by Dan Avera
And then, as though the yaru had been waiting for such a queue, Grim started growling.
Both Will and Clare were instantly alert, swords drawn and at the ready. Grim stood with his hackles raised and teeth bared, staring off into the distance, and the rumble in his throat sent a shiver up Will's spine. “Do you see anything?” he whispered after a moment.
Clare began to shake her head, but paused midway. She leaned forward slightly, looking intently off into the distance—and then pointed. “They're here.”
Will followed her gaze and saw that they had indeed arrived—across the Southland plains were spread countless inky shapes that seemed to slither across the ground, darker than shadows but for their innumerable glowing red eyes. There were hundreds of yaru—far too many for Will to count, and he felt his gut twist with dread anticipation. They swarmed past the copses of oak and over the barren ground, completely silent and nearly invisible. Will seized the lantern and raised it repeatedly into the air. A moment later the other two lanterns answered with similar motions. “They're on their way,” Will said, setting his lantern down. “Let's hope they get here in time.
“I am already here,” Serah said to his left, and she drew her sword as she strode toward him from out of the darkness. It was a beautiful sha'shim, curved and covered in Eastland script that flowed like the wind. Behind her, Jhai and Zizo materialized out of the shadows, the air around them shimmering briefly as though seen through an intense wave of heat. They drew their blades as well, and waited impassively at the edge of the wall, their eyes hard and unfeeling as stone. Will knew that look well. Too well.
He could hear the pounding of boots on stone as soldiers began to stream out of the city and up to the wall, the din intensifying as it echoed around the buildings. Those already at their stations began to nock arrows to bowstrings or load bolts into their crossbows.
“Your orders, sir?” one soldier called to Will.
“Wait for Castor,” Will answered.
“They will be here before him,” Serah murmured. Will stared at her for a long moment. It was Castor's army—not his. But Castor would understand, wouldn't he? Yes, Will thought, he will.
“Alright,” he called, “archers, make ready! Swordsmen, at your positions along the wall!”
A skeleton of a man appeared at Will's elbow, grinning up at him.
“Hook!” Will said. “Are Priscilla and her family safe?” The man nodded and gave Will a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “Good,” said Will. “You have my thanks. Are you ready?” In answer, Hook drew a pair of daggers from his belt, holding them so that the firelight shone from their edges. He gave one of his gurgling chuckles and then dashed off to take his place along the wall, disappearing among the men like a ghost in fog.
“Will,” Serah called, “I am going to stall them until Castor arrives with the rest of his men.”
Will gaped at her, aghast. “Are you serious? You'll be killed!”
“Not just yet, I am afraid. I am, after all, a Titan, yes?”
With that she stepped up onto the parapet and leaped unceremoniously from the edge. Will gave a surprised shout and tried to grab her—and stared in amazement when, in the next instant, she rose high above the edge of the wall, carried by the air itself. Her hair and cape whipped about her in a gale-force wind, and she stretched her arms out to the sides, angling the tip of her sword toward the heavens.
The yaru, now no more than a long stone's throw away from the city wall, halted abruptly. They chittered in fear and pointed at Serah, terrified of the lone woman—and for good reason. Without a word, she flung her arms toward the horde and two blinding bolts of lightning arced forth—one from her hand and one from the tip of her blade. They struck the ground with a deafening roar. Will clapped his hands over his ears with a wince of pain.
Seemingly without a command from their master, the lightning bolts began to flick and sweep from side to side, catching dozens of yaru in their deadly paths and screeching and squealing with unfathomable energy. Any yaru the beams touched screamed and burst into flame, flash-burning until there was little left of them but charred shells. Some of them simply erupted in a cloud of gore and body parts from the sheer force of the energy. Will gaped in awe, spellbound by the destruction, and then he remembered his duty.
“Archers!” he cried. “Make ready!”
A thundering roar was his answer as the soldiers screamed a battlecry into the night. A rush of excitement rolled through him as he recognized the call; they were shouting his name. “Blackmane! Blackmane! Blackmane!”
“Alright!” Will yelled above the noise, “Archers! Don't hit her! On my mark...loose!”
A storm of arrows and quarrels shot into the night, their whistles drowned out by the sound of Serah's inhuman power. The lightning illuminated the scene below, and Will could see dozens of yaru fall to the ground, howling in agony as the deadly shafts buried themselves deep in their flesh. He wasted no time, pressing his advantage.
“Loose!”
Another volley leaped through the air, again raining death upon the ranks of demons. A drum roll of deafening explosions rang out to either side of him and he covered his ears again in surprise, staring dazedly at the thick clouds of smoke that began to drift off into the night air. He saw plumes of fire erupt from several positions along the wall, and the missiles that leaped from the flames smashed into the creatures below, taking handfuls to the Void with each shot. Cannons, Will thought. Spirits above, we could actually win this.
As if on queue, though, Serah suddenly flew backwards and over the wall, her lightning extinguished. She crashed through the roof of a house a short distance away and did not emerge. “No!” Will cried, and made to go after her, but a strong tug on his arm stopped him.
“You have to stay here!” Clare screamed. “Command them! I'll go look for Serah!” He hesitated for a split instant, and then nodded. She dashed off.
By then the yaru had recovered, and were just beginning to reach the circle of torchlight that surrounded the city. “Loose!” Will cried. “Swordsmen at the ready! Cannons, fire!”
~
Castor didn't stop running even when he heard the unmistakable boom of thunder and the roar of what he guessed was cannon fire, nor when he saw the blinding glare and heard the screams of dying yaru. “Come on!” he cried, slamming open a watchtower door with his shoulder and charging through to the other side and the open air beyond. “Will needs us! Are you with me, Ravens?” A roar of fury answered him from behind, and a shiver ran through him. The exhilaration of the coming battle was like fire in his veins, and each nerve seemed to quiver with anticipation. “Get ready! We're almost there!”
The lightning stopped abruptly just before they reached its source, and the sudden absence of sound was broken by an audible splintering crash. Castor charged through the door of the final watchtower just as Will turned to dash away from the fight. The move was so uncharacteristic of his friend that Castor skidded to a halt. What? he thought. Will never runs away from a fight. But in the next instant he saw Clare stop him, and she shouted something that was lost amid the chorus of howls and shrieks emanating from the other side of the wall. Castor saw Will give her one last, lingering look as she ran in the direction he had been going, and then he turned back to his men.
“Will!” Castor cried as the archers and crossbowmen loosed another volley, and death rained down among the demonic creatures below. An instant later there was a satisfying cacophony of inhuman screams. “We're here, Will! Where do you need us?”
Will ran up to him, wincing in pain as his hand shot reflexively down to his thigh. “I need your archers on that wall!” he cried, and Castor signaled his men to do so.
“Fire at will!” Castor called. “Where'd Clare go?” he asked Will, and then he looked around in confusion. “And where's the desert woman?”
“Serah was doing that lightning thing again,” Will answered, “only bigger—much bigger. But something happened to her, and she crashed
into that house over there. Clare went to go find her. Katryna!” he said, speaking over Castor's shoulder, “Can you go and help Clare? Serah...she hit that roof hard. We need her if we're going to win this.” Katryna nodded once and dashed off.
Then the first human screamed. Castor and Will both whirled at the same time to see one of the archers dragged bodily over the side of the wall. His scream ended abruptly a moment later as he hit the ground, and in the man's place a yaru was now scrabbling over the lip of the battlement, its naked head questing snakelike from side to side in search of more prey. A Raven swung his sword at it, and too late it raised its arm to ward off the blow. The blade cleaved the creature's arm in two and hewed halfway through its neck. A spray of blood splashed across the ground, and then misted into the air as the creature toppled backward and disappeared from view.
Another yaru leaped over the wall, landing in the midst of a group of soldiers. It lashed out, striking one of the men in the throat and tearing a gaping hole in his neck. A swordsman raised his blade high for a killing blow, but the creature caught his wrist and tackled him to the ground, sinking its teeth into his shoulder. The soldier screamed as the yaru ripped savagely into him with its fangs, tearing out a bloody chunk of flesh and devouring it.
But then a skeletal shadow leaped through the air and landed on the yaru's back. The beast shrieked in surprise and stumbled forward, dropping its would-be victim and thrashing madly to get at its attacker. Steel flashed in Hook's hands as he stabbed maniacally at the creature's neck, cackling his gurgling laugh as his daggers tore through muscle and sinew like a butcher's knife. Blood sprayed across his face and hands as the yaru's head detached slowly and erratically from its body, and then the creature crumpled to the ground, twitching. Hook stood, panting and grinning like a madman, and then helped the fallen soldier to his feet.
Castor and Will had reached them by then, and Castor could see that the wounded man was out of the fight. Blood seeped over his fingers as he tried to staunch the tear in his neck, and his skin was deathly pale. “Get someplace safe,” he said to the man, who nodded and stumbled off, still gripping his sword in one trembling, white-knuckled hand. Castor yearned to send another man with him, but he couldn't spare anyone.
The whiz of arrows and the boom of cannons mingled in the night air with the screams of the dying to form a symphony of violence, and had Castor been any less a seasoned veteran the din would have made his heart pound and his limbs tremble with fear. But now he was filled with only grim resolve; his terror he kept locked away in a secluded corner of his mind.
But then he chanced a look over the wall and saw, to his horror, dozens of yaru scaling the stones with nothing but their claws. They chittered and howled as they caught the scent of blood, and one leaped straight for Castor. His sword flashed and the monster halted in midair, a look of shock crossing its hideous features as Castor's blade slide through the base of its throat and stuck against its lower ribs. It slowly slid off and fell to the ground, knocking another yaru off the wall on its way down. Neither creature got back up.
~
Clare sprinted as fast as she could, her arms pumping and her body tilted forward to gain momentum. Grim trotted beside her, easily keeping pace with his long legs; gone was the warhound's dog-like demeanor, replaced now by his wolfish side. His muzzle was low, and his jaws hung open to expose sharp teeth that glittered wickedly in the firelight. But Clare's attention was elsewhere.
Have to hurry. Have to get back to Will. The thoughts raced unceasingly through her mind, and all she could think of was Will fighting in his wounded state, being torn apart by a yaru. Why had she told him to stay on the wall? Stupid, stupid, stupid! She should have stayed to fight instead.
But she couldn't think about that now—she skidded to a halt in front of the house, dismayed at the extent of the damage. There was a massive crater in the roof, and the wood around the edges was jagged and splintered. For anyone to survive an impact like that would have been nothing short of a miracle, but she had to look regardless. As Will had said, they needed Serah if they wanted to survive this fight.
She kicked the door open with a bang and ran inside and up the stairs, her boots pounding heavily on the floor. Serah lay in the middle of a small crater in the wood on the upper level, her body unmoving. Clare knelt down beside her and put her fingers to the woman's throat; she felt a pulse, and Serah's chest rose and fell with each shallow breath she took. Good. But then she saw her torso. A thick splinter of wood, at least the length and width of Clare's forearm, had pierced right through her abdomen. Blood leaked around the edge of the wound and dripped down onto the floor below, staining the wood a deep ruby-red. Only a short length of the jagged spike protruded from the front of her body, but Clare thought it might be enough for her to grab onto and remove it. But should I? she wondered. What if I cause even more damage? What if it doesn't even matter at this point? She reached out gingerly to touch it, unsure what to do, and the moment her fingers brushed the wood Serah's eyes flared open.
The desert woman gasped for breath and sat up, coughing. “No, wait! You can't move,” Clare cried, but Serah brushed her away.
“Stand back,” she rasped, her voice hoarse. When Clare was a good distance away Serah reached around and grasped the longer end of the splinter. With a grimace of pain she yanked on it, and it came free in a gout of blood that spattered across the floor and speckled the wall behind her. She coughed some more and leaned over, bent double. Clare moved forward hesitantly to help, but stopped when Serah growled, “Do not touch me.”
Clare obediently moved away again, her eyes widening as, against all rational reasoning, Serah stood up. Bolts of lightning began to arc across her body, and when she turned to look at Clare her dark desert eyes were gone, replaced with glowing orbs of pure electricity. “It takes more than that to kill a Titan,” she rumbled, her voice suddenly deep and fierce as a hurricane. “Get back to Will. You must protect him. One of the Fallen is here.” And then she leaped back out through the hole in the roof and flew through the air, lighting flashing in her wake. A gale-force wind followed her passage, buffeting Clare so hard that she lost her balance and fell heavily on her backside.
Dazed—and completely astounded—Clare simply stared in shock for a moment. And then she felt a hand on her shoulder, and she turned to see Castor's woman staring down at her. “Come on!” she cried. “What are you doing? Get off the floor! We need to help the others!” She shook Clare's shoulders. “You need to help Will!”
That was all it took. Clare was dashing back out the door in a matter of moments, Katryna trailing behind her and the stoic Grim at her side. Overhead Serah flew toward the wall. She seemed to be made entirely of twisting, snapping lightning, and had sprouted what appeared to be a pair of dark, cloudy wings that left a churning trail of fog in her wake.
Clare made it to the nearest ramp of stairs just as Serah disappeared from view, and then she heard a chorus of tremendous booms that eclipsed even the roar of the cannons. The world flashed with unnatural daylight, and for a moment she was struck deaf and blind.
“Enemies of life,” Serah rumbled, her voice booming with thunder, “I am Sorr, goddess of the four winds. I have returned to rend you asunder. Your time has come.”
Clare crested the stairs just as the last note of Serah's voice echoed away into the distance. She saw a stray yaru leap over the edge of the wall, highlighted in flickering blue-white by Serah's lightning, its claws reaching for an unsuspecting soldier—and then it was torn apart in midair.
The beast's legs separated at the knees, its arms at the elbows and shoulders. The top half of its body split from the bottom at the waist, and its head, forever frozen with an expression of horrified surprise, spun away from its neck and tumbled away into the darkness. Blood rained down among the combatants, followed closely by the severed body parts.
The way Serah had cut Will's face flashed through Clare's mind, and she felt a sickening twist in her stomach. For one per
son to possess such power seemed...wrong.
But she put the gory spectacle out of her mind and looked frantically about for Will. When she finally saw him, she was horrified to see that he was holding two yaru at bay at once, fighting left-handed so as not to use his wounded arm. His face was twisted into a mask of pain and rage, but though his injuries were obviously hurting him he continued to fight relentlessly. His sword flashed and whistled through the air, and with phenomenal speed he blocked and parried the yaru's attacks. But he was losing energy fast—Clare could see him begin to slow, and a single claw made it through his defenses, tearing just the surface of his shirt sleeve before he yanked his arm back and spun out of the way.
Will was going to die in a matter of moments, and that knowledge awakened something inside of her, some deep presence that until then had remained dormant. Rage filled her—pure, white-hot rage that invigorated her entire body from head to foot, filling her veins with fire and sharpening her senses past anything she had ever experienced. The reek of blood and rent innards filled her nose and everything she saw seemed to sharpen with raptor-like clarity. The din of battle faded into the background, replaced with the sound of Will's sword ringing off of claws as hard as steel. Her muscles bunched, tightened, and bulged beneath her skin, and she was on them in an instant.
Her longsword flashed through the air, hewing through skin, muscle, and bone like a hot knife through butter as it passed through one of the yaru's arms at the elbow. The pieces separated with a sickening squelch as the cartilage in the joint parted, and the beast screamed, spinning toward her and flecking her face with its foul blood. Her next strike caught it underneath the chin, silencing it instantly, and the tip of her sword cracked through the top of its skull and halted a hand's breadth out the other side with mechanical efficiency. A feral snarl of fury tore from her lungs as she ripped her sword to the side, tearing the creature's head completely away from its shoulders. It slid off the end and tumbled away through the air, striking the ground with a wet squelch.