by Logan Jacobs
“Fire!” I shouted, and all at once, a volley of black-feathered arrows rained down from the city walls.
Chapter 8
The human guards all unleashed their arrows on the front row of elven soldiers. As the day elves plunged to their knees with arrows buried into their shoulders or stomachs, their attention turned toward the city walls and away from the scout in the distance.
At the same time, the Elite archers were able to draw their bows back even more and fire their arrows farther, so that some of the elves on horseback at the back of the formation started to fall. But even though it was a pretty good distraction, none of the archers were able to hit the cavalry that were headed toward the human scout himself.
Not until Ava took out her weapon, anyway.
In one fluid movement, my beautiful assassin pulled out her massive bow, nocked an arrow, and fired it far into the distance. It struck one of the elven riders and knocked him cleanly out of his saddle, but Ava had already fired another arrow by the time he hit the ground.
When it knocked the next elven asshole off his horse, the rest of the horseback riders wheeled away to try to regroup before they were hit again. Ava let her bow drop and sagged against me, so I slipped one arm around her to help hold her upright.
“I’m fine,” the blonde assassin said and shook it off a second later. “That just took a lot of muscle.”
“I know it did,” I said as the other archers continued to fire on the army below, “but look! It’s already working.”
By the time the elven riders were able to regroup and come after the scout again, he had reached the back of the rest of the army. He was too far away for me to see his expression, but I imagined that he was scared fucking shitless at the sight of an elven army between him and the Gold City.
But even as the elven soldiers all moved to block his path, our Elite archers unleashed such a relentless hail of arrows down that the elves were forced to take cover under their shields if they didn’t want an arrow to the face. Of course, the elves also recovered from their initial surprise quickly enough to deploy their own archers, so every time one of my soldiers released an arrow, he had to duck back down behind the wall for cover until he could notch another one.
Now that the scout was close enough to hit, only the Elite archers continued to fire since they had much more experience, while the regular guards all concentrated their attention on the city gates themselves, so that when we opened the doors to let the scout inside, no elves would follow after him.
The arrows continued to rain down on the elves, the elven foot soldiers continued to take cover underneath their shields, the elven archers kept firing toward our soldiers on the wall, and the horseback riders all streamed after the scout to try to chase him down before he even reached the gates. The scout veered his horse back and forth to dodge their attacks, and when he got closer, I saw that he half-stood up in his stirrups, so his whole body leaned forward as he urged his horse to go faster and faster.
If he made it, he would be at the gates in less than a minute, but I wanted to wait until the last second to open them. The elves were far enough back from the gate at the moment, but it would only take them a few seconds to pour inside once they saw their chance.
“Hold!” I shouted to Leif.
The big gladiator saluted and held his arm out to the side as a signal to the gatekeeper below. His fingers twitched as he watched the scout approach, and the fingers of his other fist clenched when the scout began to yell for us to open the gates.
“Hold!” I shouted again. “Just… another… now!”
Instantly, Leif flung his arm down, and the gatekeeper started to open the massive gates below. He wouldn’t have to open them very wide for the scout to get inside, so he just had to be quick enough to close the doors before the elves came in after him.
And I intended to be there to make sure that happened.
It would take too much power to freeze the whole army, so instead, I held my hands up until the elven cavalry and soldiers right beside the gate all froze in place. As soon as they grew still, the gatekeeper continued to pull open the doors, and I moved toward the stairs to take me down from the wall.
“Penny, Ava, you’re with me!” I called, and my two women immediately ran after me.
By the time the three of us reached the secondary barricade behind the main gates, the human scout was just outside. Just as I felt my magic fade on the elves outside the gates, the scout raced his horse through the doors, and the gatekeeper started to push the gates shut again. Half a dozen men poured forward to help him, but it still looked like some of the elves might be able to make it inside first.
But then Leif sprang into action.
He roared and shouted to the soldiers on top of the walls, and just before the elves streamed into the city, the human guards dumped a huge vat of boiling water down on the elves at the gate. As it burned the flesh right off of their faces, the elves screamed in agony, and it gave the men below just enough time to slam the gates shut and lock them back into place again.
“Holy shit,” Penny murmured. “That was intense.”
“Take cover and cease fire!” I called up to the men on the walls.
Leif and Sten repeated my order to all the troops, so in just a few seconds, all the human guards had ducked down to protect themselves from elven arrows. Once they realized that no one was attacking them anymore, the elves called a cease-fire a minute later, and Leif called down to tell us that they had retreated back from the gate again.
“I’m surprised they didn’t just keep going,” Ava said, “since we started the fight and everything.”
“I think they are gonna wait until tonight,” I said. “They clearly only attacked because we did and because they wanted to stop the scout, but that gives us just a little bit more time to prepare.”
“And time to find out what the scout knows,” Penny added.
I looked around for the human scout, only to find that he hadn’t been able to slow his horse down in time, so he had managed to jump the first barrier and now slowly began to bring his horse back down to a walk. When his horse finally slowed down, he slid off his back, handed the reins to one of the soldiers, and then staggered over toward me.
“My king,” the scout said as he dropped to his knees in exhaustion.
“Get him some water!” I called and then hurried over to him.
Penny ran into the closest house and grabbed a chair, but even after we helped pull him up and sat him down, his legs just kept shaking as he tried to catch his breath.
“You did great, kid,” I said as I suddenly realized just how young the scout was.
He couldn’t have been more than sixteen or seventeen, although at the moment, he looked like the last few minutes might have shaved off several years from his life. His whole body trembled as his chest rose and fell like his lungs were about to pop, but as soon as he swallowed just a mouthful of water, the scout wiped his lips and looked up at me.
“It’s the orcs,” he panted. “They’re coming down… from the mountains!”
“How many?” I demanded. “When did you see them?”
“I don’t know,” the kid gasped. “A lot… like, uh… like probably about half as many elves as I saw out there?”
“Can you tell us about when you saw them?” Ava asked. “And how far into the mountains were you when you spotted them?”
“I saw them just now, so like… twenty minutes ago?” the scout replied. “Maybe thirty? I had ridden in pretty deep because I saw smoke from a long way off, and I wanted to make sure it wasn’t more elves or anything.”
“Drink some more water,” Penny said when the kid paused.
“Oh, right,” the scout said and then gulped down another few mouthfuls. “So when I finally saw them, they were all armed with torches and tree limbs and shit, and it looked like they… I don’t know, it looked like they were on the move for a… a… war, I guess.”
“And I think I know why,” Sten
said as he joined our conference. “When the elves showed up last night, they blew their battle horns for war, and if the orcs were that close, they might have assumed that Tevian was coming back to try to finish them all off.”
“So they decided to go on the offensive,” Ava said. “Yeah, that makes sense.”
“But if you only saw them twenty or thirty minutes ago,” I said, “then they should show up here in just a few minutes, right?”
“Yeah, they can’t move as fast as a horse,” the kid said, “but they were still moving pretty fucking fast.”
“Okay, so I just have one more question,” Penny said. “Where the hell did you learn to ride a horse like that, anyway?”
“Dad was a trader,” the kid said with a shrug. “We used to break in the horses before we sold them to the elves.”
“You did great,” I told the scout again. “And you might have just saved all our lives.”
“It was my honor, my king,” the scout replied.
I nodded for some of the guards to take him somewhere that he could rest better than in the middle of the street. Then since the elves had all stopped shooting up at the walls, I waved at Leif so he would hurry down and join the rest of us. We all needed the most updated information to direct the troops on what to do next, so I wanted him to be part of our conference.
When Leif joined us, I stood in a huddled circle with him, Sten, Ava, and Penny. We would direct the rest of our troops and commanders shortly, but first, I wanted to figure out a plan to deal with the elves and orcs… and I was pretty sure I had just the right idea.
“Shit, this is bad,” Penny said. “Now we have to face a small elven army and wild orcs?”
“Not necessarily,” I said with a grin. “I actually think this might give us the perfect chance to eliminate the elves and not even really have to risk our own necks.”
“What do you mean?” the pixie thief demanded.
“We just might be able to get the elves and the orcs to destroy each other,” I said. “If we play our cards right, anyway.”
“Well, we’re certainly in the right town for that,” Leif said. “After all, the Gold City is all about luck.”
“How would we get them to attack each other, but not us?” Ava asked. “I know the wild orcs are different, since they don’t serve the elves like the tame orcs do--”
“Yeah, and instead, they attack them,” Penny said, “and, you know, tear them limb from limb and stuff.”
“And chew on their bones,” Leif snickered. “There’s a reason they called Tevian in to try to take care of their wild orc problem.”
“I never thought I’d say this,” Penny sighed, “but I’m actually incredibly grateful to Tevian right about now.”
“Really?” I smirked.
“Well, if we’re able to use the wild orcs to destroy the elven soldiers,” Penny explained, “then that will only be because Skeevy-an Tevian didn’t manage to kill them all, like he was hired to do.”
“Fair enough,” I said with a smile. “His loss may just be our gain.”
“Right, but how do we get the orcs to attack the elves instead of us?” Ava asked.
“Well, the elves do stand between us and the mountains,” Leif replied.
“That’s true,” Ava said, “but are we sure that they’ll actually attack? What if the orcs see the elves and then decide to just tuck tail and run?”
“That’s where we’ll come in,” I said. “We’ll just have to piss them off enough that they go on a rampage.”
“Then we better get the fire arrows ready and hope the orcs get close enough that we can hit them,” the blonde assassin said. “Sten, have you checked on the catapults yet?”
“Catapults?” I repeated.
“Yeah, I thought that would be a nice little surprise for you,” Sten said with a grin. “We only have two, and they’re pretty rough, since the guards haven’t had much time to build them up all proper, but they might just be able to fire far enough to hit the orcs.”
“Fucking perfect,” I said. “Where are they?”
“I’ll have the troops wheel them out now,” Sten replied and then disappeared to get the backup firepower.
“Good, then all we have to do is concentrate enough firepower on the orcs to piss them off,” I said, “and then they should unleash all hell on the elves.”
“So the elves will have no choice but to forget about us until they deal with the orcs first,” Penny said.
“Plus, we can continue to attack them from the back,” Ava said. “We’ll have to be careful not to waste any arrows, but we should be able to help the orcs, at least a little bit.”
“And if the orcs win?” Leif asked.
“They won’t,” I said. “I don’t think so, anyway. The elves have superior numbers, weapons, and discipline, so even though it sounds like the wild orcs have massed into one big unit, I think the elves will still be able to destroy them.”
“But not before the orcs take a hell of a lot of elves with them,” Penny said.
“Exactly,” I agreed, “and then we should be able to take out the rest of the elves ourselves. Unless they surrender first, of course.”
“Where the hell would we keep them all?” Leif asked.
“Oh, we can always find places,” I said. “Besides, that would be one hell of a good problem to have, my friend.”
Just as we prepared to go tell the troops what the new plan was, Sten returned to the main street, and he was followed by two huge wagons that had been converted into catapults. As soon as I saw them, I couldn’t help but grin because I genuinely didn’t know how the small gladiator had managed to create them quite so quickly, but I was more glad than ever with my choice of commander over the troops in the Gold City.
The wagons were big enough that they each had to be drawn by two horses, and they were also sturdy enough to support the makeshift catapults that had been erected in the backs of each of them. The catapult portion of each looked like it would hold a projectile about half the size of a man, so we should really be able to inflict a lot of damage on the elves.
“Um… what are we supposed to use as projectiles?” Penny asked as she looked up at the massive weapons.
“When we started to build the barricades,” Sten replied as he rejoined us, “we had to tear apart some buildings for their scraps, so we’ve got plenty of stone and rubble left.”
“That sounds like a good place to start,” I said. “Sten, I want you to oversee the catapults, and Penny, I want you to stay here with him and help coordinate things on the ground.”
“You got it,” Penny replied.
“I’ll have one of the Elite soldiers on the walls call down directions to you,” I continued, “so you’ll know where exactly to aim.”
“Don’t worry,” Sten said. “If we run out of rubble, we’ll find something else to launch at the elves.”
“I have no doubt,” I said with a smirk. “Ava and Leif, I want the two of you to come up top with me. Leif, you’ll be in charge of the guards and the gate defense, so if you need to come back down to the ground, that’s fine, too.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Leif said.
“And Ava, you’re in charge of the Elite and the archers,” I said. “I’ll float back and forth between you both, but I mostly want to focus on using my magic against the elves.”
“Of course, my king,” the beautiful assassin said with a smile.
“What are you smiling about?” Penny asked. “Sure, I appreciate your optimism, but--”
Ava whispered something into Penny’s ear, and the red-haired pixie just grinned.
“Oh, shit, you’re right,” the green-eyed thief said with a smile.
I raised my eyebrows, so Ava went up onto her tiptoes to murmur the same thing into my ear.
“You said ‘my magic,’ ” Ava purred into my ear. “Not the magic of the Keys or the amulet or anything else. Just your magic.”
“I guess I didn’t really think about that,”
I laughed. “It’s just felt so natural to me ever since I put the crown on, you know?”
“Because you’ve finally accepted who you were born to be,” the blonde assassin said. “You’ve finally realized that you’re the magic, and the Keys and the amulet didn’t just happen to fall into your hands. They were drawn to you precisely because you were already magic.”
“And because they knew that you would become the king,” Penny added, “so they wanted to serve you just as much as all the rest of us do.”
“Then I guess we better make sure my magic gets put to good use today,” I said with a grin. “Let’s do this.”
With Ava and Leif right behind me, I strode back over to the stairs and climbed them until I reached the top of the massive wall again. I glanced at the elves and saw that they were all still trying to figure out what to do now that my scout had escaped them, but then I quickly glanced over all their heads and toward the tents at the back of their formation.
The sun had just started to set, so we were in a strange twilight where half the landscape in front of me was still bright, but the other half was full of shadows. It would be a perfect time for an attack against the elves, since it wasn’t really day or night, and that meant the eyesight of both day and night elves might not be the best just now.
But as I looked at the tents where the night elves had hidden during the day, I immediately saw movement in and around their camps. Blue-skinned night elves crawled out of their tents, squinted their eyes at the half-light, and then began to assemble into neatly organized rows behind the day elves.
It looked like we had been right about when they were going to attack, after all.
I could have been worried about the fact that at the moment, the night elves looked like they were just going to join the day elves and attack the city, rather than attack us on their own while the day elves rested. But while all the elven soldiers tried to line up and get organized down below, I was much more interested in what I saw behind them at the base of the mountain range.