“That’s a very good name, Keri,” Derian said, feigning interest before returning the arrow to its owner. “No one needs to notch an arrow yet. Rest your hands. It could be quite a time before they need us. You’ll find easier kills with a rested arm.” Derian called loud enough that the rest of his dozen chosen fighters would hear. “This will be easy like honey cake. She was a prostitute I used to know.” He looked into the night with nervous chuckles in his ears.
The children had done well. They’d smeared the landscape in entrails and reserved the most grotesque of slain demon-heads for the walls. He caught sight of one hanging below his feet. Whoever slipped the thin rope through the punctured holes in both ears had performed their task admirably. The beast grinned at Derian, reminding him of an old drunkard from his town.
“Your name is Charly.” He tipped at the gruesome part with the end of his longbow. It bounced in its place, causing a few other demonic horrors along the line to join it in a demented grinning dance. Derian sniggered thinking of the dozen bouncing heads awaiting a charging mass of monsters. As if that’ll intimidate them.
“That’s a very good name,” offered Keri, watching the bouncing heads. He wasn’t alone either. All of his archers were watching. They smiled and chuckled again, and Derian made a note to congratulate Lorgan. Perhaps there really was something to morale during warfare.
“He looks like a Charly.”
“Oh, yes. I see it now.”
They fell silent watching the night and the flames. “Will the spikes help?” Keri asked, and Derian almost lied. He almost said they would scatter the beasts and discourage them from clustering, but lying would only suggest Derian knew less than he did.
Truthfully, those charged with felling the forest trees had failed spectacularly. Perhaps they were lazy degenerates, perhaps they were unskilled in their craft, but more likely it was fear of a beastie sneaking up on them while they worked, which resulted in such disappointing numbers. Only sixty spikes were cut, sharpened, and then dug into the ground.
“Those spikes will do nothing tonight.” Derian knew Lorgan had hoped for at least thrice the number, but he would have settled for double. As it was, he’d secured the thinnest line of defensive spikes in a circle around the town, and it was a shameful spectacle. A careless demon might impale themselves, but only if they were charging blindly. A better few days of labour might produce enough to fill the circle, but they would be worthless tonight.
If the first line of defences was inadequate, the felling, cutting, and shaping of them attributed to the second defensive line. The fire was a few feet in height and matched its depth. It was a wondrous burning sphere, spanning all the way around the town. Drenched in night oil, laden with every table, chair, or barrel, and sitting atop was every leaf from the felled trees. The heavy smoke spread out across the valley in the wind before rising and disappearing forever. It had been seen for miles until full darkness fell upon them. Those who’d performed the task had pleased Lorgan. He’d even patted a few of their backs.
“Do you think someone in Gold Haven saw the smoke before the sun fully set?” Keri asked, squinting as he tried to make out the deathly black clouds soaring up into invisible nothingness among the emerging stars.
This time, he did lie. “I do. There might already be a full battalion being assembled as we speak. This town’s coal mines can't afford to be lost.” Derian wondered if he had said too much. Only Natteo mastered the true art of deception. Not only in the telling, but in knowing when his telling was far-fetched. He always said enough before the ruse caught up.
“That would be nice,” Keri said.
Lorgan had timed the lighting perfectly. The fires wouldn’t last the night, but they would burn for a few hours. Lorgan had attempted to entice the monsters to attack from the front by keeping the flames only a foot in height. He’d stationed most of the defenders at this end and would roll the dice of fortune.
Derian watched him marching back and forth over the front gates, bellowing out a rousing speech to those under him. He lost his words in the flapping of flame and the brush of wind, but whatever words he chose were likely to be the ones he usually chose before a mission fell apart. Something about ‘honour,’ something about ‘bravery”’ and then there was usually ‘eternal victory’ thrown in at the end. Some men needed to say words and others needed to hear them. He wondered himself if the defenders under his leadership might need inspiration? They could wait a time; he was no wordsmith, and speaking to any crowd was one of his many fears. He heard an approving roar and hands clapping, and he turned to see Lorgan punching the night air. Many of his listeners did the same. Turning back to his own anxious comrades, Derian sighed. He coughed loudly because he’d seen Lorgan get attention this way.
“When they come, do it for those you love. Do that and you will fight well.” There were a few nods. He pushed his luck and distantly spotted Natteo also addressing his warriors. He’d have no problem, Derian thought.
“If they breach, stick them with the pointy end.” There were a few laughs.
“Not that we will get breached.” His voice lost a little of its bravado.
Finish strongly and it will satisfy them, he thought, and a crude Natteo jest formed in his head.
Wonderful.
He ignored the perfectly placed jest. “They will not breach us tonight… because… because a breach would be terrible,” he mumbled.
“And some of us would die.” He couldn’t stop himself.
“And I don’t want to die tonight.” A few muttered in agreement, and in the distance, Natteo declared something and his archers began laughing. He’d said something about victory and eternal honour and maybe finishing strongly. It didn’t help.
“That said, I’m probably the unlikeliest of us to die.”
Shut up, shut up, shut up.
“Because if they breach us, I’m better than most of you with a sword, so I’ll last longer,” he said, finishing weakly and leaving his listeners thoroughly unsatisfied.
Idiot.
Only an hour after sunset, with darkness engulfing the town’s boundary, a lone howling cry came from the treeline, and any subdued conversation upon the walls fell to silence.
Derian caught a gasp in his throat and stood straighter, peering out into the night, searching for the monsters come to hunt them all. The cloudless moon was bright, but the flickering flames beneath tricked his eyes towards blindness, and though he struggled to see, his ears worked just fine, and a second wail from across the valley joined the first. A breath later, another joined the monstrous melody and another after that until, like a pack of demonic wolves announcing their presence, soon the valley shook with their braying threat.
They speak to each other, he thought, and fear gripped Derian’s chest.
“I see one in the break of the trees on the right!” a voice along his wall shouted, and Derian followed the instruction. Squinting and searching. As they all did. They spotted more, and Derian searched through the flickering yellow dance. Every beat of his heart felt concussive, and his chest constricted further. He felt a claw take hold of his lungs and squeeze the breath from him, and though he desired silence in the moments of serenity before the storm, he said nothing as panic grew around him.
“Another ugly one.”
“There, up at the gap.”
“At least a dozen.”
“They’re just staring down at us.”
“They’re everywhere.”
“That one is laughing.”
The spotters became too many to count, and without warning, his heart’s beat suddenly calmed, and the surging adrenalin that begged him to move, to attack, to kill, steadied to a strange tranquillity.
Am I that scared that I’ve gone beyond terror?
Is this acceptance?
He felt relaxed and hated it. He needed fear keeping him alert. He knew this because his book suggested fear was a mercenary’s best friend. That and tight silken underwear.
“Hold your nerve,” he told himself, but his mind spun, and his mouth had become parched. He reached for his water, and the canister did not shake in his grasp. He drank deep and wondered if this would be the last drop of water he’d ever take. He wished it was something stronger. Maybe a cup of tea. He really wished he’d been able to make one last cup of tea before the end. Maybe have a sweet cake with it. That would have been nice. The howling reached a crescendo, and he found his stomach grumbling, and he realised, dying with an empty belly was the true tragedy. He drank again and tightened the clasp for further use.
“They’re coming. Hoh, thurk me, they are coming,” one of his younger soldiers cried before leaping from the platform to the ground below. He squealed in pain as his ankle gave way in a sharp crack, and Derian cursed his cowardice and braced himself for the inevitable following tide. The man limped away into the darkness, and Derian watched his scuttling. They all did, and truthfully, it was a pathetic sight.
“There’s always one idiot who ruins it for the rest of us. Let them come. Let the nasty little beasts run down and attempt to breach these fine walls!” Derian shouted. A few warriors stamped their feet on the platform in warring agreement.
“LET THEM COME.”
They must have heard Derian’s challenge because they came.
The canis demons emerged from their hiding places in large groups, driven on by their anculus masters. The ground rumbled beneath their charge. Their snapping teeth tore at the air, and the night was alive with feverish wrath. Even in the bad light, he saw hundreds emerging from the trees; there were more than the night before.
You didn’t even survive the first time, his mind whispered to him.
There’s no cart up here to crush me.
He shook doubting thoughts from his mind and looked to his terrified comrades. They weren’t hardened mercenaries; standing in the way of charging demons was not their place.
“This will be easy!” he shouted, stamping his feet upon the platform.
“Well… that would be nice,” Keri said, looking back towards the horde of hunters, and Derian realised words would not settle his comrades. Death was in the air—and they knew it.
The demons ignored the desecrated bodies of their brethren. They charged through the line of spikes with nothing more than a side step, but the fire gave them pause when they reached the town’s boundary.
Most of them halted. Denied the first kill of the day, they snapped and growled in disgust while a few leapt into the flames instinctively. They howled in pain for a few breaths, stumbling towards the wall before at least a dozen arrows set them to quiet. Derian patted Keri’s back absently upon seeing their first combined kill come rolling to a stop beneath the wooden wall. At least six arrows protruded from its body.
“Well done, heroes,” Derian said, and there was victorious cheer.
The moment couldn’t last long because the beasts did something strange. He’d expected them to test the flame a second time but, as though some greater intelligence stirred and controlled their minds and actions, all of them began to behave as one impressive pack.
Without a moment’s wait or any piercing cry from one of their anculus masters, they took off in a charging line, only three or four side by side down alone the burning ring of fire. Like an expanding shoal of fish, they raced as one, allowing those in front to lead while each monster waited patiently to join the trail as they passed. They gathered speed quickly and charged up along the edges of the wall Derian stood on.
“I’ve never seen such a thing,” he muttered, cursing his own amazement. There was only so much humans had learned while fighting demons these last thirty years. Derian was certain this was something new.
Their numbers stretched out to half the wall’s length and they charged towards the rear of the town. Behind him he heard the panicked roar of Lorgan barking out order after order as the last canis demon followed the first, leaving behind a few dozen anculus demons stalking through the ruined battlefield, staining their hooves upon blood and entrails of their kin. The anculus demons howled, a deep, guttural cry, and they kept themselves far away from any archer’s arrow.
What is going on?
“Why are they attacking us anyway?” he heard one of his comrades cry out.
Then another, this time pleading. “Why didn’t they just go after Gold Haven?”
“Why aren’t they trying to clear the flames?” a curious voice asked, and it might have been Keri.
“This plan won’t work!” another shouted in anger.
Anger is good; anger is a gift.
“Whisht, fools, and watch their actions,” Derian commanded, and around him became silent.
A few muttered, “Yes, sir,” and it satisfied him that he’d countered a wave of revolt. The last beast passed them just as the leading pack leapt across the shallow river and out the other side before turning the far corner of the town and disappearing from sight.
Please don’t attack that side.
Those at the back wall watched on in silent terror as the horde moved beneath them. Within a few anxious breaths, they reached the other corner and turned back up towards the last section where Natteo and his archers stood.
“Weaknesses,” he whispered and gripped Rusty’s freshly wrapped grip for comfort. He felt a growing thumping in his head, and it matched the vibrations from the charging pack. Like a grand cantus searching for a fault in a night barge’s hull. Derian wondered how wily these monsters might be.
He followed their charge blindly through the actions of those who could see, until they returned to the front gates once more and showed no sign of stopping. Lorgan led his archers in an aerial bombardment as they passed, but they did not scatter nor deviate from their chosen path; they sprinted on with only a paltry number lost; like race riders beneath the gaze of a thousand fools, who’d bet their livelihood on the contest’s outcome.
“So much for planning,” Derian whispered to himself. Any mercenary could hit a running demon from far beyond the flames, but most farmers or miners would struggle with the task. Lorgan and his mercenaries had discussed at length how far from the walls they should set the flames. Perhaps there was no definitive distance near enough to entice some canis to leap over, while it was still far enough away that they could pick them off before they gathered beneath the wall. Until this moment, Derian had thought they’d done well enough with their choosing. Problem was, the beasts weren’t behaving like themselves at all. The fire should have slowed them and allowed the defenders to strike them down from a comfortable position—taking the heart from their charge while giving the defenders some belief.
The Crimson’s luck behaved as it usually behaved, didn’t it?
They’d expected a hundred could fall in the first few salvos, but Derian couldn’t even count a dozen dead bodies lying at the wall. They had argued that the fires would hold them for a handful of hours, but that didn’t matter if they could not whittle down the number with each passing moment. There were no other tactics to follow. Something nasty was brewing. His head drummed louder, yet still, he was calm. He licked his lips and remembered the taste of demonic gore, and he took hold of Rusty’s grip once again.
Soon.
“Maybe they really fear the fire,” Keri said and notched another arrow. This town would be defended easily if they feared the fire. Nothing was ever that simple, Derian thought but said nothing lest his companions lose what little nerve remained. He also thought it better to keep quiet his worry that some higher intelligence had seen through the ruse and willed them to find a weakness. They thundered back around towards his section of the wall, and he did something he never usually did, he came up with an idea and acted on it.
“Prepare yourselves!” he roared and pointed to a pathetic spike standing unimpressively out at the edge of the field.
“As they pass that spike, take the second beast out. Not the first. Allow the wind to drag the arrow lower and aim a foot above their heads.” Derian ran along the wall maki
ng sure his archers understood. Better they aim at one fixed point, he told himself, as the terrifying line of monsters reached their section.
“Get ready!”
“…”
“Now!”
The arrows released with a reassuring whoosh and silently sailed into the night. Many missed, but they felled at least five in the first barrage.
“Again!” he roared, holding his hand high for those to reload. He was terrified, he was exhilarated, he was a general, and this was working. His Crimson comrades watched, and he felt stirrings of pride. He dropped his hand and a plethora of crudely made arrows, just sharp enough to pierce skin, and just straight enough to fly for thirty feet, let loose and hit the night again. Another five or six died in that moment but better than that, those in pursuit trampled a half dozen more, before knocking another handful howling into the flames to meet a terrible end.
“I’m proud of you!” he shouted as he watched Natteo order his archers as he did and celebrate as they too made an impressive assault on the hunting pack when the monsters came back around.
Keri pumped his fist in the air. “We can do this, sir.” He wasn’t alone in his belief.
In a few swift thinking moments, they had turned the mood and caused heavy losses on their enemy.
“Be ready for them to come back around,” Derian warned, but his smile betrayed him. Perhaps he could be fine at this leadership thing. After Natteo, Lorgan and Kesta delivered another similar blow to the circling pack, and they too heard the cheers of death as the great defence of Treystone struck a blow for humankind.
More fell and died, and the leading monsters widened the arc they took as Derian stood out along the edge. Along the wall, he could see faces of pride, and there was the glorious spark of vengeance emerging from their faces. Nothing bred talent like a little experience getting some easy killing.
The Crimson Hunted: A Dellerin Tale (The Crimson Collection Book 2) Page 6