by Jon Bender
With that, he turned and started back the way he had come. He would take his place at the wall where he would be of most use. When he was two blocks away, a loud whoosh was accompanied by a bright light that cast his shadow out before him as the barricade went up in flames. It was only a short time later that he heard the sound of battle being joined. He wanted badly to turn and go back, but his presence in that fight would not change the outcome. They would do their part as he had to.
It took another twenty minutes for him to reach the wide space between the city and the wall, and what he found there raised his hopes. Hundreds of his and other faction leader’s people were in three square formations, all facing the city as they waited for the coming storm of steel and death. Beyond them, the giant iron and wood gate had been completely destroyed, the iron portcullis that would be lowered when the city was under attack sealed in the up position by stone. The handy work of an earth mage he was sure. The wall surrounding the gate was heavily damaged, but still not enough to make it impossible to repair before the alliance arrived. The breach they created would have to be hundreds of feet wide to be an effective entrance point for an army. Even as he slowed to a walk, passing the empty stands where farmers, hunters, and traders would set up during the day, he witnessed a huge chunk of the wall tearing itself away and falling in a deafening roar. Dust instantly filled the air blocking his view. When it had settled enough, there was now a hole over twelve feet across exposing a torch-lit passage inside. Harlow was just able to make out an iron banded door when a fireball arced into the space to explode in a blinding display. The blast kicked out more stone debris and dust, but still they had not penetrated through to the other side.
“I have checked on the three other sections of the wall, and they are further along. The wall around the gate itself is more strongly built,” Tillen said in explanation, the thief seeming to appear out the haze, his face hidden by a mask and voice low.
“The city soldiers are already across the bridge. Your mages are going to have to hurry or it will all be for nothing,” he replied, keeping his eyes on the wall as another chunk of stone tore free.
“They have been pacing themselves, but are tiring. I don’t know how much faster they can go,” the thief replied, concern edging his tone.
Harlow nodded. Even a mage’s power was not unlimited. “Still, talk to them and let them know the situation.”
The faction leader moved away to where four mages stood. From the look of them, Harlow guessed they welcomed the reprieve from casting. He left Tillen to it and turned back to the men and women standing ready. He would guess their number at near two-thousand if they were evenly distributed at the other breach sections of the wall. It was more than he had thought, but still it would not be enough. He moved to the head of the formation to find Calba’din out in front talking to several people. The driver was covered in leather armor with a massive, steel-spiked maul hanging from his back. Keller would have thought the weapon ludicrously large to be of use, but the driver moved with ease regardless of its size. Looking at the large man, he felt a moment of gratitude that he was on their side.
Calba’din nodded to those he was speaking with and they moved off to their units as Harlow came up beside him. “The barricades have been lit. Won’t be long until they are breached,” the driver said with complete calm. Even now the man seemed reserved.
“Yes. I left one with Tillen’s people. They had just engaged the city’s soldiers before I came here.”
A loud boom shook Harlow’s bones, and both men looked over their shoulders. They watched as a fifty-foot section of the wall slowly tore away and fell outside of the city. Once the sound of crashing stone had died away, it was replaced by a cheer from the four-hundred fighters behind them. The celebration was short lived as men and women started trickling out from the city. Many were helping to support their wounded comrades, and most were bloodied.
Calba’din only looked at him and nodded before moving directly in front of one of the units. He unleashed the massive maul from his back and hefted it easily in one hand. Waving it forward, he led the hundred men toward the city in silence. Behind, there was a short pause as the mages watched the group move forward to buy them more time. Harlow took a place in front of the farthest right unit. Unsheathing his sword, he looked at the blade wondering how much use it would be when he faced shades, priests, mages, and possibly the shadow mage himself. Raising the sword above his head, he pointed it toward the one of the larger avenues and stepped forward. There was no sound of unified steps from the fighters behind, but that didn’t bother him. They may not have been trained for discipline or maneuvering in open battle as the soldiers they would soon meet, but each had been months or years training for this moment, spending hours in the undercity or hidden rooms thrusting spears or slashing with swords. They also had something that the forced worshipers of Or’Keer did not have, the knowledge that their cause was right and worth dying for. He looked to the other groups of common people carrying weapons and wearing expressions of determination, the sight filling him with pride.
He was the first to move between the buildings and the first to see the solid line of soldiers wearing black tabards heading straight for them. The column following behind was still coming around the bend and was already fifteen rows deep. In the end, their numbers would prove overwhelming, but for the moment, only the first twenty would be able to come at them. He did not second guess taking a place at the front. The people he led needed to know that he was not simply ordering them to their deaths as the shadow priests would. They needed to see him taking the same risks they were, showing that he believed in the cause by putting his own life on the line. Still, he was not so foolish to meet Or’Keer’s forces alone at the front. Slowing his pace, Harlow drifted back until he was a part of the front line that would meet them.
Both sides kept their steady approach to the other. It was not until Harlow and those with him were two-hundred feet away that they increased the speed to a jog. A shout followed by the long wail of a battle horn spurred the soldiers to do the same.
Soon Harlow was at a full run without realizing it, the battle horn spurring the soldiers to match them again. The last fifty feet were a blur as he sprinted the distance. His sword had come up to his shoulder in a two-handed grip and he was no longer aware of the others, his concentration locked onto a soldier directly in front of him. Harlow knew either the heavily armored man would be his first kill of the night, or Harlow would be his. He stared into the man’s face, twisted up in a primal roar, a yell that he echoed unknowingly. The soldier’s sword thrust forward, aimed for Harlow’s gut. Twisting his body allowed the blade past, tearing only his shirt and not flesh. Narrowly avoiding being skewered, his own sword had time to complete its path down. The man tried to step back, but the press of bodies behind would not allow it. Harlow felt the resistance of chain mail part before the heavy strike and found something softer beneath. The soldier’s yell turned to a scream of pain as his shoulder and chest were torn open. The man tried futilely to bring his weapon back up to defend himself, but Harlow had already prepared his next hacking strike to the space where shoulder met neck. A spray of blood erupted from the gaping wound, droplets finding their way into Harlow’s mouth, leaving a salty, iron taste behind. He had no time to worry about it as the fighter next to him went down gripping his thigh. The man who should have taken his place hesitated in fear; instead staring at the wounded comrade on the ground and leaving Harlow’s flank open to attack.
The soldier who had mortally wounded the fighter did not let the opportunity pass. He slashed backhanded at Harlow, who was in that crucial moment pressed blade to blade with the black tabard in front of him. All he could do was lean as far as he could to the left without losing ground to his own opponent. That small move and the weakened off-balance slash were all that saved him from the loss of an arm, and instead left him with only a gash below the shoulder.
Harlow tried to shove his opponent back, but
the man held his ground keeping their blades entangled. Harlow prepared himself for the next blow that would surely kill him, when a woman with dark hair slipped past the fighter who was still frozen in fear to fill the space. She wielded a short sword in her dominant hand that deflected the strike, as the long dagger in her off-hand leapt forward to plunge into the soldier’s chest.
Realizing that his companion was no longer there, the soldier Harlow faced pressed forward trying to shove him off balance. It was working, the man’s strength outmatching his own. In a desperate move, Harlow lifted one foot off the ground to kick at the soldiers advancing leg. He missed, connecting with the man’s ankle instead. Harlow felt more than heard a pop and the soldier stumbled to the side. In the half second before he could regain his footing, Harlow pushed the soldier’s blade out wide and slashed back, the sharpened steel drawing a line of red across the man’s neck.
The bodies on the ground were already making movement difficult. “Step back!” he yelled over the sounds of screaming and the clang of steel on steel.
He felt the press of people behind give him room as he blocked a strike for his leg and retreated a few steps. His most recent attacker thought he had taken the advantage in their fight, tried to rush forward and tripped on the man whose throat Harlow had slashed. The misstep caused him to fall forward onto Harlow’s waiting sword.
Taking a step back to gain breathing room and untangle his blade, Harlow watched as the woman who had saved him struggled to obey his command. She was back-pedaling to rejoin the line while fending off another foe. Her shorter weapons, which had been an advantage in the close quarters, were now a liability in the momentary open space. The longer, heavier blade of the soldier she faced was knocking her about like a child as she struggled to defend herself with the short-sword. Seeing that she would not last much longer, he pulled desperately at the hilt of his weapon to free it, the soldier he had impaled still alive and struggling to hold it in place. The shock of what had happened to him, locked his muscles tight as he stared up at Harlow with a confused look. Not waiting for the man to die, Harlow punched him in the face several times and then jerked with all his strength to finally free the sword. By the time he turned to help the woman, it was over, the soldier she had faced stepping on her chest to move forward.
“Step back!” he yelled again, looking away from her motionless form.
He did not how long they had been fighting. It felt like hours, but still they held back the tide, continuing to slowly retreat even as they did so. He had moved back from the front line to catch his breath and rip the sleeve from his shirt to improvise a bandage for his arm. Even then he aided between the presses where he could, calling out commands to keep the fighters organized and from being overwhelmed. The front line was passing a side street, and he struggled to keep the soldiers from using the space to circle around them, ordering men and women to the flanks to protect the center. It was there that their losses increased, leaving him to estimate their dead at over forty.
His heart dropped into his stomach when he got his first clear look down the moonlit side street. Another column of black tabards was advancing at a trot towards them. He knew they could not hold if the force struck them before they had retreated between the buildings and so began shouting and forcefully pushing his fighters back to get them clear of the crossroads. It felt like he was finally able to breathe once the last of them was safely pressed between the buildings again.
With the city soldiers getting fresh reinforcements, he began planning on how he was going to break his fighters away and was just about to order those at the rear to fall back to the edge of the city, when hundreds of voices yelled as one. The column of soldiers that had been coming from the other street slammed into the side of those they had been fighting. The surprise was absolute as the front rows before Harlow crumbled. The newly arrived soldiers wore white strips of cloth on the upper part of each arm, and they proceeded to hack and slash through the loyal Or’Keer soldiers.
The front line that was cut off from the column was quickly overwhelmed by Harlow’s fighters. They had been just as surprised at first, but did not need his order to take the reprieve and attack. Within minutes, Or’Keer’s soldiers were giving up the ground they had just taken and, shortly after that, battle horns sounded over the carnage and the loyalists were breaking away from the fight. When it was over, Harlow found himself surrounded by both his fighters and soldiers wearing the white armbands.
Someone grabbed his shoulder and spun him roughly around. “What are you waiting for?” Captain Lajos demanded. “We have them on the run. Get your people into formation.”
He started moving forward and Harlow grabbed the chainmail at his arm to stop him. “No. Our goal is not to take the city. Even with your help in winning this fight, we are no match. We have beaten them here, but the others may not be faring so well.”
Lajos’s face took on a defiant look, the heavy sword he held still dripping with blood and making him even more imposing. Harlow was worried that the man would not follow his order, but the battle lust in his eyes finally subsided. “Very well, what would you have us do then?”
Harlow breathed a small sigh of relief. Their goal was more important than killing the worshipers of Or’Keer. “As we discussed. Keep your men moving and aid where you can. I will take my people back to the wall and ensure the mages are left to their work.”
Lajos grunted in annoyance, but nodded his assent. “Just tell those robe-wearing weaklings to hurry. We don’t have all night to be at this.”
Harlow almost laughed. Even in these most dire of circumstances, the captain still maintained his rough soldier exterior. It was heartening to witness. Only the bloody scene around them kept him from the humor, but he still managed a grin. “Just don’t get too far from the wall. When the time comes, I want us all to get out of here.”
Lajos grunted again, this time laced with doubt. “I don’t know why you keep thinking any of us are getting out of this alive. It’s best to just assume you are already dead, makes this work easier.”
Before Harlow could respond, the captain turned and began shouting loudly to get his men back into formation. Following his lead, he called to his own fighters to gather the wounded and head back. Many of them would not survive the escape south, but he couldn’t just leave them to the nonexistent mercies of the shadow priests. Moving at a slow pace, it took longer to return to the wall, and he was relieved to find that none of Or’Keer’s forces had made it there yet. The wall itself was also a beautiful sight to behold. The original fifty-foot hole had been expanded to four times that, and to either side of the gap huge parts of it had been damaged. The mages themselves were gone, and so were most of fighters, only a small group huddled near the city’s edge. From the group, Tillen stepped away to meet the battered group of men and women Harlow led.
“What’s going on?” Harlow demanded handing off an injured man he had been helping to walk. “Where are the mages?”
“I sent them out of the city with a large escort to make sure they escaped Fenaris safely. They have done all they can here, and I saw no point in risking them further.”
Harlow had to keep himself from shouting at the man. How many people had died keeping the soldiers away from this area when there was no one who needed defending? He looked at the wall again and allowed reason to be restored. The damage was complete, and Tillen had been right. The mages would be needed to fight later. Each was more valuable than fifty of his fighters.
“What about the other sections? Have they been successful as well?” he asked.
Tillen who had met his stare so far looked away for a brief moment. “My runners have reported that two have come under attack and it doesn’t look good. The wall has been severely damaged, but not to the point we had hoped. They are now fighting to hold back the city’s defenders.”
“What about the fourth?” Harlow said. After the victory they had just won, he had allowed himself some hope that everything would go a
s they had planned. Those hopes had been dashed. If Or’Keer’s forces had already made it to the wall, it would soon be time to quit the city. With them so close however, he did not know how many of the rebels would escape.
“My people are using the undercity and it takes time to travel across. Those I sent aren’t yet back.”
“Or they won’t be coming back at all,” Harlow said, his tone harder than he had intended.
“Yes, there is that possibility as well,” Tillen said. The mask he wore hid the expressions of his face, but his eyes displayed his emotions clearly. He was feeling the loss of his people.
Harlow wanted to sympathize with him for that loss, but could not find it within himself. So many of his own were dead in the street behind them. “Have your men get the wounded to the meeting place outside the city. We need to reach the other forces so that we can begin withdrawing. Have your runners start spreading the word.”
“What are you going to do?”
“The same, our people are still spread out. I will find as many as I can and tell them to get to safety.”
The faction leader turned without question and began calling to his men. As Harlow assisted in getting the wounded moving through the destroyed wall, he was already planning his next move. He didn’t know where Calba’din was, and he had just given commands to Lajos who would be moving away from them. Looking at his people for those who were still capable of fighting, they now numbered less than a hundred. An all-out fight was not an option. The best he could do was try to make his way to the other parts of the city’s walls and assist in getting their people away.
The shadow mage’s response had been quicker than he had anticipated and it had cost them. With the overwhelming power that was now bearing down on them, it was time to leave, except he still had his own task to complete, something that was far more dangerous. With the time upon him, he felt himself falter at the prospect. Was he just offering himself up to be killed? Was there any real chance of success? Realizing how close he was to just walking away, he furrowed his brow and pushed the doubts down, instead, filling his mind with images of Fulvia tied to a table and begging him to help her. A woman who he held deep affection for, but because of Or’Keer had never been given the opportunity to explore those feelings. He would not allow the Dark God to take away that as well. With those thoughts, he led his few remaining fighters along the wall and back into the city. There was still work to be done before he could go to her.