CHAPTER 83 – ANILITHYISTAD & THE TWELVE
Anilithyìstad looked around. There had to be at least one hundred soldiers in the courtyard around him. He looked at the gates over the moat, there were more soldiers coming in. Smoke dragged across the city skyline beyond the vine-covered arches of the royal courtyard. “Galastad!” he sought out.
“No matter what happens, you must stay here and protect the Citadel.”
“I promise I will not let you down, cousin.”
“I know you won’t…That is why I picked you.”
He decided to take twelve men. Not fifty or forty, thirty or even fifteen, but twelve men. To Anilithyìstad he knew he was worth the numbers, he could only hope that the men he selected had it in them to beat the odds and win out this night. He gathered the twelve nearest him and briefed them of the forming situation.
They rallied behind him. There were five fellow soldiers from the Steed Kingdom, but only two still were on horses. The other seven were from the Royal Guard. Anilithyìstad had chosen a good lot. The two riders covered both sides of Anilithyìstad as they ran ahead.
At the beaches, there were servants of the Citadel and volunteers lining the beach with sandbags. Mostly women, it was clear, Queen Adyána must have sent them. When Anilithyìstad tried to get them back inside, he saw one more set of precautions. There were cauldrons of molten hot oil with arrows sticking out of them. He looked out onto the lake as the rest of the company arrived.
“Everyone to projectile arms. Three to a pot of oil,” ordered Anilithyìstad, “Fire everything you got on the boats. Right before I call for retreat, dump over the oil. That shall be our last trick.” After this somber tone had settled in, he added, “We can outlast them. We have to. This front will die, and their boats will stop coming, but the city fight will rage on. We must get back to the Courtyard. We can stop them here! We will need to vanquish them! WE MUST WIN THIS FIGHT!”
The men cheered around him as they loaded and set their arrows aflame. Their beach commander pointed his sword high in the air.
“FOR ZEPATHORUM!” yelled Anilithyìstad as the boats came out of the fog.
“FIRE!”
The arrows shot over the air and lit up the boats. There were at least fifty boats. The arrows shot further back, illuminating his fear that there were more to come.
“Wait just a little longer until they are in range,” he yelled out, “Fire at Will!”
The arrows lit up the dense mist, shredding it. The tiny boats were poorly made and crumbled after only a couple of flaming arrows. Dark soldiers hit by the arrows jumped to other boats or in the water.
Anilithyìstad’s efforts were highly successful. But the armada was getting closer to the shore, and they were running low on arrows. As the boats docked upon the sand banks, the twelve soldiers used the rest of their arrows on the oil arrows. Some fire spread across the shore and caught two or three boats in its consumption, but the nautical assault was still coming. The darksiders approached with nothing to stop them. They ditched their rafts and ran onto the beach. The enemy did not break sprint until reaching Anilithyìstad and the twelve.
“To arms!” he called out as everyone switched from bows to swords and spears.
“POLES!” he yelled out.
The ones with long spears stepped out and fired them. The spears hopped across the beach and pinned their targets. The collisions were harsh. The dragon soldiers’ bodies snapped back from their charge, but still more kept coming.
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Here Anilithyìstad would get a little taste of what the warfare was like at the main gates of the city. The endless ranks of dark creatures bent on killing every living man. But it did not faze Anilithyìstad. He had seen far worse in his past. He eagerly awaited the clash of fronts between his twelve and the darksiders. Anilithyìstad motioned his two riders to cover the flanks of the beach. He reminded himself of the two objectives he would have to remember. The retreat and the oil call.
One objective he neglected to remember were the flares he gave to Axion, as the red arrow burst into the black sky behind him, far up past the Citadel. More dark wooden boats docked and gathered as the first wave was meeting Anilithyìstad’s twelve.
Anilithyìstad gave out one last order in the silence, “CHARGE!”
The combat was not so kind. These dark sailors were huge. Big, scarred, and blistered shadows of men clad in charcoal armor and black amethyst rags, holding rotted scimitars and axes. Anilithyìstad drove into them like a splinter. He carved down the middle until his horse’s hooves were hitting water. He got a good look around. The boats were small, only manning four or five soldiers. But they were still docking.
An arrow flew out of the dead night above the lake and hit Anilithyìstad’s horse in the neck. He fell off into the water as the wounded steed galloped away in despair. Anilithyìstad, in turn, did not resurface right away, but dove down into the depths. He swam out into the lake, holding his breath until he came upon a boat still paddling in.
He resurfaced quietly and wiped his face. Anilithyìstad reached back down and pulled out his sword. He held it above the water and searched for a grip on the boat with his left hand. Once he acquired one, he pulled himself up. With his first motion, he stabbed the darksiders rowing closest to him. He got up with both hands on the side of the boat and then pulled his sword out of the dead sailor, who then fell into the water. That was when the rest of them saw him. Some flinched and others cowered.
“Good…” Anilithyìstad smiled, “so you know who I am.”
He kicked one off the boat immediately. Then he threw his sword at the one furthest from him while he was tackled back off by the only remaining darksider.
Now, the two in the water swam on top of Anilithyìstad, struggling to stay afloat. They kicked him down, under the surface as he caught one last quick breath. Blow after blow from their feet started to drown him. He turned around and grabbed their feet. One each, he pulled them down. They squirmed as he sank deeper and deeper with them. They were now too scared for their own lives to kick at him. One escaped his clasp.
Anilithyìstad crawled up the one he still had and snapped its neck. It no longer squirmed, but Anilithyìstad was not finished. He wanted the one that got away. As the darksider swam up to the top in terror Anilithyìstad followed like a deep sea predator. When the pirate got back to the surface the boat was now too far away to catch.
Anilithyìstad grabbed the feet of the darksider once again and pulled him down. Unlike Anilithyìstad, the creature had gotten a chance for another breath. He turned around on Anilithyìstad and tried to kill him. The rotten hands of the pirate wrapped around Anilithyìstad’s neck and choked the last few moments he had left out of him.
It did not matter to Anilithyìstad that he was all run out of air. It made no difference if he was being choked or not. He was breathless. Anilithyìstad pulled a dagger from his leg and with his free hand he held the side of his enemy’s face while he pressed the point of the dagger into the other side of the pirate’s head. He pushed off of the dead darksider as he sank to the bottom of the sea with a permanent look of shock.
Anilithyìstad desperately tried to get to the surface. His vision began to fade, and his arms feinted weak. He was losing control and consciousness. From the tip of his paddling fingers, he could feel the break of air and the dry gust of wind. One more pull and he would be free. He closed his eyes and finished the job.
His mouth opened and the air surged through the dropping water. Anilithyìstad took a deep breath and regained his vision and strength. He made his way back to the now empty boat, climbed aboard and reclaimed his sword, imbedded in the dead sailor’s body.
He sailed the boat into another one and made waste of its crew. Two high sweeps and he beheaded most of them. With only two left he stuck one immediately and clashed with the other’s sword. They went back and forth, but Anilithyìstad parried swords and reached for his throat with his other hand. The pirate dropped his sword and tried to free himself from Anilithyìstad’s grip with both his hands. Anilithyìstad picked him up by the neck and thrust his sword into his chest.
When he lowered the dead creature, behind him he saw a ship bigger than any other. It was the only one with banners and sails on the boat. The tide was close enough that it was pulling his boat and the boats around him in. Anilithyìstad steered the boat to see who was on the flagship. Although he did not fight this assassin head on, its face was forever etched in his mind. The leader of this fleet was the Emissary, and he was about to make landfall on the beaches of the Citadel.