baellor countered, more angrily then he'd intended.

His friend stared back at him for a long time before saying more. When he did, there was real fear in his voice. "It is not wise to tempt us so. Use of the Will without consequence, even once, makes us indistinguishable from those we stand against." His friend heaved a sigh. "Some of those velle who walk with them even now ... were once Sheason. It is a thin line we walk. Do not ask this of us."

Unbelieving, Baellor stared back at Maral, who now looked weaker than he ever remembered seeing him. And yet, what alternatives did they have?

Finally, he gave his old friend another smile. "Then we will have to find another way. But I will say this now, since there may not be time later. I have been glad to count you a friend."

He clapped Maral on the back, and left him staring off toward the far horizon, his face a study of weariness and worry.

* * *

Maral waited an hour, recalling every memory and story he could about the Quietgiven and their solemn observance of Quietus's Whiting. He couldn't help but feel that perhaps hidden somewhere in their ceremonial observance of this day lay key information that might help his king. But nothing came to mind, save the one thing his friend might have asked, but had not: a father's vengeance for his son — almost two years ago now, Baellor had lost his firstborn to this war.

But the king had not spoken of his own loss. Not tonight, and not once since he had taken the field himself. Still, Maral had felt it, as he had the passing of the lad earlier that day. As much as Baellor mourned the passing of his kingdom, he mourned what defeat here would mean for his own family, what it had already claimed.

Before Maral knew what he was doing, he was moving beneath the lesser light which had passed into the western night sky, stealing toward the encampments of the enemy.

He cautiously stole over the dark terrain. As he progressed, he caught the scent of fire on the wind. He couldn't tell whether it belonged to the camps ahead or the lands his king was having burned far behind. Or whether, perhaps, it belonged to the hardened soil that lay unnaturally scorched and barren beneath his feet. As he made his way north and west, he felt as though he passed through a new hillock, one littered with bodies that had been left where they had fallen.

(Continues…)

---

Excerpted from "The Battle of the Round"
by .
Copyright © 2011 Peter Orullian.
Excerpted by permission of Tom Doherty Associates.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---

Table of Contents

Introduction by James Frenkel,
The Battle of the Round,
Peter Orullian's Vault of Heaven stories and books,