“Run for it!” a voice that sounded like Kalto’s shrieked out, then changed abruptly to a growl and then a scream of pain, and was swallowed up by other screams.
“Loto!” Siba shouted, determined never to abandon the high chieftain or leave the old warrior unprotected. “Let’s get out of here! I will cut us a path through the enemy line…”
The pursuing Mongauli force had arrived with fire and wrath at the rocky area where the Sem were making their stand. The soldiers had dismounted where the terrain made riding impossible, and now they approached on foot, each bearing a torch in one hand and a sword in the other. The new arrivals pushed forward between the high walls of the boulders to offer assistance to Astrias' men. This was a dangerous maneuver in that it halved their effective fighting capacity, but it allowed them to light the area brightly with their torches—a cruel dawn to reveal the Sem as they sought to hide among the rocks or flee under cover of darkness.
“Don’t leave any alive this time—slit their throats if they try to escape!” Feldrik’s shout pierced the darkness.
Vlon, who had ridden beside the Lady Amnelis during the entire chase, declared with a smile, “General, these are pitiful opponents, not even worthy of fighting.”
“Do not call this a fight,” Amnelis answered, her beautiful lips curled into a cruel smile. “This is a slaughter of beasts—just a monkey hunt.”
Indeed, the contest could hardly be described as a battle. The Sem had finally lost their desire to fight. Abandoning any semblance of order, they became more monkey than human, and milled about wildly in a last ditch effort to survive. Despite the efforts of some of their leaders to marshal their forces, their followers tried only to escape, screaming fiercely and bumping into one another as they fled, hiding behind each other’s bodies to avoid the sharp swords of the Mongauli. Most of those who remained alive were already drenched in the blood of their fellow Sem.
“Fight, fight!”
“Stand fast! Don’t run!”
The commands of the chiefs were swallowed up by the shrieks of the others.
“Ayeeaaa!”
“Yeeee!”
As the Sem raced frantically back and forth, they collided and pushed each other to the ground and trod on their fallen fellows. The Mongauli were laughing as they chased after the monkey-folk; free now of the fear of battle, they had cast aside their helmets so they could breathe more freely and more easily see their victims. The tips of their swords shone red in the light of the torches, and the same flames illuminated the blood lust on their faces. The Mongauli troops were no longer satisfied with simply slaughtering the Sem; they had begun to play sadistic games using their vanquished foes. Horrible acts of violence were carried out everywhere.
“I will chop off this one’s hands!”
“I will take the legs!”
“And I will take the eyes!”
The Mongauli cursed the fleeing wildlings and chased them with waving swords, competing to see who could cut off or gouge out named Sem body parts the quickest. One group caught a screaming ape-man and, purposely setting aside their swords, killed it instead by hitting it between the eyes with a heavy rock, crushing its face to a pulp even as it looked up at them in terror.
“Count Marus burned alive!” a soldier screamed, as red-faced as if he were drunk. “They will taste the same!”
He caught a Sem and doused its head with vasya oil, then ignited the fluid with the torch he carried in his other hand. A band of nearby soldiers laughed uproariously as the Sem became a fireball and rolled around screaming on the ground.
“How many taal will the next one go before it burns to death?”
“I will bet one raan on ten taal!”
“I will bet one raan and one bottle of honey wine on five!”
“Ten taal—I will wager my spare armor!”
Howling like fiends, the band went looking for other Sem that would be suitable for their game. The soldiers waved their torches as they ran after the wildlings, exchanging guesses about which ones would burn well, and favoring the ones with the thickest coats of fur.
In another area a bunch of soldiers had begun a contest to see who could cut off the head of a Sem and leave it hanging by the smallest flap of skin. When a neck was severed completely by mistake, a Mongauli clicked his tongue and kicked the head casually aside as if he were playing a game of Yan ball.
The Sem’s monkey-like appearance had made it easy for the Gohran soldiers to fall into merry, unrestrained brutality. They gouged out Sem’s eyes and peeled off their skin as casually as if they were killing dogs and cats. Some were cutting off only the tails of the wildlings, and piling them up into a heap. Some were laughing as they held down the poor little ape-men to pierce their arms and legs with their swords. Some took the Sem’s poisoned darts and used the wildlings for target practice with their own weapons. There were heads without eyes, torsos without heads, arms without fingers, faces with the skin peeled off, gouged out eyes everywhere. Leaking brains, intestines, and blood flowed over the ground in a gruesome stream; the ground had become so slimy with offal that the soldiers needed to step carefully as they picked their way over the carcasses of their foes. The terrible reek of slaughter rose high into the air.
If the Mongauli had not been so focused on the violence they were wreaking, they would have noticed the shining blue eyes of wolves looking out from behind the rocks on all sides. The creatures were so excited by the smell of blood that they had lost their fear of fire, and watched with curled lips and drooling mouths. Fortunately for the soldiers the blood and meat of the fallen Sem were enough for all the wolves that lived on Dog’s Head Mountain. The slavering canines slunk out quickly and seized carcasses and severed heads to drag back with them behind the rocks. The revolting sounds of bones being crushed and warm blood being lapped up were heard from all around.
“The last day of the Sem” was played out in a scene of living hell—and still the Mongauli were not sated with killing, but rampaged on, all semblance of discipline, self-control, and reason among them gone.
“Ohhhh!”
Nobody paid any attention to Rinda, who was screaming with horror as she clung tightly with both hands to Remus' shaking shoulders. The twins had been tied together at the ankles and forced to stand at an improvised cavalry hitching-post. Rinda’s cheeks were wet with tears, and she was wretching repeatedly.
Ahead of her, the furry little simians she had known as happy and carefree were now screaming in pain and writhing in agony as they were slain by swords or held down to be skinned alive.
“Ohh…! How could this… Janos, Janos, have mercy!”
Rinda could not stop screaming. She clung tightly to her little brother’s body, as if he could somehow save her, or return her from this nightmare to some less awful place.
“Ohhh… Please stop, stop!” she babbled, barely coherent. “What did they do to deserve this? What sin did they commit? This can’t be!”
Glimpsed in the torchlight, the brutally slaughtered carcasses of the Sem began to overlap in her mind with the bloody tragedy that had befallen the noble folk of Parros in the Crystal Palace. To Rinda’s eyes, the colors of the Mongauli’s armor burned like a sigil of evil, and in her bewildered imagination the Sem who were dying in agony became her dear relatives and the people of her country.
“Stop,” she groaned as though disgorging blood and buried her face against Remus' chest. How could this be permitted? How could the gods let this be? Guin, why aren’t you coming to help us, Guin!
“Rinda.”
She was so filled with sorrow and desperation that she was not aware of the low voice that had quietly spoken her name. Remus was the first one to take notice.
“Rinda!” the prince whispered anxiously, and nudged his sister.
Rinda raised her face in surprise. A red knight was standing nearby, gazing at both of them meaningfully. Through the visor of his helmet bright black eyes seemed to be sending them a secret message.
“I…” Rinda swallowed, unable to say more. A giddy wave of hope suddenly flooded her heart.