Chapter Twenty-one Aemon’s Stand #4
Immediately, Tomaz stood and thrust his armor into a waiting barrel of water.
With a hiss and a huge gout of steam, the heated metal began to cool.
While it did, the big man quickly smothered the fire, making sure all of the coals were gone.
As soon as the breastplate was cool enough to touch, the Prince helped Tomaz into it, and was just doing up the last strap when Leah appeared.
“Leah!”
She turned and searched the street suddenly crowded with soldiers, all bristling with spears and swords, gleaming in their silver armor. All of the faces the Prince could see bore a steely reserve and a fierce light of defiance.
“Leah!” the Prince called again.
She found him finally and began to force her way through the crowd toward them.
Out of the corner of his eye, the Prince saw Davydd and Lorna arrive with a large group of Rangers, all of whom were holding very long spears with sawed-off ends.
They also bore looks of grim determination, as though they were ready to march off to the ends of the earth.
“Why are you here?” Leah asked bluntly when she reached the Prince.
“What?” he asked.
“You’re wounded,” she said. “You need to be in the infirmary!”
“Would you be?” the Prince retorted. “I can fight. And you need everyone you can get.”
“You’re still wounded?” Tomaz asked, his eyes narrowing.
“No,” the Prince insisted. “I’m fine.”
A sharp, pointed finger dug into his ribs, and he gasped in pain. He shook his head and rounded on Leah, who had jabbed him.
“Do that again,” he growled.
“That’s enough,” Tomaz rumbled. “This is neither the time nor place for you to act like spoiled children.”
The gravity of the situation fell on them once more, and the Prince felt his anger at the girl fade away.
The shaking under their feet was growing more pronounced, and the Prince knew that his brother was somewhere on the other side of the gate.
For what seemed like an eternity, they waited there, watching the barred wooden doors under the gate through which the enemy would attempt to come.
BOOM!
All of the soldiers recoiled at the noise.
BOOM!
The Prince felt as though something invisible had been placed over his ears, silencing all sound. The pounding of the ram was so loud that the silence that followed was almost unbearable.
BOOM!
Cracks splintered through the wood of the gate. The sound of arrows being shot from the force manning the wall continued, but it slowed the ram not at all.
BOOM!
The cracks widened, and the doors bowed inward under the weight of the enormous ram in the hands of the Daemons.
“AAAAAHHHH!!!”
The Prince started so violently at the noise, coming from directly behind him, that he jumped nearly a foot in the air. It was Tomaz, roaring in his huge voice, shouting his defiance.
“Ahhhh!”
“For the Kindred!”
“For Aemon!”
“FOR AEMON!”
Cries sounded from throats on all sides of the Prince, and he found to his surprise that he was screaming with them, wordlessly shouting against his brother, against this force that had come to kill him as assuredly as it had come to kill the Kindred.
He roared so loudly it felt as though his throat would split.
And then with a final crash, the doors crumpled inward and two Daemons with Bloodmages riding on their shoulders forced their way through the debris, giant maces swinging and flattening anything and everything in their path.
The Rangers, led by Davydd, his red eyes glowing with a murderous light, stood ready in a clearing in the center of the large courtyard.
The giant poles, held by the ashandel, lanced out with amazing accuracy and battered the Daemons from all sides, keeping them far enough away to prevent them from attacking.
The eshendai began swooping in so quickly that the slow-moving Daemons couldn’t react in time.
The smaller, lighter fighters cut at the straps holding the Bloodmages in place and tried to haul them off their enormous mounts.
Arrows rained down on the Bloodmages and their Daemons from the wall above, but as the Prince had warned, they did little damage.
But slowly, step by labored step, the Daemons advanced, moving out of the way of the gate, where the Prince could see a swarming red-and-white horde of soldiers waiting to attack.
Tomaz turned to the Prince and thrust his enormous greatsword into his hands.
“Hold this,” was all he said, and then he was running straight at the Daemons, Leah right behind him.
The Prince had no time to respond, but watched in complete shock as Tomaz ran at the closest Daemon and rolled forward inside its reach as it swung its mace. Leah drew her two daggers and hurled them both straight at the Bloodmage riding atop it.
The Bloodmage flinched away from the daggers, and the Daemon pulled with him, leaning dangerously backwards.
And then, inexplicably, the creature began to rise up off the ground.
The Prince couldn’t believe his eyes—Tomaz had managed to situate himself directly beneath the Daemon and was lifting it into the air.
“LEAH!” the Prince yelled as loudly as he could, pushing his way toward the girl but succeeding in moving barely half a foot in the dense crowd of waiting Kindred soldiers. Leah, daggers flying back toward her as she pulled them with her mind, turned.
“YOU CAN KILL THE BLOODMAGE NOW!”
Without a second’s hesitation, she turned and threw. The daggers flew like steel arrows at the Bloodmage whose Daemon Tomaz had lifted. One pierced its neck, and the other shattered the medallion hanging around its chest.
An enormous explosion rocked the crowd as condensed rock and wood flew in every direction.
The Prince was pushed back so violently that he fell to the ground, along with half of the Kindred soldiers surrounding him.
A large boulder, smoking as if it had been blown there by Black Powder, landed not four feet in front of him, crushing an unfortunate Kindred soldier.
The Prince frantically pulled himself back to his feet and saw that the blast had been so powerful that the second Daemon had been lifted off its feet and thrown through a nearby building. There was nothing left of the first Daemon but debris.
The Rangers and Rogues were the first to rise, and they converged on the second Daemon’s Bloodmage, pulling it off the Daemon.
The Daemon rolled away, crushing Kindred beneath its enormous rocky bulk, and the last sight the Prince saw was of Davydd pulling his valerium sword from the Bloodmage, a shining medallion hanging from his clenched fist, and running off after the monstrous form with a squadron of Rangers close behind him.
As the dust from the Daemon settled to the ground, Tomaz was revealed standing with half of his armor hanging off in twisted scraps.
He was panting heavily and covered in bleeding cuts from where sharp bits of rock and wood had sliced his skin.
A brief moment passed as both armies seemed to catch their breath, and then the Prince realized that the way was now clear for the rest of the army to make its way through the broken gate.
“TOMAZ!” he shouted.
He drew back the giant’s massive sword, took a step forward, and with a great heaving convulsion threw it with a two-handed swing.
It arced end-over-end, and Tomaz caught it by the hilt.
He spun and crouched low, just as the first line of Imperial soldiers flooded through the gap in the wall.
The sword rose, a shining beacon of Kindred defiance, and came down in a ferocious swing that cleaved the first three Imperials clean in half, armor and all.
There was a thundering roar, and two more Daemons pushed through the gate with another flood of Imperial soldiers directly behind them. The Kindred rushed forward as well, cries of defiance ringing from every throat, and the battle began in earnest.
Time moved in jerky, half-seen flashes: the Prince found himself at the front of the Kindred attack, once more fighting beside Leah and Tomaz, his valerium sword swinging like a white flame through everything that stood in his path.
The sword swung and hung frozen in air, and then came down and struck with blinding speed.
The sword swung again and took a second man, and time sped up as the lives were added to the Prince and his movements became easier, the valerium sword suddenly no heavier than a child’s practice blade; time slowed again as he ducked behind Tomaz’s back, his eyes catching sight of another Imperial soldier; with a snarl of anger, the Prince brought his sword up with all his strength and unseamed the man from stomach to chin.
But despite their best efforts, the Kindred were pushed backward inch by inch.
The next two Daemons, swinging their maces back and forth and wiping out broad swaths of Kindred soldiers, were an unstoppable force.
Soon the Prince found himself backed into a side road off of the main courtyard in front of the gate, still fighting alongside Leah and Tomaz, but unable to advance as the Kindred were forced farther and farther backwards by the deadly spiked metal club of an advancing Daemon.
Tomaz tried once more to roll forward and get under the Daemon but was nearly scalped as the Bloodmage riding the monster anticipated the move and commanded the Daemon to bring the butt of the mace down in a quick slicing motion.
The Prince did his best to make his way past the thing’s guard and cut it with his valerium blade, but as soon as he was near enough to do damage, the Imperial soldiers drove him back.
Soon they were completely off the main road, and the superiorly armed Imperial army was engaging with the main body of Kindred as the second Daemon forced more of the splintered force off in the other direction.
“Shadows and fire—what do we do now?!” Leah cried in frustration.