The Wizard's Tower 02

by Peter Last

  Josiah switched his attention to his soldiers who were desperately trying to hold the gate. Despite their determination, the sheer numbers of the enemy army were beginning to take its toll, and as Josiah stared, a hole opened up in their lines. The enemy soldiers pushed into the hole, and for a moment it appeared as if they had finally opened a serious breach, but in a concerted effort the defenders pushed them back out and reformed the line. Less than a minute later another breach opened, but it was at that moment that the other army reached the gate.

  Suddenly the enemy soldiers found themselves beleaguered from both sides, and breaking into the defenders’ ranks was the farthest thing from their minds. The soldiers caught between the two armies were quickly eliminated, and the newly arrived army rushed to reinforce the ranks of the exhausted defenders.

  With the number of soldiers facing it leaping by several thousand, the attacking army fell back to regroup. This gave the soldiers of Magessa the opportunity to rush thousands more soldiers into the city. Twice they reformed their ranks when the enemy attempted an attack, but the missiles from the wall halted these attempts. For several hours the soldiers continued to pass into the city undisturbed; in fact, it began to appear that they would all be able to enter unmolested. As it was, only a few hundred of Josiah’s and Nathan’s soldiers remained outside when the siege engines appeared.

  At first the equipment simply consisted of shields in front of the enemy army to protect the soldiers from arrows and other missiles. The army began to advance slowly, now that they were invulnerable to the ranged attacks of the city. It was almost as if they were taunting the defenders with their impending doom.

  “Close the gates!”

  The command came from an officer a few dozen yards down the wall from Josiah. Josiah turned and forced his way through the soldiers on the wall to where the officer was standing, giving orders to the archers around him.

  “You can’t close the gates!” Josiah shouted at the officer. “Those are my men down there. You close the gates, and they’ll die.”

  “And if we don’t close the gates, we will all die,” the officer responded as he turned to face Josiah. “A few hundred is a small price to pay for the thousands in the city.”

  “More of them can get inside before the enemy gets here,” Josiah argued. “Leave the gates open until you absolutely have to close them.”

  “If we don’t close them now, it’ll be too late,” the officer answered.

  “Well, then you have some bloody slow gates!” Josiah shouted.

  “Be that as it may, they’re still closing right now,” the officer responded calmly and turned away from Josiah to continue giving orders to his soldiers. Josiah looked down to the gates which were starting to slowly swing shut. In that split second he made a decision and dashed down the wall stairs. Once on the ground he tore toward the gate and slid to a halt in front of it. He watched the gates continue to swing closed as some figures came to stand beside him. He turned and saw Nathan along with his bodyguard. His own guardsmen had also arrived and stood behind him.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Nathan asked.

  Josiah glanced back to the closing gate and then to the soldiers behind him. He turned back to Nathan and nodded.

  “Then let’s do it,” Nathan said and drew his sword. Josiah pulled his weapon free from its sheath and heard the scraping of swords being drawn behind him.

  “You know we’re dead once we step outside of those gates,” Josiah stated.

  “Yes, I know,” Nathan answered. “But I would rather die fighting beside my men than sacrifice them to save my own miserable hide.”

  “Elegantly put,” Josiah said with a grimace. “Well, let’s get on with this.”

  With steady strides, the small group of soldiers passed through the slowly closing gate and stepped onto the plain outside. The soldiers parted to allow them to pass as they recognized their commanders. They continued forward until they reached the front of their army’s lines. In front of them the enemy advanced, ready to crush anything in their path.

  “Can your magicians do anything?” Josiah asked Nathan.

  “I don’t know how effective they will be, but I’ll put them to the task,” Nathan answered.

  “Good,” Josiah answered. “I know that we’re going to die out here, but I kind of want to leave them something to remember us by,” he said and gestured to the advancing army. In a much louder voice he yelled, “Form the line! We’ll meet these men and give a showing for ourselves.”

  The soldiers formed into ranks and faced the advancing enemy horde. They were tired, near exhaustion in fact, and when the gates had begun to close they had been on the verge of surrendering. The sight of their commanders leaving the safety of the city to lead them had restored their resolve, and they would continue to fight as long as they drew breath. The gate closed with a dull thud, and the soldiers glanced over their shoulders at it.

  “I suppose this is going to be one of those, ‘It seemed like a good idea at the time,’ moments, isn’t it?” Josiah asked as he stared at the now closed gates.

  “No, this was a good idea at the time,” Nathan countered.

  The two commanders turned from the city to face the enemy once more. The archers and siege engines on the wall were hurling their missiles into the advancing ranks, but the enemy’s mobile shields were effectively rendering these attacks useless. Onward they continued to advance, slowly but steadily. The defenders’ morale, so recently bolstered by the arrival of their commanders, was beginning to falter and fail as they stared at their impending doom.

  “What are they doing?” Josiah said and cursed under his breath. “It’s almost like they’re trying to scare us into surrendering.”

  “And they may very well do that,” Nathan commented with a glance at the soldiers. “This delay isn’t helping our cause any.”

  “To heck with them,” Josiah said with a meaningful glance at Nathan. The elf understood the expression perfectly, and an instant later the two commanders joined voices as they bellowed out the command to charge. Without looking back to see who was following them, they jumped forward and sprinted full speed at the attacking army.

  The defenders burst into a charge an instant after the command was given and converged as one on the enemy. A slight shaking of the ground, evidence of the efforts of the elfin magicians, threw a line or two of the enemy to the ground, confusing the advance. Before they had time to recover, the charging soldiers crashed into the first line of mobile shields and pushed past them to the soldiers they were guarding. While the shields had effectively protected the soldiers from ranged attacks, they had also blocked their view of the battlefield in front of them. Consequently, they were completely unprepared when the soldiers of Magessa hit their lines. With surprise as their ally, Josiah and Nathan were able to lead their men in a devastating charge which penetrated deeply into the enemy ranks. Weapons flashing, the soldiers cut down everyone in the way of their berserk charge, and the magicians added to the confusion with small but effective acts of magic.

  The primary charge was so effective, that for a while it appeared there would be no stopping the small attack force that continued to hack and bash its way through Molkekk’s army. Nevertheless, the momentum of the charge gradually disappeared as the initial energy of the attackers gave way to exhaustion. And so, Josiah found himself and his men in the middle of the enemy army, surrounded on all sides and with no hope of escape. In a last desperate attempt at survival, the army formed into a defensive circle with men facing out on all fronts. Molkekk’s soldiers, seeing the small army in their midst, threw themselves at it, seeking to crush it completely; however, just as a lion that is about to die becomes fearless in battle, the soldiers of Magessa fought with a ferocious effort. All around them the bodies of their enemies fell in heaps as they tried time after time to sweep aside these troublesome soldiers; however, the fearless Magessians couldn’t hold out indefinitely. Something would have to give, and it w
ould happen soon.

  Josiah found himself on the front line of the defensive circle, standing shoulder to shoulder with two of his guardsmen. On his right was Brandon, wielding his massive two handed sword, and on his left was Petra. Josiah saved his comrades from death more times than he could count and had no doubt they had returned the favor many times over. As he blocked with his shield the thrust of an orc bearing a broadsword, he saw Brandon deliver a crushing, over-handed blow to a goblin. The goblin raised his shield to defend himself, but Brandon’s long sword sheered the armor in two and slashed into the goblin’s neck at the left shoulder. As the goblin fell to the ground, Brandon brought his weapon in an upward stroke to contact his next opponent, a dwarf. The blade caught the dwarf under the chin, killing him instantly.

  Josiah jerked his attention back to his own battle and was almost too late. The orc was swinging an overhand blow at him, and he had just enough time to raise his shield. The shock from the blow drove him to his knees, and he found himself looking up at the orc, awaiting another blow. A soldier behind Josiah shoved him aside and stepped between him and the orc, taking the blow on his own shield and simultaneously driving his own weapon into the orc. Josiah scrambled away from the fighting on his hands and knees, allowing the other soldier to fill the gap his absence had created. Quickly he scrambled to his feet and tried to survey the battle, though all he could see were the heads of the people around him.

  “We’re falling all around,” said a voice next to him. Josiah turned to see that Brandon had given his position to another soldier and was once again beside his commander.

  “What’s it like?” Josiah asked, recognizing that his friend’s stature would provide him with a better view of the battle.

  “We’re killing a lot more of them than they are killing of our men, but we’re dying steadily,” Brandon answered. “We can’t hold this for more than another ten minutes or so. After that, we’ll all be dead.”

  “What about to the west?” Josiah asked. “If we can get back to the city, we may be able to get support from the wall again.”

  “No good,” Brandon informed Josiah. “We’re barely holding our line there as it is and we won’t maintain it much longer. Dwarves are converging on that position.”

  “We can hold dwarves off,” Josiah disagreed.

  “Not these ones,” Brandon said. “These ones are dwarf giants.”

  “Well then, let’s move,” Josiah shouted and began to shove his way through the crowd to the west.

  ******

  Most of the dragons had already retired to the city of Sulmon, having caused enough damage to the enemy dragons and griffins to drive them away. Feddir and his squad had already deposited their riders in the city and were circling the area one more time to make sure no surprise attacks would be coming. It was on the last circle that Feddir’s sharp eyes detected the group of soldiers deep in the lines of the army of Molkekk. With a growl he alerted the other members of his squad and dove toward the ground. The other dragons dove after him, and when they were only a hundred feet from the ground, fanned their wings to join Feddir in observing the battle.

  Bodies littered the area around the stubborn pocket of soldiers that Molkekk’s men were trying to exterminate. There were less than fifty of the soldiers, and as the dragons watched, more of them died. The leader of the squad gave a roar, and the dragons dropped toward the earth. At the last possible second, they extended their wings and fanned them to slow their descent. Despite this action, they still slammed into the ground with considerable force, shaking the earth and knocking people all around them to the ground. Using their wings as support, the dragons leaped over the soldiers of Magessa and landed in a circle around the remaining defenders, dousing the ground on all sides with fire.

  Brandon looked up from where he was binding Josiah’s wound and stared at the dragons. It took a moment for him to realize what they were there for, but once he figured it out he picked Josiah up and ran with him to the nearest beast. The remaining soldiers, less than forty in all, quickly scrambled onto the backs of the dragons, and in under a minute the squad was back in the air with its passengers. The dragons swept over the wall and deposited the soldiers inside before lifting off again for one final reconnaissance of the area.

  Brandon lowered Josiah to a comfortable position and turned his attention to his commander’s wound. Carefully, he unstrapped Josiah’s shield from his left arm and laid the twisted metal to the side. The article of armor had been sheered in two, starting at the top and continuing for nearly half the height of the shield. One glance at the gash in Josiah’s left shoulder was all it took to remind Brandon of its severity. Gently he began to unfasten Josiah’s shoulder armor and work the rent metal from the wound. As he laid the torn armor aside, he felt more than saw the motion to his left and looked up to see Nathan kneeling down next to him. The elf had a busted eyebrow, a cut running down his face, and blood seeping through a bandage wrapped around his right upper arm, but the look of concern on his face was for the prone form before him.

  “How is he doing?” the commander asked and looked up at Brandon. “And what in heaven’s name happened to him?”

  “One of those blasted dwarf giants,” Brandon answered with a grim voice. “Right before the dragons arrived, he took an over-handed blow from one of their axes. He got his shield up in time, but the armor was never built to take that kind of punishment. The ax ripped right through the shield and into his shoulder armor.” Brandon motioned to the ruined armor he had lain to the side. Nathan turned briefly to examine the armor and then turned back to Brandon.

  “How are his vital signs?” the elf asked.

  “They're still strong, at least for the moment,” Brandon answered. “The shield took a lot of the force out of the blow, otherwise the ax might have cut straight through his shoulder and into his chest. As it is, I think the blade stopped at his bone, but I don’t know how much damage it caused on the way there.”

  “Find out where there is a hospital set up,” Nathan ordered one of his bodyguards. “And bring something to transport the General on.”

  “What do you think?” Brandon asked Nathan. “After all, you’re the elf.”

  “I can examine him, though I must confess, my skill in such things is considerably less than the reputation of elves would indicate,” Nathan responded. He began to run his hands around the shoulder wound, not touching the skin just beneath his hands. There was a crackle, and a faint blue light illuminated the skin. Moments later the light vanished, and Nathan looked back at Brandon.

  “The damage isn’t as bad as it looks from the wound. The shoulder bone stopped the blade before it could do serious harm. Even the harm to the bone is fairly insignificant. His blood level is rather low, however. It’s a good thing you staunched the bleeding when you did, or he might have died of blood loss.”

  “So he’ll be fine then?”

  “Yes,” Nathan answered. “He’ll be fine.”

  Thirteen

  Josiah blinked and opened his eyes. Blinding light rushed through his eyelids and flooded his skull, bringing with it a pounding headache. Josiah forced himself to sit up and swung his feet over the side of his bed. Slowly his eyes began to adjust to the light, but the headache did not subside. Instead it was slowly replaced by a duller and deeper pain in his shoulder. He craned his neck to look at the source of the pain and saw a thick, white bandage wrapped around his shoulder. His shirt and armor had been removed to allow his wound to be bandaged, but apart from that he appeared to have been plucked straight from battle and placed on the bed where he now sat.

  The pounding in his head was not as intense as before, and aside from his shoulder he didn’t appear to have any other bandages, so he must not have had any other serious wounds. Small cuts and bruises covered his body, but he could move all of his limbs. Slowly he pushed off of the bed with his good arm and rose to his feet, but as he did so the blood rushed from his head, leaving him dizzy and off balance. His vision went
black, and he felt himself crashing back onto the bed. He lay there for several moments and waited for his vision to return to normal. When it finally did, he swung his feet back over the side of his bed and sat there with his head in his hands. He felt something pressing down on the other side of the bed and turned his head to see Petra standing to his feet, using the bed to push himself up.

  “What are you doing here?” Josiah asked.

  “I was supposed to be watching you for Cirro,” Petra said as he straightened his uniform. “He was here all of yesterday and would only leave when I promised to stay here and tell him as soon as you woke up.”

  “All of yesterday?” Josiah said. “How long have I been out?”

  “You were wounded in the battle yesterday and never woke up when they were tending to you,” Petra explained. “About six this morning I spelled Cirro, but I guess I’m not much of a morning person. I nodded off after about half an hour and only woke up when you started banging around.”

  “Was it really that bad?” Josiah asked.

  “Let’s just say that in my subconscious, I thought it was an ogre tap dancing.”

  “Oh wow,” Josiah muttered. “Wait, are you saying that an ogre tap dancing would be an unpleasant thing to hear?”

  “Well I’ve never been privileged enough to witness it firsthand, but…”

  “Just don’t let General Levvy hear you say that,” Josiah said. “I imagine he wouldn’t take kindly to you implying ogres can’t tap dance. Now get over here and help me stand up before I do it myself and sound like a blasted ogre again.”