Thudding ran across the ceiling above us, dislodging dust particles. The stairs shuddered as a burly man with a long thick dark red beard and a brown canvas cloak thundered down the stairs. “I’m comin’, I’m comin!” He rushed to the cot-side of his patient and extended his hands over the young boy, and the corner of the room glowed bright green for a few moments. The boy sat up. Damn, this was the first healer we’d seen so far. He squeezed between a few people and headed straight for us. “Do ye need somethin’, or ye just takin’ up space?”
“Uh, no. We just got here,” I said, “Is there anything we can do to help?”
“Help? Ye want to help? Then do somethin’! Anythin’! Hells, go wash some bandages or help the orderlies move patients around.” Outside, thunder crashed and lightning lit up the room. Through the windows, we could see the rain just starting to fall.
We spent the next couple of hours running to and fro helping wherever we could. Morogan and I moved cots wherever we were told, Sai helped with cleaning and sterilizing bandages in alcohol, and Garstil gathered more heal root and other herbs as the supplies were running extremely low. We had also moved as many people as we could into the rooms upstairs, making room for those outside to come in from the rain and huddle around the fire. Once we had stabilized all of the most critical cases, the Dwarf motioned us over to the bar.
“Lemme get ye boys a drink. Barkeep! Drinks for my new friends!” He turned to me and offered his hand, and I took it. “Th’ name’s Thasgrin, thanks fer helpin’ out with this wee little mess. Ye showed up at just the right time, ye did.”
I introduced my party members, and the drinks poured freely. The innkeeper wasn’t charging anyone tonight. I liked this man. A lot. We ordered some food as well, but we paid for that. I insisted he take my money or I’d be offended. He begrudgingly took my silver with a thankful nod.
I turned to our new friend. “So, Thasgrin, any idea where the invaders were headed when they finished destroying Sheffield?”
He stared into his ale. “Aye. They’d likely be comin’ this way next, methinks. We’re the closest town within ten miles.” He looked up at me, twirling his beard. He lowered his voice. “We won’t make it out of this. Sheffield had a large garrison, we have a bunch of farmers with pitchforks. At sunup, the town is gonna try to evacuate.”
A loud thud shook the bar. “Was that thunder?” the barkeep asked, cleaning up spilled ale.
Morogan pulled out his mace and shield. “Nightmare coming. Time for fight.” The thud came again, even louder. The room shook, dust falling from the creaky ceiling above.
I turned to my friends. “You guys with me?”
Sai grinned. “As long as justice needs to be carried out, I’m always ready. Let us go and bloody some undead.” He withdrew a different set of daggers, having tossed the ones I’d almost destroyed.
I turned to Thasgrin. “Care to join us? We could use a healer facing off against them.”
Thasgrin hesitated, “I’m not much of the’ fightin’ type.” Outside, another loud thud echoed, followed by creaking and crashing. Then the screaming started. “Damn it, not givin’ me much of a choice, are ye? Fine. let’s get goin’ then before I change me mind.” Thasgrin joined our party.
The window shattered, and a crossbow bolt took someone in the shoulder. They went down with a yelp. Three more flew in, but Sai caught them all with little effort. “It is time. The attackers from Sheffield have arrived.”
The door flew off of its hinges, taking out a small group of patients. A hulk of an Orc, skin drooping from its face, eyes of glowing crimson, roared into the room. With a flick of his wrist, Garstil vaporized the undead Orc, and we rushed out of the building and into the storm.
15
They Came at Night, Obviously
The freezing rain forced me to shield my eyes against its sting. Utter chaos surrounded us as undead poured into the city through a massive hole in the outer wall. Around the ancient tree, militiamen and farmers stood shoulder to shoulder with makeshift weapons and defiance as their only defense.
As the wave approached, purple lightning shot out from the tree branches at random and began laying waste to the oncoming horde of undeath.
Looking toward the source of the zombies, I noticed the opening in the wall. “Garstil! Chain lightning!” I pointed at the hole. Garstil flew to the front of the crowd, raised both hands toward the sea of bodies running toward him, and unleashed twenty million volts. Lightning arced from body to body, vaporizing half of them in an instant and stunning the ones farther back. He fired twice more, further reducing their numbers.
“Morogan kill! Again!” The half-Orc threw himself into the mess and smashed with mace and shield anything that reached for him.
“I suppose I might as well get dirty as well. I’ll find the ritualists and do something about them.” Sai kneeled for a moment and then jumped nimbly to the top of a house and darted off into the shadows.
Thasgrin stood beside me grinning. “Mighty proactive boys ye run with there, Abalonious! Doesn’t leave much fer us to do.”
The militia cheered and watched as Garstil and Morogan thinned the enemy line dramatically. I turned to face them, taking a page out of Luther’s book. “These beasts have come for your lives!” I yelled over the wind and rain. “Will you stand with me and fight for our lives!?” I drew both swords and willed power into them, bathing the onlookers in white light. A hundred torches and pitchforks and rusty swords thrust into the air, and a scream of defiance that muted the storm answered my call. I turned and led the charge toward the hole in the wall. We crashed unto the horde like ocean waves against rock.
Through lightning strikes from both the storm and Garstil, I noticed Sai backflip off of a building and onto the wall, beheading a ritualist on his landing. He weaved in and out of guards, killing indiscriminately. Swinging wide, I joined in on the carnage and sent lightning through my blades to clear out an area around me. A few farmers went down, zombies piling on top. Morogan shield-bashed them off and pushed on ahead.
Thasgrin waved his hands over the bodies, healing the downed men. As they picked up their weapons and regained their feet, two zombies grabbed Thasgrin from behind and started dragging him into their horde. “Lemme go ye undead bastards!” He crossed his arms, reaching over each shoulder to grip the wrist of either zombie. Green energy flooded into the undead, and their bodies exploded, coating everything in a ten-foot radius in nasty ichor. Rage burned in his eyes, and his skin literally hardened to gray stone. An echoing metallic yell hollered back at me, “Don’t jus’ stand there with yer thumb up yer arse, kill these things!” Then he let off some kind of area of effect healing spell in the shape of a dome. Every zombie within the AoE spell burst like a pimple in a shower of guts. The dome moved with him as he ran into a group of men barely holding their own. More zombies exploded, and healing energy fell upon the men, restoring their health.
Sai landed next to me in a crouch. “I killed a few of their ritualists; however, there is another one just outside the wall. He also has the giant beast that broke through the wall. There is not much I can do against its chitin armor.”
“Let’s go. You take the ritualist, and I’ll put down the beast.” Sai nodded, and we headed for the wall. Morogan, Thasgrin, and Garstil saw us coming and cleared a path for us. As we crested the pile of corpses and passed the wall, we saw the beast. It was very much larger than the first one we had fought. As I examined it, the thing stared back at me, intelligence in its eyes. It twitched its mandibles and let out an ear-piercing screech. It charged, scythe arms held high. Rushing forward, I brought my blades up, blocking both scythes with outward swings. We locked blades, but one of its many legs snapped up kicking me into the wall, winding me. It charged again.
Sai deflected a giant scythe with one of his daggers, but the impact threw him a few feet, laying him on his back. The other scythe lodged in the wall inches from my face. I swung a sword up to sever it at the elbow. Instead, pain became m
y world for a second. The missing ritualist nailed me in the side with green lightning, cackling maniacally. Sai, having noticed him, sprung up and distracted him. He ran up the wall, lightning bolts hitting the stones, missing by mere inches. He jumped over the top and out of sight.
The ritualist, having stunned me, stepped forward. “That’s right, run, weakling!” He turned to me. “Not so strong now, are you? I honestly have no idea why my brothers were worried about you... After all, in the end, you’re just weak. Pathetic.” He sneered, “Human.” He stepped closer to me with a manic grin. “You’ll make a great trophy…” He reached out toward me.
I triggered Temporal Shift, watching as the world slowed to a crawl. Maybe it was the adrenaline or the fact that I’d just been stunned, but I’d not paid attention the first few times I’d used this skill. Looking around, I took note of the details of the world. The glow of my bracers, of my spaulders, of my sword. The ritualist’s hand was frozen, mid-reach. His face contorted in glee and bloodlust. Green energy had begun to crackle between and around his fingers. Something gleamed off the glow of my armor, and I noticed a familiar dagger mid-flight. Shockwaves of air could be seen coming off the pommel of the blade, its trajectory in line with the ritualist's neck. I followed it back to see Sai crouched on the ground three feet behind him, and the second dagger had already left his hand, fingers just releasing their grip. The ritualist had been doomed; he just hadn’t realized it yet.
Content with that future outcome, I turned my back on him and focused on the giant monster before me. Its right scythe was still embedded in the wall, but its left was raised overhead, already arcing down to where I had lain, stunned. It was time to dice this thing. I triggered Burning Rage and Dashed left, right, up, down, sideways, and every which way, leaving long gashes in the monster's armor. The world returned to normal time. Legs, arms, and chitin flew in every direction. Its head landed at my feet as the monster collapsed. My body returned to normal as I heard the two wet impacts of Sai’s blades embedding themselves in the back of the ritualist’s neck and head. His body joined the monster next to him. Sai nodded to me, and we rushed back into the walls.
As we returned to the inn, we’d noticed that things had progressed from bad to much worse. One of the trees next to the inn had been hit hard enough to loosen the root system, and the rain and wind had toppled it completely. It lay across the side of the inn, a large branch piercing the room on the second story. Upon entering, we realized it had gone all the way through the upper floor and branches reached inside the common room on the first floor. People had already begun hacking at the branches and laying crisscrossed ropes and sheets across the hole to stop as much of the wind and rainwater as possible.
Thasgrin slumped down on a barstool, his head hitting the table. “Barkeep…” he mumbled, clearly exhausted. When I next checked on him, he was fast asleep, a pitcher of ale in his hand. Morogan found a corner to sleep in, but Garstil, however, looked over to me and inclined his head toward the door. He quietly stepped outside into the raging storm. I followed.
“What’s up?” I asked, taking shelter next to him under the overhang.
“I overheard some of the scouts talking, most of the bridges have been washed out. The only way to cross the river now is the main bridge, and the water has been rising all night. They don’t think it’ll last the morning. What’s worse is the town will likely flood. We need to get these people to higher ground, but I don’t know the lay of the land.”
“Accreton,” Thasgrin said, quietly closing the door behind him, ale in hand. “Up the mountain, thas’ where ye be wanting to go. The city’s big enough ta hold these survivors an’ take care of ‘em.” He took a long pull from his pitcher.
“I don’t know if we have enough wagons though.” I did a quick count. “There are fifteen wagons, and how many wounded?”
“There’ll be enough. We evacuated most of the town when the first survivors from Sheffield started ta arrive. With any luck, we can load them all back up in the wagons they came in. Just gotta get ’em loaded.”
“I highly doubt the people here will simply take our word for it,” said Garstil. “Who has the authority to issue an evacuation?”
“The mayor’s inside helpin’ tend the wounded. I’ll let him know what you have in mind. Ye better get a few hours of sleep while you can.” Thasgrin stepped back inside.
We followed him in, settling in next to Morogan in his corner.
The smell of bacon and fresh bread brought me to my senses. I slowly opened my eyes., The smell was intoxicating and mouthwatering. Looking over at the table next to me. I saw four plates were set out, a mound of bacon and a fresh steaming roll with butter melting over its sides. A pot full of scrambled eggs sat at the center of the table. This had to be a dream…
Thasgrin offered his arm. “Ey! Yer awake! C’mere and get some food before Morogan eats it all.” He laughed, pulling me up with little effort. Garstil and Morogan came out of the kitchen, a mug of orange juice in each of their hands. They set one at each of the plates and took two of the empty chairs. “Ye waitin’ for an invitation? Dig in!” We both sat as well, and the four of us devoured the heavenly meal.
“That hit the spot,” I said, belly full and happy. “So, what’s the plan?”
Thasgrin downed the rest of his juice. “The wagons are almost loaded up, we’ll head out at sunrise.”
“Good,” I said. “The sooner we cross the bridge, the happier I’ll be. No telling when the water is going to crest the bank.”
“Aye.” Thasgrin stood. “Le’s get goin’ then.” We grabbed several sacks of foodstuffs on the way out the door and headed toward the wagons. After loading up the rest of the supplies, we were finally underway.
Wagons ahead of us left deep ruts in the mud as the rain continued its torrential downpour. We pushed on, shielding our eyes against the rain and sleet in our faces. The sun must have already risen, as the storm clouds began to glow enough to see by.
As we neared the road, our wagon procession came to a grinding halt. Thasgrin, speaking to one of the survivors, walked into the back of a wagon.
“What the bloody ’ell?”
“We’ve stopped,” I said, “Let’s go check it out.” The four of us met at the front. Garstil tapped my shoulder and pointed ahead toward the bridge.
A lone figure stood in the center of the bridge, robe flapping in the wind. He was backlit by the dark sky and blocking our path. Past him at the other end of the bridge was a wagon with two more robed figures, watching motionless.
We stepped toward the bridge. A flash of light from our feet caught our attention. A thirty-foot rune glowed deep purple, and black smoke rose lazily in the rain. I kept walking, not noticing any negative effects. A moment later, I realized I was alone. Turning to look at my party, I realized the rune had rooted them in place, motionless. Shit.
There was nothing I could do about the circumstances, so I approached the lone figure, stopping twenty feet from him.
“Sup, man?” Flint tossed his robe off and squared his shoulders, challenging me. He pulled his knives out. “Remember what I said before? Between your shoulders.” He twirled his daggers with a flourish, visible distortions trailing the blade edges through the air.
“Where’s your butt-buddy, Slag? He hiding in that wagon?”
“I’m really gon’ enjoy killin’ you.” He grinned maniacally. He charged forward, much faster than I’d had thought he could move. I triggered Temporal Shift and willed power into my weapons. Time slowed. Raindrops slowed to a stop midair, lightning arcing off each sword, connecting through the raindrops. Flint was still moving, although at normal speed. We clashed blade against blade, swords against daggers. Lightning arced off his blades, not phasing him. Blow against blow, we were evenly matched. Temporal Shift came to an end, and time resumed.
Flint, still under the effects of whatever speed boost, slashed me across the stomach, drawing a spray of blood. He jumped back, making a semantic gesture mi
dair and landing in a slide. My blood beaded and flew to his hand, now glowing slightly. Three blood orbs swirled around his upheld wrist, and he sneered. He thrust the orbs toward me, and a massive shockwave exploded in front of me, sending me flying. I was able to flip over and land in a slide. He charged again. I triggered Dash, and we met midway, a loud clash as our weapons locked.
We struggled against each other’s strength for several moments until I noticed the four vials of red liquid float up from his waist. The vials shattered as I shifted my weight to a forward fighting stance, delivering a massive step through side kick to his chest. Flint sailed through the air, landing fifteen feet away. He stood, looked toward me with contempt, and then took off running toward his waiting companions. The zombies clawing their way out of the mud kept me from giving chase.
I slashed and hacked at the massive group of zombies reaching, clawing, and grasping for me. My party was there a heartbeat later, helping dispatch the threat. We cleared out the zombies and piled the bodies next to the bridge. Carefully, we started moving the wagons across the torn-up ground in front of the bridge and were soon crossing quickly.
Garstil spoke first. “So… It looked like Flint kept up with you even with your time shift.” Worry marred his stoic features. “He seems to be improving as quickly as you. That could be a problem down the road.”
I nodded as we crossed the bridge. The water sloshed over the sides, making the crossing treacherous. “When time slowed down, he was normal speed. It also expired about half a second before his speed boost did.”
“Focused Instincts. That is the name of it,” said Sai. “If you would like, we can spar and practice with it during our training sessions.”
Legend of the Sword Bearer: Tempest Chronicles Book 1 Page 15