Necropolis (Book One of Book One), Penn Fawn [e book reader android .TXT] 📗

the deadliest of poisons, the likes of nothing we’ve seen from where we came. Takes minutes for paralysis to set in, not hours, and hours, not days to cause death.”

“I hope we have as many as we need to stop them. I mean, from what I can see, their numbers appear unlimited,” Feignmann remarked.

“We can only do what we can do,” Mbou said. “And, I don’t think you suspect this engagement, all of it, will be from a distance.”

“Of course not,” he replied.

“Good,” Mbou added. “You’ve been trained as well as any of us about how to fight with the sword.”

“Right,” Feignmann replied.

He became impatient with what he held was the painfully slow advancement. It seemed to serve no purpose other than to jangle his nerves.

Zaeim, who was at some distance away from him, and leading the men over at that end, was one of many who felt the same way.

All became silent and focused, for there was nothing else that mattered in the world other than that which drew nearer.

They could clearly hear the elephants speak now in that language no immortal could understand. Palms became sweaty. Patience wore thin.

Thousands toward the front of their ranks were on bent knee, with their bows and arrows pointed upwards toward the sky, all mindful it was critical to have a preemptive strike, lest they ended up being on defense against such an imposing force.

“Give the order to fire already,” Pseudomann whispered.

His words were meant for his ears only, but Mbou overhead him and responded.

“Patience. The first of their ranks are almost within striking distance,” he said.

Pseudomann’s fear of being a fraction too late to fire led to a vision of his ranks cowering under their shields.

In his vivid imagination, the enemy had struck first, and now he could hear the uncommonly large herd of elephants charging toward them while they were in so vulnerable a state. Many would be trampled to death before getting a shot off!

“Fire!” Oluso barked, and within a fraction of a second, the immortals dispatched a volley of arrows. They free fell far and wide, hurtling with the impressionable pull of gravity toward the enemy.

The Shetani uniformly held their shields out before them. It was done in near perfect unison, but their defenses could deflect but so much.

Many an arrow lodged into some of their warriors’ legs, prompting a howling and grimacing in intolerable agony.

What didn’t bounce off the metal-plated armor covering the heads of their elephants lodged in other body parts of their beasts.

Many elephants rose onto their hind legs.

Riders who didn’t fall or were cast aside struggled to hang on. Within a matter of seconds, the Shetani toward the front of their ranks were in the middle of a commotion.

“Fire!” Zaeim yelled at the top of his lungs, and another volley of arrows was dispatched. The vulnerable and frenzied beasts took more lethal fire, and the fallen were crushed beneath their feet or under those animals which fell on them.

Nyeusi, atop the back of his kilman, reached the front of his army by this time. His eyes widened.

Amri and Kifo, also atop their flying beasts, looked on in horror.

Following Nyeusi’s lead, they flew past the dead and dying toward the immortals.

Men who weren’t awestruck by the beasts’ wingspan and stupendousness held their arms aloft and released several arrows. “Focus on what’s on the ground!” Oluso bellowed. “They can do us no harm from up there! Let those further back take aim!”

Few did, yet a concerned Nyeusi, who feared his animal may be struck, managed to fly higher, then beyond striking distance of the sparse number of arrows released.

Hitherto, not one fellow from the immortal army was slain. None, for that matter, was wounded, and the commotion they caused was such that the Shetani failed to dispatch so much as one arrow.

Amri and Kifo continued to follow their leader.

Observing from a birdseye view what the enemy army amounted to astounded them.

They were sure to fly past the breath of it, taking pains to estimate their numbers, then Nyeusi made a hand gesture which they understood meant they were to turn around.

More and more arrows came hurtling toward his men. They fell like rain, and immortals near the front line took to mercilessly firing directly into the flesh of frenzied man and beast.

The Shetani behind those in front, those closer to the middle of their army, found they could neither move forward nor backward and down the arrows continued to fall.

Those who focused on blocking them with their shields were thrown off their alarmed animals for want of firmly holding on to them.

Those who held on dearly were often too late in trying to avoid being hit while attempting to fend off arrows.

Like so many who almost always are the architects of their own misfortune and downfall, the panicked Shetani wondered how they got themselves in this situation.

What started out as such a bright and sunny day, one full of promise, turned out to be quite dark. Yet as dark as things seemed, they hoped and prayed there must be a way out.

They prayed there must be some saving grace that would give them just one more chance. They vowed to never partake in the mindless activity that is open warfare again, but hope soon turned to despair.

What became clear—or so they now believed—was they were going to face death one way or another, by an arrow or by being crushed, or maybe by some combination of the two.

A preoccupation with avoiding the inevitable end tortured them, and it was then that the uncommonly lethal poison from the arrow tips that penetrated or grazed them began to take effect.

Muscular paralysis damned hope of those who’d been praying the hardest.

The most optimistic among them felt that optimism die, for not only had the hope they would somehow be able to maneuver themselves out of harm’s way vanished, now they found they were unable to move much or move period.

What new form of devilry is this? The afflicted and