Benjamin Ashwood Box Set 2

by A. C. Cobble

  Ben knew they wouldn’t. They’d been ordered not to. Somewhere out there was the demon-king, and they had to be ready for him.

  “You lead the way,” Ben said to Adrick. “We’ll fan out behind you.”

  The swordsman didn’t respond. Instead, he drew his weapon, and the blade flared bright blue, casting bizarre shadows across his polished plate armor.

  “Try to keep up.”

  Howls, screams, and cries of enraged hunger filled the night air. Ben felt like running, charging at the demons with teeth bared and a battle cry on his lips, but Adrick kept a steady pace. Marching not running. Not wasting a precious sliver of energy.

  The demons weren’t so disciplined. They broke and ran, smaller, faster ones outpacing their heavier peers. The small ones would be easy to deal with. It was when the squat, denser creatures arrived in a wave that they would have a problem.

  Ben swallowed. In the moonlight, it was difficult to pick out individual demons at a distance, but he could easily see the silhouettes that stood out above the crowd. The arch-demons. Already, he could spot dozens of them. He was certain there were more further back in the swarm.

  “Whatever you do,” advised Rhys, “don’t fall down.”

  The rogue’s sword blazed silver. Runes sparkled in an arcane language, bathing Ben, Adrick, and Rhys in a light that mirrored the moon. Smoke boiled off the weapon, drifting peacefully past the rogue as he strode forward.

  No other words were possible. The demons were three hundred paces away and their screams drowned out all other sound. Slender, black shapes bounded at them, zipping out of the dark like invisible missiles.

  Adrick saw the first one coming, and his glowing blue blade swept up and sheared the creature in two. The swordsman kept walking, stepping casually over the body, staying focused on what was ahead.

  Ben stepped a pace to the man’s right, and Rhys moved to the left. Behind them, their company wordlessly fell into place, forming a wedge they hoped would drive into the heart of the demon army. If they could force the creatures out of the riverbed and onto the field where the mage’s traps could go off, they had a chance.

  Ben laughed to himself. They didn’t have a chance. There were too many of the beasts and not enough of the men. All they could hope to do was cause enough damage to bring out the demon-king. Or maybe they could leave few enough of the demons alive that Jasper and his mages could clean them up.

  A crackling, ruddy orange glow lit the sky, and Ben realized Jasper wasn’t waiting. He wasn’t conserving the other mage’s energy like he was supposed to be doing. Above them, moving rapidly through the air, was a wagon-sized ball of flame.

  “Damnit!” shouted Ben.

  “Fog of war, hitting them when they’re bunched together,” yelled Rhys in response. “Trust your lieutenants. They know how much strength they have better than you do.”

  Ben grunted and swept his sword up. A young demon, immature, no more than three or four stone, caught the blade in the torso, the steel sliding deep. Ben kicked it off and kept marching.

  The fireball landed in the center of the advancing wave of blackness and exploded with a whoosh. By the orange flames, Ben could see demons thrown into the air, pin-wheeling across the sky to crash down amongst their brethren. The screams of rage turned to screams of pain as the fire scorched the helpless creatures. There were too many of them to run away from the heat, so those trapped in the middle simply burned.

  Adrick broke into a run, flashing across the last hundred paces to the front of the demon swarm.

  Ben struggled to keep up, swinging wildly at creatures that sprang at him out of the darkness. The first to meet him were smaller demons, weak ones, but at night, they had an advantage. They were fast, and he could barely see them. They were much quicker than the muscular creatures he was used to facing.

  One of the demons slipped by him with only a raking slash from the tip of his longsword. Ben glanced over his shoulder, worried he’d just let one of the creatures into their wedge, but behind the backs of his companions. Prem was following close behind, and the svelte girl plunged both her knives into the creature.

  “Don’t worry!” she shouted. “I’ve got your back.”

  Ben could barely hear her over the growls and screams of the demons. He didn’t attempt a response. Instead, he churned forward, trying to keep up with the girl’s father. Demons swooped at him, just shapes backlit by the still-burning flames of the magical attack.

  One thing he could see through the press of bodies was Adrick. The man moved like lightning, flickering back and forth, the blue glow of his blade scything through the black mass of the demons. He was carving chunks out of their front with the ease Ben had slicing a loaf of stale bread. Adrick was impervious to the attacks of the smaller creatures and moving twice as fast as they were capable of. The demons could do nothing to stop him. At least, the smaller ones could not.

  “Arch-demons closing on Adrick!” called Rhys over the tumult.

  Ben followed the rogue’s lead, and they fought their way closer to the swordsman. Even in his armor, a direct blow from an arch-demon could injure or kill him. If they could take the man’s back, he could focus on what was in front and cut down scores of the creatures without fear.

  Smashing the hilt of his longsword into a creature in front of him, Ben scrambled over fallen, twitching bodies to get closer to Adrick. Beside him, a guardian was tangled with a man-sized demon, the creature circling the man with its powerful arms and drawing him in, sharp-toothed mouth opened wide to clamp down on the man’s neck. Ben tried to thrust his blade into the demon, but the swirl of battle pulled him away. He was bumped into by a cold, heavy body of a demon and stumbled to the side, struggling to keep his footing. In the dark, crowded battle, a fall could be just as fatal as a demon’s claw.

  Ben finally burst into a clear area around Rhys and Adrick. Their two mage-wrought blades burned brightly, painting the faces of the demons surrounding them in stark shades of blue and white. Turning, Ben backed up, so they formed the points of a triangle. Well, they would have, if Adrick stopped breaking out of formation and plunging like a dagger into the massed demons. Each time he did, half a dozen of the creatures lay dead in the mud.

  The minions lost their interest in the plate-armored warrior, knowing he meant certain death, but the arch-demons were closing fast. A dozen of them, towering above the lesser creatures, encircled Ben, Rhys, and Adrick.

  Ben’s leg was caught by a grasping hand and he fell to one knee. He looked behind him and saw a wounded demon dragging itself forward, its arm stretched out to clutch at him. A silver blur flashed through Ben’s vision, and the demon’s wrist was severed. Rhys reached a hand down and hauled Ben up without looking. Ben paused, stabbed his longsword into the demon’s face, and then turned back to the battle.

  Another eruption of orange fire lit the night sky.

  “They’re using too much energy,” growled Ben.

  “It’s pointless to conserve power if we can’t draw the king,” barked Rhys.

  Ben dodged to the side and twirled his longsword over his head before bringing it down in a powerful sweep that severed the head of a demon that had been charging toward the rogue’s back.

  “They’ve got a better view of this battle than we do,” yelled Rhys.

  Ben grunted and then ran forward to confront three demons that were looming over a fallen blademaster. The man was scrambling across the mud, looking frantically for his sword. Ben swung hard, catching one demon in the face and drawing the attention of the other two. They closed fast, and Ben dropped low, lashing his sword across both their legs, cutting deep lacerations and spilling the creatures onto the mud beside him.

  Adrick flew by in front of Ben, his glowing blue blade shearing through demons like stalks of wheat. Right behind him, three arch-demons pounded closer, solely focused on the armored man.

  Ben began the chase, running after the huge demons running after Adrick. The swordsman must have heard them c
oming because he dodged to the side and then came streaking back, flying underneath one of the creature’s outstretched arms and severing its thick leg.

  The demon’s angry cry drowned out all other sounds, covering the pounding of Ben’s running footsteps as he closed on another of the arch-demons. The thing was trying to track Adrick. It missed Ben coming behind it until his longsword punched into its back, seeking the creature’s spine. Ben couldn’t reach any higher than that, but he didn’t need to. His blade found the thick bone and slid between a gap in the vertebrae.

  The arch-demon roared and tried to turn, but instead, it slumped impotently to the ground. It pounded its fists against the mud of the riverbank and tried to crawl after Ben, but he was able to yank his longsword free and circle it. From behind, he darted in close, delivering another blow to its neck.

  Rhys came running and jumped onto the demon’s corpse, vaulting off of it and flying above Ben’s head. The rogue’s blade trailed sparkling silver smoke as he swung it at the third arch-demon. The creature never saw him and had no chance to react before the mage-wrought steel cleaved into its head.

  Ben charged into a pack of demons that had been hanging back from confronting them. He was quickly joined by a blademaster and a guardian. Together, the three of them chopped into the mass of muscled flesh, snarling teeth, and sharp claws. They fell into a rhythm, alternating strokes and striking the tightly packed creatures in front of them with every blow.

  To the right, another blademaster stepped onto their line, and they marched forward, a wall of steel flashing in the moonlit night. More and more swords came to stand with them, and soon, a score of warriors were pushing the demons back, forcing them out of the riverbed. Hundreds of the creatures were being driven before them, pushing their fellows along in a panic to avoid the sharp steel, wielded by the best blades in Alcott. A handful of arch-demons roared and raged, but they had no effect on the swarm that fled before the men.

  One by one, the demons were shoved out of the river and onto the lush grass bank. First individuals then dozens then hundreds. The traps set by the mages went off like a storehouse packed full of fireworks. Ben was blown back, stumbling from the impact. His ears rang from the noise, but he couldn’t hear anything anyway over the shrieks of the dying demons. He watched in awe as two hundred of the creatures were incinerated by a gigantic blast, and a ray of hope crept into him.

  Men were still standing, and hundreds of demons had been cut down during the course of the assault. Ben turned and looked, seeing the huge bodies of dead arch-demons littering the riverbed. The light of Adrick’s sword showed the man was still going strong, leaving death in his wake. Rhys was traveling behind him, cleaning up what he left or picking off the demons who skirted by Adrick on the fringes.

  Unable to leave the riverbed, the demons were bunching up, falling back. Ben grinned. Close together, they’d be a perfect target for the mages. They might just win this fight.

  “They’re going to use their weight to overwhelm us,” warned Lloyd.

  Ben turned to the blademaster. He hadn’t seen the man standing beside him. “What do you mean? This is working!”

  “They can’t match our skill. Even the arch-demons can do nothing against the armored man. In a fair fight, he could slay hundreds of them.”

  Ben frowned, not understanding Lloyd’s concern.

  “They can’t take him down individually, but they’re bunching up to charge. Look! They’ll crush him under their bodies. He’s in the midst of the swarm. He can’t see what they’re doing.”

  They watched as Adrick pressed further north, leaving swaths of dead beasts underfoot. Several hundred paces north of them, the demons were forming a thick knot. Hundreds of them.

  “Damnit,” muttered Ben. “We can’t let him get caught.”

  “We’d better hurry,” declared Lloyd.

  Ben took off running, the blademaster behind him. Adrick was an experienced warrior, and he would know not to get isolated, but in the chaos of battle, he may not have a choice. Ben could already see that bands of demons were fanning out. They would surround Adrick and pin him in place until the wave arrived. He’d be overwhelmed by the sheer mass of demons.

  As Ben and Lloyd ran, they took swipes at the creatures they could reach, but they didn’t have time to stop and confront every one of the beasts. They had to get to Adrick before it was too late.

  Lloyd’s sword was a blur. He and Ben carved their way closer to the armored guardian. They passed Rhys, who was leading a band of a dozen against two huge arch-demons.

  “We’re getting Adrick. Then, we need to fall back!” shouted Ben.

  Rhys blinked at him, unhearing. Ben pointed north, and the rogue nodded. Ben chased after Lloyd, watching in awe as the man flowed between two attacking demons. He lashed out at both of them, felling them before they could come within a hand-length of him.

  When they got close to Adrick, Ben was further amazed to see the guardian slam a gauntleted fist into the face of a demon, crunching the thing’s skull and sending it flying away.

  “We’re falling back to regroup!” cried Ben.

  “We’re pushing them back. We have to keep up the pressure!” responded Adrick.

  Ben shook his head. “They’re bunching up just two hundred paces north of here. Even in that armor, you won’t be able to do anything if a hundred demons jump on your back. We have to stay mobile.”

  Adrick waved a hand to acknowledge him and started to work his way backward. The demons, sensing retreat, surged after him, and the swordsman took advantage of them coming close, chopping down a dozen before the creatures pulled back again.

  The riverbed to the south of them was largely clear, and Ben did a quick count of the men who were left standing. He couldn’t see them all in the moonlight, but it looked like a good two-thirds of the force had survived. Rhys was rallying most of them near him. Ben, Adrick, and Lloyd joined them. Fifty paces around, it was clear of living demons. The creatures were circling restlessly, though, waiting for an opportunity to pounce.

  “We’re fighting them to a stalemate,” remarked Lloyd. “Could be worse.”

  “I was kind of hoping we wouldn’t all have to die to finish this fight,” said Ben.

  “We need a different plan, then,” counseled Rhys. “There are just too many of them for us to kill them all. When we first hit them and broke the formation, we had a chance. With them bunched, we’ll kill a few, but then, they’ll roll over us like a tidal wave. They’re adjusting their tactics, and we need to adjust too. We could send a runner for the mages, see if they can blast this riverbed from one end to the other. Maybe Jasper can use that staff to fill the whole damn thing with fire. I know you don’t want that, Ben, but we have to consider our options here. The men are getting tired and injured. It may be a draw so far, but I don’t think it’s going to end that way. They’ve figured us out, and the arch-demons are keeping them tightly formed. Look!”

  Fifty paces north of them, the demons began to assemble, stretching from one bank to the other, shoulder to shoulder. Arch-demons strode amongst their minions, organizing them.

  Ben grimaced, and then smiled. “Have the mages fill the riverbed.”

  “Yeah,” agreed Rhys, “with fire.”

  Ben shook his head, the smile stretching further. “Not fire, water.”

  “You’re right! There’s got to be water somewhere north of here!” exclaimed Lloyd. “They couldn’t have boiled the entire river, right?”

  “Adrick,” instructed Ben, “send three fast men to the watchtower. Have them instruct the mages to far-see the river and figure out what happened to the water north of here. If the demons dammed it, maybe the mages can release it. A small amount of energy could bring a lot of water rushing down. Demons hate water, and I doubt they can swim. If I were to guess, a wall of water would kill almost all of them.”

  Adrick turned and barked orders to his men.

  “How will we know if Jasper is successful?” wondered Ad
rick.

  “Tell him to send up a blue light,” said Ben. “That will be our signal to run.”

  With their final instruction, Adrick’s runners turned and scampered off, heading toward the watchtower.

  “If the demons know that water is coming, they could break east,” worried Rhys. “They’d be loose with a clear shot through Sineook Valley and to Whitehall from there.”

  “If they go east, we can harry them all the way through Sineook Valley,” said Ben. “We can carve off chunks of them in a running battle and whittle them down. At Whitehall, Argren’s built an army. If we contact him, he can march, and we’ll trap the demons between our two forces.”

  Rhys nodded grimly.

  “Our best bet,” suggested Adrick, “is to keep them occupied without getting into a full engagement. We can stall them while the mages figure something out.”

  “Let’s do it,” said Ben.

  Around him, tired warriors prepared to make a feint toward the creatures and hopefully slow their advance. A hundred men and women still faced thousands of demons.

  With a resounding roar, the demons started their advance. They were sticking close together, packed in a tight formation that would bowl over the men with their bodies. Ben began to walk, the blademasters and the guardians following behind him.

  “Just hit them and pull back!” called Ben. “Don’t get tangled up, or you’ll be left behind.”

  High above, another ball of swirling orange flame soared toward the demons.

  “Making use of the demons being close together,” said Rhys. “Smart. If Jasper and the mages can blast a few hundred of them, that could make the difference for us. This may work, Ben.”

  But as Rhys finished, Ben saw they weren’t going to get so lucky. The ball of fire splashed against an invisible barrier. Fire hung suspended above them, sizzling and popping, and then flickering out.

  “Damn,” muttered Rhys.

  “They have magic!” exclaimed a man behind Ben. “The king must be close.”

  Ben stopped. If the demons could command magic and send an attack at the men, it would be devastating. Some of the men might be able to harden their will, but the majority of them wouldn’t even understand the concept. Those who could protect themselves from magic would be distracted and unable to focus on the thousands of demons marching toward them with sharp claws and teeth. It would be a slaughter.