The Clan Wars Pt. 19

"Shit," grumbled Bann.

"That isn't good," said Mila.

"No, it isn't. Still, Hedda and Cress said they'd rounded up a few folks who could be trusted - they said you'd know who, Bann. I told them that we'd be at the sixth tower to the west of the northern gatehouse, near the university, and that they should meet us there as soon as they could once the fighting started," explained the elven mage.

"That'll be the minotaur Freida and Hedda's shieldbearer, Jon," said Bann.

"It's all well and good that you know them, but how will the rest of us recognize them amidst a horde of northerners?" said Mila.

"We thought of that," continued Dayna. "They'll be wearing white armbands."

"Oh. Good thinking," said the orc, looking out at the host gathered on the field before the walls. "Still don't know how they plan on getting in here, though. I don't even see any scaling ladders."

"Did Hedda and Cress mention anything?" asked Bann.

"No - when I asked them, all they could say was that the warhost leaders mentioned a secret weapon," was Dayna's worried response. "I wonder if Gaermeon has some way of using the orb..."

"What, they're all going to teleport in here?" groaned Mila. "Might as well fucking leave now, in that case - there's no way we can stop that."

"I don't think so," said Dayna. "That would take a phenomenal amount of energy and I think she'll want to conserve as much as possible for whatever she has planned once she gets the stone to the tower. Still, I wouldn't be surprised if she's going to be willing to burn some of that reserve to get to the tower."

As the afternoon turned into evening, the small group walked over to the battlements near the university. The city's defenders were organized around the northern gatehouse, the battlements near it and the thoroughfares leading away from it. Passing under the shadow of a large bastion, known as the north keep, located a few hundred yards down the main road from the gatehouse, Dayna could just make out a sprinkling of university mages among the soldiery on the walls. A few more mages, some of whom she recognized, were among the reserve forces forming up outside the north keep.

"They may be outnumbered, but these city guard types seem to have set up a good defence," commented Mila as they passed another group of spearmen barricading a sidestreet. "Even if the host somehow gets through the gates, it's going to turn into a real mess in here."

"How is that a good thing?" said Dayna.

"A street fight's going to favour the defenders," said the mercenary, watching a group of guards use a rope to lift a barrel filled with arrows up to the flat roof of a tavern. "They're going to have to clear out every house from here to the keep as they go, and the war engines on that fort are going to be raining shit down on them every step of the way."

By the time the party reached the tower near the university, the sun was sinking below the western walls. Rising a good fifteen feet above the twenty foot stone wall it stood upon, the turret was a solidly built, square structure. A door at street level led into a small guardroom and a set of stairs that led up to an armoury and the wall walkway. From there, another set of steps wound their way up to the open top of the tower, where soldiers were protected by tall crenellations. Arrow slits in the parapet and a large ballista enabled defenders in the tower to shoot down at any attackers. The position housed ten city watch, led by a sergeant, all well armed with chainmail, swords, and bows or spears and shields.

"Who are you?" growled the sergeant upon opening the solid oak door at Dayna's knocking.

"I'm with the university - these are a few mercs we've hired," she lied in response, flashing her university signet. "Thought we might keep an eye on things from here and help out if things got rough."

With his kilt concealed by his gambeson and mail hauberk, Bann no longer looked too similar to the leather clad, kilt wearing northern barbarians the city watch were facing and he seemed less fazed by the fact that Mila was an orc than the gate guard had been - in fact, there were two other orcs among the guards manning the tower. Their purple armbands further soothed his concerns. With a shrug, the sergeant stood aside to let the party in.

"Sure," he grunted, "the more, the merrier. Just stay out of our way when the shit hits the wagon wheel. Oh, and keep the wolf down here. It'll be crowded enough up top without a bloody great dog in the mix."

"Sure thing," said Mila, giving Alagar a scratch behind the ears.

Leaving her poleaxe strapped to the warg's saddle, the orc slung her shield across her back and, with her crossbow in hand, followed Dayna up the stairs. The top of the tower provided an excellent view of the fields outside the wall and the evenly spaced towers, similar to their own, that lined Drasich's walls. Atop each small fortification, Dayna could see small knots of soldiers bustling around the bulk of a war engine - a catapult or ballista - while, on the walls between each tower, more soldiers readied their weapons. There were not many guards on the walls adjacent to the tower she was in - most were lining the parapets facing the warhost and only a few sentries patrolled nearby.

"Thought you mages were all in the gatehouse or the north keep," said the grizzled sergeant.

"Most are," agreed Dayna. "There's a few of us keeping an eye on the university though."

"Fair enough. Hope you've got some handy magic if things go pear shaped here," he said, giving her a nod and wandering off to check on his ballista crew.

As the gloom of dusk crept over the tower, the guards lit a large brazier that perched atop one of the small covered entrance to the stairs. Almost simultaneously, the sound of warhorns drifted up into the darkening sky above the warhost. Bann walked over to stand beside Dayna.

"This is it," he said, his voice a low whisper. There was a roar from the army gathered on the fields, followed by a deafening crash as thousands of weapons were thumped against thousands of shields.

"Remember," said Mila, joining them, "we're not trying to hold this position at all costs - we find Bann's friends and then fall back to the university."

"We can't let Gaermeon reach the tower," agreed Dayna.

Beside her, Gomp scrambled up to stand on the parapet in the embrasure between two merlons. The imp had somehow gotten his hands on a vicious spiked mace and peered menacingly at the army facing them.

"Can't wait to test this thing out," cackled the tiny demon, hefting his cruel weapon.

Dayna's weary sight at her familiar's bellicose words was drowned out by the sound of warhorns and the terrible crash of weapons on shields. Pointer drew an arrow from his quiver and absentmindedly twirled it through his fingers. They watched as the warhost took a few rumbling steps forward and then stopped.

"No war engines, not even a fucking ram," murmured Mila. "What are they playing at?"

Any chance of a reply was cut off when the horns called out once more, but instead of being followed by the terrible crash, the sound was followed by the roar of ten thousand soldiers. Dark shapes suddenly lifted up from the shadowy mass of armed figures as hundreds of harpies took to the air. The guards on the walls lifted their bows and drew bowstrings to their cheeks. Beside them, the ballista crew rolled their weapon forward to a specially cut embrasure and winched back the heavy arms of the weapon. The sergeant barked orders. Another call echoed out from further down the battlements.

And then the harpies attacked. All along the walls, commands to fire rang out and archers let loose into the mob of avian demi-humans that swooped above them. From their position of relative safety, the group watched the archery duel begin. It was too dark to see the arrows, but there was no mistaking the shouts and screams of pain as guards were wounded by the flying creature's arrows. Dayna saw a pair of the winged women dive down to knock a soldier off the wall to plummet screaming towards the street below, while high above the fortification another winged form twisted and tumbled in a death spiral towards the ground, pierced by the defender's return fire.

Beside the mage, Bann thought of the first harpy he'd met, just over a year ago. She was a friendly, beautiful woman who had cheerily tumbled with the young warrior when her clan had visited his village to trade. He wondered if she was out there now, above the walls of Drasich. He looked away, a sick feeling growing in his stomach.

As the airborne warriors harried the defenders on the walls, the main body of the warhost advanced. Their front rank was composed of towering trolls and minotaurs, each holding a massive pavisse. Behind them, assault battalions of goblins, orcs and barbarians sheltered from the withering hail of projectiles arcing out from the city's fortifications. Despite the harassing fire they were receiving from the harpy warriors, a few ballista and catapult crews managed loose their ordnance at the onrushing horde. The devastation the heavy weapons caused was awe inspiring; here, a ballista bolt smashed through a troll's pavisse, bowling the hulking creature over, there, a jar of flaming pitch launched from a catapult broke apart in the air, splattering the soldiers below with a rain of burning, sticky terror.

"This is madness," mumbled the sergeant as he watched the carnage. "They've no way of getting over or through the walls - no ram, no ladders, no breach to assault..."

His words trailed off as his face was illuminated by a white light. In the midst of the attacking army, two figures could be seen, gripping a brightly glowing orb, moving quickly to the fore. The light emanating from the object was searingly bright. Suddenly, as the pair reached the front ranks, a beam shot out from the ball, connecting it to the gates.

"Shiiit," groaned Dayna.

The archers on the walls stopped shooting. Even the harpies they had been dueling paused their onslaught and hovered in the air, staring at the blazing lance of light. The advancing horde halted. An eerie stillness hung in the air, accompanied by an unsettling silence. Dayna's skin tingled as she felt waves of magical power wash over her. Magically unattuned as they were, even her comrades could feel the air about them thicken with energy. Every member of the mass of soldiery clustered on and around the walls of Drasich felt their skin prickle and tasted a sharp, metallic flavour on their tongues.

Then, the gatehouse exploded.

The world shook. Massive chunks of masonry flew into the air. Like dolls cast about by a raging child, bodies were thrown skyward. Time stood still while, in terrible silence, a gaping breach was torn in the city's defences. Only after an age had passed within the confines of a second did reality catch up with the catastrophic and a wall of noise crashed into the party's ears. They stumbled back from the battlements, reeling under the assault.

The warhost poured into the city. The magical blast had levelled buildings for a good hundred yards in a line beyond the gates, reaching almost all the way to the north keep. Those few guards who had miraculously survived the devastation staggered out of the wreckage only to be cut down as triumphant northerners and mountain folk rampaged into the shattered ruins.

Dayna felt Mila's hand on her arm. The orc tugged her to her feet, her mouth open, yelling something, but the mage's ears refused to function. She groped about, blearily helping the others to stand. At the tough greenskin's urging, the dazed party tumbled down the steps into the tower's guardroom.

"... the fuck was that shit!" snarled the orc as Dayna's hearing came back to her. "How do we fight that bullshit magic fuckery!?"

Dayna leaned her back against the nearby wall, shaking her head groggily. Pointer pinched his brow, his eyes squeezed shut, while Bann was doubled over, hands on his knees, breathing heavily. Even Alagar was whining softly and shaking his head, his sensitive hearing battered by the fury of the explosion. Guards from the tower were staggering down the steps behind them, all looking the worse for wear, but for the two orcs who were less affected by the punishing shockwave thanks, similarly to Mila, to their robust physique.

With her comrades struggling to regain their composure, Mila fastened her crossbow to her warg's saddle and retrieved her poleaxe before unbarring the turret's wooden door. A soldier in the the city's livery stumbled past her, cradling her arm. Beyond the wounded soldier, along the road that ran parallel to the wall, the orc could see a vicious melee. The wounded guard started momentarily at Mila's sudden appearance before noting the purple armband she wore.

"Run!" shouted the guard, her voice shrill with panic. "The wall has fallen! We can't stop them!"

"Out of my way," growled Mila, pushing past the fleeing soldier and stepping out onto the street.

She could see the troops down the curtain road were retreating towards her, fighting a rearguard action. A few arrows arced down into the melee from the wall high to her left - apparently some of the archers upon it were lending what aid they could to their hard-pressed allies. Despite the covering fire from the wall, the rearguard was was only tenuously maintaining cohesion and the experienced mercenary knew they were on the brink of collapse.

"Get your shit together!" she barked through the open door to the guardroom. "We're about to have company!"

Alagar and Pointer immediately, although painfully, made their way out the door, with Bann, the sergeant and a few guards behind them. The remaining guards ran up the stairs to man their ballista and provide covering fire with their bows. Dayna was the last out onto the street, her senses still reeling from the overwhelming magical blast she had just witnessed.

Holding their shields before them and bracing their spears, the guards formed a defensive line under their sergeant's terse commands. Bann, Mila and Alagar formed up beside them while Pointer kicked open the door to a house across the street and ran inside. The small unit had barely gotten in position when their comrades further down the street broke and began running back towards them, pursued by a cheering band of goblins.

"Back five paces!" bellowed the sergeant, seeking to prevent his line from getting swamped by his own retreating comrades by opening up an avenue of escape through the door into the guard house.

As the first of the fleeing soldiers reached his shieldwall, the grizzled officer directed them to run into the tower while his troops braced for impact. The goblins were right on the heels of the retreating guards and a few of the tailing troops were overrun as their comrades piled into the safety of the tower. Then, the fight was upon them.

Predominantly armed with pikes, the goblins used the long reach of their weapons to great advantage, thrusting at the shieldwall as they advanced while remaining out of reach of the guards' shorter spears. Bann alternated between parrying the goblins' thrusts and swatting at the greenskins' long weapons with his axe while Mila wove a defensive pattern with her poleaxe, both falling back in step with the guards at their side. The orc's weapon was perfect for breaking pike formations - its axehead could hook and sweep the opposing longspears aside to create openings - but behind the first few ranks of goblins another rank lay in wait, all armed with short swords, maces and axes, poised to use their melee weapons to crush any attempt to break their pike-wielding comrades' formation. It would take a concerted, organized assault to crack the unit of goblins. As her brow beaded with sweat under the strain of maintaining her defensive stance, the warg-rider wished she had a few other poleaxe armed soldiers beside her.

Suddenly, the goblin before her collapsed as a large brick smashed into his head. Beside the small greenskin, two more of his comrades tumbled to the ground, felled by an arcane rain of masonry. The goblins in the rear ranks moved to plug the gap Dayna's shower of stonework had opened, but the effort faltered as a stream of arrows scythed into the reinforcing warriors. Pointer had smashed open a second storey window and was leaning out it, his hands flickering as he poured arrows into the melee. Seeing her chance and hoping her comrades would follow her example, Mila leapt forward, sweeping her poleaxe left to right and smashing another pike-armed goblin to the ground.

Bann roared and charged as soon as he saw Mila leap, knocking the pike before him aside with his shield and barrelling into the goblin holding it. The small warrior tumbled backwards, plowing into the rank behind him. Both went down in a tangle of limbs and pike-hafts. Unfortunately, the falling goblins turned out to be just as hazardous for the charging northman - his foot caught on one of their legs and the young warrior found himself sprawling atop the writhing greenskins. Without pause, he smashed his head down, cracking his helmeted brow into the snarling mouth of the foe beneath him. The goblin to his right dropped his pike and, with a vicious shout, reached for a long dagger, seeking to finish off the prone barbarian.

Mila saw Bann fall, but was prevented from aiding him, embroiled as she was in her own battle against two goblins armed with hand weapons and shields. Tusks bared in a grimace of fury, she lashed out with a heel kick, pounding her armoured boot into the chest of one attacker while lashing out at the other with the butt of her polearm. Beside her, Bann rolled sideways, trying to cover himself with his shield, but in the mess of goblins he found himself unable to move the wooden disc.

The knife-wielding goblin above him grinned victoriously and thrust downwards, only to abruptly disappear from sight, replaced with a mass of snarling fur and muscle. Alagar plowed into the brawl like a runaway wagon. Teeth locked around the leather helmeted head of Bann's attacker, the warg bit down with bone shattering force and shook his head back and forth, smashing the dying goblin's flailing body into the rear ranks of the pike formation.

Pinned on the ground, with one goblin holding his axe hand and the other kneeling on his shield, Bann felt a flutter of panic in his chest. He screamed in rage, heaving his pinioned arms as he watched the goblin standing on his shield fumble for a dagger with one hand while holding down Bann's arm with the other. Then, just as the fear and frustration was about to overwhelm him, something clicked inside his head and an icy sensation of furious calm swelled within his chest.

Bann let go of his axe. With his hand no longer tied down in a vain attempt to free the weapon from the goblin holding it, the barbarian balled his fist and drove it into the face of the goblin kneeling on his shield. The leather gauntlet he was wearing had metal rivets across the knuckles. His arm was powered by surging fury. The goblin's face collapsed beneath his fist.

The guards surged forwards in the wake of Mila's assault. The goblins dropped their pikes and the battle devolved into an ugly brawl. Daggers, fists, feet and teeth - anything that could be used as a weapon was applied with appalling ferocity. Using her poleaxe like a quarterstaff, Mila lashed about, sending goblins reeling, bodies rent by the cruel blade on one end of the weapon, limbs broken by the steel-shod butt. Her blood sang and a ravenous grin creased her face as she set about destroying any and all enemies who came within reach of her terrible battle-lust.

The goblins fought hard, but no longer with the assurance of victory - now they fought for survival. Arrows lanced down into their numbers as Pointer cooly thinned their ranks with a withering hail of well-placed shots. There was a sizzling crackle from behind them and suddenly Gomp materialized, hooting maniacally as he swung his mace. Bann, both arms now free, clambered to his knees, ignoring the crunch of his own axe, now held by a goblin, upon his chainmail protected shoulder. The goblin wielding his weapon wound up for another swing only to get bowled over as the northman dropped his shield and threw himself at the greenskin. Nearby, Alagar bounded forward, knocking aside the few foes who stood before him, and raced away from the fight, only to turn quickly once he had gained enough distance, muscles bunching as he prepared to charge once more.