Byrn flinched as if someone had just tried to hit him in the face. “No, it just sort of happens.”
Kellen left to assemble the city guard before the ogres' arrival. The ogres were big and fast. The trio reached the city first, but they did not have a very big lead on the beasts. “Do as you will,” he told them in parting.
“I am in the militia, son. Cavalry division. Ogres are big, strong, and fast, as you well know. The cavalry can match their speed and when attacking as a group they can give the city's defenders an advantage on the battlefield.”
“Then I will go with you...”
“No! Do as I told you. Tomorrow you may be a magician, but today you are still my son and as your father I am telling you, 'Go and protect your mother.' You have done enough for one day where those beasts are concerned.”
Byrn did not know what to say. It was an impossible choice. His father would be riding headlong into danger. His mother would be hiding alone unable to defend herself. Byrn could not remember his birth parents. Tannys and Marian Lightfoot were the only parents he had known. If anything were to happen to either one of them Byrn knew it would be his fault. “As you wish,” the young apprentice conceded, “I will protect her with my dying breath.”
His father smiled warmly at him for a moment, “That is all I ask.”
They hurried to the guard stables where they fetched their horses that did not have nearly a long enough rest. Mounting their rides they were off like rabbits bolting from their hole riding into the heart of the city. Byrn headed toward his family's home and Tannys to his rendezvous with his battalion of the militia.
During the first attack Colum was only just stirring, but now the city was fully awake and quickly turning chaotic as people ran about searching for safety. Only a few minutes had gone by since their arrival at the guard tower, but the ogre horde had already begun to make their way into the city. The pair dodged between the running and screaming populace and Byrn found that he would need to get past some of the beasts before he could return home. He drew up behind Tannys as they approached the nearest pair of ogres already engaged by Knight-Captain Kellen and two squads of guards from the tower.
The first ogre swung his mighty fist in a low arc knocking away two of the guards into a nearby shack. Kellen swung his hammer, but barely missed the giant leaving himself exposed. It grabbed him lifting the knight-captain off the ground. The ogre roared in his face as if threatening the puny human to try such a thing again.
Arrows from the rear squad hit the ogre stabbing him in the opposite arm and chest. The archers took care to shoot clear of their captain, but could not get the ogre to release him.
It squeezed denting the armor protecting Kellen driving the metal into his ribs. “Aaagh!” the shining knight screamed in pain.
Tannys and Byrn rode in on the ogre's blind side as it focused on the more immediate threat of the surrounding knights. They readied their swords and picked up speed as they rushed in. “Take the left! Glancing blows only!” shouted Tannys as he veered to the right on the side with Kellen.
Tannys brought his blade along the monster's forearm cutting it and forcing it to release the knight-captain. An instant later Byrn brought his own sword across the ogre's left side cutting into it before glancing off of the ribs. The beast screamed in pain not knowing which way to attack. The guardsmen tried to press the advantage created by the two riders, but the second ogre was now coming to the first's aid. Leaving the guardsmen it faced trying to catch up.
The second ogre sent guards scattering out of the way of the charge to protect its fellow. Kellen laid on the ground reaching for his hammer, but was barely able to move with his armor dented into his chest and sides. “Defenders form a line,” he commanded as another guardsman helped him to his feet.
His men were shaken, but years of training emerged and they did as commanded. Forming a line of shields and spears they held back the ogre's advance forcing it back or risk getting impaled. The soldiers stabbed at the ogres with their spears trying to keep the monsters off balance as arrows rained down upon the creatures. The ogres tried to fall back seeking to regain momentum and burst through the defenders’ lines. The guardsmen pressed forward while their archers started another volley of arrows.
Long minutes later the two mighty beasts fell dead to the ground. The guards took a moment to catch their collective breath, but a moment was all they had before a third ogre reached them. It grabbed Tannys Lightfoot from his horse pinning his arms to his side and forcing him to drop his sword and shield. Then it lifted the rider to its wide-open mouth filled with pointed teeth clearly intending to feast on the human.
Byrn pressed his horse forward towards the ogre as fast as he could manage. The ogre hesitated from finishing off Tannys just long enough to swat at Byrn who leaned to one side of his mount deftly avoiding the attack before slicing his blade across the left leg and falling completely out of the seat. Sensing that he was going to fall Byrn tucked into a roll and came to a stop just behind the ogre.
The monster turned to face the young man and tried to smash Byrn with its free hand, but stumbled forward when it put too much pressure on the slashed leg. The ogre was lurching for him when Byrn shoved his blade upward into its gut stabbing through its heart.
The third ogre was dead, but it fell forward on Byrn with the full weight of its massive body.
***
The injured Kellen reached Tannys and the fallen ogre followed closely behind by the remaining guards that were with them. They pried the master courier and militiaman from the ogre's rigid grasp.
“Are you hurt?” asked Kellen to the shaken man.
Tannys refused to answer. He seemed to not even acknowledge the knight-captain’s presence.
“He is in shock! Are you hurt?” Kellen asked again and then understanding sunk in, “...Where is your boy?”
Still Tannys Lightfoot said nothing. He was paralyzed by his grief.
“I saw it. The boy killed the ogre single handed,” said Rallen. “It fell on him...”
Knight-Captain Kellen understood that death on the battlefield was unavoidable. No matter how well trained or skilled a force was there were always casualties. That was especially true when facing a more powerful opponent as they now were, but Byrn was no soldier. He was just a boy... a very brave boy...
“Can someone get this thing off of me?” came a muffled voice from under the hulking monster, “It smells like sweat and dung under here!”
“Quickly men, let's get this thing off of him,” ordered the captain.
The guardsmen lifted and pushed the massive corpse carefully so as not to injure Byrn. It took eight men to lift it enough for Rallen to scurry underneath and pull Byrn out by his arms.
His body was bloody and bruised, but most of the injuries were superficial and the blood belonged to the ogre. Rallen and another guard helped Byrn to his feet, but when he tried to stand on his own the young magician started to feint before the pair of guardsmen caught him.
“How did you survive that?” asked Kellen in surprise.
Byrn smiled the grin of someone who had no idea what was going on around him and Kellen guessed he was still dazed. Nevertheless Byrn told him, “I managed to craft a protective shield as I did this morning. It was instinctual, but I imagined a shield between the ogre and me and that was all there was to it.”
Kellen nodded in understanding. The shield had held only for an instant. It was just long enough to absorb the impact, but the massive corpse would still have crushed him if he were not pinned under it just next to the sword's protruding hilt. The young man was truly a magician now.
“We need to get him to the temple of Ashura,” said Tannys now freed from his stupor by his son’s miraculous survival as much as him suddenly exposing himself as a magician in front of all of these guardsmen. “He is clearly delusion. The boy must have suffered a nasty smack to his head.”
“Agreed,” said Kellen, “but we have got to meet up with the main body o
f the guard. The immediate area is secure, but there are more of those things spreading throughout the city and killing people as we speak.
“Guardsman Brennan, help Master Lightfoot get his son to the temple of Ashura.”
“Yes, sir,” replied one of the bowmen. He put Byrn's left arm over his shoulder and Tannys did the same with the right.
Finding a nearby bread cart, they sat Byrn in it as he slowly recovered his equilibrium during their trek to the temple. The two men each carried one rail of the cart and hauled their precious cargo the rest of the way to the temple although the sounds of fighting were never far off.
“Father, do you think mother will be alright on her own?” Byrn asked from his seat in the cart.
Tannys frowned at the thought of his wife alone. “I hope so. With any luck she is safe at home. May Ashura protect her.”
Chapter 10
Marian Lightfoot hid under her bed cowering in fear with Nanny Regald beside her. A horrible snoop and blabbermouth Nanny Regald was highly regarded as a fountain of risqué knowledge. If there was a lord siring bastards across the countryside she would know about it and she was happy to share the news, but right now Nanny just wanted to stop herself from talking.
“Do you think they will find us?” whispered Nanny, “I think they will.”
“They surely will if you do not quiet yourself,” Marian warned her testily.
Nanny wished she could stop talking, but whenever she did her mind kept going back to thoughts of her children. It may have been an hour ago or month ago for all Nanny knew. She had just finished fixing dinner when her husband, Rafe, had gotten home. Her girls, Clarissa and Lorien, ten and nine years respectively, were helping her set the table when the horn sounded indicating danger. A second higher pitched horn sounded a moment later calling on the militia. Nanny did not know what the danger was, but she feared the worst as Rafe kissed her and the girls goodbye and left to join the fight.
Her fears were confirmed a few minutes ago when a gray-green giant of a beast smashed its way through her front door and a moment later through the clay wall itself as it squeezed its way in. Nanny tried to protect her children as best she could. She threw pots and pans at the thing all the while screaming for the girls to hurry out the back door away from the beast.
She had no way of knowing that she was sending them into the arms of yet another of the monsters until she heard their screams followed by the creature's triumphant roar and abrupt silence a moment later. Her heart beated heavy in her chest daring to hope, but she knew the truth of it though she refused to think it. In that instant the world seemed to stand still for Nanny Regald. The knowledge that she would soon join her girls was a complete certainty and in that moment seemed comforting to know that she would not be without them for long.
If not for Marian calling her from the kitchen window she would have let the beast kill her. When Marian called her name it was enough to bring Nanny back to her senses and compel her to move her feet and climb out the window before the creature within the house could catch her.
“Quickly to my home,” Marian told her in a hushed, but frantic voice not wanting to alert the ogre behind Nanny's house. Nanny turned her head as she ran hoping to steal a glance of her girls.
“Do not look,” Marian warned her, “It will do you no good.”
“They are dead, aren't they?” Nanny asked. Tears clouded her vision and rolled down her cheeks.
Marian ignored the question. She led Nanny by the hand quickly and quietly to her home. “We must hurry before the ogre outside sees us or the one inside makes its way out and finds us.”
Marian’s house was dark and looked as it was empty to those outside. Nanny hoped that appearance might be enough to save them. The women hid under Marian's bed in the hopes that if the ogres did come they would not have the sense to check their hiding place.
A loud crash came from the front of the house followed by rustling noises and the sound of furniture being knocked over. Nanny nearly cried out then, but her friend’s fast thinking and faster hands covered her mouth tightly suppressing the noise. After a moment Nanny nodded to Marian letting her know that she had calmed down enough and the courier’s wife let her go.
Then they could here the table and chairs being turned over and thrown in the kitchen. The faint inhale and exhale of the beast was labored as it slowly drew ever closer room by room. Time seemed to stand still as the women waited for the beast to discover them or leave. Instead it seemed content to skulk back and forth throughout the house.
“It must have seen us,” said Nanny in a hurried whisper. “That is why it will not leave.” She began to shake with fear as she buried her face in her hands to muffle the sobs that were bound to grow louder.
Marian grabbed Nanny gently and held her tightly as she tried to comfort the increasingly hysterical woman. “Be calm, Nanny. Be calm,” she pleaded under her breath. The stress in her voice suddenly making it clear that Marian’s own fear was barely being held in check.
The monster's steps grew louder as it entered the small bedroom. Standing ten feet tall it was hunched over causing its breath to fall heavily in the chamber smelling of rot and decay. Nanny briefly wondered what the thing ate to make such a stench and let out a soft sob remembering her girls' screams.
The bed flew up and landed against the interior wall. Nanny's scream was ear piercing, causing the beast to rear back for a moment. Seeing an opportunity Marian was on her feet faster than she could think. “Run!” she screamed over and over again as she tried to hurry past the ogre in its momentary confusion all the while pulling Nanny by the arm across the floor. “Get up and run!” she shrieked.
Finally understanding Nanny found her way to her feet and almost reached the doorway when the creature's massive hand grabbed the woman’s free arm and ripped her free of Marian's grasp flinging Nanny Regald into the opposite wall behind it.
It turned to Nanny and saw her lying on the floor. Bright lights clouded her vision as she started to pass out. The last thing Nanny Regald saw was the ogre turning its attention to Marian. It made a grab for her and Marian turned and ran fleeing the house. Then the ogre turned its attention back to Nanny. Its black eyes regarded her with intense interest.
Chapter 11
Ashura is the goddess of life so it was little wonder that her temple would be built from the sylvan wood commonly found in the elven kingdom of Raiden. The trees were not cut into traditional boards as most buildings were, but were made of whole trees that were grown together into a massive building with a thick canopy of branches and leaves for a roof. In this way the trees could be preserved and honor the goddess.
There was no door to the temple of Ashura since all were welcome and on this evening there was no shortage of people accepting her invitation. The temple was lined with the injured and dying and they were overflowing out into the street in front of the temple's gaping entrance.
Brennan and Tannys were on either side of Byrn holding him up as he stumbled along. The young magician still felt dizzy after working his spell like a great deal of energy had been drained from him although the magic had lasted for barely a second.
“We need to find a healer,” said the guardsman Brennan looking around for anyone in the priests' signature green robes. “Over there,” he said pointing into the crowd. A pair of priests was administering aid to an injured girl about Byrn's age. One was reading a spell from his grimoire while the other applied a healing balm.
Once the priests finished with the child Tannys approached them and asked for their aid, “Please heal my son. He was injured in an ogre attack.”
“There are many injured here as you can see,” explained the priest with the grimoire motioning to the wounded around them, “Many are in worse condition than your boy who have also fallen victim to the foul things. If he will have a seat on one of the empty cots, then we will treat him as soon as we are able.”
“Now you listen to me-” Tannys began.
“It
is alright,” said Byrn putting his hand on his father's shoulder, “The priest is right. I am starting to feel better. The dizziness is not as bad as it was at first and besides some soreness I think I am fine.” He looked to Tannys' injured ribs and then to a man with his head wrapped in bandages soaked red with blood. “Besides I think there are people in need of healing more than I am.”
Tannys made no reply except to nod in agreement.
Byrn got settled on a bare cot and Tannys sat next to him as they waited. The sounds of battle rang out around them only blocks away.
“I should go,” said Brennan, “The fighting is getting closer and there is nothing more I can do here.”
“Understood and thank you for your assistance, Brennan.” said Tannys with a short nod.
“Agreed. Thank you,” Byrn added extending his hand and shaking the guardsman's.
As they sat waiting Byrn wondered just how many ogres were left. He had killed one and saw two others die, but there were more than thirty altogether. “Do you think there is more that I could do? Magically, I mean.”
Tannys seemed to think about it for a second then shook his head. “If there was a magical solution to this I think it would be provided by your new master, Sane.”
***
Baj Prison sat atop a hill overlooking Colum in the distance. Following the guards' alarm many of the Kenzai guards mobilized to help quell the ogre threat leaving Sane and Sari along with a skeleton crew of guards to keep the prison secure. The pair was standing on the balcony of the southeastern spire watching the fires burn in the city. Sane hoped the fires came from the defenders’ arrows and not a byproduct of the ogres' destruction.
“Kellen would have activated the militia and with the Kenzai providing support I am sure they will be able to beat back the ogres,” Sane said unsure if he was trying to reassure himself or the lovely elf standing next to him.
Rogue Magician (The Magician Rebellion) Page 7