The second warrior brought his axe down hard, hoping to cut the General in two. Kenden sidestepped the deadly attack and drove his blade forward, aiming for the barbarian's chest. The barbarian was faster than Kenden expected and rolled his body around the attack. Using the momentum of the turn, the brute kept going and brought his huge blade around with him in a tremendous swing. Kenden did not have time to think and instinct alone saved him as he dropped like the stone, barely avoiding the attack. The barbarian's axe head smashed through several inches of stone behind the defenders and off balanced him as the blade kept going. The General took the luck and thrust his sword up into his enemy's chest and through his back - he pushed up as he went, opening the enemy's chest and spilling his insides. Kenden pulled his sword free and pushed the toppling corpse over the battlements into the frenzy below. "Where in the Keeper's arse is that damned Wizard?" the General growled, thrusting his sword tip into the face of the newcomer up the ladder.
They were holding, but Kenden could see the tiring in the farmers and city folk already. Their swings and thrusts were slowing and awkward, more and more ladders were being placed against the wall - more and more enemies were climbing up.
"Master Lazay, Master Lazay!" The young soldier called running up the stairs to the eastern battlements, where battle too had begun, though the thick of the enemy was attacking from the west.
"What is it?" Lazay asked while he pulsed his Gift into a wounded soldier, who had been struck by an arrow. Within moments the blood slowed, then stopped and the hole closed up, leaving only a small scar. Lazay could have healed it to the point that the scar would have been gone, but he would not waste his powers at such a time.
"General Kenden needs you at the western battlements!" the man huffed loudly, stopping in front of the Wizard.
Lazay helped the healed archer to his feet and sent him off to his post. "How bad is it?"
"Bad, I am afraid, they have covered the moat with water-soaked planks and ladders were already being raised when I was sent to find you," the soldier reported. "But I fear soon they will start ramming the gates.… If they break down one of the gates, we are…"
Lazay silenced the man with a nod of understanding. "You stay here and help fend off the enemy. I will go and see to it that they do not breach the western gate."
"But Master Lazay, I think I would be better served where the brunt of the attacks are," the soldier exclaimed.
"If the thousand savages down here take this wall, are we no less dead?" Lazay asked the soldier, who let the truth of the words sink in. "The main part of our own force is at the western and northern gates, I fear not that we will be overtaken there. It is the eastern and southern gates that have only a small handful of men - mostly farmers that I fear for. I would fear a lot less if I knew a soldier such as yourself was here in my place." The words struck pride in the man and he stood straighter.
"I cannot leave you to watch one meager wall!" Mandrake's Wizard asked Kenden as he ran up the stairs to the western battlements. The General, however, was preoccupied with a massive brute that wielded a huge, metal, double-headed lance.
Kenden parried and strafed the wild jabs and thrusts of the brute, unable to counter or advance. The metal seven-foot lance was brandished effortlessly by the towering barbarian and with a speed and agility that was deceptive for a man his size. Kenden could not break through the enemy's guard and was fast tiring from the endless dance. He deflected the lance high, opening his enemy's guard and hoping to score a killing blow when a sizzling arc of power erupted from behind Kenden, bursting through the large savage's leather armor and chest, clean through to the other side, throwing the barbarian dead to the slick stone.
"You could have aided me sooner!" Kenden growled, between labored breaths.
"It looked like you had the situation under control," Lazay replied sarcastically, drawing a dangerous glare from the General - but only for a moment as he was quickly needed again as another section of wall was being pushed back by the enemy. Lazay grabbed a soldier by the arm and motioned to the courtyard and the man nodded his understanding and was off.
"Stand back!" Lazay commanded a group of soldiers who were desperately fighting several brutes who had almost made it over the wall. Knowing better than to question the mighty Wizard, the group quickly fell back. Thinking they had the advantage, the enemy took the battlements in a frenzy, but before they had their bearings, a relentless torrent of air smashed into them throwing them back over the battlements.
Lazay bounded up on top of the battlement walls, several bolts of energy raining down from his fingertips into the climbing hordes, shredding through limbs, torsos, and ladders alike. The bloody wreckage collapsed to the planked ground below, killing or injuring more than a few on impact.
Wasting no time, Lazay unleashed his fiery bolts, and lighting arcs cascaded down from his perch into the swarms below. The water-soaked planks were no match for the intensity of his Wizard's fire and soon the makeshift bridges over the moat were aflame engulfing and devouring all who stood upon them. The hungry flames consumed their way through the long wooden ladders with haste, toppling even more of the enemy into the bitter inferno.
With Mandrake's Wizard turning the tide, the defenders quickly regained the wall and with no more enemies scaling up, the archers moved back into place and once again began launching their deadly volleys into the scrambling hordes below.
Having no more comrades scaling the wall, enemy archers resumed their assault, all taking aim on the valuable Wizard who still stood atop the battlements finishing off the remanding plank bridges underneath.
Seeing the raising volley of enemy shafts, Lazay's palms stretched out - a great pulse erupted from his hands, violently disrupting the very atmosphere in front of him, sending the enemy arrows back at them with such force that some cut clean through warriors before they were stopped by the hard earth behind them.
"Now!" Lazay cried as loud as he could.
"Fire!" The engineer commanding the catapults yelled upon hearing his queue, and five flaming boulders sailed up through the air, high over the defenders, lighting up the night sky brilliantly. Defenders and attackers alike stopped to regard the fiery boulders in speculative amazement, but for the attackers that speculation was short lived as the giant, flaming stones began their descent and crashed amongst the barbarian masses. The four hundred pound boulders bounced erratically through the enemy hordes, leaving crushed and dying warriors in their wake. By the time the boulders had ceased their rampage though the enemy ranks another flaming hail was cresting over the battlements and into the enemy.
Two more such attacks from the catapults rained down on the enemy along with scores of vicious arrows before finally, the enemies retreat horn sounded and they ran back into the city and out of range of the defenders devastating defense.
"The dawn is fast approaching and we have finally pushed back the last of the enemies from all four sides of the battlements." One of Mandrake's Captains announced to the room.
"Thank you Captain - now go eat and rest with your men," Furlac told him.
"We held strong through the night." Lazay commented, weary relief in his tone. He had expelled the majority of his Gift in the defense of Mandrake and in the healing of many of the injured soldiers. Yet when he had left the infirmary, there had still been many more. He knew he needed to conserve his Gift - though they had forced the enemy back this night, the enemy was still far from defeated and would attack again before too long.
"What were the numbers?" Furlac asked Lazay, knowing the Wizard had come from there.
"Better than expected, but still disheartening." Lazay sighed as he rubbed his temples. "Close to four hundred dead, almost twice that number injured, two hundred and thirty seven which can no longer fight…if they make it through the day that is."
"That is disheartening," Furlac muttered, his face deep set with worry and fatigue.
"I have always said farmers make horrible soldiers," General Kenden
muttered. "Though I have to give it to them, they held their courage."
"If it was not for those farmers we would all be corpses," the young Captain Kermont said. "We have used up near a third of our arrows already. The fletchers, carpenters, and blacksmiths are working furiously to make more, but it will not be enough, there are not enough of them to keep up."
Furlac dropped his head into his hands, his fingers tightening around his hair, hoping the painful sensation would spark something, and it did. "The wounded!" Furlac stammered out as the idea came to him. "The ones that can no longer fight - we will put the ones who can to work, helping making arrows and repairing weapons."
"We cannot ask that of them," Captain Kermont stammered out in shock. "These men are wounded and all but defeated - they need to rest and recover. We cannot ask them…"
"Cannot ask them, what?" General Kenden intervened sharply. "Cannot ask them to fight on, but in another way, to continue in our… no…their cause? If we cannot hold the enemy on the other side of those walls, we all die."
The young Captain opened his mouth to protest, but had no argument. The General was right, if they could not fend off the enemy, what would it matter? "I will go see to it," Kermont said and left the room.
"How long do you think it will be before they attack again?" Lazay asked.
"They will not let us rest for long; they have the advantage of numbers and strength. The harder they press, the less we sleep, the weaker we get," Furlac answered.
"They made a lot of mistakes last night - they were eager, too sure of themselves and their numbers. We routed them a little, and thinned out their numbers. They will not be so foolish next time," Kenden said. "The moat is thick with bodies and wreckage, the water in it is now tainted and undrinkable, we have but three wells inside the castle walls. Water will be scarce on the morrow."
"We have all the barrels and pails full of water… we can use them if needed," Lazay added.
"Maybe, that is if we are lucky enough and they are foolish enough to not rain down fire upon us," Furlac replied.
"That is doubtful." Kenden said.
"We will have to ration water then," Furlac said bitterly, the first day into the siege and they already had to ration supplies to their soldiers. That was never good for morale.
"Sir Furlac?" A soldier called, as he entered the room and found Mandrake's advisor. "Sir I… I…"
"Well out with it man; we do not have all day," Kenden growled.
"You need to come to the battlements," the man sputtered.
"Damn it man, just tell us already!" Kenden barked, as they crested the stairs of the battlements.
"Look," the man pointed west toward the city and enemy army - half Mandrake's army was on the battlements looking out at the sight.
"May the Creator have mercy on our souls," Furlac whispered, but all those around him heard it.
"How…how can there be more of them?" Lazay asked bewildered. "We killed thousands of them last night, and it does not look like we did a damn thing to their ranks!"
"How many do you figure are out there?" Furlac asked the General.
"I would say everyone we killed last night was replaced, maybe more," Kenden replied, his eyes cold and his demeanor grim. "Their ranks will swell day after day as more tribes and savages come forth. If they believe they will conquer and overtake us…" he trailed off. He did not have to finish; the others knew what he would have said. Barbarians were like wolves, as soon as they smelt blood and an easy kill, the whole pack would emerge.
"How long do you think we have until they…" Lazay began to say, but stopped when the low blow of a horn was heard.
"Get them catapults armed and fast," Kenden said to Furlac, who nodded and left to arouse the engineers. "I will need you up here with me this morning Wizard."
Lazay looked into the General's eyes; a hard, bitter set determination was engraved there. "Do you think we can hold them back?"
"We will today."
"Fire!" the engineer manning the five catapults bellowed. All five great arms lurched forward with tremendous speed and power, hurling the giant blazing boulders up over Mandrake's battlements into the scores of enemies below. The fuel-smothered rocks laid waste to all in their rampaging course.
Already, fifteen such devastating assaults had been released from the five mechanical weapons of warfare. More than their fair share of enemies that now littered the killing field had been humbled beneath the earthy ammunition. Though the terrifying catapult attacks slowed the enemy's charge, it did not stop them.
The barbarians' strategy had altered greatly this time, truly bitter by the defeat they suffered before. Their archers were first to charge in - thousands of them, not slowing for anything. If they feared the giant stones falling from the sky, they did not show it as they negotiated the gore-littered field to Mandrake's impressive wall. Once inside the range of the lethal catapults, they attacked in full. Thousands of powerful wooden long bows were pulled back and released in no timed fashion. This time, each enemy archer had been instructed to nock his bow at will rather than on command. The effect of which was a constant barrage of arrows raining down on the defending archers, giving them no hope of striking back.
The first volleys of enemy arrows were so thick they dimmed the very sun, causing the defenders to look up in petrifying surprise. Many in the courtyard were caught off guard by the sudden attack and had no defense against the raining death that fell upon them. Many of Mandrake's defenders were cut down in those first few moments, some being impaled by more than a score of the wicked barbed shafts. Many more were injured beyond fighting. Men scrambled this way and that, trying to find cover anywhere they could from the deadly bombardment. Those with shields held them high and ducked tightly to the ground, blocking hundreds of crude shafts.
The raining death was continuous - the defenders did not receive a single moment of reprieve. Several engineers were killed in the first moments, the remaining found cover near the wall - it forced the catapults to cease their devastating attack, which meant the enemy army was nearly unopposed.
Atop the battlements, the archers were forced to stay hidden behind the wall, as thousands of arrows skipped and cracked off the stone all around them. Every now and again an archer got brave and took a shot down into the advancing enemy, but more often than not their efforts were in vain and they were struck down dead or wounded.
"General, what do we do?" Several soldiers cried out to Kenden, who was hiding behind a large metal shield, Lazay ducking behind the wall several paces away.
Kenden knew the enemy was building their planked bridges again unobstructed, and that soon ladders would be placed on the wall and enemy warriors would flow up like ants and storm over the wall. But there was nothing they could do well under this volley of arrows and once the volley stopped it may be too late.
"Wizard, I need you!" Kenden barked and Lazay turned to regard him.
"What is it?" the Wizard yelled back as several arrows skipped by his tightly curled up legs.
"I need you to do something about this!" the General yelled back watching several more of his archers taken down. "Before it is too late and we are all dead."
"Like what?" Lazay bellowed back.
"Damn it, Wizard! Do something!" Kenden growled.
Lazay rolled his eyes - he had been trying to think of something he could do to turn the attack around or at least buy them some reprieve so they could defend themselves. There was only one thing he could think of, and it was risky - but war was full of risks.
Lazay grabbed a large body shield from the nearest soldier, ducking behind the wall beside him and stood facing the barrage. Dozens of barbed shafts slammed into the metal plated shield, several with enough force to puncture through the coating of metal and into the wood, the tips just visible on the other side.
Lazay blocked out the eerie sound of snapping arrows from his mind as he called upon his Gift. The air around Lazay began to stir, slowly picking up swiftness as it whipp
ed his long blond hair. All the broken shards and shafts around him began to roll away and were pushed to the front of the wall, creating a pile of kindling. Within heartbeats, the air near the Wizard was so forceful that the hundreds of arrows that fell around him were blown out wildly, as if striking an invisible wall. Lazay released the shield and it flew over the wall into the enemy, as did hundreds of the deadly shafts they were firing. Soon, the air torrent's momentum was overpowering, scattering all debris from the stone wall and causing all the soldiers to tuck down close to the stone or, for some, to grab a hold of something solid for fear of being tossed over the battlements.
The sky-darkening volley of arrows met the tremendous potency of Lazay's Gift and was hurled back into the hordes of enemy below with divine swiftness and force, mincing through armor and flesh like it was tearing through parchment.
Scores of enemy fell dead or dying within heartbeats of Lazay's summoning. Many others had dropped their bows and found cover, knowing the more they fired, the more of their own would die.
"Get those catapults loaded!" Kenden yelled down to the hiding engineers. Soon, impending stones were again launched over the battlements into the overwhelming hordes below.
As fast as it began, it ended - Lazay slumped to the cold stone, ceasing the dominant current of wind. The execution of such a summon took much out of him and he needed a moment to gather himself.
"Good job Wizard, next time, do not wait so damn long," Kenden said, rushing by Lazay to the front of the wall. "Get up you cowsons! You have had enough rest, we have blood to shed!" he barked out in encouragement, not a moment too soon either, for the first of the enemy warriors began to crest the battlements, only to be met by the defenders' cold steel.
For more than half the day, not a single savage gained a foothold on Mandrake's battlements, but soon the defenders began to tire, their blades dull from the scores of fallen, their muscles burning and their reactions slowing. In several places along the wall, enemies were able to push back the defenders and gain ground on the battlements. Most were short-lived, but a few held solid.
The False Prince (Fall Of A King Book 1) Page 23
