by A. C. Cobble
Ben stepped to the edge of the battlement, peering down in the ruddy red glow from the mage-light to see if he could tell what was below them. A sharp-taloned claw swung at his face, and a demon scrambled up the wall after him.
“A dozen of them,” he yelled, “right below us.”
A heavy creature hauled itself into view, and Amelie launched a crackling ball of flame at its face. Yellow and red burst out around its head, and it went flying back into the darkness, only to be replaced by half a dozen of its peers. Ben and Rhys fell on them, longswords stabbing, trying to keep the creatures off the wall. Gnashing teeth and grasping claws were met by uncaring steel.
Out of the corner of his eye, Ben saw two of the beasts clambering up the side of the watchtower. Frand and Ignice wouldn’t be able to see them coming! Then, the blue glow of Adrick’s blade burst into life, and the swordsman tiptoed along the battlement, shearing the creatures off like they were unwelcome barnacles on the underside of a ship. A black hand shot up and grasped at his foot, but in a blue blur, his blade swept down and cleaved through the hand’s owner.
“Ben,” shouted Amelie, drawing his attention to three demons that had scrambled onto the wall and were pressing back two guardians. Behind the trio of demons, more were crawling into the gap in the defense.
“Go, I’ve got this,” shouted Rhys over the snarls of the creatures in front of him. He rushed past Amelie and Lady Towaal.
They were conserving most of their energy for if the mundane defenses broke. All along the wall, the village’s mages would be doing the same, watching the battle, waiting for the right moment to add their might to the defense.
Ben swung his Venmoor steel longsword and caught a demon that was squirming through a crenellation in the battlement, the tip of the blade cracking the creature’s skull, and it fell where it was, lodged in the stone gap. He then fell on the backs of the beasts that had made it onto the wall, stabbing his blade into one’s side, jerking the weapon out, and spinning to take another in the back of the neck.
The man and woman who’d been struggling with the creatures surged forward and pinned the remaining demon between the two of them. A spear lanced into the beast’s torso. Then, an axe fell on its head.
“Sorry,” gasped the man. “I’m a carpenter, not a warrior. We were holding his flank.”
Ben glanced at the stone walkway and saw the body of a man, his entrails strewn in a grisly arc around him. A heavy falchion lay in his outstretched hand.
“Watch mine now,” growled Ben.
He turned to meet the next wave of demons and nearly lost an eye when a jagged stick struck him in the head. It smacked a glancing blow against his forehead, snapping his head back and throwing him off balance. The sharp point of the stick dug a painful gash into the flesh above his eyebrow, but the indirect blow didn’t have the force to crack his skull.
“Goblin arrows,” came a shout from somewhere down the wall.
In the dark, they were impossible to see, but as Ben was preparing to find a shield and duck behind it, the next wave of arrows burst into a shower of sparks in the air. The mages were igniting the things, keeping the deadly darts off the swordsmen. Twinkling, white lights and the acrid scent of burnt tin washed over the wall.
A demon lunged at him, and Ben ducked, a powerful arm whistling over his head. He stood, swinging up with his sword, catching the creature in the abdomen, and cleaving it from midsection to throat. A spray of blood, black in the red mage-light, flew up in the air. Through the spray, Ben saw a glowing blue hand slap down on the battlement. An ugly face dragged into view behind it. The goblin looked like someone had smashed it in the face with a frying pan repeatedly. Its eyes were set too close together, its nose was nothing more than a flat stub, and thick lips parted to reveal over-large, rotted teeth.
“At least it’s easy to see these bastards when they come,” muttered the carpenter. He stepped past Ben and jabbed his spear into the goblin’s face. With a muted grunt, it fell back.
Beyond the wall, the air was filled with a menacing blue glow. A hook clattered over the wall to Ben’s left. Then, a rickety ladder smacked against the wall to the right.
Ben swung at the hook, severing the rough rope that was attached to it and trailing a line of sparks across the stone where his blade scraped along. He raced to the ladder and set his shoulder against it, intending to push the thing back.
A fist holding a jagged metal short sword thrust through two steps in the ladder, aimed at Ben’s head. He scrambled back and swept up with his sword, catching the blade and snapping the poor-quality metal in two when it cracked against the side of the ladder. A goblin glared at him in consternation. Ben kicked it in the face.
His boot smashed through a wooden rung and caught the goblin in the chin. It went flying back, gripping tightly to the ladder. A chorus of wails and screams brought a grim smile to Ben’s face as he imagined a line of the goblins falling away, but he knew the fall from the wall wasn’t high enough to seriously injure most of them.
With the momentary respite, Ben saw Rhys jerking his blade out of a dead demon. Amelie and Towaal crouched at the back of the wall, hands raised and ready should the defenders fail. The girl Prem was nowhere to be seen until three goblins came running around from the other side of the watchtower.
She dropped right on top of them, her boots landing solidly on one creature’s head and her long knives plunging into the other two. She rode the first body down and then casually stooped to draw a blade across its neck. Ben didn’t even have time to think about rushing to her aid. She twirled her knives in her hands and winked at him.
“Watch out!” screamed Frand from the watchtower.
An instant later, the tower exploded in a shower of broken boards and shattered timbers. Ben lost sight of Frand and Ignice as he ducked a hurtling chunk of wood the size of his leg. A thunderous roar split the night as a wyvern announced itself.
The creature loomed high above the wall, its powerful forelegs on the battlement. Ben cringed as he realized its hind legs must be on the ground two stories below. The thing’s head was the size of a wagon, and its mouth hinged open, displaying arm-length fangs. It looked able to swallow a person, and then, it did.
One of the guardians rushed it, a spear held ready. The creature struck, fast as a snake, and chomped down on the man. He disappeared inside its gullet as the beast swallowed him whole.
“What does it need those teeth for?” wondered Rhys.
Ben looked at the rogue and then groaned as his friend shot forward, his blade lashing at the wyvern. Rhys caught it on the leg and jumped away. It didn’t seem to notice his attack, and Ben couldn’t see if the rogue had even marked it.
Towaal and Amelie ran past them, heading away from the wyvern, panic painting their faces, their magic useless against the giant lizard.
Ben sighed and ran toward the monster.
A goblin came out of nowhere, and Ben skidded to a halt, narrowly avoiding a rusty blade that flashed in front of him. He swung his sword down, catching the blade and knocking it from the goblin’s hands. He reversed his motion and pounded the hilt of his longsword into the creature’s skull. It absorbed the blow and lashed out with the back of its hand, catching Ben on the cheek.
His head snapped to the side, and the goblin grasped his neck with both of its hands. Its mouth opened wide, and it tried to drag Ben closer. He was too close to use his longsword effectively, but he yanked out his hunting knife with his left hand and slammed it up, catching the goblin in the chin and forcing the steel into its brain. Its blue glow winked out, and Ben shoved the body away.
Three more of them smashed into him, knocking him off balance, and he fell to his knees. Between the goblins, he saw the wyvern thrash around, a pair of villagers vanishing over the wall when the huge lizard caught them with its horns and flung them away.
Ben, anger firing him, swung his blade with all of his might, catching the three goblins on the legs and tumbling them all into a pile o
n the wall. They struggled, unable to stand, and Ben pounced on them, stabbing down over and over again until they stopped moving and their blue skin flickered dark.
The stone of the wall shivered, and Ben looked up to see the wyvern crawling over it. Its long, scale-covered body dragged, shattering stone and leaving a trail of broken mortar and bodies in its wake.
“It’s going for the mages!” called a voice from the other side.
Rhys was scrambling up the hill alongside the beast, dashing forward to strike at the wyvern’s head and then leaping away. It snapped at him, but it was intent on climbing higher. Rhys and the other warriors swarming around it were merely distractions.
Ben, still on the wall, saw its foreleg step onto the hillside, its scales reflecting the red mage-light, but behind its leg, there was a dull patch. It looked like leather instead of shining scales. Ben gambled and charged.
At a full sprint, he set his foot on the back of the wall and launched himself into the air. He grasped his longsword with both hands and with the weight of his entire body behind it, aimed the tip of his sword at the dull patch behind the wyvern’s foreleg. The sword punched into the creature, and Ben’s body pounded against the weapon. The blade was the nail, he was the hammer. He felt his ribs crack as the cross guard of the sword slammed into him, but the sword pierced the thick skin of the wyvern, sliding deep.
Ben fell back, splayed on the dirt of the hill, and the creature twisted, snapping with its jaws where his blade was stuck in its side. Only his fall saved him from getting chomped in two. The wyvern lifted its head and roared. The earth seemed to shake, and Ben’s ears howled with sharp pain.
Then, Adrick flew into view, and his blade, unlit and invisible in the night, whipped across the wyvern’s exposed throat. The creature’s powerful roar warbled into a pained gurgle, and a fountain of blood poured out of the gaping wound in its neck. It took one more step, wavered, and then fell.
A cheer went up as the guardians realized the monster had been killed, but it was drowned out by two enraged calls from the field. Two more wyverns, Ben realized, his heart sinking. Two more of them and they had just seen their companion get cut down. They sounded angry about it.
Ben lay on his side, pain radiating from broken ribs.
Towaal knelt by Ben, a warm tingle creeping into his ribcage.
Rhys was by the wyvern, both hands gripping Ben’s longsword, a boot placed on the creature as he struggled to draw the weapon out. Finally, with a sickening sucking sound, the steel slid free.
“Thanks,” gasped Ben.
“You’re going to be sore,” advised Towaal.
“Better than a broken rib,” responded Ben.
“You ready, Rhys?” asked the mage.
The rogue stumbled over, Ben’s longsword held in front of him, dripping with viscous blood from the wyvern.
“As ready as I can be.”
“Ready for what?” asked Ben, rolling to his side and slowly clambering to his knees, feeling the tenderness in his side where Towaal’s healing hadn’t completely mended his injury.
“This,” said Towaal.
A blaze of lightning burst from her hands, skipping across the stones and leaping into racing, glowing blue figures. The goblins wailed as the electrical charge ripped through them.
“You’ll draw the wyverns!” called Ben.
“Exactly,” responded Towaal. “Better they come for us than the elders.”
“Good idea,” muttered Adrick. The swordsman was pacing along the hillside, his eyes boring into the blackness beyond the wall.
Unsure if it was really a good idea, Ben rubbed at his sore ribs and eyed the swordsman. Adrick had lost his shirt again, and his muscled chest was painted in blood. None of it his, Ben guessed.
Amelie came to stand beside Towaal and released her power as well, a blaze of white hot flame that she directed along the top of the battlement, scorching anything foolish enough to poke its head up.
“You’re getting good at that,” murmured Ben.
“You know what they say about practice,” responded Amelie through gritted teeth.
“Wyverns are vulnerable on their underbellies, necks, and behind the legs,” said Adrick. “Don’t waste your time on the backs. There’s a pace of hide protecting them there and your sword can’t reach deep enough to do damage. The heads are just as tough unless you’re able to reach an eye or inside the mouth.”
“Inside the mouth,” scoffed Ben. “Why would you strike inside its mouth?”
“Wait until one is about to close its jaws on you,” said Adrick. “Then you can decide whether you want to strike or not.”
Ben grunted.
Rhys gestured for Ben to fan out beside him. “You take one and we get the other?” the rogue called to Adrick.
“Fair enough,” responded the swordsman, stepping to the side and flicking his blade to clear it of the thick, sticky wyvern blood.
“What’s the plan, Rhys?” asked Ben as he joined the rogue.
The man opened his mouth to respond but was interrupted by a battle-cry from a dozen charging goblins. The rogue’s longsword blazed alight. Trailing silver smoke, he attacked and carved a swath through the front ranks of the creatures.
Ben raced after him, striking to the side and hacking through the goblin’s flimsy weapons and armor. Behind the first wave, more of the creatures started clambering over the wreckage of the watchtower.
“This could get ugly,” called Rhys, still churning forward into the mass of enemies.
Ben followed behind, struggling to protect the rogue’s back.
Then, the wall beneath his feet erupted, and Ben went flying into the air, tumbling against the side of the hill. He covered his head with his hands as stone and mortar from the wall rained around him. A goblin smacked into the earth next to him.
Ben opened one eye, seeing the thing’s startled expression. Suddenly, Ben was sprayed in the face with a shower of blood and viscera as the goblin’s head was popped like a ripe grape under a heavy stone. The giant block embedded in the hillside, and Ben rolled to his back, searching the dark sky for more inbound masonry.
A brutal roar stirred Ben’s clothes, He looked between his feet at where the wall was, blinking to clear his eyes of sticky blood. Luckily, he saw his sword had fallen next to him, sticking straight up, the tip sunk in the damp soil. Unluckily, a giant wyvern, twice the size of the first one, had just crushed a hole in the wall and was stalking closer, looming over Ben like a small, scale-covered castle. The beast’s body soared above his head, and its rear leg crushed another section of wall as it stomped onto the hill.
Ben had an opening to its soft underbelly, but it rose two man-heights above him. He wouldn’t be able to reach it even by jumping and extending his sword. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Rhys, blood streaming down the side of his face, hacking madly at the thing’s leg. It didn’t do any good. The wyvern lifted its foot and struck at the rogue, catching him with a glancing blow on the shoulder and flinging him a dozen paces away.
A swarm of guardians ran close and launched spears at it, but the sharp points either bounced off harmlessly or barely stuck into the thick hide. The spears then fell out as the wyvern moved again.
Ben looked for Adrick, figuring the swordsman was their best bet, but the man was nowhere to be seen. A second wyvern was causing havoc a hundred paces away.
Suddenly, the wyvern above Ben ducked to the side.
A heavy bolt from a ballista flew by, hitting nothing but air before vanishing into the black field beyond the shattered wall. With a surge, the wyvern scrambled up the hill, moving faster than Ben imagined a creature that size could, and with a swipe of its massive claws, it smashed through the staged artillery, splintering the equipment and mauling the men who’d been operating it.
Ben scrambled to his feet and charged up the hill, running underneath the wyvern’s body, falling to his knees, and struggling higher on the steep hill. The wyvern paused to snap its jaws, cuttin
g short an injured man’s screams.
Ben knew that two hundred paces past the artillery platform was a large, circular tent filled with mages. There, the elders were preparing the spell they planned to use to close the rift once and for all. The elders would be helpless against the creature. Anything they tried against it would only make it stronger.
Skidding and slipping, Ben climbed higher. He passed the creature’s forelegs and ducked as its head swung, snapping shut on another hapless victim. Ben pulled his sword back, but the head swung away, and the neck rose out of his reach. He cursed and started running up the hill again.
The artillery platform was a mess of crumbled masonry and broken wood. Ben jumped over a busted catapult arm and looked around wildly for anything he could use. Above him, he felt the wyvern lurch to the side again. He tried not to hear the crunch of crumpling steel and the snap of broken bones.
At the back of the platform, undisturbed, he saw a pile of ballista bolts. The shafts were as thick as his arm and as long as he was tall. They were tipped with a broad, wicked iron blade. With enough force, the thing could punch through the hull of a ship or even a wyvern’s hide.
He scrambled toward the bolts, sliding his sword into the sheath and hurtling over broken machinery from the siege weapons. Behind him, he heard the wyvern roar and then a boom as it took a step forward. He had moments at best.
Ben slid on his knees, skidding across the stone to come to a stop next to the bolts. Grabbing one, he turned and fell. The thing was as heavy as he was. Grunting, Ben summoned an inner strength that only surfaced in the heat of battle. His heart pumping, he hauled the bolt up and settled it on his shoulder. He struggled to his feet, turning, and saw the wyvern looking directly at him. Two, emerald-green eyes burned with a light of their own. Ben swallowed. One shot. One chance. If he could fling the ballista bolt into one of those eyes, maybe, just maybe, it’d have enough force to reach the creature’s brain. Grimly, he set his feet and prepared to run forward and chuck the bolt.
