“They’re horrible,” Vera said, moving slowly back past Lorik, who was leaning against the door frame watching as the others fought.
Three dozen spears were quickly used up and the floor of the feasting hall was littered with corpses. Those that didn’t die immediately lay on the floor, doing nothing to stop their almost certain demise. More of the mutated fighters were coming forward through the vestibule and into the grand hall, but they were forced to climb over their fallen companions. Off balance and often stumbling, they were easy targets for Stone and Vyrnon.
Stone had two swords, and he hacked and slashed the enemy fighters as they came near. The pile of bodies at his feet was higher than his waist. Vyrnon used a battle axe with precision and skill. He severed anything that came within range. Where Stone had a pile of bodies, Vyrnon had a pile of body parts littered around him. Both were blood soaked and exhausted when Lorik shouted for them to fall back.
They staggered back while the four volunteers on the dais used pikes to hold the mutated fighters at bay. Stone and Vyrnon staggered into the king’s room and Vanz pressed mugs of water into their hands.
“There’s... so many,” Vyrnon said as he gasped for breath.
“They’re dumb as rocks though,” Lorik said. “That’s one advantage we have.”
He watched as the volunteers poked and stabbed with the long weapons. The pikes’ heavy metal axe heads were deadly, but they took strength to wield. He knew it wouldn’t take long for the volunteers to grow too tired to fight effectively.
“Vera,” Lorik ordered, “take Stone and Vyrnon back to the queen’s room. Vanz, you go as well. I want everyone ready to defend the next choke point.”
“And what are you going to do?” Vera asked.
“Take my turn defending this station, then I’ll pull back,” Lorik explained. “I only need to kill enough of them to clog this doorway.”
“Don’t make me come after you again,” Stone said wearily.
“I won’t,” Lorik said. “We’re in this together.”
Vera and the others went back through the king’s room and into the queen’s quarters. Lorik drew one of his twin swords and watched as his volunteers fought bravely on. The pile of bodies was so massive it was hard to accept as reality.
“Fall back,” Lorik said to the men on the dais.
The two men on the outside of the small group dropped their weapons and hurried back through the doorway. Then the final two followed suit.
“Get back to the queen’s quarters,” Lorik told them as he stepped into the doorway. “I’ll deal with these bastards.”
The mutated fighters had stumbled over the dead and were rising up to follow Lorik’s volunteers into the king’s dressing room. They were so tall they had to stoop to get through the doorway and only one of them could pass through at a time. Lorik didn’t have to fight, he just stabbed the mutated fighters, one after another as they tried to come through the doorway. Their long swords were no use in the tight quarters and after Lorik killed the fourth soldier, he knew the others couldn’t pass through the opening without moving the bodies.
He hopped back toward the queen’s quarters and stopped just outside the door.
“Your strategy is working,” Stone said as he sipped water from the mug Vanz had given him.
“They’re so dumb, killing them is almost too easy,” Lorik said.
They watched as the mound of bodies in the doorway was heaved forward. It would take several minutes for the fighters to break the logjam. The dead bodies wedged against the door frame, and the stone walls were unforgiving. Bones snapped on the corpses that clogged the doorway as the fighters pushing from the feasting hall grew more numerous.
“So we hold them here,” Stone said. “We hold them in the stairwell too. Then in the dungeon, but then what?”
“Then we retreat to the secret passage,” Lorik said. “You can take the others and hide there. With the door closed they may never even find you.”
“And you’re going to stay out here and close the door behind us? I don’t think so.”
“I can hide in one of the dungeon cells,” Lorik said.
“They’ll just break the door down and kill you,” Stone replied. “We stay together, remember.”
“I’m just trying to give you the best chance of surviving this mess.”
“Say we survive, what kind of world will we be living in? This isn’t about this one battle, or even this war. We stay together and survive together, no matter what. Every life is precious, and we all need each other. Don’t be a hero.”
“I’m more of a liability lately than a hero,” Lorik said.
“I’m used to carrying your dead weight around,” Stone teased.
The monstrous soldiers finally broke through and flooded into the king’s dressing room. There wasn’t much space, but Lorik and Stone fought side by side, their fatigue forgotten. Stone used a spear, stabbing at the mutated fighters before they could reach him with their heavy swords. Lorik used his twin swords, parrying the heavy blows and counter striking with precision. Both warriors were careful to conserve their strength, making each blow count. They held the witch’s fighters off for nearly half an hour. The room became so filled with bodies that it was hard for the mutated soldiers to get close to Lorik or Stone. The room was flooded with blood, so that the polished stone floor became slick.
Stone and Lorik moved back slowly; eventually Stone retreated into the queen’s quarters, while Lorik stayed and fought until there was no more room to maneuver. Then Lorik fell back and two volunteers with pikes killed the witch’s soldiers as they attempted to come through the doorway. Once again there was a brief respite from the fighting as the mutated fighters tried to force the bodies of their fallen comrades through the narrow doorway.
“Pile the furniture in front of the doorway and set it ablaze,” Lorik said. “Then retreat to the dungeon.”
The volunteers responded instantly. The queen’s dressing room was full of thickly padded, ornate furniture. The volunteers pushed it all against the door where the witch’s minions were trying to break through. Lorik snatched up a lamp and pour the oil onto the furniture, then Stone thrust a torch into a narrow space between two cushions. The oil soaked padding caught fire instantly, and black smoke began to fill the room.
“We’ll see how they like fire,” Lorik said.
“Move!” Stone shouted. “Everyone retreat now!”
There was a mad dash down to the dungeons. Lorik had specified several more choke points in the castle, but his small group of volunteers were too exhausted to keep fighting. He only hoped they could hide in the secret tunnel and avoid fighting the savage warriors of the witch’s army.
Lorik brought up the rear of the group. The escape tunnel was not big, the roof was just inches above Lorik’s head, and his broad shoulders filled the narrow space. Lorik knew that the witch’s soldiers would have difficulty navigating the space, if they could even find it.
The group slumped to the hard, cold ground. Vera and Vanz tried to see to the needs of the exhausted volunteers, but it was soon apparent that moving back and forth among the men in the tunnel was too difficult. Everyone had been up since Lorik had returned late the night before, and many of the volunteers tried to sleep in the uncomfortable confines of the tunnel. Lorik stayed by the castle entrance and sent Stone to the far side. He didn’t think the witch’s soldiers would come into the tunnel, but if they did, Stone would know what to do.
Lorik sat silently, listening for any sign of the mutated soldiers, but the castle was silent. Hours seemed to pass, but the only real gage of time was the amount of lamp oil they were using. They kept only two lamps burning, one on each end of the tunnel, just in case they had to fight something. Eventually, even Lorik fell asleep. When he woke up a few hours later, he felt like something was different. At first he just thought it was the cold, which seemed to have seeped into his bones in the freezing tunnel. He could hear the teeth chattering of the wounded men.
They had blankets stashed in the tunnel, but Lorik knew they would need a real source of heat soon, or the men would grow sick and weak.
Lorik tried to decide what was different. He could hear the snoring of some of the volunteers echoing down the stone tunnel, but there was no other sound. He checked his injuries; his chest was still sore, and his ankle still swollen, but he could breathe a little easier. He tried to take a deep breath and ended up coughing up thick mucus. He spit the foul substance into the corner, and then he realized what was different. The heavy feeling of dread was gone. He’d felt a sense of darkness approaching as the witch’s army marched north through Ortis, now it was gone. He had spent the last several hours on the steps leading down into the tunnel, so he stood and did his best to stretch. The pit was close enough that Lorik felt the pull of the steep drop, the way it felt to stand on the edge of a high cliff, as if some invisible force was pulling him down. He stepped up to the doorway and after listening again for several moments, pushed open the door. It was dark in the storage room and in the dungeon beyond, but the ghostly mist from the Wilderlands was once again swirling in the darkness. Lorik closed the tunnel door behind him and eased his way out of the storage room.
Keeping one hand on the wall, he hobbled as quietly as he could down the long corridor of dungeon cells, following the flow of the mist. Once more he felt the temptation to open the secret door on the far side of the dungeon corridor, but he ignored it. The mist swirled up the spiral staircase and Lorik followed, trying to remain as quiet as possible. The mist led him up to the second floor of the castle, bypassing the series of rooms that had been the sight of the savage battle Lorik and his men had waged against the witch’s mutated army. Lorik was careful to be quiet, even suppressing the urge to cough on several occasions.
Finally he reached the stairs that led up to the watchtower and Lorik quickened his pace. Hope had begun to bloom in his heart. He thought that perhaps the mutated soldiers had given up on finding him and his band of volunteers. He guessed that they would eventually press on northward, leaving the razed capital of Ortis behind. He hurried out into the cold night and looked down from the high watchtower. The sky had cleared and the stars were bright. The moon shone down its silvery light across the abandoned city and over the rolling hills.
Lorik could see that the snow from the day before had melted and the massive army was gone. There were hundreds of dead soldiers, piled up like garbage around the castle, their dark forms perfectly still in the starlight. But what was even more surprising were the flickering lights in some of the structures around the city. Many of the homes and shops had been completely wrecked, but others were mostly intact. Lorik stood on the high watchtower and observed the lights. He was convinced that what he saw was firelight. It didn’t make sense to Lorik, there had not been anyone left in the city. He had stood watch on that same tower two nights before and there had been no lights.
His only guess was that some of the witch’s army had taken up residence in the city, but that didn’t make sense either. The mutated soldiers had no regard for their own safety and no logic to their actions. They were driven to kill whoever they saw, but taking refuge for the night seemed out of place. Not to mention that the lights were spread around the city, only a handful of lights were visible and none near the others. It didn’t make sense that if a group of the soldiers were staying in the city, why wouldn’t they stay close together rather than spreading out. It was strange. Lorik wondered if perhaps what he was seeing was some kind of stragglers that followed the witch’s army, looting the destroyed cities and scavenging from the carnage of the mutated killers.
Lorik turned around to go back into the castle and was surprised to see the mist was swirling in a new direction now. He followed the mist down to the main floor where it led out of the castle. He opened the door and gazed out into the night. The mist swirled toward the broken down gate and away though the city. Lorik’s ankle was beginning to throb again and before he left the castle he checked his weapons. If he got into trouble, he wouldn’t be able to run, so he had to make sure he could fight if worst came to worst.
The bailey around the castle was wet and grimy from the melted snow. Lorik moved cautiously toward the broken down gates, careful not to put too much weight on his injured ankle or make too much noise. The bodies of the dead were everywhere. He climbed over trampled corpses of the soldiers he’d killed. He found one of the spears his volunteers had used to save him when he’d fallen near the castle steps. It was broken in half, and he picked up the shaft end, leaving the metal blade sunk into the corpse of the mutated soldier it had slain. The wooden rod was the perfect length for a cane and Lorik used it to keep his weight off of his injured ankle.
It took a long while to climb over the mound of bodies outside the castle gates. Lorik and Stone had been very effective with their pikes and the other witch’s soldiers had not given the bodies of their fallen any regard. Lorik finally got past the heaping mounds of dead and was surprised to see the streets littered with more bodies. He knew they weren’t the work of his volunteers; their weapons had not been effective so far from the castle walls. Lorik considered for a moment that perhaps the mutated soldiers had moved their dead away from the walls, leaving the grossly disfigured corpses in the streets, but that didn’t really make sense either. He was certain he’d never seen the witch’s fighters do anything but push the heaped up piles of bodies out of their way.
It was too dark to tell for certain, but it looked almost as if the witch’s army had turned against itself. He moved like a shadow through the streets of the city, toward the nearest of the lights he’d seen from the watchtower. He saw the light from down the street. It seemed strangely out of place and inviting at the same time. He couldn’t seem to take his eyes off the warm glow that emanated from the windows.
He moved slowly, cautiously toward the structure. It was a home. Lorik peered into one of the windows and was shocked to see one of the mutated fighters curled by the fireplace with a thick blanket pulled around its shoulders. It was sleeping and looked less distraught than when he’d fought the mindless creatures. He moved away from the window and was trying to understand what he was seeing, when he heard the sound of a blade singing through the air. Instinctively he dropped to the ground.
Above his head, right where he’d been leaning against the wall of another home that was mostly destroyed, a dark blade chopped into the thick beam of wood. Lorik rolled to his feet, hopping a little to get his balance on his good foot and drawing his swords in one quick, smooth motion.
“Arrrgghhh!” cried the mutated fighter who stepped out of the shadows.
Once again Lorik was so surprised to hear the creature bellowing a battle cry, that he almost didn’t react quick enough. The fighter let go of his sword that was still wedged into the wood and swung a club like fist at Lorik, who swayed back, then had to hop again to keep his balance.
The angry fighter surged forward and Lorik thrust his sword out, driving it up and into the brute’s rib cage. The fighter screamed and then fell to its knees. Lorik swung his other sword and slashed the abnormally thick throat to ribbons.
The fighter died with a gurgling whimper and Lorik had to heave to pull his first sword free of the mutated soldier’s chest. Then he turned and looked back inside the house. The soldier who had been asleep on the floor of the small home was gone. Lorik went inside, moving cautiously again, alert for any signs of danger. What he found shocked him more than he could imagine. The soldier he’d seen through the window, was now huddled in a dark corner, hands over its face, fat tears rolling down its cheeks and dropping onto its knees.
Lorik stepped into the center of the room, the heat from the fire felt luxurious to him after the cold confines of the castle’s secret tunnel and the cold exposure of the winter night. He started to raise his sword and dispatch the soldier hiding in the shadows, but something was wrong. The mutated fighter didn’t act like a soldier, but more like a frightened child.
&
nbsp; “Who are you?” Lorik asked, not really expecting an answer.
The fighter looked up, surprise etched on its face.
“My name,” the wretched looking creature said in a strange, mangled voice, “was Rylee.”
“Was?” Lorik said.
“Before the monsters took us away.”
Lorik lowered his sword.
“What monsters?” he asked.
“Flying horses, with scorpion tails and human heads,” the witch’s minion replied. “They attacked our village, then I woke up here, freezing, hungry, surrounded by horrible people who had been changed like me.”
“You’re a woman?”
“A mother,” Rylee said. “I had three little ones and a husband, but they aren’t here. I don’t even know where here is.”
“This is Ort City,” Lorik explained. “Or what’s left of it. In the Kingdom of Ortis.”
The mutated mother began to cry again. Lorik looked at her and after a moment he could make out her feminine features. Her shoulders were broad and covered in thick muscle, but she had breasts too, only they hadn’t been enlarged. They were just two small lumps on her broad chest, and one was much higher than the other. She had on the same ragged clothing the other mutated fighters had possessed, but she pulled the blanket around her shoulders like a shawl.
“What happened when you woke up?” Lorik asked.
“Everyone was terrified. There was so much killing. Everyone fought each other. I was close to this place, so I hid inside until the others had fled the city.”
“You’re smart, but there are still others like you in the city,” Lorik said. “And a few of us are left behind as well. What happened to the army that marched north?”
“I don’t know anything about an army,” Rylee said. “I just want to go home.”
“Where is home?”
“A small village near Lorrington, in Olsa.”
“You’ve got a long way to go,” Lorik said. “Let me tell you what happened while you were asleep.”
Lorik spent the next half hour explaining what he knew. He moved closer to the fire and warmed himself, even though he felt guilty for doing it. His comrades were freezing in the secret tunnel beneath the castle, and he wanted to hurry back to them and tell them what had happened, but he wasn’t sure himself. Somehow, it seemed at least some of the witch’s army had been freed from the sorceress’ enchantment.
Lorik The Defender (The Lorik Trilogy) Page 19
