Silk And Steel: The Skeleton King Part 40

The Knight Marshal King Ursus joined the marshal on the battlement. "So the Darkflamme has come to fight. Now we know why they've stayed their hand." He turned to the trumpeters. "Sound the alert. I want every man ready for battle."

A dozen horns blew a frantic call. Knights, soldiers, and archers answered, flocking to the two walls, yet the attack did not come. Twilight faded to dark, a spray of stars across the sky. Most of the men remained at their posts. Huddled beneath maroon cloaks, they leaned against the battlement, s.n.a.t.c.hing a few hours of sleep, twitching awake at the slightest sound. The king and the marshal took turns walking the walls, offering words of encouragement, keeping vigil with the men.

Dawn revealed a new day. The enemy stood arrayed for battle, a long line of black shields bristling with spears, but this time, a host of cavalry waited near the front. One among them caught the marshal's gaze. Mounted on a magnificent black stallion, he wore silver armor embossed with black. His helmet was fashioned in the guise of a crowned skull, his breastplate like the ribcage of a skeleton. Even from a distance, the armor cast a fearful pall.

The marshal leaned toward the king. "Sire, do you see that one there? In the armor fashioned like a skeleton?"

The king nodded, his face grim. "The Mordant comes in the guise of the Skeleton King." His mailed hands balled into fists. "I've long thought the tales nothing more than a bard's drunken yarn. Yet it seems a legend has come to fight. Myth so often holds a kernel of truth." King Ursus took a deep breath, a glint of fire in his eyes. "By the G.o.ds, he'll learn the Octagon is equal to any legend." Reaching back, he drew his great blue sword, a gleam of sapphire raised against the dawn's light. "For Honor and the Octagon!"

The men took up the king's war cry. "Honor and the Octagon!" The very mountains rang with the shout, echoing the cry a thousand fold.

But the enemy was undaunted. War drums answered, pounding a furious beat. Battle banners snapped above the long dark line. And above them all, rode the Darkflamme, twelve feet of dark silk snaking against the steel-gray sky, flicking back and forth like a serpent's tongue.

A shout rose from the enemy. So many swords were drawn at once that the hiss of steel against leather could be heard on the walls.

The marshal raised his voice to a shout. "Wait for it!"

All along the dark line, swords pounded against shields, echoing the rhythm of the drums. The front ranks parted, revealing a ma.s.sive battering ram, unlike anything they'd seen before. Made from a gigantic tree trunk, it was tapered to a point and capped with black iron shaped like a fist. But even more fearsome, were the soldiers carrying it...for they were not men.

The marshal stared. "What are they?"

But the king had no answer.

Great hulking brutes with lantern jaws and bulging muscles, they dwarfed the men around them. They hefted the ram with uncanny ease. Clothed in chainmail and wolf skin cloaks, they looked like ogres, another nightmare sprung to life.

"Monsters at the gate!" The marshal reached for his sword, needing to feel cold steel in his hands. So these were the monsters the healer had warned of. The nightmare had come at last.

The ogres loosed a ululating howl and then they lurched forward, twenty monsters bearing the ram toward the outer gate.

"Wait for it!"

All along the wall, archers drew their bows to a crescent.

"Wait for it!" He let the monsters lumber five paces from the enemy lines and then he gave the order. "Now!" Trumpets blared and a volley of arrows hissed skyward.

The ogres churned forward, powering the ram toward the outer gate.

Arrows struck with a vengeance, a hail of feathered shafts falling on the ram. More than a few struck true, sinking into flesh and leather, but the ram did not falter.

"Again!" Trumpets repeated the order, loosing a storm of arrows.

"Stop the ram!" The marshal watched it come, rushing toward the gate like an impending doom. "Stop it!"

Arrows struck the ogres, a bristle of feathered shafts. Three of the beasts fell, but the others kept coming. The ram never faltered.

"Fire arrows!" The oil was long gone; exhausted on other a.s.saults, but perhaps flaming arrows would stop the beasts. Trumpets relayed the command and the air swarmed with flames. A frenzy of feathered comets streaked toward the enemy. The marshal watched, willing the ram to falter. "Stop them!" Fire arrows thudded into the ogres, yet the ram lumbered forward. Ten feet, five feet, the great ram closed the distance to the outer gate.

And then it struck. Kaboom!

A giant thunderclap rocked the world.

Atop the second wall, the marshal staggered backward as if punched by a giant fist. Knocked on his back, he struggled to stand, desperate to know if the gates still stood. Gripping a merlon, he stared below.

Wood and stone flexed and groaned. Men atop the first wall screamed a warning. For half a heartbeat the gates stood...and then they disappeared, consumed by a cloud of black. When the dust cleared, the gates were gone. They were gone! A great hole gaped in the outer wall. Nothing remained within the gap, not rubble, not even the bodies of the ogres and their fearsome ram. Stone and wood and iron had disappeared, swallowed by a single thunderclap.

"Magic!" The marshal stared, struggling to understand. So this was the power of magic. But how could swords fight such a power?

Beside him, a young squire whimpered, a pitiful sound, like an animal caught in a trap. All along the wall, men stood frozen in fear, gaping at the missing gate. He had to do something.

A shout of triumph rose from the enemy.

The marshal gripped his sword and forced himself to think. The outer gates were gone. Without the walls they'd be overrun in less than a day. They needed the walls to survive...but the gate was gone. But not the walls! And then it came to him. "Sound the attack!"

But nothing happened. No trumpet obeyed his command.

He ran to the nearest trumpeter, a young lad with sandy blond hair. "Sound the attack!"

But the young man just gave him a befuddled look.

The marshal shot a glance at the king, relieved to see he understood.

The king towered over the young trumpeter, sunlight gleaming on his crowned helm. "You heard the Lord Marshal, sound the attack!" And the trumpeter obeyed. Other trumpets added their throats to the call. A trill of notes summoned the maroon to war.

The marshal grabbed the nearest squire, shaking the lad till the daze left his face. "Run and find Sir Mallory. Have him lead a charge of horse out through the gate. We need to hold the gap in the wall." He shook the lad again. "Do you understand?"

"Yes, Sir!"

"Then run like the devil's after you."

The squire sped away. The marshal turned and strode toward the rampart, desperate to learn the state of the battle. Out in the steppes, the enemy prepared to charge, while down in the narrow three hundred foot lane that separated the two walls, chaos reigned. Men in maroon abandoned the outer wall. Some of them blackened and burned, some without weapons, others unharmed, they fled the first wall scrambling for the gates of the second. All discipline was gone. To the marshal, it looked like a rout, the death knell of the maroon. Leaning on the rampart, he shouted down to them, "Heed the trumpets! Stand and fight!" but it was like yelling into the wind.

But then, in the middle of the muddy lane, a single knight stood firm. Blackened with soot, his helmet and shield lost to the fray, he raised his sapphire sword to the heavens and commanded the men to attack. And they did! Men, who'd been fleeing a moment before, stopped and stood with their prince. At Ulrich's command, they formed a bulwark across the gap, a ragged line of men with swords, and spears, and axes, plugging the hole in the outer wall.

The thin defense was just in time...for the enemy charged.

Like a nightmare unleashed, the horde rushed forward, a dark tide racing toward the sundered gate.

The defenders braced for the attack.

Steel clashed against steel, a mighty crash. But the outer walls still served their purpose, blunting the enemy's charge, forcing a horde of thousands to funnel down to a narrow spear of men.

The fighting in the gap was fierce. Hand to hand, men fought and died, turning the muddy gap to a churn of blood, but the maroon did not give ground.

"Loose another volley!" The marshal screamed the command and the trumpeters echoed his order.

All along the second wall, archers loosed volley after volley. Like a swarm of angry hornets, the arrows struck the attackers at the gate. But it was not enough. For every enemy that fell, two more leaped to fill the gap. Tens of thousands pressed forward, like grains of sand rushing toward the neck of an hourgla.s.s. The maroon was running out of time, the marshal needed a different plan.

"The Mordant is the key." The realization struck like lightning. The marshal raced along the wall, looking for Hadrian, the master archer for the maroon. He found him on the crown of the second drum tower, a tall blond-haired man with broad shoulders and muscled arms, an eight-foot longbow in his hands.

"Hadrian, we need to kill the Mordant."

The master archer loosed an arrow, his motions smooth as silk, and then he turned piercing green eyes on the marshal. "We need more arrows!"

"And more men, but we're not like to get either. Yet if we kill the Mordant, we may yet turn the tide of battle."

The archer grunted, gesturing to the enemy. "Which one is he?"

The marshal searched the teeming horde. "See there to the left? That battle standard, black with forked tails that look like darkness on fire? It is the Darkflamme, the battle standard of the Mordant."

"I see it."

"And nearby, mounted on a black stallion, he wears the armor of a Skeleton King."

Hadrian made the warding sign against evil. "I see him, but he's beyond the reach of my bow."

"And if you stood atop the outer wall?"

The archer gave the marshal a slow, measured look. Both men knew the risks. Hadrian nodded. "With luck and a favorable wind, I might reach him from the outer wall."

He heard acceptance in the other man's voice. Even the archers fought with the courage of knights. "Then the Light be with you."

The archer saluted and called for two of his men.

The marshal returned to the outer rampart, taking his place by the king.

"Ulrich holds them!" Pride filled the king's voice.

Below, the defenders still held the gap. Prince Ulrich fought in the center. Like a blond-haired hero of old, he roared in defiance, his blue sword cleaving a swath through the enemy. Bodies littered the gap, five black cloaks for every maroon, but the marshal knew it was only a matter of time.

The gates of the inner wall swung open and a troop of mounted knights surged toward the gap. Sunlight glinted on arms and armor, maroon cloaks streaming in the wind. Horns sounded the charge. The proud blare echoed between the two walls.

Led by Ulrich, the defenders melted away from the gap. The knights lowered their lances and charged. Hooves thundered forward, driving a maroon wedge deep into enemy lines. A cheer rose from the ramparts, a mixture of hope and defiance.

Lances couched, the knights attacked. Their charge trampled the dead and pounded into the living. Skewering the enemy, they opened a s.p.a.ce beyond the wall. Like a maroon arrow aimed at the heart of darkness, they formed a wedge riding deep into enemy ranks. Lances shattered and broke and the charge ground to a halt. Abandoning their lances, the knights drew their weapons, swords and maces, axes and morning stars. A horn sounded, a note of pure defiance. Sir Mallory led them to the left, leading his men toward the battle standard of the Mordant. The knights fought like heroes, hacking left and right, cutting a fearsome swath through the dark horde. But just as they neared the Darkflamme, the resistance stiffened and the enemy brought their numbers to bear. They swarmed the knights. Fifty to one the black surrounded the maroon. A mob of hands reached up. They pulled the knights from their saddles, trampling them into a b.l.o.o.d.y gore. Sir Mallory was the last to fall, just two spears lengths from the Mordant.

The knights disappeared under a tidal wave of black. Even the horses were pulled down and slaughtered in a terrible frenzy of bloodl.u.s.t.

The marshal stared in disbelief. Three hundred knights consumed by the horde, he saw no way to stop them.

Prince Ulrich rallied his men, setting a wall of shields along the gap.

But the horde had gained a taste for blood. They fell on the defenders, hacking and slashing, charging like berserkers.

"Sound the retreat!" The king gave the order. "Open the gates for the prince!"

The marshal knew it was the defenders only chance, for they could not stand against the onslaught.

Locking shields, the prince and his men slowly retreated. They held the line while others ran for the inner gate. Anchoring the defense, the prince held the center, his sapphire blue sword moving in a blur of death. Attackers lurched away from the blue sword, streaming left and right, bowing the line around the prince.

"Ulrich, get out of the there!" The king gripped the stone ramparts, staring down at the battle.

A troop of ogres surged the broken gate. Wielding ma.s.sive war-clubs studded with spikes, they hammered into the thin maroon line. The ferocity of the attack proved too much. The defenders broke, running for the inner gates.

"No!" The king's cry carried the weight of doom.

The marshal yelled, "Archers, protect the retreat."

Arrows streaked downward but they could not turn the tide.

The ogres surged forwarded, oblivious to the deadly rain.

The prince stood his ground, buying time for the others, dealing death with every swing of his sword. But the ogres surrounded him, attacking from every angle. The prince pivoted and whirled, a fearless frenzy of steel but he fought too many. The ogres closed for the kill. War clubs ambushed the prince, striking the back of his head. The prince crumpled under the onslaught, disappearing in a haze of blood.

"No!" The strangled cry came from the king.

As the marshal watched, one of the ogres hefted the prince's blue sword aloft in triumph. Hate rushed through him. "Get him!" But the marshal did not need to give the order. A hundred arrows thunked into the ogre, dropping him where he stood. None of the others dared claim the blue sword.

But the inner courtyard was lost. Waves of black poured into the muddy yard, pounding against the inner gates.

Beside him, the king slumped to the rampart. Clutching his chest, his face turned ashen. "My son. All my sons."

Fearing for the king, the marshal grabbed a squire. "Water, bring water for the king."

The war drums beat a ferocious rhythm.

"My lord, look!"

The marshal stared down into the courtyard. The enemy lines had pulled back opening a corridor to the inner gates. A troop of ogres emerged, carrying a second ram.

A second ram! Sweat bled from the marshal. "Stop that ram!"

Trumpets blared and arrows flew but the ogres did not stop. Muscles bulging, the monsters howled an unearthly scream, hurtling forward with the ram. Pa.s.sing through the outer gap, they ran like demons possessed. They churned through the muddy courtyard, trampling the dead and the wounded, bearing down on the inner gate. Arrows rained like a torrent but still they came.

"Stop them!" But the marshal's command was lost in a mighty roar.

A second thunderclap rocked the world.

The great wall shuddered and shook, like the lashing tail of a dying dragon. Struck deaf, the marshal fell hard, the stone rampart pounding the breath from his chest. All around him, men tumbled and fell and screamed. A cloud of soot rose from the gates, eclipsing the sun.

Choking on darkness, the marshal struggled to rise. He clawed his way to the rampart and peered over the edge. The cloud of dust thinned, revealing the grim truth. The gates were gone, a great hole rent in the middle of the wall. His heart sank. Raven Pa.s.s was lost.

"Sound the retreat!" He did not know who would hear, but he had a duty to the living, to the last of the Octagon.

A lone trumpeter sounded the call, a mournful tune.

Men scrambled along the ramparts seeking the stairwells down.