The stars and moon flooded Cold Point with an eerie light. The glinting silver leaves upon what he now knew to be Brackendon’s staff tree swayed gently. A silence enveloped the whole town. Every man who could hold a sword had been drafted in from the civilian population, and Eve and the healers had gathered those willing to aid in tending the injured. An improvised hospital had been set up within the tavern, cramming every spare mattress they had into the rooms.
Darnuir ran a finger down the length of his bow then slowly brought it back up. For this fight, he would carry two weapons: his regular blade, made of steel, and his newfound masterpiece. The Dragon’s Blade hung at his right side, as heavy as ever. He would much rather fight without it as he was sure the weight would slow him down but the sword seemed to have a mind of its own and refused to leave his side. Hopefully, he would get used to the weight of it in time but he was somewhat sceptical about the awesome strength he was supposed to have as a dragon. If this was all true, surely he would have always been able to accomplish great feats. Then again, I never tried to do anything exceptional. I never thought I was anything more than human.
There were small hints of it, looking back. Even recently, when helping to build Cold Point’s defences, he had shown better endurance than most. Yet, for now, he would have to rely on the limits he had always known.
Alongside him was Balack, fidgeting franticly, running his hand back and forth through his auburn hair.
“Are you okay?” Darnuir asked.
“Are you?” Balack said, his voice a little high. “This isn’t like before. We can’t get away this time.”
Darnuir shook his head slowly. “I’m trying not to think on it.” He ran his finger back down his bow.
“I wouldnae be too worried lads,” Griswald said encouragingly. He was perched on a window ledge, crutches resting beside his own oversized bow. He threw them a smirk, revealing two missing back teeth. “Plan’s good,” he barked, “and we have that wizard now and yer magic sword in all, Darnuir.”
“It won’t do us much good if I can’t even pick it up,” Darnuir said sombrely.
“Aye,” Griswald agreed, “aye, that’s true enough. But you’d be amazed what you can do when yer life depends on it.”
“It’s too heavy for me,” Darnuir said. “And I don’t how to use its powers.”
“Now look,” Griswald said, “you’ve never been in a real battle. Those wee patrols are nothing compared tae this. Ye haven’t been surrounded by thousands of clashing blades, ye haven’t heard a hundred arrows over yer head, ye haven’t smelled the stench of it all, and there’ll be fire raging tonight I reckon. When you’re down there in the heat of it, you’ll either break or you’ll act. And when you’re just reacting, you’ll not be thinking so damned much about how you can’t lift your bloody sword.” He took several giant-size steps towards Darnuir. “And if you don’t, I’ll tell anyone who’ll listen that you wet yer britches the night before yer first battle.” He clapped Darnuir on the back before hobbling back to his perch, hand pressed firmly on his wounded thigh.
Balack raised his eyebrows and gave a knowing sort of nod towards Darnuir as if to reinforce what Griswald had just said. Moderately embarrassed, Darnuir immediately sat up straighter and stared determinately out of his window towards the entrance to the square. Snow began to fall, lightly but thickly, dressing the town in a fresh coat of white.
Time lost all meaning as they waited for the sound of demons approaching. Darnuir began to get excited. Better to get out there. Better to face the creatures, Dragon’s Blade or not. The demons arrived in a terrible ruckus and uproar than usual. Darnuir heard the gates crashing open in the distance and the clattering of the demon host towards the square. All lights were hastily extinguished and darkness fully engulfed the battlefield. Every building appeared, at a glance, to be deserted. The snow on the ground was kicked aside as the demons poured into the kill zone. Soon the place was filled with them, gnashing their weapons and stamping in confusion as they found their path blocked by the barricades.
Like water, the horde fanned out, searching for an easy route, but found none. The demons who encountered the blockages tried to turn around, only to find their way barred by their fellows, and became agitated. The army became noticeably wild and Darnuir felt the time was surely nigh to begin their attack but their orders were to wait for the signal. Come on now, wizard.
As the screeches of the demons grew louder and angrier, larger outlines of spectres began to emerge, attempting to regain order. Darnuir had never seen so many before, and more may well have stayed hidden in the feint shadows cast by the moonlight. Darnuir could see several of the spectres congregating under the great tree and pointing up at the buildings.
We must strike now.
“Piss aff ye wretched beast!” Griswald cried, slamming the spectre on his back against the wall. The spectre slumped its head and loosened its grasp on Griswald’s neck, only to receive a meaty fist in its face. With a great heave, Griswald sent the spectre cleanly out the window. As it hit the ground, an arrow buried itself into the spectre’s neck, courtesy of Balack, who pulled back and hid behind the wall.
So much for the signal!
Darnuir raced to notch an arrow. Pulling back the string, he saw a small barrel fall smoothly from the lodge as if guided. It glided down and nestled in amongst the demons. A ball of fire followed it.
The explosion was far larger than Darnuir would have thought possible with such a small amount of oil. Perhaps it was enhanced with the wizard’s magic. Either way, it was the intended signal. All the demons within a five-metre radius were blown up or away by the blast, and every spectre visible in the square turned to face the source of the explosion. Darnuir didn’t hesitate to loosen his arrow into the mass beneath him. Not stopping to see if he had hit a mark, he hastened to fire again. Arrows skirted across the square from every building, their shafts black streaks against the falling snow. Lights sprang up as the hunters relit their torches and lanterns to see. Darnuir loosed a third arrow but missed his target: a regular demon moving closer to the tavern. He saw Balack snipe the head of a spectre behind Darnuir’s more fortunate foe.
The demons’ shrieks were deafening in such a confined space and they swarmed towards the buildings. Darnuir was able to get off one last shot before the demons were pounding on the tavern’s door.
“Loose above!” Garon bellowed from somewhere below. The call was repeated throughout the tavern and axes on the roof top thudded. Logs began to tumble, one after the other past the window, down onto the demons. Around the rooftops of the square, dark figures were hacking at the other piles, sending a crushing wave against their foes. Yet the demons still pressed on.
Ripping out his trusted old sword, Darnuir bolted for the stairs, leaving Balack behind, and joined a stream of other hunters running for the ground floor. After descending one level, he heard his name being called and stopped dead in his tracks. Eve stood in the doorway of one of the infirmary rooms, a manic look in her eyes. The rest of the hunters ran on but Darnuir paused, frozen in place by her stare.
“Don’t die,” was all she seemed able to say.
Darnuir could not think of any way to respond other than a curt nod. He ran on, almost jumping down the last set of stairs to join the unfolding fray. One hunter already lay dead under a smashed window, glass was strewn everywhere, but the door itself still held. Demons crawled in through the broken windows like scuttling beetles. Darnuir saw Garon despatch one from behind as it entered the room but quickly lost sight of him as he moved into the fight himself, parrying a blow that would have severed the head of a fellow huntress. She finished the demon off and they fought on.
Tightly packed, there was little room for manoeuvre. Darnuir avoided the lurching advance of a vicious, rusted dagger, almost losing his balance. He fell back against the bar and the demon wielding the dagger impaled itself on his sword as it charged.
We are fighting on top of each other. We may have to push out
side.
“Stop them at the windows!” Garon yelled. Darnuir joined several of those near him, picking up a nearby heavy tankard and throwing it at the shattered openings. By the door, two spectres rose up from the shadows on the boarded floor, wielding enormous axes that seemed forged from the shadows as well. One moved off to hack at the bolts on the door, while the other cleaved an area around it, cutting down several hunters in close proximity. The door cannot fall!
Darnuir dashed towards the hulking spectre, which took a mighty swipe at him. He dodged it but lost his balance completely this time. As he fell, he cut at the spectre’s leg. It howled as it crashed to one knee and Garon relieved it of its head. With its sharp axe, the remaining spectre clove effortlessly through the last bars on the door. Demons clamoured en masse into the tavern.
“Forward!” Garon bellowed. Darnuir surged on with him as they tried to stem the flow. The melee was brutal and packed. Darnuir desperately parried blow after blow, knowing if he missed one, he would have no space to avoid an attack. Those behind him were pressing him forwards, pinning him in place. All he could do was keep himself alive. He was so close to the demons that their smoky blood soon filled his lungs, choking him. He was being crushed. He could hardly breathe.
A powerful wave of air rushed over him, blowing back the smoke and his hair. He gasped as the crush eased and the demons somehow melted before them. At the tavern’s doorway stood Brackendon, staff raised, taking measured breaths as demons scattered all around. A team of hunters near him were already turning to rejoin the larger battle in the square.
“Garon,” Brackendon yelled. “We must relieve the other buildings. They won’t have much time before they burn!”
Darnuir saw exactly what the wizard had warned: somehow, several of the thatched roofs around the square had caught fire and it was spreading fast. A crush of hunters, demons and logs, some now ablaze, prevented easy escapes, and a burning man, screaming his last, leapt from a high window into the enemy. Darnuir, Garon and the hunters with them charged out into the square.
Darnuir caught the first demon he met by surprise but the second saw him coming and proved a more tenacious foe. It parried his blow, dodged the next, and then slashed at his waist. The stroke missed but barely, cutting into his leather armour and drawing blood from his arm on the way back. Darnuir groaned at the pain but launched his next attack, bringing his sword down overhead and overpowering the wretched thing. It crumpled to the ground before Darnuir.
Embers from the burning roofs sparked off, landing dangerously close to buildings on either side of them. More caught fire and soon the heat began to lick at Darnuir as he fought his way through the horde within the main square. When one demon fell, another took its place, and with every swing, his injured arm throbbed. He reached the stone wall surrounding the great silver tree and leaned on it to briefly take respite. Yet he was only allowed a moment, for a spectre emerged before him like a slow nightmare, drawing itself out of the shadow cast by the tree. In its hand, a long blade formed and solidified out of swirling dark purple shadows. Darnuir tried to raise his sword but the spectre was too fast and stopped him, hammering its weapon onto Darnuir’s and smashing it off against the stone wall. Darnuir’s blade snapped two-thirds of the way up.
He froze.
The spectre’s free arm clobbered Darnuir’s chest and he collapsed over the little wall, losing his ruined sword. He had enough sense to roll to one side and managed to avoid the phantom’s sword as it struck the ground where he had been seconds before. He stumbled to get up and his back found the tree as he struggled to balance himself. The Dragon’s Blade shook in its sheath. Its weight seemed to have lessened. Griswald was right! If he didn’t draw it, he was dead.
He cursed as his inexperienced left hand fumbled at the hilt on his right-hand side, and then dropped to his knees to avoid the spectre’s weapon. The ghostly sword of the spectre got caught in the silver trunk of the tree. Beneath the creature, Darnuir slammed his fist into the spectre’s midriff. It growled and did a double-take as it tried to detach its blade from the tree. Darnuir hopped back, and no sooner had his hand finally gripped the hilt than the Dragon’s Blade flew out of its sheath. His untrained left hand floundered and let the sword slip but it flew into his right hand instead. That’s a little better. The spectre was still trying to retrieve its weapon from the gnarled bark when Darnuir drove the Dragon’s Blade through it, using both hands to help with the weight. Smoking blood ran down his forearms.
As he drew it out, the rubies in the dragon’s eye sockets twinkled at him and a sharp pain stabbed at his head. It felt as though someone was pressing on his mind. It was over as quickly as it had come but a slight throbbing remained. Wiping the sweat from his face, he turned his attention to the rest of the battle.
By now, defenders of the burning buildings had either escaped out into the square or perished within them. It seemed more had made it out than not. Roofs had collapsed and the bulk of the fighting had pushed towards the square’s entrance. A wall of white and grey leather met a curtain of fiery shadows, cutting the square diagonally. Yet smaller skirmishes raged all around. A group of men from the town hurtled over the small wall to Darnuir’s side and they battled together there a while till three perished and the remaining fled to the tavern. There, the fighting had ceased, though arrows still sang through the night from the upper floors.
Darnuir joined the forming melee, which now had Cosmo at the centre; he was fighting with such a fury as Darnuir had ever seen. Brackendon was holding down another portion of their line, using his staff as a weapon, blasting demons back as he struck. Demon blades that should have hit him were halted inches away, the air around him rippling as the blows were stopped. But it seemed Brackendon could not keep it up forever. He danced back through the ranks, out of breath and shaking slightly as if ill. The battle remained in a stalemate for some time.
“They’ve broken through!” roared Griswald from his window. “Behind!”
Spinning, Darnuir saw them. Demons were careering out of a narrow alley close to the tavern, behind their lines. Arrows met the first ones through but more soon poured forth. Being nearer the back of the crush, Darnuir and those beside him darted to intercept. They leapt over impeding logs and hurtled into the flanks of the demons, but more came. Soon, the skirmish claimed lives on both sides. In the midst of the chaos, Darnuir glimpsed a flurry of blonde hair running from the tavern.
“Eve, no!” Darnuir implored.
She and her fellow healers were trying to carry back the injured. “I’m here now,” she chided him, falling down to the side of one hunter. “I can save him if I staunch the bleeding.”
“Don’t! You have to—” he began, but she scolded him.
“No, this is what I can do. This is all I can do!” She pressed down with her weight upon the man’s gushing shoulder.
Darnuir had little time to think as a rusty blade appeared at the corner of his vision. He gutted the demon; the Dragon’s Blade opened the creature with ease. The orange glow along the blade’s length intensified in colour and Darnuir thought he could feel heat coming off it. Or was it coming from inside of him? He thought his throat felt hot, though he could not be sure with the blaze raging all around them.
The men who Darnuir had defended the tavern with had dwindled, while the demon numbers seemed to swell. More hunters drew themselves away from the main battle to combat the threat at their rear, but at the risk of thinning their front ranks too much. Brackendon also joined the fight to secure the alleyway, once again cloaked in his invisible shield, and managed to stem the worst of the tide.
More demons advanced towards Darnuir and Eve but she would not run. One was killed from above. Balack would cover her until his last arrow. Darnuir slashed in an arc at the others, catching one across the chest and causing the others to leap back. When they came on again, it was all he could do to keep them at bay. Another arrow caught one where its heart might have been and the fight became more manageab
le. Darnuir lurched forward, sliding a little in the snow, running his sword through the neck of the closest adversary. The other, however, had turned away from him, seeing Eve as an easier target. She did not scream or baulk as it bounded the few paces towards her, but the demon was faster. Its jagged dirk cut her at stomach and she crumpled to her knees and scrambled towards the stone wall of the tree.
With a howl, Darnuir bowled the creature down, smashing into it with a strength he had would have thought impossible. The demon’s body lay broken underneath him. Eve was on her knees, one arm on the wall for support. Darnuir raced over and brought her to her feet. She beamed at him and drew her hand away from her stomach. Darnuir felt relief rush over him. Her hand was crimson with blood but it must not have been hers. The demon had torn through her leathers but nothing more. Eve grinned as he steadied her but then shock took over her face in an instant. Her jaw plunged, as did her gaze. Darnuir followed her eyes to see a ghost-like shaft jutting out from the middle of her chest, the tip inches away from Darnuir’s own body. Behind her, the spectre fully materialised. There was no expression on the creature’s face, only a blank malice.
A cry cut through the night like a wounded beast. It seemed to come from the tavern. To Darnuir, sound suddenly lost all meaning. He felt like he had gone deaf. Instinct made him hack with all his force at the spectre, even as an arrow buried deep into its skull. Eve’s body slumped to the ground below him but he could not look down. Something squirmed horribly inside of him and he felt like he would retch up everything he had ever eaten. Biting back the sensation, he turned dizzily towards the fight. It raged on, despite what had just happened. That seemed strange. That seemed wrong.
His hearing returned as Brackendon beckoned all nearby to back away, his free hand pointing vigorously. The wizard returned to face the alley, aiming his staff high at the roof of the lodge. The wall that overlooked the alleyway shook violently until it collapsed, resealing the route. A score of demons remained trapped on the hunters’ side and the sight of them caused Darnuir to boil with rage. The heat from the Dragon’s Blade further intensified and the orange glow began to oscillate. The burning sensation he had felt in his throat returned anew and something pressed upon his mind again, this time more urgently. It was as if it were prodding at him. Clutching his head in one hand, he felt as though his skull might break apart. Several demons drew closer. He had a fleeting thought of them enveloped in cruel flames and the heat in his throat grew more intense. The demons had almost closed the gap. He thought of flames engulfing them and his throat burned. The blade of the sword lit up as fire leaped from its tip like a lashing, forked tongue. Abnormal flames, flowing with purpose, wrapped the demons up in ribbons of red, yellow and orange, squeezing them tight. The demons wailed in their otherworldly tones and roasted into white cinders.
The Dragon's Blade: The Reborn King Page 13
