“What are we waiting for? We should go. We need to fall back, this position won’t hold,” Isa growled.
Senka nodded her vigorous agreement. “We’ll need you, Mistress. You can’t die here. This isn’t your time.”
“Damn you!” Nyset screamed, summoning twenty fireballs in a vortex of swirling death. She sent them into the mass, carving out a great hole that was filled in seconds later. “Fall back!” she yelled. “To the Towers! Fall back!”
Flagmen raised their banners, a bleeding red flag that signaled their retreat. Those at the next line of trenches were consumed by the horde in hardly a minute. The following line boldly rose from the ground, driving spear and sword through the onslaught of Shadow snakes, sacrificing themselves to buy their compatriots some time. You will not be forgotten, she thought with a wince.
The command was echoed among the trenches. The defenders didn’t have to be told twice, clambering out of the ground and fleeing for their lives. She caught glances of horrified eyes and gaping mouths. For many, this was their first time-fighting Death Spawn. They’d been told what it would be like, but the tales of these horrors were too distant from reality. Many were wounded and couldn’t run and had to be left behind. The mortally wounded begged for death, mercifully given by teary-eyed comrades.
“Let’s go!” Isa said, vaulting out of the trench and onto the surface. He reached down with both hands and dragged the women up in a show of strength. He abruptly released them, twisted and ripped his sword from his scabbard to drive its point through the head of a Shadow snake. Its jaw wildly clamped on the point of his blade, trying to chomp through the darkened steel to no avail. Isa growled in disgust and flicked the dying body from his sword.
They ran. Nyset’s eyes widened at a trench filled with cowering men and women. She skidded to a halt and blasted an oncoming gaggle of Shadow snakes in a wave of Dragon fire. “Up! What are you lot waiting for? Run, damn you! Get up!” A few rose from their trenches and loosed arrows, but the others simply gaped up at her. She realized that the combined effect of a charging mass of snakes that could emit violet fire produced a crippling paralysis that couldn’t be shaken with harsh words. She drew on the Phoenix, lifting the ten of them from the ground and giving them a telekinetic shove. “Run!” she screamed and pointed toward the archers’ towers.
A primal instinct seemed to take them as they discarded weapons and dashed past Isa and Senka, who were gesturing for her to hurry. Nyset stole a backward glance, the majority of the horde maybe thirty yards away and clashing with another line of brave fighters who opted not to flee. “Damn them, damn them all!” she growled, tears blurring in her eyes. She’d missed someone in the same trench and started to shout when she realized the body lacked a head. “Shit,” she breathed, leaping through a portal that opened ahead of Senka and Isa.
Footfalls pounded at the earth, armor clanged, chainmail hissed, and lungs worked like bellows. Nyset ran, wary of opening portals among so many allies. Gratefully, a group of blue-robed Phoenix wizards met them halfway, slicing the air with twenty or so portals far ahead of the runners. The portals opened into the safety of the distant towers. They summoned overlapping Phoenix shields overhead, forming a protective archway under their portals. “In here! Get in!” a young wizard with clean blond hair shouted, ushering people through his portal.
Something dark flitted past and curved down below the arcing Phoenix shields, striking his chest and splitting it open in a cloud of gore and violet flames. His portal abruptly closed, severing an Armsman who’d made it halfway through into a great bloody diagonal. One of his halves flopped dead to the ground, the other half in the looming towers.
“No!” she shrieked. Her rage was hollow at the knowledge that she had to flee, despite wanting to make her last stand here and release all of her reserves. But now was not the time.
The snakes launched into a new volley to prevent their escape. Now, it was clear they were using themselves as projectiles and taking flight with mighty leaps. Most were repelled by the Phoenix shields, but not all. Those that didn’t find targets struck the earth so hard their innards sprayed the cobbled street. Too young to die, she thought as she glimpsed the body of the blond wizard. She wove a portal of her own, ensuring Isa and Senka made it through before she followed them.
Nyset’s boots thumped onto the wooden platform making up the upper level of the center tower, her portal hissing shut behind her. An archer wretched over his shoulder as he worked to drag the soldier’s other severed half toward the central stairway, marking his path in a great swathe of gore. “Damn it,” she breathed.
Surrounding the central tower were six others, forming a semicircle at the mouth of the Tower’s bridge. She met the eyes of a few hard-eyed veteran wizards, who were looking back at her from the edge of the protective stone walls. Most of the rest were already engaging the enemy with fire, lightning, and summoned boulders. There were a dozen wizards and about as many keen-eyed archers, their bowstring buzzing as they loosed arrows upon the horde. Wizards grunted with the effort of thrown fire while others tended to the wounded to administer Phoenix healing.
Among the platform were a few barrels stuffed with arrows, a rack of extra bows, wooden boxes with acid bombs padded by clumps of hay, and canteens. Above them, the sun was obscured by the Shadow Princess’s poisoned clouds, creeping over them with unnatural haste.
Senka and Isa were among the defenders and pressed close together. Isa shifted back a foot to make some space and started drawing arrows from his quiver which he loosed in a furious volley at the horde. Someone threw Senka a bow. She deftly caught it and started adding well-placed arrows of her own, each shot taking a Shadow snake through the head.
“Mistress, are you injured?” Allasea asked with a respectful nod. She was a stern woman with hollow cheeks and dark hair pulled back into a ponytail.
“No, Allasea. It’s not my blood.” Nyset nodded back, lips pressed into a hard line.
“Good,” Allasea said, shifting aside, making space for her at the edge of the platform. Allasea let out a shrill scream as she swiped her arm down, drawing a meteor of flame from the sky to smash a gaping hole in the Shadow snakes. Allasea panted from the mountainous effort of the spell, rivulets of sweat streaming down her jaw.
Nyset squeezed between the three of them, gazing down at the dreadful display revealed below. A hot wind lashed at her cheeks, wrapping bloody tendrils of hair around her neck. There were so many bodies, so many wasted lives.
The trenches were crammed with the dead and dying, thousands of Shadow snake mouths clamping down and tearing flesh from the still living. A few of the trenches were so densely packed with men and snakes that some of the dead men remained upright, supported by the mass of serpents. Yet countless bodies littered the edges of the trenches, some crawling for an impossible refuge. Some soldiers staggered in horrified stupor, quickly torn down by the merciless shadows. Nyset saw one man propping himself up on his spear, one leg missing and the stump streaming a line of black smoke where violet flames continued to feast on his leg. With his other hand, he clutched his short sword, hacking through Shadow snakes in a last gambit before he was all but consumed.
Apparently, the others had watched the same man, and when he fell, a blood-lust took them. They poured arrows, Dragon fire, and screams over the wriggling snakes. And it seemed to be working. The assault slowed, the Shadow snakes thinning at the outermost of the trenches. Hundreds of snakes were pinned under arrows, others burned to slivers and ash. Butchered snake halves made futile attempts at slithering onward as they bled out their last. Some mindlessly chomped at the earth as if they’d finally found the flesh of their enemies.
“It’s not for their lack of numbers. She’s stopping them,” Nyset said, voicing her thoughts. A few shocked men staggered out from the mass of bodies, their flesh heavily punctured and weeping blood from countless bites.
“Maybe they just want a truce,” Isa offered. “Perhaps to just gather their woun
ded.”
“The Shadow has no pity for its dead,” Nyset said with a hollow laugh, shaking her head at the sea of horrors. She spied a pair of humanoid figures with the Shadow Princess. One had a woman’s shape, her eyes maybe shimmering with a reddish glow. The other stood facing the Shadow Princess. It was a squat abomination, nude with what appeared to be another face upon its backside.
“Look!” Allasea pointed, and Nyset followed her gaze.
“Something’s happening,” she felt herself stupidly mutter. A violet portal flashed open after the trenches and what appeared to be an oversized dog leaped through. Its back and head was all twisted horns with a channel of violet flame running down the middle. It charged at a crawling man, impaling him through the bottom and tossing his limp body twenty feet into the air, then blasting the airborne body in a gout of violet flame. What remained of the man puffed away into a wisp of blackened dust. The beast, she would come to know as Indra, let out piercing yipping like tens of hyenas.
“Coming through, careful. Watch your step,” Isa said as he slid a box of acid bombs toward the edge of the wall.
Senka was quick to change the direction of her fire, sending an arrow shuddering into Indra’s ribs. The beast reacted by attacking the closest of the confused soldiers, spinning around and driving its rear hoofs into his chest, stoving in the plate armor.
“It’s time,” Nyset growled, then raised her voice. “Once she’s near, we’ll use the acid bombs! Everyone who can’t use the Powers, now is the time to use the bombs!”
Isa patted Nyset on the shoulder, a somewhat disturbing smile crossing his ghastly face. “I’ve been aching for this moment, Mistress. To score them all with acid…” His smile broadened with sadistic glee. She was reminded why he was the leader of the Swiftshades and how they’d developed their haunting reputation.
Nyset raised her fist, giving Isa a curt nod. “Wizards! Fireballs for the fuses!” And with that, dozens of fireballs appeared a few feet behind the wall, gently hovering. “Arm,” she shouted, and the archers all reached into boxes, carefully lifting out a bomb as they were trained. “Hold!” Her voice cracked with hoarseness. “Wait for my signal! Phoenix blessed, when she comes, help me hold her on my command.”
“Aye, Mistress,” a grizzled wizard replied.
“We’ll get the dog,” a man built like a stove gruffed.
Indra galloped to another soldier, fell into a roll as if she must’ve tripped, but Nyset saw it was intentional as the multitude of horns on her back ripped through a crawling man’s guts, flinging offal and shattered ribs into the air. The crunching of bones pierced between a cacophony of screams. Finding no additional targets, Indra charged for the towers.
She galloped between the first pair of towers, arrows going wide and clashing against the cobbles. She varied her speed, took sharp turns, and even reversed course to avoid a volley of fireballs, throwing up a plume of cobblestones and earth. Spears of Dragon fire hissed into the ground, turning stones into magma. Nyset narrowed her eyes, waiting and watching as Indra easily avoided the majority of their projectiles.
“Hold!” Curiously, Indra stopped. She puffed out a breath through her nostrils that misted with violet flames.
Then the channel of fire running along her back glowed with the brightness of the sun, growing ever brighter and becoming a blinding whitish-purple. “No,” Nyset whispered as a mountain of fire belched from Indra’s throat, bathing a neighboring tower in a wave of her conflagration.
A burning archer tumbled over the wall. Wizards shrieked while they leaped from the tower. Some passed safely through Phoenix portals to shorten the distance to the ground, only to find the heat of the earth hot enough to burn away their legs. Tens more fell from the battlements, cloaked in the impossibly hot fire that melted through bones in seconds. The majority were simply disintegrated. Fifty or so defenders maintaining impressive discipline in the face of this creature were transformed into a burning ruin in the space of seconds.
The stone foundation of the tower bulged out like compressed honey cakes. It groaned like an exhausted beast finally settling down to sleep. Then, it imploded. The roof collapsed, and burning timbers stabbed at the daylight. Sections of the platform much like the one they all stood upon were hewed to pieces, crumbling down in a blackened ruin. A few screams called out from the burning wreckage. Thankfully, the poor trapped souls soon found respite in the Shadow Realm.
Indra mercilessly blasted those who made it to the ground with the impressive use of Phoenix portals. Nyset watched as five men exploded in rapid succession, all raining out a hail of burning gore. Those not hit directly with her fire reeled back from the burning flesh and flying bone shards. It seemed for every man Indra killed directly, others were taken down by the force of the exploding bodies. She watched as a young girl’s throat was slit by a flying bone shard dagger quick. The girl, hardly past her eighteenth name year wrapped her fingers around her neck in a fruitless attempt at survival, blood still spurting around her fingers. Nyset made to vault over the balcony when Isa gripped her arm, holding her back. She nodded, not looking at him and blinked new tears from her eyes as the girl faded in a rising cloud of smoke and licking flames.
Nyset drew a sliver from the Dragon in her veins, sending a gust of air to part the smoke. Arrows studded Indra’s hide and did nothing to slow her progress. She was astonishingly fast, maybe sensing fireballs before they were launched and weaving around their flight paths as wizards launched renewed attacks. A few had indeed found purchase, marring her flesh in violet splotches.
She can be injured. That is good, Nyset thought dimly. She felt as if her body had become disconnected, watching herself watch it all with opened mouthed horror, her mind frozen with indecision. Do something! Do! Something! Indra wheeled to face an adjacent tower, her back again flaring bright as she charged her power for another attack.
Senka swiveled her eyes to Nyset and gave her a furious nod. “Closer,” Nyset said through gritted teeth. “Has to be closer to hold one this strong.”
“Run! Flee!” she desperately, uselessly screamed at the tower. But the defenders did not run. They fought. A great outpouring of arrows rained around Indra, a few fireballs striking true and tearing great chunks out of her side. Indra threw her head back in a howl of rage and pain. Then she shrieked her hyena’s call, the fire so bright from her mouth that Nyset had to squint to witness it. The other tower fell much like the first, though it seemed even fewer survived her initial flames. It toppled over to join the other tower in blocking the road out of New Breden, at least providing a temporary barricade for the horde of Shadow snakes while it burned.
“What have I done?” Nyset cried, shaking her head, eyes horror-stricken.
“Focus,” Isa barked at her. “Focus, Ny!”
Focus. Focus. Focus. He’s right. It’s done. They’re dead. Why have I become so weak? No room for empathy here. Indra’s beady amethyst eyes glared up at Nyset, hooves hammering at the stones and charging for her tower. Indra came for her. Time dissolved as Indra hunkered down, her back again starting to glow bright for another bout of flame.
“Now!” Nyset roared like the damned as she lashed out with the Phoenix. Six other men joined her signal, all of them freezing Indra in her tracks with the Phoenix. “Throw!” Indra writhed against the unseen bonds while acid bombs were hurled. Twenty or so bombs floated on the air like meteors made of feathers. Nyset spotted a spinning bomb, its wick like a burning demon’s tail, its waxed paper reflecting the scorching world around them.
A few of them crashed against her many horns, shattered glass tinkling down like stars and bathing her body in a dark bluish liquid. Nothing happened. Until it did. Her flesh started to blister, smoke rising from her back. Indra howled. Others shattered around her twisting form, spraying her legs, belly, and flanks in acid. A dark plume now rose from her skin, globs flesh falling away as if cannibalized by the air. Bones started to protrude from her hide like a starving leper.
�
�It’s working!” Allasea whooped. Wizard fire tore rents from Indra’s flesh, a fireball lopping off a leg and sending her onto her back.
“Die,” Isa whispered and loosed an arrow, taking her through an eye. Senka produced her blowgun and speckled Indra’s body with poisoned darts.
Nyset opened a portal hovering on the air before the platform, the exit side opening down the center of Indra’s head. She released her portal and her hold on Indra. The other wizards felt her doing this and responded in kind with a sigh of relief. Nyset’s portal had cut clean halves into Indra’s body, the sections peeling apart to reveal an anatomical nightmare of twisted bones and curling flesh. It seemed the others saw this too, arrows thinning and fireballs turning into wisps of smoke mid-flight.
Roars of battle fell away, replaced with the crackling of the ruined towers. “She’s dead,” Nyset breathed, her tone colored with surprise. Victorious cheers roared from the platform, the voices harmonizing from the platform on the tier below them. Voices joined in from the pair of towers flanking their backs.
“The Tower lives!” someone shouted.
“The Shadow does not belong here!” another screamed.
“Fuck you! Fucker!” A soldier ten feet away from her shrieked while leaning over the edge of the wall, directing his voice at the burning towers. Something flitted through the air and out of the pall of smoke. Nyset instinctively ducked, gasping as it struck the man’s face. His head snapped back and blood sprayed from the back of his skull. A few men behind him yelled in surprise, swiping at the blood and brains covering their fronts. The mangled form of a Shadow snake flopped on the ground. The struck man even managed to stagger back a few steps before he fell dead. Nyset sent a dart of flame through the snake’s head and shouted, “Everyone stay low!”
The Shadow Age (The Age of Dawn Book 7) Page 33