The Clan Wars Pt. 19

With the armoured tower of fury that was Mila wading through their ranks, distributing unadulterated violence, a crazed barbarian beating their comrades to death with his bare hands, a warg and a jubilant demon tearing into them from behind, an elven sniper casually pouring arrows into them and a coterie of guards angrily seeking vengeance in their midst, the goblins could not hold. Their fellows at the back of the formation were the first to run and soon all those that still had the use of their legs were fleeing down the street. The weary band from the tower didn't bother chasing.

Bann picked himself up, his shoulder throbbing with pain. Around him, dying and grievously wounded goblins moaned in pain. Amongst the brown and green mass of goblin casualties lay a few purple clad bodies - the sergeant and his few remaining troopers struggled to help those of their comrades who weren't dead to their feet.

"We need to fall back," said the sergeant quietly, his arm around one of his wounded troopers.

Dayna moved up to stand beside Mila. She peered anxiously down the street. Either because of the magical explosion that had destroyed the gatehouse, or by the hands of the marauding northern army, burning buildings lit up the smoke laden sky with a ruddy orange glow. In the gloom, flickers of distant movement could be seen as unidentifiable soldiers moved across the thoroughfare. By the way they all seemed to be moving into the city, the mage could only assume they were troops of the warhost.

"Get to the university - there may be some defenders holding out," she murmured.

The sergeant grunted in the affirmative and began leading his battered unit westwards towards the university. After a few steps, he paused to look back at the weary party. Pointer had exited the house he had been shooting from and was retrieving what arrows he could from the site of the battle. Nearby, Mila was examining the collection of small wounds Alagar had received while Bann rearmed himself. Beyond them, Dayna, with Gomp by her side, looked down the road towards the shattered gatehouse.

"You coming?" asked the Drasichii officer.

"We'll be right behind you," assured Mila, looking up from a patiently waiting Alagar.

Once they had rearmed, the party assumed a defensive position around the door into the tower. Pointer took a lookout position on the wall while the others stood outside by the door. The sounds of battle drifted through the night air and the group waited anxiously, peering into the gloom. The six unconsciously tensed when they saw a group of soldiers moving down the street towards them.

"Cress?" called Bann as he noted the familiar centaur at the head of the group.

"Bann!" came the exuberant filly's shout. The girl had her longbow in hand, an arrow knocked, her lance strapped to her back. Behind her, the minotaur cow, Frieda, loomed large, her two-handed sword resting on her shoulder, while Jon and Hedda flanked the small party. Bann's cheeks ached as he grinned with relief at the sight of his friends.

"Troll's teeth it's good to see you guys," he sighed, receiving a fierce bearhug from Hedda.

"Was worried we lost you, mate," grinned Jon, pounding his clan-brother on the back. "Never seen anything like that explosion before!"

"Speaking of which," said Dayna, interrupting the reunion, "we should get to the university as fast as possible."

"Agreed," said Hedda, solemnly.

"Vat is ze best vay to ze university?" asked Frieda.

"Well," began Dayna, "we could cut through the Maker's District-"

"We should stick to the walls, if possible," interrupted Mila. "Most of the army seems to be heading deeper into the city."

"Yeah, orders were to get to the palace at the centre of the city," agreed Hedda. "Command seemed to think that's where the defenders would fall back to."

"It'll take a bit longer," said the elven mage, "but if we follow the curtain road, we'll come out at the north end of the university plaza."

"Good. It'll be a longer walk, but running into troops of either side, at this point," grunted the orc, climbing into Alagar's saddle and looking over the motley group, "would probably result in too many questions or a fight we'll want to avoid."

With Cress and Mila, mounted on Alagar, taking the lead and Frieda and Pointer acting as a rearguard, the disparate party cautiously moved down the road that ran along the inside of Drasich's walls. Where the road rose up a small hill, they were provided with a chance to peer back at the north keep and down into the city towards the palace. The firey arcs of burning catapult shot lancing out from both of the fortified positions spoke of the ferocious battles taking place around them. The fighting was not confined to those two locations, however, and the wary group could hear the ring of weapons clashing and see darting and brawling figures down many of the side-streets and alleys they passed.

The whole group proceeded in silence, listening to the background din of a city in war. Bann walked beside Hedda and Jon. Despite the quiet, he felt less anxious now that he had been reunited with his clanmates. He flashed his friends a small smile as they paused while Mila and Cress scouted out the next major bend in the road. Jon grinned back.

Abruptly, the ground beneath their feet lurched. There was no sound accompanying the disconcerting movement, but even Frieda stumbled to regain her balance, despite her broad, heavy hooves and stalwart stance. The air, heavy with drifting smoke, seemed to grow thicker and took on a surreal slant - the party members blinked and shook their heads as the shapes of their comrades and the buildings around them took on an indescribable, somehow skewed appearance.

"What's going on?" hissed Cress as she and Mila trotted back to rejoin the group.

"I don't know," mumbled Dayna, rubbing her eyes. The hair on the back of her neck prickled. "It's magic of some sort, but I can't tell what."

"We should get a move on, then," growled the orc. "Come on, the road ahead looks clear."

A 'boom' echoed out from somewhere deeper in the city as the party resumed their progress towards the university, travelling with a quickened pace. All were uneasy - the houses and buildings they passed seemed suffused with a faint purple glow that disappeared upon trying to focus upon it. The sounds of fighting seemed somehow louder, but they encountered no foes until, less than a block away from the university, they stumbled upon the site of a massacre.

Dead warriors littered the street - a whole unit of orcs in armour and hulking minotaurs had been foully dismembered. The chainmail armour the greenskins were wearing had been torn apart; stray links clinked underfoot. The minotaurs were in no better shape. Chunks of gore were splattered on the walls and lay on the cobbles, blood pooling around them.

"Ancestors!" gasped Hedda. "What happened here?"

"Vere zey fighting each other?" rumbled Frieda, checking the minotaurs to see if they were of her herd. "I see no city guard among zeir number."

"I don't think any soldier did this," said Jon, his voice a hoarse whisper as he examined a pile of dead, dismembered orcs.

"Demons," said Dayna.

Her comrades turned to look at her. The mage was standing in the middle of the street. The blood had drained from her face.

"I know what's happening," explained the mage in a quiet voice filled with dread. "Gaermeon's reached the tower."

"What?" said Mila.

"She's reached the omnigarch chamber!" shouted Dayna, already running past the startled warg-rider. "The strange glow! The way the ground shook! She's doing a planar merger!"

The rest of the group raced to catch up with the running mage

"What's that?" shouted Mila as Alagar bounded along side the sprinting elf.

"She's using the tower and stone to create a permanent bridge between here and part of the outer realms! The tower, the whole area will act as a tether!"

Urgency lent haste to their feet and the party ran on towards the university plaza. As they approached the area where the college of the arcane abutted the city walls, the sounds of battle grew louder. With dread gnawing at their stomachs, the group rounded the final bend in the curtain road and were greeted with a scene of desperate violence. The plaza was a mass of struggling figures. Guards and warhost soldiers alike were embroiled in a horrific struggle against all manner of demonic entities - here, two orcs and a city watch officer struggled against a naga wielding four whirling blades in her two pairs of arms, there, a barbarian and an elven guard fought back to back against a pack of snapping hellhounds.

Beyond the melee rose the broad steps leading to the university's main entrance. The doors themselves had been blasted asunder, the makeshift barricades tossed aside. In front of them stood the towering, grey skinned form of a grigori. The statuesque monstrosity was armed with a ten foot staff, almost as long as the demon was tall and seemingly composed of pure energy, but was not playing much part in the ferocious struggle unfolding in the square before the gates. As the party observed the battle in despair, the grey behemoth moved suddenly to lash out with his weapon at a group of hard pressed guards whose retreat forced them too close to the entrance he was protecting. The weapon swept two of the purple clad fighters into the air, throwing them violently against the side of the university building.

There was no more time to absorb the horror before them - a mob of beastmen, noting the arrival of fresh meat, turned to face the newcomers and, with a braying roar, charged.

Alagar surged forward, snarling hungrily. The goat-man demons were armed with gleaming axes, but the warg paid them no heed, pouncing with awesome speed into their midst and pinning two of the bestial creatures to the ground. Upon his back, Mila layed about with her poleaxe, swinging the weapon in broad arcs on either side of her warg and sending the shaggy-furred demons reeling. Each blow she delivered caused a cascade of bright sparks to spray from her target's hide, despite their apparent lack of armour - the magical shielding Dayna had mentioned reacting to her attacks, thought the orc. Despite their arcane protection, however, Mila's blows were heavy and delivered with such force that soon a few of the brutes were prone around her.

"We have to help her!" shouted Bann, racing into the fray. Pointer was already shooting. Arrows whistled over the young barbarian's shoulder as he charged.

The rest of the party was only steps behind him. With her two handed sword held aloft, Frieda leapt just as she reached the melee, bringing the hefty weapon down in a terrible blow that split the head of the demon that turned to face her. Beside the minotaur, Bann tucked his shoulder behind his shield and barrelled into another of the braying beasts, bowling the creature over and using its stunned body as a launching point as he lunged at the demon behind it. Hedda was right behind her clan-brother and paused momentarily to plunge her spear into the creature Bann had knocked down while Jon protected her flank, taking one of the demons' vicious retaliatory attacks on his shield before whipping his sword at the beast's snarling face. Cress followed in Frieda's wake, thrusting her pike into the side of a beastman attempting to attack the minotaur from behind.

Finally, there was Pointer. The rogue calmly advanced in the path his comrades were cutting, his arms working rhythmically, mechanically, as he deposited arrows into any attackers attempting to close the breach his allies were hewing through the beastman mob. Dayna walked beside the lean elf, gathering her will. As a howling demon tried to clamber to its feet behind her, she turned and, almost gently, prodded it with her staff. The hairy creature suddenly found itself thirty feet in the air. It plummeted to the ground, snarling in panic, to land with a very heavy and final thud. Beside her, Gomp was cackling maniacally and gleefully bludgeoning any of the mauled demons that attempted to move as the party advanced past them.

"These don't seem so tough," panted Mila. The group had managed to down enough of the gibbering demonic foot soldiers to catch their breath.

"They're beastmen - about as low on the demonic food chain as you'll find, barring imps, perhaps," responded Dayna. Gomp shot her a foul look. "Besides," she continued, pointing at one of the corpses they had so recently created. The bloodied body faded into nothing as the group looked on. "See? They'll be back soon - you can't really kill them if they're tethered."

"Zen we must fight through to ze university," stated Frieda.

"That bastard looks like he'll give us a bit more trouble," said Jon, nodding in the direction of the grigori protecting the entrance to the college.

"Agreed," said Hedda while she delivered a firm stab to a growling, wounded beastman at her feet.

Jon turned to look up at a tower on the wall they were standing beside. With a grim smile, he started jogging towards the oaken door at the foot of the fortification.

"You guys go on ahead - I think I'll be able to lend you a hand from here when you get to the big bastard," shouted the departing northman over his shoulder.

Mila shook her head wearily and dismounted Alagar. "No rest for the wicked, eh?" she growled, readying her poleaxe and advancing towards the looming university.

By the time the hardy group had fought their way through to the foot of the steps leading to the university's shattered doors, they all bore wounds, albeit minor ones, for their efforts. Even Dayna had only narrowly avoided a slash delivered by a whirling naga - her borrowed helmet had cushioned the blow, but her ears were ringing and blood trickled down the side of her face were the deflected sword blow had slid as the naga had drawn it back. Pointer had only just managed to drop his bow and draw his sword to parry the four-armed demon's follow-up attack after the mage had stumbled backwards and he had an ugly cut along his arm to show for it. It had taken all of the thief's considerable skill at swordsmanship to buy Dayna enough time to teleport Gomp on to the naga's back. The little imp had then cheerfully set about smashing his spiked mace into the snake-like creature's head as he clung to the thrashing demon's back.

Every member of the party had experienced similar close calls - Mila's poleaxe lay broken on the battlefield behind them, haft cloven in two by the jaws of a massive hellhound. Alagar's flanks were scored deeply by the demonic canine's claws, wounds gained when he had come to his partner's rescue and crushed the demon's jugular in his jaws. Hedda, too, had lost her primary weapon. The longspear she used had become too deeply embedded in the thick hide of another hellhound and she'd released the weapon to draw her sword when a beastman had borne down upon her. The creature's axe had sliced her leather jerkin open on her left side and blood now seeped through the torn gambeson she wore beneath it.

Frieda, too, was dripping blood, but from a score of cuts on her arms and legs. A gang of imps had swarmed the huge warrior as she had led the way through the melee, their short swords, daggers and knives biting into her even as she had wrenched the hooting creatures off her limbs and crushed them beneath her hooves. Cress had come to the minotaur's aid, just in time to yank one of Gomp's kindred from the cow's back before it could plunge a dagger into her neck. The filly carried her own injuries from her rescue attempt - a long gash ran down her flank from where a flailing imp had slashed her.

Now they stood before the grigori. Towering even above Frieda's seven foot frame, the blank faced demon radiated unsettling menace. As Mila readied her sword and Dayna tapped into her reserves of energy, Pointer and Bann came to stand beside them. Behind them, Alagar, Frieda, Cress and Hedda fended off the few demons that tried to rush their position on the steps.

"You gonna get the fuck out of our way?" growled the orc.

The grigori simply gazed impassively at the small, armoured figure before him.

"Didn't think so," sighed Mila. "Still, was worth a try."

With her friends at her side, Mila advanced up the steps. The grigori raised his shining staff.

A giant ballista bolt suddenly smashed into its chest.

The huge demon dropped to its hands and knees, silvery ichor oozing from around the massive quarrel lodged in its chest. Mila was upon him in a flash, bounding up the broad steps to deliver a ferocious two handed blow with her longsword to the incapacitated behemoth's neck. The stroke was not enough to decapitate the monster, but it was enough to kill. With its neck cut halfway through, the grey demon collapsed onto the top step and a river of shimmering grey blood spouted from its wound and splashed down the stairs.

The party turned and looked back at the tower from whence the bolt had been fired. Jon was standing on the parapet, arms upraised, his mouth open in a joyful shout. They could just make out his cheering over the din of the ongoing battle.

Then, Jon's expression seemed to grow confused. He stumbled forward, hanging over the wall at a precipitous angle before tumbling with horrific slowness over the edge. The beastman that had materialised behind him pulled his axe from the barbarian's back and peered over the parapet at the young man's broken body on the ground below.

Bann felt a terrible shiver ripple up his neck and down his arms. His legs felt weak. On the steps below him, Hedda dropped to her knees, her sword clanging against the stone. Before her, men and women were fighting and dying in obscene violence, but she only had eyes for the young man who had just breathed his last upon that Drasichii tower. A snarling hellhound bounded up the stairs towards her, intent on finishing the despairing spearmaiden, but, like an automaton powered only by rage, the woman mechanically thrust her sword forward, sliding it into the beast's snarling maw. Pulling her blade out of the demon's mouth, the forlorn warrior numbly got to her feet and finished off the frothing hellbeast with a dreadful downwards blow. Her foe dead, the blonde fighter stepped over its writhing carcass and walked into the fight, carving up a gibbering imp before her with dazed implacability.

Bann started forwards, scrambling to join his friend as she waded into the battle, heading towards where Jon had fallen. Mila spun to grab after him, but he was already leaping down the steps, ice-cold rage surging through his veins. It was Frieda who stopped him, her massive hand planted against his chest.

"Let me GO!" he roared, tears clouding his vision.

"No, Bann," said the minotaur, calmly. "Zis is not ze way you avenge a fallen comrade. No, you turn around and go finish zis."

Cress had already raced forwards, grabbing the zombie-like Hedda by her collar and pulling her back to the steps, thrusting her spear forwards to keep the enemy away. "Go, Bann!" shouted the filly. "We'll keep her safe!"

"Ve vill hold ze door!" bellowed Frieda, practically throwing Bann back up the steps towards Mila, Pointer and Dayna. "Go! Finish it!"

As Pointer seized the youth by his arms and pulled him bodily through the doorway, Mila grabbed his chin and looked him in the eye. "You with me?" she barked, gripping Bann's face tightly. "Let's go kill a fucking demon!"