Chapter One Hundred and Eight
Balancing the Scales
As Magnus and Rose engaged the remnants of the north-west forces, a particularly lucky Mountain Wolf evaded a ballista-javelin and withstood the archers’ volley. It then leapt on the drawbridge and clamped it great teeth on the internal- though now exposed -mechanics severing one of the drawbridge’s support chains.
The colossal drawbridge fell in another cataclysmic, soil-shaking boom!
The fortress gate and mainland were bridged and the horde moved in like a raging tide, flooding across and spilling many Soiltorn to their deaths in the moat without a moment’s care.
Michael cursed loudly and yelled to the right-ballista operator, “I need two Legacies on reload-duty! We need faster fire-rate, now!”
A handful of Legacies shouted confirmation and bolted off. Michael then bent over at the waist, narrowly stopping himself from throwing up from pain. He could feel at least one broken rip against the inside of his armour. Breathing hurt. Shouting was like being back in Bright-Side.
The rib had snapped after fifteen excruciating seconds of dangling sideways over the edge of the battlement, with his two friends weighing him down. Once six others caught on, they managed to pull Aroha and Sidney back up to the battlements, and it only cost him life-long chronic pain, he figured.
Aroha had more blue and black bruising on her fingers than regularly toned skin, simply from refusing to let the armoured paladin fall. Her ring finger was dislocated and hung at an odd angle but she had no way to strap it and simply gritted through the misery. Aroha nocked arrows as fast as she could fling them with four digits, watching the army begin to mass around the main gate once more, but this time, throwing up ladders as well as storming the steel door itself. “Archers, target the ladder-supports!”
Lain handed off the ballista when the reinforcements arrived and bolted along the now-busy battlements, shouting, “Ari, a contingent of Soiltorn are still at the rear of the fortress! Jack is holding it with thirty soldiers, but he’s dealing with damn-near fifteen-hundred fuckers on his own! He can't spare any!”
Aroha raked her sweat-soaked hair out of her face and looked out over the thousands of Soiltorn spread out before them. “Its not a request!”
“I don't think he'd refuse with good reason!" Aroha gritted her teeth as she loosed another arrow, barking, “If I live to see Francis or any of those rats again, I’m going to break some jaws!”
The bells of Fort Guardian rang out across the fields. Stone spears shattered against the battlements. Orders were shouted through steel helmets. Arrows whistled and crossbows snapped.
Down in the forum, to the right of the keep, the med-bay was overflowing with wounded. The less injured were lying on the floor of the pavilion while the more serious cases were strapped to the beds, letting the last of the Arcane Cherries surge through them.
Lillian ran from person to person, using Arcancy on the worst and gauze on the best, packing the wounds tight.
As the doctor finished with one patient, her assistant Jordan called out. “Deep puncture to the stomach! Laceration to the scalp. Abdominal bleed is out of control. She keeps dipping in and out of Dead Rest but still breathing,” said a tall Paladin, lifting the blood-matted clothing from Sidney’s torso. “All the debris has been removed. She’s prepped and ready.”
Lillian shook out the pain in her hands as she stepped over to the bed. Dry blood was running lines down from her ears and every time the witchdoctor spoke, she flashed clear coats of red on her teeth. She took a deep breath and began to draw pure, white currents of Arcancy into her fingertips.
Jordan looked at her and began to protest.
She waved him off. “The puncture will kill her. Her chest might already be filling up with blood. This is not a bandage-fix. Now, conjoin.” Lillian held out her right hand and hovered her left over Sidney’s mutilated stomach.
The assistant, a spindly man named Jordan, looked at her hand and shook his head nervously. “She might be beyond saving. It might be put to better use if we spread it around a bit.”
Lillian turned her dark, cold gaze on Jordan, but otherwise stayed exactly still.
“Yes, ma’am.” He clamped his hand on hers.
“Three. Two. One. Surge.”
Both Legacies doubled over as Lillian’s Arcancy shot through them like a bolt of white lightning, zipping up and down their limbs before it tore into Lillian’s fingertips. “Engaging!”
She flattened her palm on the enormous slash across Sidney’s body, and as soon as the power writhed within her too, the flesh on her stomach began knitting back together and Sidney’s eyes shot open.
Sidney looked at the scene before her and let out an agonised roar as white-hot pain screamed through her gut. Excess blood filtered out of the closing wound. She slammed her fists into the bed as Lillian and Jordan kept up their work, and the jagged, messy wound slowly zipped closed.
Jordan shouted, “Selene, stay still, goddamn-it!”
“Disengaging in three. Two. One!” Lillian stepped back and half-collapsed onto a chair. She fumbled, noisily grabbing a bucket from the ground and she spit up more blood than she was aware could fill her mouth.
“Lily, you asshole!” Sidney screamed and sat up, her hands clenched tightly. “Why are you putting yourself in so much danger, for me! Sweet Rii, you really are a fuckin’ idiot!” The Mhairian doubled over in pain as blood still seeped from her head. She wiped it off and looked angrily in the direction of the wound.
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Jordan massaged the veins fading in his hands, muttering, “Is that ‘Thank you’ in Mhairian?”
“She’s going to get herself killed and you’re helping her!”
Lillian saw the wound on Sidney’s scalp and got up again, raising her hands. “Hold still, I’ll just finish up.”
Sidney threw her legs over the side of the bed and picked up a scalpel, pointing it with sincere intent at the restorician. “You’re finished. I’m serious Lil, what on Enthall were you thinking? We don’t have anyone else with your level of restoration here! If you die trying to save corpses like me, we’re done.”
Lillian snatched the scalpel from her hand and shouted, “I’m fully capable of discerning my limits. And if you were better at it, you wouldn’t be on my table! Now, get out! The gate is about to go down!”
The Mhairian winced as she felt the wound on her scalp and then glanced to the floor beside her bed. On the ground in a bloody heap lay her nightshade armour, with all the straps mercilessly cut off. Sidney turned coldly to Jordan and said, “Did you ruin my fuckin’ armour?”
Jordan took an imperceptible step back and unwisely joked, “Didn’t do you much good, did it?”
“Jordan, come help me with the next patient before the woman you just saved kills you!” Lillian shouted, picking up another Legacy under the arms.
Sidney stormed out, shouting, “No more Arcancy, Wright. I mean it! You’ll bloody turn!”
Lillian shook her head stubbornly and pulled the helmet off of the wounded solider. As she raised her hand again, a curly-haired young paladin lurched awake at the back of the room with a sharp intake of breath, staring around in jittery confusion. He immediately grabbed at his stomach but the broken spear was no longer there.
The doctor didn’t so much as turn. “You’re discharged, James. Get out.”
The broad-shoulder young man felt around his abdomen to find he had an enormous, round and jagged scar, dark as night and freshly healed to the left of his bellybutton. Under his collarbone, he could feel a second mark- a brand, which he assumed was quicker than getting out the tattoo equipment.
“Oh gods, how long have I been out?”
Lillian was busy counting down to her next Arcancy surge, and Jordan yelled, “Too long! Everyone’s been summoned to the main gate. Get there now!”
Thunder rolled through the air and James turned just in time for a flash of green lightning to slam into the grass just outside of the med-bay as Raeken careened in with Oliver impaled through the shoulder on his long, curving talons.
“Oh gods, Oli!” James sprinted out of the tent and unhooked him from Raeken’s talon with a wet, gravely slink. The dragon shot off into the sky as Oliver collapsed into James’ arms.
Oliver was covered head to toe in the dark sludge, and his shoulder was a mangled mess for a second time. His eyes lulled in his head as James yelled, “Lily!”
*****
Nichole broke out of the inner-wall staircase and onto the main gate battlements, spotting Aroha across the platform. She shoved through crowd of shouting Legacies, unknowing or uncaring about allied arrows missing her head by mere inches as she across.
Aroha was busy loosing arrow after arrow on a Mountain Wolf barrelling down the drawbridge as she shouted, “Loose!” signalling a flurry of bolts. “Ballistae!”
Her orders were echoed down the line of archers and two flamed javelins were flung expertly through the skull of the monster, turning the creature to mush at galloping-speed. Aroha turned to check the status of her soldiers and let out an exhausted sigh of relief as she saw Nichole. She ran and grabbed her up in a trembling hug. “Nicky! Oh god, oh my god!” She was sobbing before she realized it and pulled tears still on her face. “Are you okay?”
Nichole’s stern face became light with gentleness as she kissed Aroha’s shaking hands. She had some dark bruising across her jaw, eye, and knuckles, but besides some Arcancy-drawn blood, she was uninjured.
“I’m okay- Ari stop, I’m fine! Kirkley and I were holding the north-east wall-”
A harrowing roar bellowed out from the fields of Obthraie and the pathway cleared between the enormous array as three barrel-chested Mountain Wolves began storming toward the main gate.
Michael, Aroha, and Nichole began shouting orders, organising archers and crossbows to the battlements as they nocked their own arrows. With little preamble, they began raining fire down on the charging beasts.
The projectiles slammed into the front-two monsters, turning them to dust as their remains sloughed off into the moat, while the third let out an ungodly roar and continued onto the drawbridge.
“Bring it down!” Michael shouted, loosing a beam crimson light ripping through the behemoth’s eye.
The beast bellowed and shrieked as the light blew through its skull but it kept galloping forward, picking up pace with every thundering step.
Michael looked to Nichole and Aroha in horror and shouted, “The gate! Brace the gate!”
The Yiraa let out a final, hair-raising roar and slammed its full stone weight into the steel doors like a living battering ram. Michael felt the shudder of the main gate in his teeth. He watched as the beast stumbled back from the thick steel barricade, looking hazily to the ground beneath its paws, and collapsed dead on the bridge, melting in the sunlight.
Howls filled the sky as more Yiraa readied themselves to charge, and Michael turned to see Avery standing several archers away.
“Avery! Get to the gate and check the damages!”
“On it!” The blacksmith handed off their crossbow and sprinted to the stairs.
Michael watched Avery leave as James erupted from the same staircase with an enormous, black claymore in his hand. Michael choked back a sob and broke from the defences, sprinting to him so fast that his feet slipped and skidded on the platform when he pulled his friend into a tight hug.
James held him close, burying his head in Michael’s shoulder as Nichole shouted, “Nock!” up on the battlements.
Michael pulled at James’ shirt like a worried mother and James grabbed his hands, saying, “Look at me.”
Michael looked at him. He was shaking violently with relief and pent-up terror.
“I’m alive. You’re alive. Is Carter alive?”
Michael shrugged helplessly. “I don’t- I don’t know- I-”
James held him tighter. “Then he is. Carter is fast and strong. He’s alive. We’re all alive. Stay in it. Okay?”
Michael nodded and summoned a starfire arrow, wiping his eyes before slinging it to his bow.
“Where do you need me?” He wiped the last of the tears from Michael’s face with a gentle hand.
Michael looked softly at his friend. He was wearing blood-soaked rags with no armour, and not so much as a sheath for the sword in his hand. He’d walked the same path as death that very morning, and yet there he was. Michael needed him to stay exactly where he was, safe and sound, but the fort needed something else.
“You are a different breed, Jam- Jamie! That’s a nickname!” Michael yelled, flooded with excitement.
James made an uneven face, clearly more amused by the way Michael bounced with hope that the actual name itself. “It’s um... yeah, I mean-”
Michael snorted and tongued his cheek in playful irritation. “I’ll workshop it. I need you on the front gate with twenty soldiers- Have I really never thought of Jamie before, what’s wrong with me?”
James ignored the latter. “Are we on bracing the gate?”
“I need you to try to try.”
James turned and looked over the mass of archers and began sprinting through the crowd, barking, “If I hit your shoulder, follow me below! We’re going to hang a ‘Fuck Off’ sign on the door!”