Excerpt From The Mad Scholar's Wall—
The High King said no more, only staring forlornly at the walls, none of the other elves answering the questions in our eyes. With a wave of his hand, the doors of the fortress broke open, and the spell of silence cast over our crowd was broken.
Not that anyone answered our questions, as the elves were busy murmuring to their Ancestor, begging for forgiveness, entering the gates like a funeral procession.
At the head was the unchanged Areekail, looking more like a living corpse at every step. As we walked past the gates, his appearance sitting on the horse only became more hunched.
We wound through the hundred-foot section of the wall that had sharp turns every ten feet and small inner gates to hinder an attacker. Finally, we came to a T-junction, which required our formation to break up and move through the smaller — but still objectively large — passages to the right and left of a wall. We walked around the stone blocking the path before reconnecting on the other side, where we could see daylight at the end of a short tunnel.
Coming out of the fortification, we entered a bowl of dust.
Desiccated trees and bushes were nothing more than twigs sticking out of piles of loose dirt.
For miles within the tall walls, all one could see were the remnants of what must have once been a beautiful forest.
The citadel was in the center of it all, on a slight incline. While its central dome and five surrounding towers were still standing, the walls were marked with conflict.
Hardly a stone of the inner wall surrounding the citadel was standing.
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As I was taking my second step, the squad leader of the knights spoke, "Clear the boat."
Before the words were finished, Three figures flashed by me. They plowed through the loosely packed beastkin, slashing out with swords before sweeping towards the downstream end of the river barge.
Bodies dropped to the wood in their wake, leaving the handful of beastkin still alive after their quick pass for us ordinary legionaries to deal with. And honestly, them clearing off most of the deck was more than I thought they would do.
Quickly traveling the distance to my new target, I pulled my spear back and thrust it forward. The seconds it took to sprint over the deck was not much, but it was long enough for the beastkin to come out of their shock.
My thrust was met with nothing but air and the flashing of teeth as the beastkin swayed to the side. Stepping forward before I could move my spear back into a defensive stance, the beastkin swung his club up from his right side, aiming to smash me in the ribs.
Pushing off my forward foot, I created distance by dancing to the right while leaning away. At the same time, I gave a weak slash of my spear at the beastkin's face as he turned to keep track of me.
The worst my attack would do was cause a scratch on his cheek and perhaps puncture an eye if I was really lucky, but that was not the point. The beastkin jerked his head back, further throwing off his attack, making the club brush past my clothes.
Distracted by me, the beastkin could not react as the two not-really-fish fish rushing forward buried their spears into the beastkin's side.
Roaring in pain, the beastkin tried to spin and face his enemies, swinging his arm at the shafts of the spears as if to break them, but the wood was strong, as it absorbed the impact with ease. And his face only had the smallest of twitches from any pain he felt.
But the strength of a weapon mattered little when the user was… a fish.
One of the fish leaned back in fear of the beastkin and lost his footing, and fell to the deck. The other lost her grip on the spear's shaft when the beastkin spun and struck it with his arm, causing the shaft to hit her in the gut, knocking her back a step to trip over her partner.
"Yep, that's more like the fish we all know and tolerate," I muttered as I stepped forward again, thrusting my spear.
Burying the tip of my spear in the beast's throat, I stepped back, twisting the shaft and whipping it to the side, making the wound gush out blood as I tore out half of his throat.
Turning to look around, I found the barge's deck clear of all but two living beastkin, and Celeste and Gurth were finishing off those two even now as they twisted their spears, driving them down into the beastkin's chests.
I looked around the hundred-foot long and twenty-foot wide deck of the river barge, seeing the bodies of beastkin. Most of the bodies had gaping slashes cut into their chests, as the knights had dealt with them before leaving to head downstream.
The knights had their own objectives, which did not include protecting us.
I looked to the west, seeing the now fully visible lines of boats stretching up the river. The rear of our ship had thick ropes anchored at the edges of the deck by looping through the holes drilled through thick posts. Both ropes were going over the railing and straight into the water.
While I could not see what they were still attached to, I could see what was left of the ship they used to be connected to. The boat in the link behind us looked like it was missing the front twenty feet, and water was pouring into the empty hull.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
Behind the ship were dozens more barges — with occasional gaps — packed with beastkin, watching us with looks of rage. Ignoring the unimportant fur-balls, I looked east.
It was like you lined a bunch of grapes up in multiple lines, then dropped a plank of wood along the center and lifted it up.
Looking down the line of destruction, I saw the blood of the beastkins spreading, spilling over the sides of the decks. The were only two barges before the tower barges, but seeing a line of death across both of them was creepy.
The sides of the barges still had living beastkin, but the center of the barges was only the dead.
Then the fifty other beastkin on the next deck looked towards me, and my eyes widened in fear.
"Cut the lines!" Shouted Markus in my mind.
Lurching forward, I stumbled over the scattered weapons on deck, looking for one with a long edge. I guess hanging onto your weapons isn't important when smacked in the face with a log.
I wasn't the only one who received the message, as all twelve of us moved towards the prow of the ship.
Tirre was still alive, if unconscious, and the knights left him at the railing of our commandeered barge. The other eleven were wounded and exhausted to various degrees but, with the help of the knights, could rest for a few hours, regaining some much-needed energy.
We won't be able to hold the line and fight all day, but we should be able to take this ship out of the beastkins' road and move it into the center of the river. It was an actually useful task, as we would give the knights somewhere to fall back to.
Most of them couldn't fly, and leaping up the walls of the Triad in the middle of battle was a waste of mental energy if they could do it at all.
Spotting a legion short sword among all the weapons on deck, I slowed for a moment to reach down and grab its hilt as a line of fire ran over my back.
Collapsing to the side as alarm focused at me shot through the network, I hit the deck with my left side before rolling towards the center of the river.
I heard a thunk of metal into the wood behind me, adding new urgency to my evasion.
Finishing my second or third roll, I planted one hand and spun, getting my feet under me. My other hand was fumbling to grab the haft of a spear I saw to the side.
Looking up, I faced where the network said the danger was.
Three beastkin were at the southwestern railing of the river barge. One of them was climbing over the railing while the others were reaching down for loose spears.
Rising to my feet and cocking my arm back, I threw the spear at the beastkin.
The thrown spear had hardly made it out of my hand before the stick got cockeyed and started flipping through the air and then over the deck. I knew something was wrong when releasing the spear and suspected it when I first lifted it up. It just didn't feel right in my hand. But I was already committed at that point and was hoping for the best.
That's what I get for hoping. I Thought in mild despair at the failed attack.
As the spear made its first rotation, I saw the problem. A foot back from the tip, the shaft was partly broken at a fifty-degree angle.
Without a straight shaft, I had no chance of wounding, let alone killing, anything.
Not taking my eyes off the advancing beastkin, even while my spear tumbled forward, I moved to where I saw a flash of metal on the deck.
"Arrg!" Screamed a blood-chilling voice, causing my eyes to flick to the noise for a moment. I saw a beastkin who had poked their head over the railing.
It was only for a moment that I got to see what happened, but it caused me to snort in amusement and my lips to twitch.
The spear flipping butt over tip had continued forward over the deck and flipped at just the right angle for the skewed tip to stab into the eye of a beastkin.
As the beastkin reached for his head, his body fell backward off the ship.
Amusing as the sight was, it did not stop me from reaching down for the blade, but it did cause me to hesitate for an instant.
That was all that was needed.
One of the beastkin on deck had charged towards me, mouth slightly parted to show fangs, clawed hands stretched forward.
Dropping the blade I had just begun to wrap my fingers around, I rolled onto my back, kicking my right leg out.
My attempt to kick the beastkin over my head ended when my unstraightened leg connected with the full weight of the charging beastkin.
Grunting in pain, my left leg was driven to my chest as the beastkin's splayed hands reached towards my face.
The force of his fall caused us to turn to the side, and we ended up lying on the deck facing each other in some kind of twisted mockery of lovers.
Hands snapping up, I grabbed his closest wrist, my whole upper body straining as his claws inched forward.
Feet scrabbling on the deck, I spun my body until I could kick at his legs, knocking out his base and forcing all his weight onto his other arm.
Arching my back, I kicked my legs up and wrapped them around the arm, locking my ankles above the beastkin's shoulder. Throwing my whole body into the motion, I kept my hands locked onto his hand while twisting.
The beastkin's hand was shaking as I forced it to turn outward as far as possible, locking it in place.
Turning my head, I looked at the beastkin, smirking at him as I arched my whole body.
My body started to strain from the effort, and my smirk became brittle as the beastkin's eyes narrowed in annoyance. It was like I was a child fighting my father again.
His arm pressed me into the ground for a moment as he repositioned himself before he lifted me into the air above his head with only his one arm.
The beastkin grunted, and my back was slammed into the deck. The air was driven out of me from the impact, and I let out a low moan of pain, but I did not let go.
Letting go meant death.
Again, I was lifted into the air. And with all of my meager strength, I flexed. All that happened was a slight grunt of annoyance from below.
Eye twitching from a message, I lessoned my efforts to hyperextend the bastard's arm. Back hitting the deck, I let go of the arm with a cry of pain, my arms and legs flopping to the sides in supposed defeat.
The beastkin's arm stayed where I locked it to my chest a moment ago, fingers curling, digging nails into my skin.
He rose above me, his left hand coming for my throat, his lips pulled back as he grinned victoriously.
Two spears drove through his back and out his chest, his eyes looking down in shock. Reaching up, I pushed the dying beastkin to the side.
Something caught my eye at the movement, and my eye twitched in more annoyance. Reaching over and grabbed the short sword a foot to my right before getting to my feet. Looking at the fish who managed to thrust properly this time — if a few seconds slower than I would have wished — I nodded in thanks. Then I tilted my chin towards the shore side of the barge with beastkin coming over it and said, "Support that side."
Moving toward the front of the boat, I went to assist the legionaries trying to cut the ropes while holding off those beastkin leaping from the downstream ship.