by H. J. Cronin
A spear came directly at Tumnis’s face which he managed to hit aside with his sword. He saw the wielder of the spear, a skeleton with only a bronze breastplate and skull-capped helmet. Tumnis blocked another blow, jumped at the skeleton and swung his sword at its head, which it managed to parry. He then swung his sword the opposite side and sliced through the skull, cutting it in half and reducing the skeleton to a pile of bone dust.
As quickly as he had destroyed his enemy another two were upon him, which he quickly managed to dispose of. He was able to look around to see how the fighting was going on the narrow wall. The wall was the width of ten people and the area quickly became cramped. The good news was that his side seemed to have the upper hand, and around them clouds of bone dust were filling the air. The endless tide of the dead never stopped but the men fought on valiantly.
He saw one soldier cut down a skeleton at its legs, naively leaving it alone thinking it finished, but the skeleton crawled on its hands, picked up a sword and slowly cut down the soldier from his legs and stabbed him several times. Tumnis quickly ran over and decapitated the skeleton. Tumnis managed quickly to glance over the wall and saw the still endless horde stopping at nothing.
Some soldiers managed to throw the skeleton warriors over the wall. Some places were so tight with the mass of fighters that some resorted to using their hands to fight as there was no room to use their weapons. Tumnis saw one skeleton slash at a man’s neck releasing a shower of blood into the air, and the man dropped and joined the other bodies on the floor. One man was unlucky enough to lose his balance and fall off the wall and onto the ground, where the rest of the humans waited.
Tumnis could see near one of the siege towers where the skeletons were gaining the upper hand, and using all of his might he roared and led a small charged that crashed into the skeletons. After a fierce battle the skeletons who had gained the ground were vanquished. The tide of battle changed many times with the men just about coming out on top.
Count Darkool watched the battle unfolding; his siege towers were at the walls but it did not seem they were taken yet. He grew impatient and angry that the walls were not yet his, and he was losing soldiers quickly. The battle had raged on for some time and now was the time for his other plan to take place.
He turned to his remaining counts: Vermon, Silco and Kharki. ‘Counts, now is the time I need you. Once the gate has been smashed, you and the vampire warriors will form the vanguard and enter the city.’ They all nodded and without argument they made their way to the front.
Shalon turned to Count Darkool, ‘My lord, why have you sent them to their possible deaths?’
Darkool laughed and dismissed the comment with a shake of his head. ‘Shalon, the city will be taken, they are not at risk. These humans will be overrun very quickly.’
‘Yes, my lord,’ Shalon said, not sharing his master’s optimism.
‘Shalon, call up the great battering ram to smash down that gate which will allow my army to take the city. Kill all inside and let none get away.’
Shalon nodded at his new orders from his master and quickly carried them out.
Count Darkool smiled at the loyal necromancer who done his bidding.
Tumnis finished off another skeleton with ease. Although the skeletons fought with fearlessness as well as being highly skilled, the trained men of the capital fought for their homes and lives and were quickly winning the battle. Numbers were against them though, more skeletons poured onto the walls from the towers, an endless army of evil. Every time one of the men fell he was not replaced, so the defenders’ numbers on the walls were dwindling.
Tumnis looked back over the battlements and saw an almighty battering ram being pulled towards the huge gates of Flordonium. It was pulled by giants – not the giants of the north, these were bone giants. Four times the height of the ordinary skeletons. The gate would be easily destroyed by the giant battering ram. It was unlike any that he had seen before. He had to make the right decision and leave the wall to join the men on the ground. He left his lieutenant to command the wall and made his way down the stairs of the gatehouse to the ground level.
By dusk, Tumnis had prepared his men at the main gate ready for battle. There were fires on the first floor from the enemy’s earlier catapult barrage. He had heard women and children screaming and crying at the devastation. The battle still raged on the walls where the men were not giving up. They would fight to the last man. Nearly half of his force on the wall had been killed so far, nearly five thousand. Twenty thousand men waited behind the gate for the enemy to start an attack. Thirty thousand more waited in the rest of the city for the battle to come to them if their comrades were not successful.
A sudden bang on the gate rattled the ground Tumnis stood on and the men looked around nervously. ‘Calm, men, whatever we face beyond the gates wants to destroy our families and our city. We must fight for our lives and hold at all costs!’ he called out to them, trying to give them some encouragement. The men did not respond until one man hit his sword handle on his kite shield and repeated in a steady rhythm. With that the other men followed, and soon all of the men on the ground began banging their shields. The noise echoed throughout the area; Tumnis smiled proudly at this new-found courage from his men.
Another large thud came from the gate and moments later another. Tumnis gripped his sword even harder as another thud came.
One more thud, this one far more powerful than the others. A crack formed on the gate from one side to the other, and when the next hit came the battering ram smashed a hole in the gate; one more hit and it would be breached. The men could see the enemy through the gap and then saw another swing of the great battering ram coming straight for the gate.
Suddenly the door burst open and in rushed four large bone giants wielding clubs. Some of the men gasped at the sight while others gripped their weapons harder. Following the bone giants were a horde of skeleton warriors eager for the blood of men.
‘Shield wall! Brace for impact!’ Tumnis shouted out to his men who came closer and formed a wall with their shields.
The bone giants smashed in to the men first followed by the skeletons. Metal rang off metal and wood splintered as the two sides clashed. The giants were making easy work of the men; archers were no good against these beasts. Tumnis had to find a way to stop them; his thoughts were distracted by a skeleton warrior running towards him with a mace held high in the air. It seemed to wear an evil expression and still had parts of its long grey hair hanging from its head. Its attempt to brutalise the captain was futile because he quickly disposed of the creature with a slash of his blade.
He then thought of a way to stop the bone giants. He ran over to one of his men. ‘Go and tell the men using the ballista to aim for the giants. Tell them to shoot their heads to topple the monsters,’ he ordered the man, panting. The man quickly ran off through the packed ranks of soldiers waiting to join the fight.
Tumnis rejoined the fight, instantly finding a skeleton which was about to kill one of his men. Tumnis arrived in time to destroy the creature and fend off another. He helped the man back up. He looked around at how the fight was going; his men were holding the line but the skeletons just kept on pouring in from the outside. He looked up at the wall and saw that his men were still holding it. It looked as if, just maybe, the men would win this. But those damn giants were tearing holes in the ranks of the men.
It wasn’t long before one of the bone giants attacked Tumnis. One swing of a club would end it all so Tumnis did not even attempt to block the would-be fatal blows. Instead he dodged them and even managed to run through the giant’s legs and fend off another attack from a trio of skeleton warriors. He suddenly felt a slash at his legs and looked down to see a skeleton that had lost its bottom half slashing at him with a sword. He decapitated the helpless fiend and looked at his wound, which was bleeding heavily. He fell to the floor and looked up as the giant spotted him and lifted its club up high to squash the man.
Just befor
e the giant landed its blow three ballista bolts suddenly burst through its skull. The beast let go of its club and reached up to grab the bolts, but it was too late as another hard hit from a ballista knocked its head off and reduced it to bone dust. The scene was repeated with the other bone giants. There was suddenly a strange noise in the air, the noise of a man chanting. Simultaneously the skeletons on the ground and walls stopped fighting and left the city. The men stopped fighting too – this was a sudden, curious spectacle.
As the last of the skeletons left Tumnis looked around at his exhausted men and spoke to them, ‘Good fight lads, prepare some defences. They will be back.’
The men sighed at the latter part of the order. The battle had lasted the day and nightfall had arrived, so the men were more wary than ever of another enemy attack. The enemy stood just out of catapult range, silently waiting for something.
‘What is happening? Why did you recall them you swine?’ Count Darkool demanded of Shalon, full of rage.
‘My lord, you would not have had an army left – the men were very resilient,’ Shalon replied immediately, fearing for his life.
Count Darkool calmed down. ‘If you direct my army again without my orders then you will be destroyed Shalon, is that understood?’
‘Yes, my lord. On an open battlefield the skeleton army is as good as any. But a siege is different.’
‘What about the giants? How many more can you summon?’ Darkool asked, rubbing his hands together.
‘One thousand more are available, my lord.’
‘Then see to it, Shalon, at once. They will attack the city ahead of the main army. It is now time to bring in our secret weapon. Order the attack at dawn, which should give you enough time to do your summoning. By tomorrow night I want to be standing looking over the High King’s corpse.’
‘It will be done, my lord,’ Shalon said with a bow.
The defenders had recovered, the wounded and dead had been taken away from the front and fresh soldiers formed the front line. The battle had lasted the whole day with massive loss of life as a result. Tumnis knew that the enemy would be back at any moment and ordered the men to build a barricade where the gate had been. He replenished the walls with more archers and told the men to obtain more ammunition for the catapults and ballista. He did not know how many more attacks they could hold off.
He had seen many men he knew cut down before him. One friend he remembered from his childhood had been crushed by one of the bone giants. Another had been mauled by three skeletons with blunt swords. He looked around at the fresh faces; the men were eager but fear was evident on their faces. Their comrades had been carried past them to a safe zone, bloodied and mangled, some without limbs, but most were dead.
The defenders had had sixty thousand men when the battle had started, twenty thousand had died and ten thousand wounded. Usually battles would produce the opposite result, but the skeletons were not keen on wounding their enemy. They wanted to kill them.
Tumnis looked through a gap in the barricade and the sight of a horde of bone giants running towards the city sent great fear through his body. He looked around at the men; some had seen through the barricade and now they all stood warily. As the message passed throughout the ranks the men showed obvious signs of fear. Tumnis feared defiance. He couldn’t blame them – a tiny handful of these giants had decimated his ranks, and unlike normal giants made from flesh, these needed a strong hit to the head to kill. This horde would surely cause catastrophe.
The captain turned around and faced the men. ‘Men of Wilmurin!’ He called out to them with his sword raised. ‘We have beaten off this rabble once already. Let us show them that the will of men cannot be broken! Let us show them that we are the true masters of our world! Fight for your friends and families, for your names will live on for eternity.’ He pumped his sword into the air and the men cheered.
Tumnis saw one of his lieutenants, Fredry, running towards him. ‘Sir!’ he said, saluting, and then spoke quietly enough so that the men could not hear, ‘It is not wise for you to stay here, they will slaughter us and you are required to defend the rest of the city. Go now, sneak away, I will take charge here.’
‘I cannot abandon my men, they will think me a coward,’ Tumnis replied shaking his head, although he knew that Fredry spoke the truth.
‘Captain Tumnis. We will manage, I promise. Go and defend the rest of the city, prepare some defences. The men will understand.’
After a few moments of contemplation Tumnis finally nodded his acceptance, clasped the lieutenant’s wrist and made to leave the front line. Just as he walked past the last of the men defending the gateway he heard a few shouts behind him. He turned instantly back towards the gate, which he could look straight down onto, and saw the men pointing to the sky.
The sight surprised him; out of the dawn sky flew men in red armour mounted on great boned beasts, their wings held back as they glided down towards the city. They held huge stone rocks in their claws. There must have been one hundred of the huge beasts. They suddenly let loose the stones upon the city. The stones fell and smashed against the walls killing dozens of the archers. Even more stones fell among the mass of soldiers guarding the gates, killing hundreds of them.
The men panicked and started to retreat, and just at that moment scores of bone giants burst through the makeshift barricade and charged into the throng of panic-driven human soldiers, followed by the skeleton warriors who had also managed to scale the walls from their siege towers which had been left there; the defenders hadn’t had the time to destroy them.
It became apparent to Tumnis that the first level was now lost. His ballista and catapults had little effect against the giants and especially the winged beasts that flew another round, attacking the retreating human defenders. They continued their aerial bombardment many times and even started attacking the second and third level, destroying defences and smashing the gates.
It became a barbaric slaughter. The bone army charged through the first level, killing every man, woman and child they could get to. The soldiers were quickly disposed of; some tried to surrender but were cut down. An endless tide of bone giants and skeletons poured into the helpless capital.
The noise of screaming women and crying children disturbed Tumnis as he sat on a stone which had fallen from a building on the third level. The second level was taken, the first level destroyed; the same fate would befall the defenders of the third level unless help arrived.
He sat there, resting on the hilt of his blade and looking at the weary faces of his men. Some wore blood soaked bandages while some just lay motionless, missing limbs. He thought of his wife and children, on this level was where their home was, and he wondered if they were all right. He would love nothing more than to go and check on them but he couldn’t, he had to stay with his men until the end.
Tumnis could hear the banging on the large gate which led to the third level – soon they would be upon them. He saw somebody approaching him out of the corner of his eye, one of the king’s guards. ‘Captain Tumnis, High King Jasper requests your presence.’
‘Does the High King not see that I have a city to defend?’
‘He does, sir, and he requests you urgently.’
Tumnis sighed and stood up to follow the guard to the citadel. They walked past more wounded men and soldiers ready to fight, there were even civilians armed and ready to make a stand. What possibly could the High King want with him? Just as they walked up the steps to the doors of the citadel they heard screaming behind them. The enemy had broken through the gate and were now fighting the defenders who put up a valiant attempt to halt the overwhelming numbers.
Once he arrived in the citadel he saw the High King standing there waiting for him. He was surrounded by four dozen King’s Guard in golden armour; the High King also wore his ceremonial armour. Although quite a small man with a small build, he looked eager and ready to fight.
‘Welcome, Captain Tumnis, I thank you for coming at this hour,’ High Kin
gs Jasper said, clasping his wrist.
‘High King, I am honoured by your presence, but why is it you request me at this dire time?’
‘I must ask a favour of you,’ Jasper asked with a nervous expression. ‘I must ask you to leave the city—’
‘Leave the city?’ Tumnis interrupted, ‘Apologies, my High King, but I cannot leave the city – my men need me, my family as well.’
‘I know what I ask of you, Tumnis. I fear your family and men are already dead. You are much more valuable alive. Do not let them die in vain.’
‘What can you possibly need to ask of me?’
‘There is a boy that nobody knows of, his name is Carmin. He does not know his mother and is only ten years old. His father died before he was born. Take him to the north west sea port of Selarmus and escort him across the sea to safety. Train him in the art of war and leadership. He will return as High King and save Wilmurin from this undead plague.’
‘High King, I cannot, you must go – you are the High King.’
‘No, Tumnis, no. I will fall here with my men in my city. Carmin must be safe. The Eagle has instructed it so – his father was Haramithir of the Night Hunters. He has an older brother who is destined for greater things than the status of High King. You must see him safe, Tumnis,’ the High King paused, ‘Tumnis, nobody knows of him and nobody can.’
As much as it pained him, Tumnis could not argue with the High King. The thoughts of his family being slaughtered broke his heart; he would have given anything to save them but he could not – any exit from the front of the citadel would be met with death.
Tumnis nodded. ‘How will I leave the city, my High King?’
‘There is a passageway to the back, one of my men will take you there,’ he said and turned around and clapped his hands. ‘Carmin! Come here, boy.’ A young boy ran out of a room and stood next to the High King; he had dark eyes and long dark hair. He looked up at the High King. ‘This man, Tumnis, will take you to safety. Listen to him and follow him.’