Chapter One Hundred and Ten
The Drawbridge
Michael had faith that his plan would work. His friends were reliable, his aim was shockingly acceptable, and Raeken was nigh unstoppable. One or two of his ribs, however, had complaints to file.
Michael's company we're only two dozen feet from hitting the drawbridge when a spray of arrows and crossbow bolts launched down and struck dead the foes directly beneath them.
Then the ropes pulled tight.
Michael received the complaints from his ribs and felt his abdomen crinkle like dried newspaper. He screamed out and clutched his shield tight as their descent screeched to a halt two inches above the drawbridge.
Raeken came careening in and washed the foes behind them in a spray of acid, turning them to the sludge before taking off again.
The company of nine slammed their shields out in front of tem and the beat after, a barrage of spears and stones battered against them. They each overlapped the edges of their steel barricades to make a wall, narrowly holding up against the thundering impacts with the weight of their bodies.
A unit of Soiltorn came storming across the drawbridge when another barrage of allied arrows and ballistae fire erupted amongst them, turning them into a golden dust cloud.
Raeken soared overhead before turning in a wide arc and landed behind their shield-wall, raking his claws deep into the wood at speed.
Michael braced and shouted over his shoulder, “Whenever you’re ready, Raeken!”
The dragon paced within the shielded area until finding a spot with a greater concentration of holes torn by monster essence. He placed his full weight on a particular spot, forcing a soft crank out of the wooden boards as he tested its strength.
“Let’s begin.”
The beast reared on his hind legs, spread his wings, and bellowed out a jet of bright green acid in a shallow arch across the platform.
The smoking liquid began eating at the wood like termites, burrowing down even through the metal plating and brackets. As it did so, the Legacies were accompanied by an unsettling groan beneath their feet.
Only Michael seemed happy about the awful noise as he cheered, “It’s working!” and doing his best to ignore the flaring pain in his ribs.
Overhead, Jack ordered hailstorms of arrows and crossbow bolts onto the monsters below, cutting down anyone who dared come close enough to pose a direct threat.
Michael was less worried about the Soiltorn or even the Shade Hounds for they fell with only a few arrows. However, the Mountain Wolves would likely turn his plan to mush should they survive the ballistae and archers.
Michael had landed right-most in the line. He grimaced under the effort of projectile slamming his shield and glanced at Oliver to his left, busy trying to prop up the steel while combing the moat-mud from his long hair. Michael noticed despite the injuries running extensively across his shoulder, he moved with relatively little struggle.
“How is it?” Michael yelled, nodding to his own shoulder for reference.
“Oh, its nothing!” he shouted above the noise. “Lily fixed most of it but she passed out! Jordan strapped me up for good measure because I was still bleeding!”
“What happened? Lose your footing?”
Oliver gave an uneven shake of his head. “Doesn’t matter. Old boy scooped me up before I drowned.”
The forest-coloured dragon looked up with a bored distaste. Without responding, Raeken turned back to the smoking arc and prepped himself to cast another wave of acid.
Over their heads, another flurry of arrows careened down as Jack’s voice bellowed out hoarsely, striking two Mountain Wolves down halfway along their sprint. Their massive, hurtling bodies turned to sludge at speed, spreading out like a tide on too much sand.
“That’s your sword-arm, are you sure you can fight?”
Oliver glanced at the mass of bandages and wrinkled his face. “Definitely twinges, but Lillian fixed up the worst of it before she passed out on the med-bay floor.”
Michael cast a glance further down their protective line. He saw Aroha and Nichole taking turns propping one another’s shields up, firing at the great hoard on the other side of the moat. James was busy loading a hand-crossbow while Carter used his Arcancy to try detect any traces of unforged metal in the shields, but his irate face made it clear there was none. Rose spared the odd moment to open up her shield and fire a spell through the gap, while Sarah seemed content just enduring the slamming stones against hers. Every now and again, she’d glance at Oliver only to grow more bitter-faced.
Michael shouted above the noise, “Robinson! Are you okay?”
“No, actually!” Sarah shouted, whipping her hair as she turned angrily, but not to Michael, to Oliver. “I can’t believe you did that, you jack-ass!”
Oliver looked to her and ashamedly muttered, “Sarah...”
Michael frowned. “What’d you do, Oliv-”
The entire drawbridge shifted beneath them with a horrid creak and the shield-wall tilted like a wilting flower as more stone spears slammed into them. They fought back against the barrage and the uneven ground and re-aligned the wall with shouting effort. By the time their yells died down, Jack’s frantic voice could be heard from above.
Michael glanced through a gap in their barricade and he felt his heart hit his stomach.
A Mountain Wolf survived a full flurry of allied-arrows and was tearing down the centre of the army. “Jack!” he shouted upward.
On the battlements, the archers and crossbows had fallen out of sync and their waves of arrows and bolts had become too ineffective. Jack shouted for them to re-order their attacks, watching the creature bound closer and closer.
Michael flared Arcancy into his veins but the last conversation he’d had with Magnus was sticking with him. The veins in his hands burned and he knew it wasn’t the time or place but anxiety filled him. Instead of glowing with bright light, the starfire flickered and vanished in his grasp. He swore in a panic and ripped a regular iron-tip onto his bow while he propped up his shield with his back alone. “Oli! Hold this for me!”
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Oliver watched Sarah look away, and quickly grabbed the bowman’s shield before Michael gave him a chance to object.
Michael stepped out from the protection of the shield-wall and fired his arrow down the gauntlet of monsters, striking the monstrosity dead in its massive eye socket.
It bellowed and wailed, pawing at its face as it continued to barrel towards them, far more angered than wounded.
Michael dodged a spear as he darted back behind the barricades, cursing.
The ballistae let loose a fury of their gilded javelins. The burning light they glowed with shone briefly as they fell and Michael glanced out again.
Just in time to see the enormous spears miss by a hair’s breadth and crash into the side-line of Obthraie.
“Shit!” Michael yelled. He nocked another arrow as the Mountain Wolf hit the first step of the drawbridge.
Raeken pushed himself onto his hind-legs again and let out a croaking screech as he sprayed out another arc of bright green acid, filling up the gorge he’d already burned into the wood.
Michael stepped outside of the iron wall for another moment, sinking an arrow into the beast’s muzzle but doing nothing to stagger it. “Jack!”
Jack shouted orders but his soldiers were still confused and misaligned. He grabbed up a crossbow and roared, “Just follow my lead, damn-it!” He fired over the battlements and several dozen projectiles followed, littering the Yiraa as it bellowed in pain but refused to die.
Michael grabbed his shield back from Oliver and shouted, “Brace!”
As his call sounded, Magnus threw down his shield with a clang and stepped out from the line.
The Legacies shouted in panic as spears rained down, missing the paladin by inches. Magnus merely raised his hand as he stepped forward, like he had a question in a rowdy classroom. The boy’s eyes flushed ruby-red. With the most delicate turn of his hand, facing his palm to the sky, the stone colossus began to slow down.
As though it had swallowed poison moments before, the behemoth began twitching and yelping out, trying to move closer to the Legacies only ten feet away. But every step only brought more agony, like it was forcing itself into a bonfire.
A whistling Obthraie spear glanced Magnus’ left arm, tearing an enormous gash through the fabric of his clothing, splitting the pale flesh on his arm. He merely looked down at the wound with gentle amusement and not so much as a drop of blood came forth.
Forced by the unrelenting enchantment in its mind, the Mountain Wolf crawled forward, like it was trying to immerse itself in a flame of his magic, shrieking out in pain but unable to stop.
Close enough to reach out and touch it, Magnus tightly closed his fist. His knuckles were white as bone and the behemoth gargled out one last, mute bark, and collapsed dead at his feet, melting into sand.
Another round of spears were launched into the air and Magnus turned and ran. They smashed at his heels as he nimbly picked up his shield and stepped back in-line.
Rose had looked away from the boy’s horrid spectacle, instead simply staring blankly off into the distance. Her eyes were glassy as she held against the shuddering impacts of her shield. Her thoughts were clouded by faces and names, and every now and again, she unwisely glanced at her hands, covered in dry blood. Her adrenaline had kept her thoughts at bay all day, but something about the starkness of Magnus’ Arcancy was bringing everything to the front of her mind.
Sarah looked back from the defensive line as the drawbridge creaked again, worried for her Drakonian as he breathed heavily. “Raeken, are you okay?”
The dragon’s long, scaled head gave a stiff nod and he muttered, “Be ready to fly.”
The Legacies stowed their weapon and gripped their barricades as they prepared for the ungodly hoist of the ropes.
Behind them Raeken heaved himself up onto his hind legs once more, but upon attempting to heave a wave of acid, he buckled back to the ground again. His breaths were ragged and tight.
Sarah gave Aroha the weight of her shield and then sprinted over to her scaly companion. “What’s wrong?” she asked, searching the friendly beast for wounds.
“Nothing I cannot survive. I only need a moment,” he said in his cavernous voice, drawing deep, rasping breaths.
Sarah continued to search him until she ran a hand along the Drakonian’s wing, and the whole beast winced. She went to move the dragon’s limb but he kept it tight against his body.
“Worry not, I beg you.” He breathed a shaky breath.
“Move your wing, Draekeniorai,” commanded Sarah, her tone flat and hair-raisingly articulated.
The Drakonian resigned under the use of his name and shifted the scaly appendage, revealing an enormous spine of rock, sunk deeply into the dragon’s ribcage.
Sarah choked a gasp.
Nichole yelled, “We’ve got three Yiraa on approach!”
With glassy eyes Sarah shouted, “He’s hurt!”
The disgruntled beast shook its long-snouted head and blinked its, sunset-yellow eyes up to the baroness. “Re-join your allies!” Raeken took to deep, rattling breath and raked his claw against the wood of the drawbridge in anger. “We’re leaving.”
As Sarah sprinted back to her shield, the beast threw himself onto his hind-legs. He shrieked out as the spine tore as his body stretched but he bellowed an arch of emerald green acid. It soaked the deep grooves in the timber as he mixed in draconic bellows of pain. Smoke rose from the burned trench and the entire drawbridge began to tremble and groan as the metal brackets corroded and snapped, one after another.
The Mountain Wolves that rampaged down the gauntlet of monsters were closing in on the drawbridge as the foremost of them was eviscerated by a ballista spear and the second was obliterated by a flurry of arrows and bolts. The last erupted through the clouds of ash as it touched down onto the wood of the bridge.
Rose flourished her wand and two arms of roots reached up, grabbing the beast but it tore right through them.
Michael swore, “Collapse, damn-it!” as he slammed the shield downward on the creaking bridge.
“One moment.” Magnus stepped out from the shield-line again, and like he’d opened a door for them, two slivers of stone slammed in his chest, one striking high and glancing off while the other impaled him low in the gut, knocking his hips out from under him. Magnus went hard to the ground. Those holding onto his ropes dragged him messily behind the shield line.
Michael screamed out his name as the Mountain Wolf came barrelling forth, and before he knew was doing it, Michael leapt out from the line with his shield in hand. A wave of Arcancy surged from his skull down into his hands and scorched his shield with bright, crimson light, searing the face of Nikereus’ army.
It was only when the Paladin looked out beyond his shield that he realised he’d made a mistake. The creature wasn’t stopping, rather it was barrelling forward with its eyes clamped shut.
Before Michael could so much as shout, Magnus pushed himself up and raised his hand. Red light flashed into his palms, filling the Mountain Wolf with torturous pain, sending it into a blind, frenzy as it gnashed forward, unable to stop.
Magnus gripped his scythe in his off hand as he stood upright and ignored the shouts of his allies. The bridge groaned and timber-boards snapped. He forged ahead of Michael, shouting and baiting it away from the archer.
The Yiraa leapt forward in a mindless craze toward him.
Magnus brought his scythe around in an arch so beautiful that a dancer would’ve wept. And Magnus missed.
The stone horror hit Magnus like a landslide, smashing him off the platform. He was kept from the moat only by his rope tied body. The boy was tossed so far that the Legacies holding him were ripped against the battlements. His body was slammed against the stone walls in a sickening crunch before he swung back out, limp and unmoving.
The Mountain Wolf careened further.
Michael shouted, “Split! Split! Split!”
And in the space of a single breath, the Legacies wrenched their shields aside, opening like a gate, the Mountain Wolf careened blindly through, and Raeken threw himself into the air.
The Mountain Wolf’s weight was too much as it slammed onto the acid gouge.
“Ropes!” Michael shouted.
And with the noise like a thousand felling oak trees, the drawbridge bent and tore away beneath them. The Mountain Wolf tried to scramble away but it fell with the enormous drawbridge and the monolithic platform hit the bottom of the moat with a world-shattering boom and fountaining eruption of black sludge.