“Sire, I have done a lot of things in my life I’m not proud off. I’ve stolen, I’ve lied, and I may even have chased one or two women. But I have never abandoned my friends. I don’t run away from people who need me,” Quill said. “Your daughter can take one of the beasts, but I won’t be going with her.”
The Duke reached out and clasped his hand.
“Thank you, Lord Quill.”
The rest of the day dragged, and as Quill went about his business, it was punctuated by the pounding of rocks on the walls. He had returned to the Duke’s chamber when the endgame began.
There was a sudden crash—far louder than any of the others that had gone before—and then the sound of footsteps as someone ran into the chamber.
“Sire, the walls are breached!”
The speaker was a young guard, hair plastered with sweat and blood, and with a look of panic on his face.
“Have the summons blown, and have every man who is not already on the walls and can hold a sword gather in the courtyard. Now!”
“Yes, sire!” The guard saluted and ran back the way he had come.
“Well, Lord Quill, looks like it is time for that last stand.”
By the time they had made their way to the top of the wall, the fighting had started. The breach was not huge, about the size of one of the gates, but the nomads had decided to force the issue and were streaming towards it. The upside was that the bombardment had stopped—the nomads were not so mad with bloodlust as to relish crushing their own men. Or perhaps it was simply that the nomads had run out of ammunition. Boulders that size couldn’t have been that easy to come by, and a good thing, too. If Quill had been in charge, he wouldn’t have ordered the charge until his ammunition was depleted, but would have continued to pound the castle with boulders until it was a pile of rubble. Whatever the reason, he wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth.
The breach in the wall provided a bottleneck that limited the nomads’ sheer numerical advantage and allowed the Duke’s soldiers to hold them back. Archers stood on the walls to either side and poured arrows down into the milling mass of the enemy. At that range there was no need to even aim, and with every arrow a nomad fell screaming—or silent—in death. Despite the flow of the battle going with the defenders for the moment, Quill was under no illusions. They were outnumbered far too heavily for their fortune to continue. Even if they killed three nomads for every defender who fell, it would still be the nomads left standing at the end of the day. But at least the Vylarans would go down fighting.
Yelling from farther down the wall alerted Quill to a new problem. The nomads hadn’t just stopped at trebuchets, it seemed. Scaling ladders now touched the parapets in a dozen places, and the first nomads were coming over the top. Looking around, Quill realized that he would have to do something about it himself. Raising his sword, he charged at the first of the nomads, ducking under the man’s wild swing and shouldering him over the edge. He paused to push the first ladder away from the wall, watching with satisfaction as it toppled to the ground, complete with screaming nomads. By now some of the Duke’s soldiers had joined him, and they fought their way along the wall, dealing with ladders and nomads alike. Ahead of him, Quill could see more soldiers doing the same, and together they somehow managed to keep the enemy from gaining a foothold on the wall.
As the last ladder crashed into splinters on the ground below, Quill took the opportunity to catch his breath. Just as he was starting to feel better, however, he saw something that made him feel sick. The Duke had entered the fighting in the courtyard, and was in the thick of it. Quill hurried down the surviving steps, leaping across the gaps that had appeared when the wall had collapsed. He nearly fell backwards into one particularly broad one, only saving himself with a frantic windmilling of his arms. He rushed into the courtyard, slashing his way through any nomad stupid enough to get in his way.
“Sire!” Quill gasped as him came up alongside the Duke. “What are you doing?”
“What does it look like? I am defending my castle!” the Duke exclaimed. Blood ran down his face from a shallow cut just under his eye, but there was much more blood on his sword.
“You shouldn’t be out here,” Quill said. “You should be back in the castle.”
“Why?”
The Duke’s eyes flashed with such anger that Quill nearly took a step back, but instead ducked as the Duke’s sword came whistling towards his head. Quill was about to react defensively when he heard a terrible gurgle from behind him, and turned just in time to see a nomad slump to the ground.
“Were you going to say I am too old, perhaps?” the Duke asked. “Or too slow?”
“I was going to say too important, sire, but I am scared to say anything now,” Quill said with a wry grin.
“I appreciate you concern, but it doesn’t matter whether it is here or hiding in the keep—we are all going to die today,” the Duke said. “All I can do is choose to die well.”
“Fair enough,” Quill said. “I can’t argue with that. But I wanted to tell you something. It took a lot of persuading—and I mean a lot—but I convinced Gamora to take Ansari and Karyn back to the monastery. Karyn wanted to stay and fight—all of them did. Actually, your daughter had to be restrained to get her on the back of the beast.”
“That’s my girl,” the Duke said proudly.
“They’ll be safe enough there—safer than anywhere else I can think of.”
The Duke put a hand on Quill’s shoulder, and squeezed.
“Thank you, Lord Quill. I can die now knowing my child will survive.”
Quill and the Duke stood back to back, desperately fighting off their attackers. The bodies of the enemy piled up at their feet, but for each nomad they cut down, another two took their place. Quill could feel the muscles in his sword arm numbing with fatigue, and sweat stung the nicks and cuts where the enemy had come close to ending him. He could hear the Duke’s labored breathing, and could only shake his head in admiration—the older man was more than holding his own, showing no signs of giving way. But, despite the toll they were taking on the nomads, Quill knew it was only a matter of time before they fell.
A fresh wave of attackers surrounded them, their eyes burning with hatred and a healthy touch of caution as they gazed on the two men. In the brief lull, the Duke turned to Quill. “Well, Quill, this might be it for us,” he gasped. “It’s been an honor.”
Quill forced a smile. “The feeling is mutual, sire, but it isn’t over just yet.”
He hoped that the words didn’t sound as hollow to the Duke as they did in his own ears, but if they did, the Duke was gracious enough to pretend. Together they stood, waiting for the inevitable onslaught. The leader of the nomads raised his sword, but before he could bring it down in the signal to attack, there was an otherworldly shriek and a shadow blotted out the sun. Quill felt his heart lift as three of the winged beasts came swooping down, sending nomads tumbling left and right. As the creatures banked and came back for another run at the nomads, Quill blinked as three shapes detached themselves from the beasts’ backs, tumbling through the air and landing among the massed ranks of the enemy.
In seconds, they were revealed to be warriors, leaping to their feet, and slashing and cutting through the enemy. One was unmistakably Gamora, sunlight flickering off of green skin as she ducked and weaved, blades shining in beautiful but deadly weaves of shining steel. Beside her, Ansari was a smaller version of Gamora, her fighting style showing the marks of her tutelage, and no less deadly for her young age. Quill frowned—who was the third figure? It was not quite as fast as the other two, but the way it wielded its sabre was more than a match for any of the nomads one on one. The fighting style was closer to the Duke’s than Gamora’s, more power than speed, and it was the older man who proved more perceptive than Quill.
“Karyn!” he yelled, fear and anger thickening his
voice. “What are you doing here?”
The figure hesitated, almost falling victim to a nomad’s vicious slash, then straightened and ran her opponent through.
“Father, now is not the time,” Karyn yelled back. “Can’t you see I am busy?”
Quill couldn’t help but laugh, the Duke’s glare doing little to quell his mirth. “You can’t half tell she’s your daughter,” he said.
He stopped laughing a moment later at the Duke’s barbed reply.
“I wouldn’t say too much,” he said. “I heard you two have unfinished business, and she looks much less forgiving than the nomads.”
Quill swallowed, then fought his way to Gamora’s side. “You were meant to be at the monastery keeping her safe,” he said accusingly. He should have suspected something when they hadn’t protested being shipped off. He had been so preoccupied he had missed what was right in front of him.
Gamora chopped down another nomad before replying. “Did you really think that I would miss this battle?” she asked. “Since when do I need to be protected?”
“It’s my home, too.” The voice from beside Quill caused him to stumble, and it was only the speaker’s slash across an attacking nomad’s face that saved him. “Why shouldn’t I be allowed to fight alongside all of the other men and women of the Duchy?”
“Karyn, I—” Quill stopped. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“You’re still not my favorite person right now,” Karyn replied, “but we can discuss that later. Right now, we have an empire to save.”
Together, the warriors fought their way to the breach in the wall. The weight of numbers was starting to tell, but the Duke’s arrival gave the defenders fresh heart, and they pushed the nomads back again and again. In one of the breaks between waves, the Duke tapped Quill on the shoulder.
“Do you see what I see?”
Quill peered through the breach, and swore. There, at the back of the enemy’s lines, he could see dark figures gathering. It seemed that they had lost patience with the nomads’ attempts to storm the castle, and were going to take a direct hand in matters. As they drew closer, the archers targeted them, remembering the damage they had done in the last battle. As arrows rained down upon them, Quill dared to hope for a moment, but that hope died stillborn in his breast as he watched the dark figures riding through the deadly hail. As they grew closer, Quill could see that many of them had arrows sticking out of them, as did their horses, but that didn’t seem to be troubling them at all. As Quill watched, one reached up and pulled an arrow free from where it had buried itself between its eyes.
“What are they?” the Duke whispered.
“I don’t know,” Quill said. “But they aren’t human.”
There was more movement in the distance on the nomads’ right flank, and Quill could only just make out another group of black figures approaching. There were perhaps two thousand of them, and though they were on foot, they were moving faster than a man could run.
“As if we didn’t have enough problems,” he said.
“What do you see?” the Duke asked.
Quill pointed out the movement, and the Duke stared at him, all at once looking like an old man.
“What have we done to deserve this, Quill?” he asked, voice trembling. “Why has everything turned against us?”
Quill had no answer for him, and instead, he watched the newcomers approach. Suddenly he straightened and grabbed the Duke’s arm hard enough to make the older man wince.
“Actually, sire, I think things might have finally turned our way,” Quill said.
At the head of the advancing army, Quill could now make out its leader, a hugely-muscled figure who took every step as if he owned the ground. Behind him followed a horde of his insectoid subjects, their shrill twittering filling the air.
“Sire, rally the men and get ready to charge forth. I have a feeling that our enemies are about to get a very nasty surprise.”
The Duke seemed to shed his years in an instant, and was suddenly bellowing orders. Soldiers formed up behind him, knuckles white on the hilts of weapons already notched and battered with hard use.
“Men, this is your time. One last stand, and then glory!”
The men cheered, their shouts weary but full of conviction.
“I hope you know what you are doing, Lord Quill,” the Duke said softly.
Quill clutched his sword tightly. “Sire, one way or another, we are about to find out.”
Chapter 16
The nomads, unprepared for the ferocity of the onslaught, fell back in disarray as the Duke’s soldiers charged. Quill and the Duke were the point of the spear that was aimed at the heart of the nomads’ ranks. The Duke did not have Quill’s technique, but he was tremendously strong, and he was fighting for his realm. Every time he swung his sword it bit deep into flesh. Because of the bottleneck, the fighting was too cramped for the nomads to bring their repeating bows into play, and one on one they were no match for the Duke’s soldiers. Used to fighting on horseback, the nomads’ swordsmanship was unsuited to the wild melee in which they found themselves. Furthermore, it was the most skilled of the Duke’s men who had survived this long. They cut a red ruin through the invaders’ ranks, and Quill could see that the nomads were shell shocked at the sudden reversal.
Despite the battle being on their side, Quill knew that it couldn’t last. If they managed to break this wave of attackers, it would leave the defenders open to fire from the nomads’ bows or—even worse—would allow the dark riders an open field for their own terrible charge. They were living on borrowed time, and Quill knew it.
“Lord Quill, what is your plan? We can’t defeat them, not like this,” the Duke yelled over the sound of the carnage around them. His sword arm was red to the elbow with blood and gore, and his eyes were wide and rolling with an almost berserker battle rage.
“We don’t have to defeat them, sire,” Quill yelled back. “We just need to distract them for a little longer.”
Completely preoccupied with their siege, the nomads were unaware of the threat on their flank. As the last of the nomads at the walls fell, the dark riders formed up into ranks and prepared to charge. It was then that they finally became aware of the army approaching on their right. They wheeled to face it, but it was too late for them to build any momentum, as their enemy was already among them.
“Now!” Quill yelled, and raised his sword. “Let’s roll the dice!”
Behind him, he heard a mighty roar as the Vylarans charged at the ranks of the nomads that had lined up out of bowshot while waiting for the dark riders to deal with the Duke’s soldiers for them. The nomads were on the left flank of the riders, between them and the woods, and Quill’s plan was to keep them occupied while their new allies dealt with the dark riders. He knew his men were the equal of any flesh and blood foe, but he wouldn’t throw them away against an enemy that had showed it could crush them unless he had no choice. The nomads were the lesser of two evils.
The nomads were caught by surprise, obviously thinking that the Duke and his men had little fight left in them, and the men of the Empire set about showing the nomads just how wrong they were. Despite their momentary confusion, the nomads still had the advantage of numbers, however, and were fresher than the Duke’s men. They refused to break, and slowly began to push back. Just as Quill was starting to worry that it was his men who would be routed, screaming sounded from the back of the nomads’ ranks. Another force had emerged from the trees and was wreaking havoc among the nomads. A vast shout echoed across the battlefield.
“I am Groot!”
Quill could see Groot striding through the nomads’ lines, simply sweeping them up with his vast arms and sending them tumbling away from him. Beside the giant marched files of axemen, methodically hewing down the enemy like so many saplings, their great axes sending sprays of blood and gore fl
ying with every stroke. Quill recognized Barak among them, the huge man working such carnage that nomads began to flee from his approach. There were only a few hundred of the woodcutters, but their sheer viciousness demoralized the nomads and counted for more than mere numbers.
Something grabbed his leg, and Quill nearly stabbed it before he realized it was Rocket.
“Happy to see us, Quill?” Rocket shouted up at him, grinning like the little maniac he was.
“Happy? I could kiss you, but I’m worried about germs,” Quill said. “How did you manage that? Barak wasn’t very happy the last time I saw him.”
Rocket gave a cagey look that made Quill nervous.
“I decided it was better to ask forgiveness than permission,” he said. “If you were all dead, the Duke wouldn’t care what promises I might have made in his name—and if you survived, he’d probably be too grateful to care.”
“Oh no,” Quill groaned. “Why do I get the feeling I might regret this? We’ll discuss this further if we survive. Now, let’s finish this.”
He waved his men forward and they crashed into the nomad lines once more. Trapped between between troops hungry for revenge and the terrible axes of the woodcutters—not to mention the terror-inspiring figure of Groot—the nomads wavered. Finally, in a chain reaction of despair, they broke almost to a man, throwing down their weapons and fleeing for the trees. Those last few nomads too brave—or too stupid—to realize they were defeated fought on, but soon fell. The Duke’s men raised their swords and cheered hoarsely.
“We aren’t finished yet!” The Duke’s bellow cut through the cheers.
In the heat of the battle, Quill had lost track of the secondary battle going on to his left. The dark riders refused to give up any ground, despite being outnumbered almost four to one. They could take incredible punishment, but the insectoids seemed to have come up with a strategy that was taking its toll. As Quill watched, one insectoid impaled a shadow figure with its slashing arms and held the struggling figure aloft while another used its primary arms to literally smash its enemy to pieces. All across the battlefield the insectoids were teaming up on the dark riders, and the ground was littered with their remains.
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