by B. T. Narro
More took his place. Jarrel faded back and sneered at Andar.
“Kill them quick so we can get out of here,” said the commander.
Suddenly, Andar was overwhelmed by attacking soldiers. He and his brother could do nothing but block and dodge to avoid being impaled as they backed away.
Ally soldiers came to Andar’s sides and intercepted attacks he would no longer have to worry about. That gave him a moment to check on Jarrel, who looked to be concentrating as he lifted his hand at Andar. Leo was already breaking the cluster of Artistry as Andar focused on it.
Andar parried and countered every strike aimed at him, but all he managed to do was land a few superficial cuts along the arms of his attackers. There were just so many of them, and more kept squeezing in through the broken doorway. There were hundreds out there trying to get in.
“We have to hold our ground!” Andar announced. It was their only chance.
◆◆◆
Rygen was so scared, she had trouble finding her breath. She stood on the second floor of the enormous entrance room where a circular walkway, partially protected by a banister, overlooked the ground floor. Rygen thought she might be safe up here for now, for there was only one stairway that would allow enemies to reach her, and it was protected by the few dozen men behind Andar and Leo. It was Andar she was terrified for, as he charged Jarrel.
Andar stabbed at Jarrel, but the commander skillfully avoided it and stabbed back. Andar deflected the attack as Leo came to his aid. Enemies flooded in through the now open doorway to the palace, quickly starting to surround Andar. But ally soldiers rushed to their sides.
Rygen ran to retrieve the bow of a dead man, who had attempted to shoot down from a balcony before Jarrel had gotten through. Rygen hoped she would not fall to the same fate as she took aim and prayed to whatever gods existed that she didn’t hit her own man.
She fired down an arrow at the gaping doorway, where enemies continued to pour in. It struck one man in the shoulder. He fell back as he grabbed at it reflexively.
“Yes!” Rygen cheered, but the sight below brought on horror. There must have been thirty enemy soldiers already filling the entrance room. More tried to squeeze through the packed doorway, but Andar and Leo managed to hold their ground deeper into the entrance room, their comrades keeping them from being surrounded. There was no space for the enemies to enter until they pushed Rygen’s friends back.
Jarrel had fallen back, yelling commands to his men from the middle of them all. Rygen had loaded another arrow and was about to shoot at Jarrel when she noticed an enemy archer firing up at her. She ducked as she screamed, completely aware of the gaps in the bannister through which she could still be shot. The arrow crashed against the wall behind her.
She cursed as she realized she’d dropped her bow and arrow. She dragged both away from the banister, using the second story floor instead as a shield from the archers below. She readied her bow and quiver and found the courage to move closer to the bannister. The same archer had another arrow ready! Why wouldn’t he target someone else?
But just as Rygen was about to fall away, an arrow flew down and embedded itself in the enemy’s neck. He dropped his weapon and fell as his hand shot to his grievous wound. Rygen made eyes with one of her allied archers to her side, who gave her a quick nod. She nodded back.
She thought about bringing Jin into the battle, but she didn’t see how he would be able to do anything. He probably couldn’t make it past their densely clustered allies. And even if he did, he would most likely be trampled. It was chaotic down there as soldiers on both sides swung at each other with deep grunts, and yet somehow Leo and Andar still fought side by side at the middle. Their blades whirled as they fended off attacks from one man and stabbed another. There were so many enemies, though, that it seemed as if any moment they would be killed. She didn’t understand how they could keep track of so many swords poking and slashing at them, but the enemies at the frontline were covered in blood while they were not.
Rygen needed to do more to help them, for Leo and Andar were slowly backing up and allowing more enemies to enter the grand room of the palace. Rygen fumbled as she loaded another arrow, her hands shaking. She noticed a summoner in the ranks of enemies, a man opening his hand with his arms in the air. A rift formed above the heads of her allies.
Rygen grabbed hold of the Esitry that made up the rift and broke it apart as a creature started to come through. The furry beast was cut in half, the front of its squirming body toppling down on an enemy trying to move around the fray to get at unsuspecting allies. It crushed him as the summoner shrieked in anger.
The man pointed at Rygen and called her a horrible name, his face red with fury. He charged through allies and enemies, heading straight for the stairs. Leo and Andar were too shocked by his mad rush to stop him as he barreled through them, but he was cut down by the soldiers behind and soon disappeared beneath everyone.
“Shoot the mages!” Andar yelled up at the archers.
Rygen spotted Owen Harell holding out his hand in Andar’s direction. Andar’s face was twisted with effort as he fought against whatever spell afflicted him. Leo protected his brother with a kick toward an incoming attacker, doubling the man over and allowing Andar to stab him in his face.
The whole thing was so gruesome, turning Rygen’s stomach, but she forced herself to ignore the feeling as she loaded her arrow with shaky hands.
“Come on!” she yelled at herself as she almost dropped the arrow. “Focus!”
She took aim over the banister and fired, but she was too late. Shield holders had taken to Owen’s side, placing their shields up over his head to block not only Rygen’s arrow but two others as well.
Rygen flinched as the archer nearest to her fell with a scream, an arrow lodged in his shoulder. She backed away as she scanned for other archers who would shoot at her.
She needed to do something more to help. Her allies were continuously pushed back, allowing even more enemies to enter the packed entrance room. She could shoot at the bowmen taking down her ally archers, but her aim was atrocious.
She dropped her bow and grabbed a heavy table against the nearby wall. She dragged it over to the banister as she looked around for help. She was disappointed to see only the injured archer coming to her aid.
He screamed through pain as the two of them hoisted the table up on top of the banister. An arrow thudded against it from an archer Rygen had not seen. She shoved the table with her injured ally. It flew down onto Owen and his shieldmen, crushing them with a satisfying crack.
“Owen’s down!” Rygen yelled with a ring of victory.
There was a sudden shift of momentum as Leo and Andar immobilized groups of enemies at a time with Artistry, cutting through all of them.
But the momentum was stopped when Owen rose back up amidst broken corpses, blood running down his arm. He thrust his hands in the direction of Leo and Andar, and suddenly Rygen’s allies were forced back again. Rygen found Jarrel reaching out toward the brothers as well, slashing through the air as if cutting something invisible.
She had to find a way to disable at least one of the enemy mages. Jarrel was screaming his face red to “kill the Quims, kill the Quims!” It filled Rygen with fury. She would kill him first if she could.
She took her bow off the ground and set her sights on Jarrel, but all the men below her were moving as they individually fought in quick advances then retreats. She hit some soldier in the helmet, and her arrow did little more than daze him for a few moments. It made her realize how pointless this was, for even if she had hit Jarrel, she probably wouldn’t break through his helmet, either.
What she wouldn’t give to be stronger and better with the bow. She cursed herself as she looked around for ideas. KRenn’s creature looked like a vicious beast, not heavy enough to be ridden but certainly large and agile enough to defend itself against armored men is it slashed its claws and bit at any enemy who dared face it. But it often looked at Rygen’s
allies as possible threats too, as if they might turn to strike at it at any moment. The poor thing was confused and scared without its master here to direct it.
She tried to reach out with her mind to connect to it. The beast looked up at her for a moment, then ignored her once again. She could tell that it understood that she was a friend, an ally in this chaos. But she needed to explain, somehow without language, that the soldiers falling back around it were her friends, and the ones pushing them back were enemies.
She tried to send such a complicated message using only emotions, but the beast just glanced up at her in confusion before looking at the men around it with even more fright. She thought of the simplest message she could use.
“Kill him!” she yelled in her mind, pointing at Owen. “The one with long hair, kill him!”
She could feel the beast understanding her. It let out a roar that filled her with pride as it charged through rows of soldiers and nearly made it to Owen, but the mage saw it coming and shot his hand in its direction. The beast stopped in an instant. A wide gap had formed around it as soldiers fell away in order not to be trampled, but now they closed in as they saw it was helpless.
“No!” Rygen screamed as she grabbed the nearest thing to her and hurled it at Owen. The potted plant flew right at his head. But Owen pointed his hands at it and stopped it…in the air!
“What…?” Rygen muttered.
Owen crouched and the pot shifted in the air. He must’ve linked it to his own body.
No, he’d linked it to his hands, she realized, as he flung them upward with a loud grunt. Rygen covered her face as she bent down below the banister. The pot shattered against the railings, sharp ceramic pieces flying through the gaps and cutting her arms and shins.
“Over here, girl!” yelled the archer who still had an arrow stuck in his shoulder. Blood stained his shirt as he dragged another heavy table over to her. He must’ve gone a long way to fetch it, for she hadn’t seen it from where she stood. He was sweating and exhausted as she helped him flip the table onto its side. They started to lift it to get it over the banister, the thing too tall for Rygen to see over.
“Watch out!” he yelled.
Rygen crouched behind the table as an arrow pelted it. More arrows struck after. It seemed that at least a dozen more archers had come into the entrance room, and all were focused to stop this table from being dropped on their comrades.
Rygen was doing nothing here, but at least the table was now a good shield. She looked around and noticed a brass plaque on the wall behind her with some message in Analyse. It hung from a string on a nail. She looked back at her comrade for help, for it was too high for her to reach, but he was busy trying to shoot arrows around the table even with his injured shoulder.
She made a run for the wall as arrows sailed past her. She made it to the plaque, then jumped and pushed the bottom of it hard enough for it to jerk into the air. After a few attempts, she managed to get the string up over the nail. The plaque came down quickly on top of her. Without the confidence to catch it, she opted just to protect herself as it crashed against her arms.
“Ow, damn it!” she yelled, wishing dearly that she had better coordination, for there was so much more she wanted to do to help.
There was no safe way to do this, so quickly was the best choice. She grabbed the plaque off the floor as an arrow cracked against the wall near her. The plaque was as heavy as a sword, though small and dense. She used her momentum as she ran to the banister, knowing full well she could be shot. She took the risk anyway as she found Owen beneath her and hurled the plaque down.
“GAH!” she screamed.
Her aim was true as it spiraled toward him.
She was shocked when it struck him in the head without any interference. A few soldiers around Owen looked down at him. One bent to help him up.
They said something to themselves, then looked up in horror at Rygen. Their expressions changed to rage.
“Kill the girl!” they yelled and pointed. “She killed Owen!”
Overwhelmed by fear, Rygen felt only a hint of victory for her accomplishment. She started to run toward the table that would shield her from arrows, but something took hold of her feet. Rygen fell forward with a scream, or started to at least, but her legs were so stiff that they kept her mostly upright.
She thrashed as she tried to move, realizing all too late that a link had taken her. But what were her legs linked to? Certainly not each other, or both would be able to move.
“Rygen!” she heard Leo yelling.
She looked down in terror as two archers loaded arrows. Jarrel stood between them with his hand aimed up at her.
“Help!” she yelled, hoping it was not too selfish of her to want to be saved.
She could do nothing but watch as the two bowmen wrestled their own frozen weapons in hopes of breaking Leo’s link. They tried to drag them through the air, but both were stuck until suddenly they came loose and the archers fell.
Jarrel turned his attention to Leo, finally allowing Rygen to fall. She barely got her hands out in front of her, hissing in pain as she hit the floor and scampered toward the table that still seemed like a good shield.
Her comrade lay dead, two arrows in his chest. “No!” she shouted in anger.
She might be safe here behind this makeshift shield, but she was useless as well. She took a quick look down below to see her allies faring decently now with Owen dead. They weren’t being pushed back anymore, but they still lacked the numbers to fight back their enemies. Rygen estimated there were a hundred of Jarrel’s soldiers vying for position as only twelve allies fought them, with Leo and Andar at the middle of their line.
Rygen was glad to see that KRenn’s creature still stood on its four legs, having finally understood which of these men were allies and which were enemies as it took up a spot at the end of the line.
No less than three arrows were shot at Rygen in the moment she looked down. The enemy archers seemed to have nothing left to shoot at, Rygen saw as she looked around the circular walkway of the second floor. There were just a couple other allies with bows left, most of them hiding to keep from being shot.
Too furious to feel fear, Rygen sprinted down the walkway. Arrows beat against the wall as archers aimed at her, until she turned down a hallway that led her to safety. She entered the first room she came to.
Rygen grabbed all the sheets from the bed and the drawers, then clustered them together against her body. She could barely see as she ran back and dumped them down at the edge of the banister. She fell to avoid about a dozen arrows snapping against the underside of the floor and wall behind her. Terror ripped a scream out of her throat as she got up and sprinted away with even more arrows striking around her.
She made her way back to the same room. This time Rygen took a lamp and a match from the table. She ran back through another storm of arrows, starting to believe she was too fast to be hit.
A breath later, she screamed as she was shot, a burning pain tearing through her arm. She did not stop or fall until she made it back to where she’d dumped the sheets near the bannister.
She crouched low and out of view as she checked on her wound and saw that it was a deep gash. The arrow must’ve grazed her. She was surprised to notice just how much blood covered her hands and arms, and her legs as well. She didn’t know how much of it was hers, probably most of it.
She huffed for breath as she found her courage. She lit the lamp, then ran with it toward her bundled sheets. She grabbed them as a couple arrows flew by. One caught her in the hip, knocking her down as she screamed. The pain was so overwhelming that she couldn’t move for a moment. She thought it might’ve broken her bone, but the arrow was not stuck within her. It must’ve ricocheted off.
She found her strength and got up. Screaming through the agony of her hip, she grabbed the sheets and tossed them down onto Jarrel in the midst of his men. As they floated down, she hurled the lamp on top of them.
The glass of the la
mp shattered. A flame quickly spread across one of the sheets, jumping to another and then a third as all of the thin sheets covered the heads of her enemies. She knew Jarrel was somewhere among the afflicted, but she couldn’t pinpoint his screams among the others. The flames grew. She even saw the clothes of some soldiers catching fire who had not been touched by the burning sheets.
The momentum shifted quickly as her allies pushed them back, many enemy soldiers tripping over the ones behind them. Andar and Leo cut through dozens of soldiers quickly, but they soon had to stop as they came to the spreading flames.
Rygen grabbed the nearest bow and found herself among the last few allied archers still standing. She shot down into the smoke. She couldn’t see who she was hitting, for there was too much smoke and too many men screaming. All she knew was that there was no chance of her hitting her allies, and the enemy archers couldn’t line up a shot at her.
After a long while, the flames died out and the smoke started to clear. There was a wide gap between the armies as many blackened and bloodied bodies covered the floor. She was displeased to see that Jarrel still stood, though much of his hair had been burned off and his eyebrows were gone.
She was terrified as he looked up directly at her.
“I’m going to saw your limbs off one by one, you small bitch.”
There was a cacophony of screams just outside the palace. Some of the soldiers near the door tried to see outside past their comrades. A few must’ve seen something frightening, for they took up their swords as they started to back away from the doorway, only to bump into others.
The screams outside became muddled by a wet sound, as if the men’s throats were being cut. A creature let out a monstrous roar as the sound of clashing steel rang out.