Beyond the Bulwarks

by K. J. Coble

  Howls erupted to his left. A scattering of Vhurrs emerged from behind wreckage. A throwing axe flew, gouged the dirt a dozen yards shy. He saw a Vhurr preparing a spear for throw. Suddenly, the air whickered and the barbarians were shrieking, falling back as arrows slicing into them. The wall of Estpont loomed before Anzo. He put on a last burst of speed, skin across his back crawling as he heard Vhurrian curses flung after him. Almost...there...

  The postern gate flipped open and men dragged Anzo, half-diving, through. A man in the minimal gear of an Auxiliary clapped his back. “That was better than a sprinter on the tracks at Trebactunum, friend!”

  “Scared crazy will do that to a man!” Anzo chuckled between breaths. “Where’s Sartorus, from the Legate’s staff?” Anzo received a blank look. “Optio Herzok?”

  The man gulped. “We pulling out?”

  “Where?”

  The Auxiliary pointed into the smoke-clogged streets of the town. “He’s down by the barricades!”

  Anzo thanked him and dashed into the haze. The streets of Estpont roiled with smoke and ash, a false overcast hanging low above them, flickering with sparks that drifted to the thatch roofs of houses. Tags of fire spread, many buildings already alight. Soldiers jostled by Anzo, crisscrossing intersections, many already apparently heading for the north wall and the retreat. The roar of fighting echoed from all around. Sharp crash of steel more than sense of direction guided Anzo.

  The fight at the barricades seethed about wreckage, the improvised wall of crates and wagons splintered under the weight of combatants who now battled over a barricade of the dead, heaped in an angle across what had been Estpont’s harbor market. Anzo had a clear view of the Vhurrs now and felt courage shrivel.

  Despite mud caked over armor and faces, he knew they had to be Hamrak.

  Putting it from his mind, he spied a Legionnaire with the white horsehair crest of command atop his battered helm, standing back from the melee and bawling encouragement. The man turned a gray-frizzled face to Anzo. “Who in the Endless Hells are you?”

  “Anzo Severnus, from Legate Maricius.”

  He nodded. “We saw the signal.”

  “I’m here to confirm.” Anzo related the rest of the Legate’s orders.

  “That’s helpful.” Exhaustion made the Optio’s words hollow. “We’re already pulling the reserves out and the gatehouse detachment. It’s going to be a bitch when we start abandoning the walls.” Snarling, he went for his sword. “Plug that damned hole!”

  Through a break in the line at the barricades a Vhurr tumbled. Down on one knee for a moment, the man’s helm tumbled off, revealing a blonde-red beard sparse with youth. He turned gut Legionnaire suddenly exposed at his right. Herzok stepped in close and rammed his sword point through the young barbarian’s flank. The youth stiffened, began to turn into the wound. Herzok ripped his steel free and the Vhurr dropped to his knees, blood bubbling from his lips as shocked eyes rose to meet Anzo’s before clouding over into death. He crumpled into a pile on the cobblestones and the Legion closed the gap behind him.

  Chill spread across Anzo’s quaking flesh. The boy had been Hamrak and Anzo was pretty certain he’d seen recognition in his eyes.

  Stepping back again, Herzok wiped blood from his sword with a disgusted scowl. “Was there anything else you had for me?”

  “No. Nothing else.”

  Herzok pointed his blade at the fight. “Then make yourself useful. I’ve got to see to this evacuation.”

  A soldier in front of Anzo stumbled back as a thrown spear glanced off his helm. Flowing into the space, Anzo found a Hamrak lunging after the man, sword-first. A slash of his scimitar took the attacker’s hand off at the wrist, folded the brute over clutching at bone shards and jets of blood. A second hack opened the barbarian’s neck at the base of the skull. Scooping up the fallen man’s shield, Anzo gripped the blood-tacky handle behind the boss.

  An axe-wielder came over the wreck of the barricade and began pummeling at Anzo. Repeated impacts jarred the feeling from clenched knuckles, split the iron rim of the shield and splintered the planks. Anzo stabbed under the wild assault, the point of his blade parting mail and meat. His assailant squalled in agony that cut out as another thrust followed the first and went up under the ribcage into his vitals.

  Legionnaires flinched away from a blur of motion to Anzo’s right. A huge, topless Vhurr mounted the barricade in a frenzy, slashing, hammering with a buckler bent and deformed. Anzo saw an opening when the madman pivoted to smash at a soldier’s shield and plunged his scimitar into the Vhurr’s flank. He ducked the man’s reflexive hack at his head then backpedaled when the barbarian dived for him. The Vhurr crashed face down onto the space Anzo had occupied and didn’t get up.

  Anzo regarded the sprawling form for a nightmarish moment. Blood flowed from wounds all over the half-naked form. Berserker. Anzo’s breath caught in his ashy throat as he noticed the complex, deliberate patterns of the wounds, the twitching of the body, and the familiar, reddish fumes frothing out from ridges of rent flesh. Shit-shit-shit! Casting aside the shattered shield, Anzo stabbed the body once, twice, devolved into a flurry of blows at the force he knew would still be quivering inside the cleaved form.

  “Gods!” A Legionnaire gawked at Anzo. “He’s dead, man!”

  A demonic roar shattered the cacophony of the battle, shocked many of the combatants into a momentary lull. The line shattered to Anzo’s left, Legionnaire and Hamrak alike exploding away from the break in spouts of gore and broken body pats. A shape of steaming, crimson meat and hell-lit eyes rived amongst them.

  Screams warned of further breaches, demons of Arshann bowling up through the packed mass of Hamrak as assuredly as Imperial ballista shot to get at the floundering Legion line. The abominations shattered fabricae shields, rent mail and plate, and pulped the bodies underneath before flailing into the Imperial infantry on either side. Blood speckled the air. Anzo, staggering back from the ruin he’d made of the berserker, saw Legionnaires who’d taken everything barbarians could throw at them panic and scatter before horror for which no experience could have prepared them.

  A demon vaulted the barricade, spreading its arms wide as it hurtled for Anzo. He sidestepped and slashed, felt a scalding speckle of hell-gore on one cheek. The beast hit the ground behind him and tumbled, a severed arm rolling off to one side. It thrashed about to face Anzo as he pivoted to receive it and lunged. Anzo’s scimitar point punched between oncoming fangs and drove through to erupt out the back of its inhuman skull.

  Whimpering drew Anzo’s attention as he wrenched the steel free. A demon crouched over a Legionnaire, was savaging the man’s guts while he fumbled to beat the monstrous weight off him. Anzo stabbed the demon in the spine and leapt back when the creature flinched around. A follow up swing took the beast’s head off at the shoulders but still it floundered and swiped at him. Stomping an outstretched claw into the cobblestones, Anzo stabbed over and over again until the creature stilled.

  “Come on!” Anzo gripped the horribly wounded Legionnaire by the shoulder and began to drag him free of the melee, ignoring wails of agony as uneven paving jostled the poor man.

  The Legion line, what remained of it, bowed back from the harbor marketplace. Above them, atop the palisades around the town, Auxiliaries were abandoning their positions to Vhurrs who flowed over the top and cast spears and axes after them. Hard knots were forming in the streets behind locked shields, holding bottlenecks, buying time for the withdrawal. Half the buildings of Espont seemed to be in flames now, the air going caustic, savaging the lungs with heat and ash.

  Anzo had nearly reached the cover of the streets with his charge when a demon launched from the bedlam behind them and got a grip on the wounded Legionnaire’s foot. Anzo stabbed at the thing’s forehead, the aim poor and the scimitar’s edge skidding off the side of the bulbous skull. Blinded by fury and pain the demon rushed Anzo but a pair of Legionnaires appeared on either side and skewered it to the street with spears.
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  Capitalizing on the shock of the demons’ assault, the Hamrak were flowing over the barricade into the town. The remnants of the Legion cohort and the Auxiliaries met them with briefly renewed fury, battling desperately to contain the breakthrough to the marketplace. A Hamrak warrior resplendent in pewter-colored armor, fashioned in the mad patterns of the Elder Tyrants mounted the trampled barricade and held the Sword of the Hamrak high.

  Anzo’s guts froze as the eyes of Durrim, Chieftain of the Hamrak, met his.

  “Weasel!”

  Giving the maimed Legionnaire over to the care of comrades, Anzo turned to face the man he’d once called sword brother.

  Durrim leapt down from the barricade and streaked across the marketplace, a fresh stream of Hamrak charging alongside him, every one taking up their leader’s scream of hate. Anzo waited amongst the last of the Legionnaires holding the streets out of the harbor area, trembling, wanting to vomit, wanting to run. I don’t want to do this. Gods help me—I don’t.

  Hamrak slammed into Imperial. Spear met shield. Sword met axe. Anarchy reigned. Through it, Durrim tore his way to Anzo. “I’m going to give Theregond your head, Weasel!”

  Anzo parried his former comrade’s first, wild blow. “Not while I’m still using it!” He answered the stroke with a heavy blow to the younger man’s shield and sent him reeling back.

  The surrounding battle heaved and tossed about them, the two seeming to occupy their own Circle of Honor in the midst of chaos. With shield and broadsword, Durrim had the advantages of weight and reach. But Anzo, with only his scimitar, had speed and maneuverability. They wheeled and feinted, Durrim launching into wide swings, Anzo countering with sidesteps and quick slashes. Durrim’s already-battered shield was quickly cross-hatched with the scars of Anzo’s repeated strikes. But Anzo’s strength was already flagging and the younger man’s strength seemed limitless.

  “You betrayed us!” Durrim drove Anzo back towards the street, where the Legionnaires held the assault back by a quivering shred of strength. “You were our brother!” Anzo leapt back from an overhand blow that jolted sparks from the street. “We trusted you!” Anzo had to duck a crazed hack. “But you were never anything to us!”

  Anzo slashed high for the Hamrak’s head. The edge lopped a plank of Durrim’s upraised shield loose. The younger man answered with a blow Anzo was no longer fast enough to evade, steel biting his exposed shoulder, even as he turned with the blow. Blood spurted, warmed Anzo’s arm as it gushed its length under the mail sleeve. He continued his pivot, let momentum carry him spinning around and away, back into the marketplace.

  “Now you’re going to feed Arshann!” Durrim stalked after him.

  Sobbing for breath, Anzo tried to concoct a plan. He couldn’t keep this up. Pain intensified in his shoulder and dizziness told him blood loss would soon overcome adrenaline. He glanced about for some stratagem as Durrim approached. Bodies and wreckage littered the blood-slick cobblestones of the market. A heap of slain twitched and writhed nearby. A mangled demon was attempted to pry its way free of the tangle, snapping wildly, mindlessly in agony.

  Anzo backed towards the pile and forced a smirk. “I suppose it’s too late for sorry?”

  Eyes blanking with frenzy, Durrim rushed him. Anzo dodged his overhand chop to the left then leapt aside from the recovering stroke that would’ve disemboweled him had he tried to follow up his advantage. Durrim whirled, his face a pallid, shivering mask of spittle-flecked hatred. “You gutless, mewling coward!”

  The pile twisted behind Durrim. Anzo grimaced. “I really am sorry, kid.”

  The demon’s muzzle launched out from the twisted heap. Fangs latched onto Durrim’s calf. The young chieftain had an instant to look down in pain and surprise before his leg was yanked out from under him. The Sword of the Hamrak fell free, its clang across the cobbles a silvery counterpoint to Durrim’s screams as he was dragged under.

  A hand gripped Anzo’s bicep. He spun with scimitar up, ready to die in a last flurry amongst vengeful Hamrak.

  “Easy, Severnus!” It was Sartorus, the aide’s face marred by a bloody gash on one cheek. Behind him, resurgent Legionnaires and Auxiliaries were forcing the Hamrak back again. “Come on! Maricius will have my ass if I leave you down here!”

  Shivering, uncertain how much longer he could keep to his feet, Anzo followed the aide back into the midst of Imperial infantrymen, leaving the doomed marketplace behind. He dared one glance over his shoulder. What had been Durrim was now a gory tag and rent metal being fought over between two demons, like dogs bickering over table scraps.

  Arshann had fed, indeed.

  Anzo wasn’t sure he’d ever forgive himself.

  ***

  Anzo welcomed the pain of a volunteer surgeon tightening stitches into the gash on his shoulder. He’d refused wine, claiming it should be saved for the soldiers. Pain was better. Gritting his teeth was better than thinking of Durrim’s screams.

  “There.” The civilian from Estpont, who claimed to have been a barber on a galley once, put aside his needles and picked up bandages, began to wrap. “It’s your shield arm, at least. You’ll still have your sword handy. But watch them popping.”

  Anzo offered him a weary smile. “Thanks.” Like that would be possible. He looked away as the surgeon went to tightening the strips of linen.

  Varya watched him from a bench, black rings under wasted eyes. Behind her the officers’ mess had been converted into a hospital, poorly-lit by candles carried about in the dark by more volunteers and a handful of Legion surgeons. The wounded sprawled on tables, between them on the floor, against the walls, in every corner, and flowing out the door into the courtyard. Moaning and occasional screams rattled off stone walls and blood stink soured the air.

  “I’m fine,” Anzo said without looking at her.

  “You’ve got to stop thinking about him.”

  “First Heathen...now...” He hissed as the surgeon drew the bandage tight. “I’m all right. That bastard Theregond has a lot to answer for.”

  “And he will.” Sparto appeared from the door to the mess. From the look on his face, it was obvious Maricius had sent him. “But you’d better be alive to see it.”

  Anzo waved him off. “I’ve already got a minder, thanks. Tell the Legate you’ve got more important things to do than fret over me.”

  The aide nodded greetings to Varya as he joined them. “It’s quiet for the moment, at least here. Everyone’s watching Estpont burn. The Vhurrs don’t seem interested in anything else.” He scratched his jaw thoughtfully. “There’s still fighting to the north in the dark.”

  “Any word from the cavalry Maricius sent?”

  “They’ve formed a new line east-to-west between Way Fort Four and the hills and forest north of Trebactunum.” Sparto made an ugly face. “Our good lords there are certain to be growing nervous.”

  “You mean, if they haven’t fled south already.” Anzo stood and slowly worked his shoulder to scowling from the surgeon.

  “Tribune Mbawa has taken a detachment north to join the cavalry and assume command,” Sparto continued. “The rest of the Secundus is under Herzok, now, cobbling together a line with our infantry on the ridge overlooking what’s left of Estpont.”

  “They hurt us pretty bad?”

  The aide’s cheerful visage stilled. “We’re holding them.”

  Anzo scooped up his scimitar from the bench and girded it on. His blood-splashed corselet lay nearby. “I don’t suppose there’s someone to mend that?”

  “You could try, but it might be a long wait.”

  Varya was wobbling and Anzo put a hand on her shoulder to steady her. “You need to get some sleep.”

  She chortled humorlessly. “Sleep...and see what in my dreams, Anzo?”

  His lips pinched. “He’s everywhere now, isn’t He?”

  “Everywhere...” The darkness about her eyes thickened, seemed to spread down her cheeks. “Harpies...demons...the Age of Dreams seeping from every crack...” She
leaned against his hip. “I can’t hear Thoth, Anzo. I hear only laughter. His laughter.”

  “They can’t keep this up.” He brushed the top of her head, fingers working in her hair. When she didn’t respond, he tried to turn her face up to his.

  Limply, she slid from his grasp and crashed to the floor.

  “Shit!” Anzo knelt over her, nearly slammed head first into the surgeon, lunging to help. Gathering her into his arms, he could feel her heart hammering, her rattled, uneven breathing. Shoving the surgeon back, he lifted her from the floor. “We’ve got to get her out of here.” He nodded to Sparto. “My chamber. Lead the way!”

  The air outside the mess stank of fire and the ash flurrying down from the sky. The south wall of Terminus stood out, jagged against the fiery glare of Estpont’s conflagration, silhouettes of Legionnaires scampering to and fro. Sparto led Anzo and Varya up the stairs to the north wall and backtracked along the battlements to the northeast tower. Sartorus was racing along the river wall, waving for their attention before they reached the tower entrance.

  “Something’s happening,” the aide hollered. He saw Varya in Anzo’s arms. “We need—”

  “I’ll be right there.” Anzo kicked the door open when Sparto hesitated.

  “Not you, Severnus—”

  Anzo didn’t hear the rest, was carrying Varya into the corridors beyond, up a flight of stairs to another hall and the door to his quarters. Sparto got it this time and Anzo swept Varya to the bed. Her breaths came in short, tight bursts now. He touched her forehead to find it scorching, blood vessels bulging at the temples and the skin sinking in around eyes and cheekbones. “Stay with her.”

  Sparto frowned. “But...”

  “Don’t let anyone or anything in!” Anzo left the aide sputtering.

  Sartorus was waiting outside the tower. “What is it?” Anzo asked him.

  The young man’s eyes bulged, the bandage over the side of his face making them appear to be bursting from the sockets. “We need the Lady Varya.”

  “More beasties?” When the youth didn’t immediately answer, Anzo grabbed him by the shoulders. “What is happening, man?”