by A. C. Cobble
“Fall back!” yelled Ben. “Fall back to the base of the watchtower. We can use the height there to slow them. The mages can provide us cover and maybe fling some rocks at them or something. With the height of the hill, it will be easier to stand against the demons’ bulk. We can still keep them in the river.”
The men, perhaps not eager to stand toe-to-toe with thousands of demons again, began a coordinated withdrawal. To their credit, they didn’t turn tail and run, but they didn’t tarry either. Groups would stand and watch while others scrambled back one hundred paces at a time. Then, they’d turn and cover for their peers. Seeing the men retreating, the demons picked up their speed.
“If they get excited enough to break formation, we can take some of them,” called Lloyd.
Another fireball soared overhead, smaller than the previous ones. Either the mage who was throwing it had tired, or they were unwilling to spend too much energy if the attack was going to fizzle.
Ben held his breath. Then, his heart sank. Like the one before, the fire splashed harmlessly well over the demon’s heads. It lit their formation in a terrible orange glow, and Ben swallowed. They’d estimated up to three thousand demons, but despite the huge number they’d already killed, there seemed to still be an endless stream of the things. The river was full of them, and Ben saw no end in sight.
“Damn, there’s a lot of those bastards,” muttered a man.
Ben nodded. Whoever had spoken was right.
“Hurry up!” yelled Ben to a group who were just now coming back. “If we don’t get to where the mages can help us, this is going to get ugly.”
“Going to get?” wondered Rhys.
Ben ignored him and retreated as soon as the straggling group reached his position.
A quarter bell of harried running got them to the base of the watchtower and the men began to scramble up the slick slope of the riverbank. The grass was wet. Ben tried to imagine it was merely dew and not blood. The men slipped and slid, struggling to gain elevation.
The demons were closing, five hundred paces away. Their hunger drove them, and the more immature ones broke, racing ahead of the army. Forty men still stood on the mud of the riverbed, backs turned, scrambling to get out. Fireballs rained down from above, but they disintegrated short of the demons, just like the others.
“The mages can’t help,” muttered Ben. He was standing at the rear of the men, facing the demons.
“You can’t help against that either,” said Adrick, placing a gauntleted hand on Ben’s shoulder.
“Don’t do it,” warned Ben.
“I’m the only one who can,” responded the swordsman.
“We need you.”
“When everyone is clear,” stated Adrick, “I’ll retreat. You want to help me, get yourself and the men out of this riverbed quickly. In this armor, I can get up that hill faster than any of these demons. Get the others to safety, and I’ll be right behind you!”
Ben grunted and spun, rushing to help push another man higher. Above, soldiers had formed a chain of linked men. The guardians and blademasters were using them as a ladder, scrambling up, booted feet slipping on the grass.
After the last of the guardians was hauled up, Ben jumped and caught the wrists of a stout ranger. The man yanked on Ben, jerking his arms in the sockets but pulling him clear of the riverbed. Hands reached down, and tugged them up, higher and higher. When they reached the top, Ben turned and gasped.
Adrick’s sword blazed with pulsating energy. The silver of his armor reflected it like a lamp and illuminated the demon horde charging after him.
The racing demons had retreated back into the pack when he’d run at them, but now, the entire force was charging. No amount of skill could stand up to so many of them. The man had magically enhanced speed from his armor, but he’d inevitably slow when he started up the bank. The demons were right on his heels and no one was left to help him!
“He has no chance,” Ben heard one of the rangers murmur under his breath.
Ben took a step forward, but he knew there was nothing he could do. Suddenly, he felt jostled from behind, and bodies pushed their way through the watching crowd.
“Jasper!” cried Ben.
The old mage looked back and winked. Beside him was the big man, Earnest John, and several other warrior mages. Their weapons glowed menacingly with powerful runes.
“They can block our magic from afar. Let’s see what they can do up close.”
Jasper’s sword burst into flame, and his friends spread out, each one of them clutching mage-wrought weapons. They slid down the hill and jumped into the riverbed.
The demons recoiled, and Jasper and his companions advanced. Ben’s jaw dropped open. The huge mage with the battle axe started burning yellow. The man was a living lantern. Jasper’s sword and off-hand blazed brightly. The nearly naked, blue-masked woman lashed out, punching with her bare fist and sending a wave of crackling energy into the marching demons. Behind the wave, the silver-haired man danced forward, his longswords free and ready.
“Ben!” called Amelie.
He turned and saw her grasping the wyvern fire staff and her rapier.
“Are you using that thing?” he asked, looking at the blade.
She snorted. “I was coming to check on you. I guess you’re not hurt if you have time to worry about that.”
“Not badly,” allowed Ben. His body was covered in cuts and scrapes, and he had a few stinging lacerations on his back he knew would need attention, but it was nothing that was going to slow him.
They both looked down. From above, it was difficult to see what was going on in the distance. They could see blue and yellow lights, but the scene was obscured by swarming demons.
“We need to help them,” said Ben.
Amelie placed a hand on his shoulder. “They’re on their own. There’s nothing we can do without going down there, Ben.”
He started pacing and glanced around the corner of the watchtower, down where the rangers held their line. The men had moved back nearly to the crown of the hill and there were fewer of them than he’d seen earlier, but they appeared to be holding strong.
“How are things up here?” asked Ben.
Amelie frowned. “We’ve been trying to find where the water was stopped, but we’ve been blocked somehow. All we see is smoke.”
“If we can’t release that water, and we can’t hit these things with magic, we’re in trouble,” responded Ben. “There has to be some way we can do something.”
Amelie held up the wyvern fire staff.
“No,” said Ben. “Whoever uses it will be sacrificing themselves, and we don’t know if the wyvern fire can even get through whatever barrier the demons put up.”
He looked back at the riverbed. It may have been his imagination, but he thought the lights were making their way back to the watchtower.
“How far does the smoke extend?” asked Ben.
Amelie frowned. “Maybe a quarter league across, but it’s thickest over the river itself.”
“There is water further north but not pooling around like it’s been dammed?” questioned Ben.
Amelie shrugged. “It looks completely normal to the north, but we can’t penetrate the smoke, no matter how close we look. The water just vanishes at that point in the river.”
“The water is going somewhere,” declared Ben.
Amelie looked at him, confused.
“We need to get Jasper!” exclaimed Ben.
“You can’t go down there,” protested Amelie. “He’ll come back.”
Ben clenched his fists. “Where is Elle, that little girl in his party?”
Amelie took him around the watchtower and pointed toward the group of mages. Ben ran to them and pushed into their circle, demanding, “What if the river isn’t stopped? What if it’s being sent somewhere?”
The mages all turned to stare at him.
“The demons in the Wilds drew power from the Rift, and we know they come from another world. The guardians h
ave said they are able to travel the node gates, that they’re more attuned to those openings than we are. What if the demon-king managed to create its own rift and was diverting the river into it?”
“That makes sense!” gasped one of the guardian’s mages. “The dark forces do have the ability to travel the nodes, and their realm is full of heat. That might explain how they were able to draw sufficient energy to boil the length of river!”
The mages all began speaking at once, offering wild theories and speculation.
“If we assume this is correct,” shouted Towaal, trying to assert some order, “what do we do about it?”
“We have to stop the king,” said Elle. “But if they’ve formed a rift, we have to destroy it. It’d be one of the last gateways between our worlds.”
Everyone paused and looked to Ben.
“I-I, ah,” he stammered. “This is a bit out of my pond.”
“How would you even close a natural rift?” wondered one of Jasper’s mages.
“The guardians closed one,” said Amelie.
“That took incredible preparation, though,” stated one of the guardian’s mages. “It also took the best of us. A dozen of them had to sacrifice themselves to do it. I’m afraid we do not have the strength to do it again. Not alone.”
Elle pulled her cloak tight and looked to her companions. “We might be able to combine our strength and do this, but what of the demon-king? That creature will still be formidable.”
“And how would we get to the rift?” muttered another of the guardians, waving a hand down the slope where a massive army of demons stood between them and upriver.
“Can you call on the power of the First Mages?” Amelie asked the guardians. “They have strength still, right? Surely, we can figure out a way to use it. What’s the point of that power if it isn’t used this moment?”
“It doesn’t work like that,” responded one of the mages.
Ben frowned, his mind swirling.
Shouts rose up from beside the watchtower, and a heavy rumbling filled the air. The huge, square blocks of the watchtower were being pushed down the steep hill, crushing demons as they rolled. Jasper came striding up to the group. Blood was smeared all along the left side of his face, and he walked with a limp, but the man was still upright.
“We’re throwing stones on top of them, but it will only slow the creatures. It may also make it easier for them to climb up and get us, but we’re running out of ideas.” He looked to Amelie, and his gaze locked onto the wyvern fire staff. “We need to act while we still have strength.”
“Contact Gunther,” said Ben.
Jasper looked back at him, not understanding. Amelie’s jaw dropped open.
“Through a thought meld,” insisted Ben. “Can you try to contact him?”
“The man has vanished,” stated the leader of the guardian’s mages. “It’s like he disappeared from this world. We-we tracked him in the past, but he’s beyond our reach now. There’s no way to contact him.”
“He did vanish from this world,” responded Ben, “when we closed the rift to the demon world in the Purple’s fortress. Jasper, we think the demons may have opened a rift somehow to divert the river. If it’s going to their world, we may have a doorway open to find Gunther.”
Understanding dawned on Jasper’s face. The screech of demons and the crashing of stones shook the air, but Ben held the mage’s gaze.
“To establish a natural thought meld,” argued the guardian, “you would have to know someone for, I don’t know, centuries! No one has even seen the First Mage in that long.”
“I’ll try,” said Jasper calmly. He closed his eyes, and everyone watched.
The guardians studied him suspiciously, but they didn’t interfere.
Rhys came running up, glanced around at the mages, and then suggested, “Ah, the demons are coming up the slope now, you know, in case anyone wants to help do something about that.”
Ben yanked out his longsword and instructed Towaal. “Your turn.”
Grim-faced, the mage followed him back around the remaining rubble of the watchtower. Amelie and a handful of the guardians followed.
“What if he can’t contact Gunther?” worried Amelie.
“We’ll need to think of a way to close that rift,” stated Ben. “If we can do that, then the water will flow back down the riverbed and solve a great deal of our demon problem. It may also finally draw out the demon-king.”
“You’re right,” said Towaal. “Killing a few of its minions isn’t going to interest that monster enough to expose itself. We have to show we’re winning the battle.”
At the base of the watchtower, Jasper’s mages were rolling heavy blocks of stone down the slope. Blademasters and guardians stood clustered behind them, ready to charge forward when the demons made the top of the hill. Adrick Morgan was resting on his knees, his sword barely flickering, laid across his thighs.
“Are you okay?” asked Ben.
The blank steel face turned, but before he could respond, a demon crested the hill and bellowed. It was immediately met and felled by a blademaster, but more of the creatures came behind, churning over the huge stone blocks that had been tumbled down from the watchtower.
Ben raced into action, lunging at one of the beasts the moment its head appeared. The tip of his longsword smashed into the creature’s face, and it toppled back, but was thrown aside as two dozen of its fellows came right behind. Ben took another in the throat and then stepped back, careful not to get overwhelmed by the press of bodies. Blademasters and guardians joined his side, and together, they formed a wall of steel.
Behind Ben, he felt the crackle of energy. A blaze of lightning blasted between him and a man to his side, catching a demon in front of them and then cascading down the hill, frying the monsters one by one. Packed as closely together as they were, the energy flowed easily amongst them, shocking and killing three dozen in the space of a few heartbeats. The light flickered out, and they had a moment of reprieve as most of the creatures on the hill were now dead.
Ben stepped to the edge and looked down. In the moonlight, he could see demons flowing like the water of the river, stretching north and vanishing in the distance.
Streams of them were heading south, past the watchtower. They could climb that side and flank Ben and his companions, coming around the watchtower to where the mages were.
“We’re going to get surrounded,” shouted Ben.
Lloyd appeared by his side. The man’s left arm was hanging limply, strips of torn flesh visible in the moonlight.
“We could send some of the rangers,” he offered, though his tone betrayed how futile he thought that’d be.
The advantage of the mages had been nullified when the demons avoided the traps in the field and came down the riverbed. Packed closely together, the mages might have had a chance to cause severe damage, but the shield hanging over the demons protected them from that as well. If the men were surrounded, their skill with their blades would no longer matter. They couldn’t back up, swap for rested men, or have a route to retreat. They’d be finished.
Towaal took Ben’s other side. “Jasper has the strength to stop this with the staff.”
“And what of the demon-king?” asked Ben. “How will we stop it if we use the staff for the minions?”
The mage’s face was a mask of frustration. “If the minions overrun us, it won’t matter, will it? One mage could use the staff now, and another on the demon-king if it arrives.”
“If,” growled Ben. “If we use the staff now, what are the chances the demon-king will come? It can sense far-seeing. It may be cunning enough to avoid us entirely after we use wyvern fire.”
Towaal shrugged helplessly.
“Is that what you’d do?” asked Ben. “Direct Jasper to use the wyvern fire?”
“You’re the leader, Ben,” stated Towaal.
He frowned, glancing down at the demons that were starting to come back up the hill.
“We wait,” he d
eclared. “We have to save the staff for the king.”
Ben watched as the demons scrambled over their fallen peers and made the bottom of the watchtower hill. In moments, they’d be at the top.
“Lloyd, take your blademasters and as many rangers as you can gather. Circle around to the south side of the watchtower and prepare to meet the demons there. Adrick, you and I are holding this position with Jasper’s mages.”
Lloyd’s eyes showed he didn’t entirely agree, but there was no time for a debate. The man waved to his men and turned to go. Adrick rose to his feet unsteadily, the guardians forming into a line along the top of the hill.
“Are you okay?” Ben asked the swordsman.
“I can fight,” responded the man.
“What are you thinking?” hissed Amelie. “We’re spreading thin, Ben.”
“Either Jasper can reach Gunther and do something about this river, or he cannot. If he can, we can save the staff for the demon-king. If he cannot, then he’ll use it on these creatures. As long as Jasper still has strength, we have the choice. We protect him as long as we have breath to do so and give him as much time as we’re able. Then, at the end, he can act one way or the other.”
Amelie opened her mouth to respond, but a demon bounded up the hill and landed right in front of her. Ben swung his longsword and caught it across the face, gouging an ugly track through its muscle and bone. Amelie’s rapier pierced its side and stabbed deep.
“Now’s the time to use it if you’re saving any energy,” called Ben.
“Watch this,” said Amelie. She yanked her blade from the demon’s body and threw it into the air.
Ben watched the rapier fly end-over-end above the demons climbing the hill. In the blink of an eye, the blade glowed orange and then white hot. It exploded. Tiny shards of burning metal flew at the demons below as if shot from a crossbow.