by Luke Scull
Sasha wanted to run away and never look back. Instead she took a deep breath and raised her crossbow. The pressure inside her was gone. Salazar’s sinister magic had been broken by Brianna’s final sacrifice. All around her men were reclaiming their weapons from the ground. The mercenaries in front of the damaged gates of the city hauled the great battering ram up between them. They took a few steps back, unleashed a great war cry and launched themselves forwards. The wood splintered and the gates were torn away from their hinges.
Crimson Watchmen immediately poured through the breach, swords raised. The mercenaries tossed the battering ram aside and drew their own weapons as their comrades rushed in to help. Brodar Kayne nodded, gave her shoulder a comforting squeeze and moved to join the fray.
Sasha took another deep breath and followed.
The crossbow clicked. The bolt missed her target, sailing harmlessly wide. Sasha swore, reached down and drew her sword as the burly Watchman leaped the bodies of two of his fellows and brandished his own blade. Before he could reach her a Sumnian plunged a spear into his side. It sank deep, piercing his chainmail, and he staggered. The mercenary was on him in an instant, his long dagger plunging into the soldier’s neck. He went down, choking on blood. The black-skinned warrior pulled his spear free of the corpse and returned to the huge mêlée just ahead.
Sasha had no idea how much time had passed since the battle began. They had been forced back from the gates by the Watch, and now the soldiers formed a wall of crimson in front of the entrance to the city. Behind them, she knew, an unknown number of militiamen waited.
There were still a few archers on the battlements and occasionally an arrow would pick off a stray mercenary, but the bulk of the conscripts were apparently engaged in defending the breaches in the wall. From what she had seen, the archers were poor shots. With the fighters on both sides packed so closely together, they were as likely to hit their own men as the enemy.
She narrowed her eyes, trying to make sense of the chaos. The Sumnians were clearly the superior fighters, faster and more skilled, but their leather armour offered scant protection from the Watch’s swords and the arrows from above. General Zahn bellowed instructions from a nearby hillock, his four guards forming a shield wall around him. In the distance she could see General D’rak’s company eager to engage. They were awaiting the signal from Zahn, but it didn’t look as if that was coming any time soon. The western gate and the three major breaches in the city wall formed choke points that greater numbers would do little to penetrate, and there was no sense in providing more targets for the archers.
Another Watch soldier noticed her and came sprinting over just as she finished reloading her crossbow. This time Sasha put the quarrel in his stomach, stopping him in his tracks. He lurched away, clawing at his midriff, his agonized cries haunting her from where she knelt in the shallow depression. A few archers had taken shots at her, but she was at the very limits of their range and the arrows had gone far wide.
She tried to calm her nerves as she watched Kayne and Jerek cut a bloody swathe through the Crimson Watch. The two men were like forces of nature, Jerek a whirlwind of axes chopping at arms and legs while his older companion moved as serenely as a cloud before striking like lightning. He seemed able to read every single blow before it landed. Even as she looked on, Kayne sidestepped a sword thrust and smashed the pommel of his greatsword into his attacker’s face, dropping him like a sack of potatoes, and then spun around to dodge another Watchman’s overhead swing. An arrow took the soldier in the back at almost the exact moment he stepped into the Highlander’s path.
Sasha shook her head. The old barbarian had an uncanny knack of being in the right place at the right time.
A loud grunting drew her attention closer to her hiding spot. Three-Finger was grappling with one of the city’s defenders, stabbing him repeatedly through a hole in the man’s armour. Blood splattered his scabrous face but he kept on stabbing long after the soldier had stopped twitching. He saw her watching him, gave her a yellow grin which turned to a bellow of pain as an arrow suddenly pierced his shoulder.
She squinted up at the battlements. The militiamen had returned to the wall in force and were now raining arrows down indiscriminately, hitting mercenaries and Watchmen alike. Dark-skinned Sumnians and scarlet-clad Dorminians fell to the ground, pierced by missiles.
There was a sudden blur to the side of her. Like damned souls escaping from the gates of hell, the White Lady’s pale servants glided past with unnatural speed. The women went straight past the fighting, ignoring the arrow-strewn killing field, and began scaling the walls with their bare hands.
Sasha’s mouth dropped open in shock. They crawled up the stone like spiders – a sight so unnatural it filled her with sudden horror.
The first of the women reached the top and disappeared over the side. A moment later the broken body of a militiaman tumbled over the wall, his head at a crazy angle to his neck. More conscripts fell from the wall, dropping like flies.
Sasha glanced at the hillock again and saw General Zahn gesturing wildly at General D’rak and his company. The thousand mercenaries raised their weapons and began to advance.
She reached for another bolt and her hand came away empty. She hesitated for a second, then discarded the spent quiver and drew her sword. The mercenaries and Watchmen were locked in combat outside the walls, while just inside the city pandemonium had broken out. The White Lady’s servants were seemingly unstoppable, moving with blinding speed and striking with bare hands that carried the force of a hammer blow. They twisted and spun and attacked from impossible angles, bending like quicksilver to avoid the desperate lunges and swings of the Watch and militiamen. Soldiers fell with their heads crushed, their necks broken, their spines shattered.
She had to look away. Not even the Watch deserved this. Salazar was their true enemy. Brianna’s last desperate act had disrupted his magic, but she knew he was still up there in the Obelisk, watching them, waiting until he was sufficiently recovered to launch another deadly spell.
Come on, Cole. You can’t fail. If you do, there will be nothing left of the city but corpses.
You can’t fail.
Come the Hour
‘Lord Salazar is unharmed, Commandant.’
Barandas breathed a sigh of relief. The magical assault on the Obelisk had been completely unexpected. He had feared the worst when he saw the explosion.
Kalen adjusted his ponytail and stroked his bow thoughtfully. The young Augmentor carried no quiver on his back. The weapon he held in his hands provided its own ammunition. ‘I saw the Halfmage on the way to the Obelisk.’
The Supreme Augmentor grimaced in annoyance. The accursed wizard should have been on the western wall helping defend the city! ‘Did he care to explain why he abandoned his station?’
Kalen shrugged. ‘He said only that our lord required his presence. I feel sorry for the poor sod he had pushing him.’
Barandas sighed. He didn’t trust the Halfmage as far as he could throw him, but there was nothing to be done about it now. If the sarcastic bastard didn’t have a good reason for showing up at the Obelisk, Thurbal would send him packing soon enough. He had bigger concerns.
Captain Bracka’s last report indicated the mercenaries were getting the better of the Watch at the western gate. Barandas had wanted to send more militia out to bolster the defenders, but the company approaching from the east would soon lay siege to that side of the city and he wanted men held in reserve. The situation as it stood could be better – but they need only hold the walls a few hours longer.
The nightmarish visage of Garmond loomed into view, a black silhouette against the afternoon sun. His plate armour clanked as he paced back and forth, squeezing his gauntleted fists together as if every moment spent away from the fighting was mental torture. ‘When do I get to kill something?’ he rumbled from behind his demonic helm. Three of his colleagues nodded in agreement.
Barandas had gathered almost all his elite en
forcers to him, a dozen Augmentors in total. They made for a motley assembly, but there was no deadlier force in the Trine. Each man was worth ten normal soldiers. Some, such as the restless giant regarding him with his vambraced arms crossed, no less than twenty.
‘Patience, Garmond,’ Barandas replied. ‘Were it not for recent events and the terrible losses we have suffered, I would not hesitate to send you against the enemy. But we are no longer forty. We are no longer even half that. I must use you wisely.’
Legwynd. Rorshan. Both gone. Falcus, too, more than likely. Whatever happened at the Swell?
The expedition to the Lord of the Deep’s resting place was supposed to have provided raw crystallized magic with which to forge new Augmentors. Instead they had received nothing but silence. Falcus could have returned to Dorminia in less than a day, in the event of an emergency. That he had not done so could only mean the expedition had ended in disaster.
He shook his head. They had known the voyage would be perilous. He thought of Admiral Kramer’s poor family, the relief they must have felt at seeing his death sentence rescinded only to lose him again to the vagaries of the Swell. The world is fond of such terrible ironies.
Someone was approaching from across the street. It was Captain Loric, judging by the hitch in his step. ‘What news from the east gate?’ he demanded.
‘They will be within range of the city in a bell,’ replied the captain.
‘How many men do we have on the wall?’
Loric wiped sweat from his brow. He possessed a distinct band of white at the front of his otherwise dark hair. Unsurprisingly, that physical quirk combined with his penchant for harassing the men under him had resulted in his nickname of the Badger. ‘Fifteen hundred militia. Two hundred Watchmen.’
Barandas thought for a moment. ‘Keep the militia on the battlements. Launch a sortie to disrupt the siege weapons if necessary. We must hold them off for long enough.’
The captain opposite him blinked in confusion. ‘Hold them off long enough for what, Commandant?’
‘Let me worry about that, Captain. See to your orders.’
‘Aye.’ Loric saluted. He hesitated for a moment. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve seen Lieutenant Toram?’
Barandas shook his head. He remembered the moustached officer from his brief visit to Malbrec. Not a good day.
‘No matter,’ Loric replied. ‘By your leave, sir.’ He saluted again and limped back across the square, heading eastwards.
Barandas watched him go. Faces peeked at him from behind drapes and then melted away again. The streets were empty except for soldiers and the odd militiaman scurrying about. Houses stood silent, shops closed, taverns barred shut. All those not actively involved in the defence of the city – women, the young, the old, the infirm – were taking refuge behind closed doors.
He thought of Lena back at their estate in the Noble Quarter. She would be waiting for him, sick with worry – and perhaps other things. I’m going to be a father. He had not seen his wife since yesterday morning and the guilt gnawed at him. I have a duty, he reminded himself. To the city. To the people. To my lord.
He reached into the small bag at this belt and withdrew the silk handkerchief Lena had given him to celebrate their fourth year of marriage. It smelled of jasmine and her favourite perfume, and he smiled when he brought it close to his face.
‘Sir,’ Kalen called. It sounded like a warning. Barandas looked up and saw Captain Bracka leaning on another soldier as he struggled to make his way towards them. One side of the officer’s face was covered in blood, which ran down his cheek to merge with the red of his beard, and he cradled his right arm in his left. Barandas could see bone protruding from the broken limb.
‘Captain, what has happened?’ he demanded.
Bracka’s eyes were haunted. He looked as if he had seen a ghost. ‘Monsters,’ he said dully. ‘Monsters clothed as women. They scaled the wall, killed three dozen men before we could react…’ His voice trailed off.
‘They came from nowhere,’ the young Watchman supporting Bracka interjected. His voice shook. ‘We received no warning.’
Barandas grimaced. The mindhawks had detected no sign of the pale women. Lord Salazar had warned him that the White Lady’s servants possessed strange abilities – he had witnessed their potency at first hand – but immunity to thought-mining was something even the Magelord had not foreseen.
‘There’s more, sir. The third company is on the move. The walls will be breached within the hour.’
Within the hour. That was too soon. He had to protect the city – at all costs. He turned to his Augmentors. ‘Men, draw your weapons. We go to Dorminia’s defence.’
The brightness of the day suddenly intensified as glowing implements of death sprang from their sheaths. Garmond slammed one gauntleted fist into another with a force like that of two bulls butting heads. ‘At fucking last,’ he snarled.
Barandas placed Lena’s handkerchief carefully back into the bag at his belt and drew his own sword. It whispered softly as it brushed against the scabbard, like a dying man’s sigh. There was no ostentation about the cold steel. No magical luminescence. The only magic he possessed was within the mechanical instrument pumping blood around his body. Lord Salazar had told him that he required nothing more.
With a final glance across the square in the direction of the Noble Quarter, he beckoned to his men and set off towards the western wall.
When they arrived, it was to behold a scene of carnage. Bodies lay strewn all over the cobbles, twisted and broken like discarded dolls. Fighting raged ahead of them as the city’s remaining defenders attempted to hold the sundered gates against the flood of dark-skinned warriors trying to force their way through.
Smaller pockets of fighting had broken out in spots just inside the wall. A group of Watchmen surrounded a pale-skinned woman and were hacking at her desperately. She was missing her left arm below the elbow, but the grievous wound did little to slow her. With stunning speed, the woman twisted out of the way of a sword thrust and flung herself on the back of one of her opponents. She reached around his neck as he tried to shake her off and almost yanked his head off. Barandas heard vertebrae snap as the man’s eyes rolled up into their sockets.
Setting his jaw in a grim line, the Supreme Augmentor strode towards the pale woman, who leaped from the soldier’s back as he fell lifeless to the ground. She sprang at him, almost got her hand to his throat before his sword cleaved her skull in two. Foul grey matter splattered over his golden armour but he ignored it, searching around for new enemies. He spotted two more of the pale women over by the left entrance to the gatehouse. They were standing at the centre of a heap of corpses, their white robes soaked through with blood.
One of the women noticed him. Her dead eyes revealed no surprise, no fear, no regard at all for the horror all around them. She pointed at him. Together the two pale women began moving closer.
His vision blurred for an instant as something fiery streaked across their path and then one of the women was hurtling backwards, a smoking hole in her chest. Barandas glanced to his right and saw Kalen drawing back his bow for another shot.
The ponytailed Augmentor gasped suddenly as the bloody point of a spear burst through his chest. His Sumnian killer was still trying to tug the weapon free as Garmond appeared, gore trailing from his gauntlets, and snatched the man up from the ground. With a sickening crack, he brought the southerner down over his knee, breaking his back.
Barandas tore his gaze away and focused on the unnatural creature approaching. The woman slowed a short distance from him and cocked her head as if surprised by something. ‘You have no heart,’ she observed in an emotionless monotone.
He gripped his sword more tightly, every muscle poised to spring into action. ‘I am more human than you, creature. Whatever you are.’
The woman’s lips curled into a smile, though nothing reached her eyes. ‘Then I will gladly fall beneath your blade, if you are worthy. I pray it is so.’
> The smile faded.
As Barandas stared at the creature, understanding dawned. This… thing, whatever it was, wanted to die. He would do his best to oblige her.
She darted towards him and he rolled at the last instant, springing to his feet and twisting around to meet her as she pivoted for another attack. This time his sword caught her below the knee, causing her to stumble past him. Quick as a flash he reversed his swing and severed her spine. She stumbled to the ground – and then, to his horror, began pulling herself towards him with her arms, dragging her useless legs along the blood-stained cobbles.
‘Do it,’ she rasped, staring up at him with those soulless orbs. He nodded once, brought his sword up and back down, splitting her head like a melon. Whatever you were, I pity you, he thought. He watched the discoloured fluids draining out from the creature’s cranium. The thing was rotting from the inside; it smelled as if it had been dead for months.
Ragged cheering drew his attention. The arrival of the Augmentors had given the defenders a boost. As he surveyed the battlefield he saw most of the pale women were now dead or dying, though he had lost Kalen and, it seemed, his friend Varca, whose magical helm rested fifteen feet away from the Augmentor’s body. The severed head was still strapped inside the helm. Elsewhere the Sumnians had been driven back, and now the militia and the remnants of the Watch were pressing ahead, pushing them back further still.
Barandas raised his sword and gestured at the mêlée ahead of him, just outside the gates. ‘Forward!’ he shouted. His remaining Augmentors and the nearby defenders rushed to obey his command and together they surged into the enemy ranks. He turned away one spear, stabbed the owner through the guts and then yanked his sword free to behead another southerner.
A wall of shields suddenly loomed before them. The red-haired Augmentor, Jardwym, raised his mighty enchanted maul and swung it with all his strength. The shields exploded in a shower of splinters and the men holding them were thrown twenty feet backwards through the air from the force of the impact. Some struggled to their feet; others would never rise again.