The soldiers formed a line to meet the charge of the constructs, using heavy polearms and similar weapons to try to disable the machines by crippling their limbs while keeping them at bay. They outnumbered the guardian machines by roughly four to one, but their foes’ physical strength was overwhelming, and they could fight while sustaining what would have been grievous injuries to men.
Halberds, morning stars, footmen’s maces, and warhammers struck, bashing and crushing, bending and breaking metal limbs and joints, but even with their tactics and choices of weapons, the automatons could only be slowed. Men, elves, and dwarves alike were thrown aside like chaff, the constructs clubbing and hurling them violently away, snapping polearm shafts and bones alike.
Creel smashed one in the face with a heavy footman’s mace, while Kulnor damaged its knee with a blow of his warhammer. The automaton reeled back a couple of steps but then caught Creel’s next swing on its forearm, deflecting the blow. It punched at Kulnor, who caught the blow on his borrowed shield, but the force knocked him to the ground.
“Metal bastard packs a bloody punch,” the dwarf growled, rolling back to his feet in time to smash it in the hip with his hammer.
The construct limped and shuffled to resume its attack, but then Creel knocked its head clean from its neck with a mighty blow of the heavy mace. The head bounced and rolled, getting kicked around in the frenzied battle between men and machines.
While the battle went on, Taren tentatively drew on some of the raging earth magic, siphoning some away from the hall, its flow so powerful even that small bit filled his mana well in an instant. He focused on a score of nearby automatons, summoning moisture from the humid facility to bathe them in a blast of water, which instantly cooled to ice. Joints and cogs froze, and the rime-covered constructs ground to a halt, their joints making distressed squealing noises as if in need of oil before they became immobile. The warriors cheered and took advantage, attacking the frozen automatons with vigor.
An elf cried out to Taren’s left, overwhelmed as his slender sword was swatted from his hand. The automaton gripped his arm and threw him down. Before it could bash his head in, Mira landed a kick to its chest that sent it reeling away.
“Come on, we must break through!” Taren shouted. He unraveled the spells animating two of the nearest machines before they could attack Mira.
The monk ran ahead of him to clear a path through the chaotic battle. Two more constructs converged from either side. Mira gracefully leaped into the air, seeming to hover a moment as she delivered a split kick to both of them. Taren saw the bright-white aura of her ki bolstering her kicks, and the simultaneous blows sent the pair of automatons flying away.
Taren moved forward into the gap Mira cleared, and once beyond the ranks of his allies, he erected another wedge-shaped wall of force to hold their attackers at bay. Men fought behind him, holding off the tide of foes already engulfing them. He looked back to see Creel and Kulnor falling in behind him, along with about half their fighting force. The sturdy young dwarf whose sole duty was to carry the bomb on his back puffed along behind gamely, his burden a bright blue-white star in Taren’s second sight. As Taren led the way, he broke into a jog. Men and elves followed, but Harbek rallied his dwarven warriors to himself.
“Go on! We’ll form a rearguard and hold ’em off!” Harbek shouted.
A quick glance showed that the fight had been costly for the allies, but their tactics had been sound—they had whittled down the number of mobile constructs to only a dozen or so.
Taren turned his attention forward again. They advanced at a steady jog, moving deeper into the great hall, and as they did, far worse things than automatons surged out of the darkness to attack them. He shouted a warning as the reddish auras of demons poured from shadows and crevices, some even dropping down from the ceiling.
The less horrifying of the attacking demons were chitinous insectile beasts with six legs and powerful serrated mandibles, reddish brown in color and about the size of a pony. They moved much like ants, not particularly nimble, but with their numbers, they didn’t have to be.
The worst of the fiends were the monstrosities with humanoid bodies melded atop spider abdomens. They had four arms and eight legs, and their faces looked like melted wax, rows of red eyes above gashes of mouths filled with spiny teeth.
Taren recognized the creatures by description from his old book, The Battle of Nexus. The demons were krabuk and drolnac respectively, both denizens of the Abyss that Nesnys had evidently summoned as guardians.
He tried to extend his barriers to the edges of the great hall to hold the fiends at bay but was too late, for the enemy was already upon them.
Men screamed as they were swarmed by dozens of krabuk, a wild swarm of the demons bouncing off Taren’s wedge and spilling around the edges. Powerful mandibles snapped and tore, dragging men off their feet. Swords met chitin plating and had little effect. The drolnac were nimbler, carrying various weapons, many of them crude blades and spears that they wielded to deadly effect with their four arms.
Mira shoved Taren aside when a drolnac dropped from the ceiling nearly atop him. She ducked and dodged its weaving blades, chopping one of its elbows and rendering that arm useless. Mira stepped inside its guard and punched it in the lower torso where humanoid and arachnid parts joined. Its coal-black flesh seemed to ripple at the blow. The drolnac convulsed a moment, dropping another of its blades before it skittered away, in search of easier prey.
It failed to find it, for Creel was there to bury his sword in its bulbous abdomen. Ichor jetted from the wound, then his second strike pierced its back, and Final Strike burst from its chest, felling the beast.
Mira’s shoulder bled where she’d been slashed, but she waved away Taren’s worried inquiry.
Kulnor called out for Reiktir’s protection, and silver light bloomed from his medallion. The demons shied away from the radiance projecting around him, an isle of holy light amid the unholy darkness.
“Taren, you must protect yourself foremost,” Mira urged, gripping his arm and snapping him back to his senses. “Don’t worry about the rest of us—we are unimportant.”
He disagreed that his friends were unimportant, but he saw the wisdom of her statement. If he died, they all would. He couldn’t see any way they could defeat all their foes and survive long enough to destroy the Tellurian Engine without the aid of his magic.
Taren dropped the wedge-shaped barrier, as it was ineffective since they were already surrounded, instead casting his protective globe, which would keep him safe from attackers from all directions, including above.
No sooner had he erected the shield than a crossbow bolt struck right in front of his face. The shaft splintered and deflected harmlessly away. He squinted into the distant gloom and saw a single Nebaran soldier skulking in the shadows and reloading his crossbow.
“I recognize that whoreson.” Creel hacked two legs off a krabuk, then, when it pitched onto the floor, felled it with a thrust through the back of its head. He pointed Final Strike at the Nebaran in challenge and took off after the crossbowman.
Battle raged around them with little order to the chaotic struggle. Krabuk forced warriors back by virtue of their toughness and sheer numbers. An elven archer loosed three arrows into a drolnac’s torso in quick succession, but the horror kept coming, brutally cleaving the unfortunate elf in twain with its blades. Taren loosed a stream of fire that ignited the demon. It screeched as it went down, shriveling as greasy smoke boiled off it. Once slain, it looked much like an ordinary, albeit giant-sized, dead spider with its legs curled up beneath itself.
Taren was unable to determine the numbers of foes, only that waves of them kept coming relentlessly. The Tellurian Engine’s vast magical field distorted his second sight, so he could only discern foes when they drew near. The concentration needed to keep up both his protective globe, along with any offensive spells he used, was both difficult and tiring. Sweat ran down his face at the sustained effort.
> We must keep advancing, or we’ll be overwhelmed. He shouted for his allies to keep pushing forward.
And all the while, the Tellurian Engine kept on draining earth magic at an alarming rate.
***
Blades scored the back of Creel’s leather cuirass as he ducked a drolnac’s attack, but fortunately the strikes didn’t penetrate the tough leather. He speared it in the bulbous abdomen, a tempting target, and it hissed and skittered back while spewing ichor. Creel lopped off a leg then rammed Final Strike through its ribs. Without waiting to see if it was dead, he raced on. More krabuk rushed him, but the insectile fiends were relatively clumsy. The two nearest him got their legs tangled and collided. He leaped past them then was in the clear.
The Nebaran, the same hatchet-faced whoreson who had stolen the control rod in Shirak and tried to cut Ferret’s throat, fired another quarrel. His bolt struck an unsuspecting Ketanian warrior in the back and knocked the man to the ground, where he was torn apart by krabuk. When he spotted Creel, he gave up on reloading and threw the heavy crossbow at him then drew steel.
Creel ducked the thrown crossbow and was on the Nebaran in an instant. His lunge was met with a neat parry, blades ringing as they crossed. They exchanged a rapid flurry of strikes, each parried or evaded by the other, then broke apart, sizing each other up.
“You prefer shooting people in the back and cutting young lasses’ throats, is that it?” Creel growled.
“I learned long ago not to resist my nature,” the man replied with a feral grin. “Colonel Cornix, the evilest bastard in the Nebaran empire—I’m sure you’ve heard of me.”
Creel spat. “Aye, I’ve heard of your exploits, Butcher of Almanes. Cowardly and dishonorable, the lot of them.”
Cornix shrugged, unfazed. “A matter of perspective. To some, perhaps. Yet to others, I’m the most loyal soldier to the empire. I never flinch when it comes to the hard choices or dirty work needed to see the mission through.”
“I’ve met your type before. Trying to rationalize being a degenerate monster. Enough talk.”
They came together in another flurry of exchanges, swords ringing and sparking. Cornix was a very skilled swordsman, Creel had to admit. He feinted a low slash then brought his sword high, but Cornix was already sidestepping, stabbing at Creel’s exposed ribs. He felt the pressure on his cuirass but dodged at the last moment before the tip could penetrate his armor. After several rapid exchanges, he opened a gash on the bicep of Cornix’s sword arm, but his opponent nearly took Creel’s eye in return with a quick riposte that sliced across his cheekbone. Cornix surged forward suddenly as he spotted an opening. Creel managed to bring Final Strike up at the last moment to parry an overhand stroke that could’ve split his skull. Their weapons shot sparks as the blades slid together. Crossguards locked, and the heavier Nebaran sought to force Creel back, growling like a rabid dog.
He didn’t give any ground, instead shoving the locked swords to one side and lunging into his opponent. His forehead connected with Cornix’s nose with a satisfying crack.
Cornix snorted and spat blood but wasn’t stunned. Instead, when they disengaged, Creel felt a stinging on the inside of his right calf, just below his knee. Blood ran from a gash that hadn’t been there before, just behind his leather greave.
Where did that come from?
Then he noted the three-inch blade, wet with blood, jutting from the toe of Cornix’s left boot.
Boot blade. Wasn’t expecting that one. As he circled his opponent warily, the wound burned unnaturally. Bastard used poison. Definitely should have expected that from such a dishonorable whoreson.
Cornix’s dark eyes regarded him intently as he kept his distance, likely waiting for Creel to weaken. His leg throbbed as poison coursed through him. It wouldn’t kill him, might not even incapacitate him, but Cornix wouldn’t know that.
You aren’t the only one who can play at deception. Creel’s leg buckled, and he let his guard drop, falling to one knee.
Cornix was waiting for just that moment. He instantly lunged, a precise strike aimed for the heart.
Creel threw himself sideways, narrowly avoiding being skewered, and Final Strike stabbed Cornix in the groin. The Nebaran’s eyes widened as a foot of steel obliterated his chances of fathering any more bastards, and a moment passed before the pain registered. When it did, he shrieked, his voice rising as high in pitch as any of Cornix’s child victims. He twisted the blade for good measure before withdrawing it. Cornix staggered away, clutching his ruined stones and leaking blood heavily.
Creel let him go, regaining his feet with some difficulty, as his leg was swelling rapidly and felt afire. He glanced around quickly to make sure he wasn’t about to come under further attack.
Cornix made it about twenty paces before the smell of hot blood must have proven too tempting for a stray krabuk to resist. The demon bore Cornix down and bit off his leg at the thigh. Cornix’s screams rang through the hall as the krabuk gorged on the colonel’s flesh.
“Good riddance.” Creel leaned up against the wall to catch his breath, knowing he had to help his friends reach the Tellurian Engine but also aware he would be a liability if he could barely move. Instead, he picked up Cornix’s fallen crossbow, cranked the weapon so it was ready to fire, then loaded a quarrel he found lying on the floor.
Taren and Mira had advanced about fifty paces farther down the hall, where the heaviest fighting was concentrated, although sporadic skirmishes stretched all the way back to where Harbek’s dwarves still fought a rearguard action, another forty or so paces beyond Creel. Screams and shouts and the clash of steel resounded, occasionally set off by a flare of magic. Kulnor’s aura of protection was a silver isle of light that the fiends shied away from. The relentless stream of attackers had trickled off dramatically, perhaps a couple score remaining to harry Creel’s allies, who had been whittled down to probably about thirty in total.
He spotted a drolnac clambering upside down across the ceiling, maneuvering to ambush the others. Taking careful aim, he triggered the crossbow and punched a bolt through the drolnac’s head. The demon instantly dropped and smacked wetly upon the floor to lie unmoving.
Creel took a few steps to test his injured leg, wincing at the pain, but it supported his weight well enough. I’d best catch up with the others.
***
Kulnor lost track of his friends in the chaos of battle, intent as he was on maintaining Reiktir’s protection, driving the vermin back into the darkness whence they attacked. Just before him, one of the insectile demons was eating a screaming man alive, its face buried in the man’s rent belly and scooping out ropes of entrails in its mandibles. Anger and disgust swelled, and Kulnor turned the full force of the silvery radiance upon the creature. It gave an inhuman shriek, its chitin smoking and blackening in the light, but it remained transfixed for the moment. He wound up and smashed its skull with a mighty hammer blow, noting the satisfying crunch it made before the beast struck the ground.
The dying man at his feet was beyond saving. His guts lay strewn about him, and a tremendous amount of blood stained the ground.
“Reiktir, ease this man’s suffering, and guide him to the afterlife,” Kulnor said.
The man’s eyes focused on Kulnor’s glowing holy symbol, and his pain and terror seemed to fade. His countenance grew peaceful before the life went out of his eyes.
Something struck Kulnor from behind, and the next thing he knew, he was on the ground, his head ringing. He belatedly realized his mistake in letting his aura of light narrow to focus on that one demon and ended up being blindsided.
“Whoreson.” Anger fueled his limbs, and he picked himself back up, intending to smite his attacker with Reiktir’s might.
Pain flared in his right arm as something seized him. He was shaken as roughly as a rat snapped up by a dog. One of the insect demons was clamped onto Kulnor’s arm just below the elbow, its wicked mandibles bending his vambrace. He could only watch in horror as the fine dwarven stee
l crumpled, and the agony intensified as his flesh was rent next. Kulnor bellowed in pain but couldn’t free himself, his hammer useless in his hand, immobilized by the beast’s jaws.
Kulnor had lost the shield he’d had earlier during the battle, so he punched at the thing, gauntlet smashing against chitin, but its head was like granite, and it refused to release him. He pried his hammer from his own unresponsive hand and, with his left hand, smashed the creature repeatedly until its skull cracked open and it died. Even with its death, its mandibles remained clamped around his arm like a vice.
“Bloody dung of a rock worm.” After several desperate blows, agonizing to his trapped arm, Kulnor finally snapped off one of its mandibles and pried his arm free. The gout of blood that spewed out made his stomach queasy, as did the sight of his limb hanging by little more than sinew and some links of mail.
The strength went out of his legs then, and he sat down hard. Got to try to heal meself.
An anguished cry drew his attention nearby. The lad chosen to carry the bomb, Harbek’s nephew Belmyr, went down a few paces away as one of the monstrous spider demons stabbed viciously into him. Belmyr shrieked, his flesh torn and bloodied from a dozen deep wounds. The monster lifted him by the twin spears impaling his chest and lowered its head to feed on the poor lad.
Kulnor had his brother Kalder’s axe in hand without thinking and loosed it with his off hand. The axe struck true, cleaving into the beast’s mouth and knocking out teeth. It hissed angrily, ichor pouring from its ruined mouth around the axe, then tossed Belmyr aside before turning its baleful gaze toward Kulnor.
So be it then. If anyone lives to tell the tale, I hope the scrivener will note my presence in this wretched place in the Book of Deeds.
“Come on, ye ugly whoreson.” Kulnor picked up his hammer in his left hand and stood.
Trial of the Thaumaturge (Scions of Nexus Book 3) Page 45