Prolong
Running was never Johns strong suit so when he had to run in nearly full war armor, sword and shield in hand while trying to dodge the mass of people also trying to run in the opposite direction to the city center it made his job of going to the walls all that much harder. The only way he could get to them however was to take one of the two curved roads to the front walls and gatehouse. John had worried this would happen when he had heard reports of Edian forces had invaded Eros, but that had only been three days ago!
The run thought the masses of people slowed him far beyond what he would have liked but as he rounded the latest building he saw a small group of warriors handing out weapons and gear to men who looked half awake
“at least I don’t look like a fool that they do” John thought with a small grin
Marvin Hammerfall was directing the flow of people and supplies handed out with Motions of this hammer. He easily seen even if he was not the tallest man among them but with a commanding presence and scars clearly seen from past conflicts he grew even still. John thought he was close to Hammerfall, yet still the other looked like the mountain and him merely a hill even though john was nearly half a wall tall.
Hammerfall had a cut on the right side of his bottom lip and to parallel ones an inch long. On the side of his head going an inch into his hair line even though he was barely any hair due to how close he had cut it John thought with a small laugh. Close by him layed the infamous hammer “Morning Light”, it looked to be nearly an average man’s height, and his family’s history craved into the side it. Hundreds of years seemed to be on it and yet more than half was still bare, waiting for great’s deeds of future generations to be written on it
“He must feel such power just holding it knowing of all the great men before him” Johns mind yearned
Hammerfall was standing on a platform with stairs on either side. By the time John had gotten to the bottom of the platform, which he thought was little time, even more people had crowded around the soldiers. The people pushed, hit, and did whatever they could to get to the supplies and they were barely controlled. John looked up and saw the captain start to walk over to his large war hammer, grabbing it ever so easily and headed back to where he had been standing on the platform. By this time some of the people around John had stopped trying to push through the crowed and watch what captain was up to.
Some thought he was going to order his troops to attack the people and the others, he was leaving for the walls to help the defenders. John also thought that and started to try to force himself from the front of the sea of people to the other right side of it where there could be an exit. John looked up one last time and stopped dead. He saw the captain grip with Morning Light with both of his hands and put his right foot forward. John knew from experience and because the captain made no move to hide it that he was preparing to swing.
There was nothing that John could do, he could not force or deflect Morning Light. John was forced to stand there, he griped the handle of his sword so hard his hand started to hurt. John stared with fear in his eyes. Captain Hammerfall had a sudden flash of anger in his eyes and swings, his hammer flowing through the air like it was as light as a sword, but it did not hit the people, instead it landed on the stone behind him. Causing a thunder of sound to spread throughout the whole crowed. Every single person, including the solders stopped what they were doing and looked upon him.
In the storm of war he had created an eye, a center of peace if only for a moment. He turned around and in a voice of both anger and determination
“All in need of aid form a line on either side of the stairs”. Hammerfall looked at Orion and commanded
“You, up here now”
In an instant the crowed that was still around him that had not already went to the lines formed an opening so that John could cross the distance between him and the captain as soon as possible. John felt like when he was younger and had gotten in trouble.
He walked through the people and up the stairs to where the Captain was standing. The Captain looks at him
“I am going to say something and you will do it”.
John could barely keep his stare “Sir?”
“I have 30 men ready to take your orders even if that’s to pretend you are the king, “but”
Hammerfall turns and points to the large watchtower.
“That’s must hold do you understand?, that holds one of the main defenses that are destroying the siege towers trying to send floods of their men onto our walls with men that can barely hold them as it is.”
John could hardly stand, yes he had some experience in the sun wars but he had no officer training. Hammerfall could tell he was lost in thought, suddenly he lifts his hammer onto John shoulder. His shoulder easily gave way and he snapped back to what was happening around him. Hammerfall grabs him on both his shoulders
“You must do this, and there is no way I could leave this to my men. They could not find their way to the other side of a straight road.”
He motions his men to come
“This feels like come great story”
Hammerfall yells as John walks away with the party “Then don’t let it become a tragedy”
John and his new men quickly come to the end of the road, but the screams, they heard long before. Soon they say the invaders on the walls fighting and killing the men trying to hold them, and they were for now as far as he could tell. Steady streams of men coming from the city, some in full battle gear but the vast majority of them only having a sword. Yes the walls would hold but not if he could not secure the tower, but first John wanted all of them to work together, something to unite them at least for as long as this would take. Something more than the want to stay alive.
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He thought for a moment about what helped him in the Sun wars, it hit him in an instant,
“Montel, Algen”
”Sir” They both said at once
“You are both now group leaders, I do not care what you name yourself s, and whoever manages to secure there part of the tower wins a prize”
Montel looked at him in a way that he was not sure what to make of it. Algen with anger asks
“Do you think us children? There are men trying to kill us and you want to play a game!”
John could tell his first real attempt to be a leader a men had utterly failed and this way before the battle had even started. It seemed Algen had even less experience then him but had an anger that rivaled his own.
John needed to say something now, they were nearly at the bottom of the tower. He stopped and marched right up to him
“do you want to die? Because that is going to happen if you can’t stop acting like a child yourself, if you can’t even mange that then run, that’s just what we need”
John began to pick up the pace
“so if we fail here you had a hand in it you useless pile of flesh”
With that Algen had anger and hurt on his face but John also saw something, something that paled to both: A drive to prove him wrong.
“Now” John yelled “are you the men that will help me welcome are many new guest?”
With a yell they responded and ran the rest of the way to the ill-fated tower.
To find an opening was easy enough the door to the bottom of it was already broken through and several bodies laid outside of it.
“Algen” John called out “take your squad up the wall, and to the side door I will lead the rest through this one”
Algen nodded and started up the stairs.
“This is most likely a trap so do please hurry”
He ran through the door and saw more then he hoped for, there was an active tug-of-war going on between the towers defenders and the invaders. As Johns men flowed from either side he rushed the nearest enemy and with a wide arc of his blade he strikes.
John had hoped it would be quick then he would have the room he needed to meet Algen’s men on the next level then push the last invaders out of the tower for the moment. He had misjudged the time and his blade and his blade instead made contact with the ground. John’s sword arm made useless in a instant, he fell to the ground, the men who he had just tried to kill laughed.
“I want to tell you my name but since I am about to kill you there would be little point”
And with that the man started to swing his spiked mace in John, John used his shield in his left hand to deflect as much of the attack as he could but it dented his shield and cut his head on the top of it.
John guessed his foot could reach the bottom of the man’s leg so he gathered all the force he could and stuck he man’s leg with his steel boots. John knew he had broken something as soon as he did. The man fell screaming and cursing in pain, John was about to finish it when he heard Captain Hammerfalls voice
“done kill him, I need him”
Fresh men came and grabbed the man.
“So... iam still alive, can I know the name of the man that tried, and failed, to kill me?”
The man looked at him
“Tain, and don’t worry I will make good on that promise”
John was about to comment when the captain cut him off,
“Impressive work I did”
“What are you talking about?” John asked, thinking he meant about the reinforcement
“iam talking about how I have retaken the tower”
John looked at him, yes he meant what he said
“You sent me to capture it after you stopped me from manning my post on the wall”
Hammerfall walked up to him
“you don’t know what you’re saying boy, I am the one that has taken the tower, the cut on your head is making you think things that never happened”.
“But”, as Hammerfall went on “If you keep thinking these thoughts, these me” Hammerfall gestured to two men with their swords half out “will have to help you remember correctly”
It was too much for John, he had nothing left, no energy to argue or even to say a word he just kept looking forward. Hammerfall patted John’s good shoulder
“it’s time for you to go lad”
John forced himself to walk past him and through the door... As John walked out he could hear Tains laughter echo the towers walls,
“Send runners back to the place, and tell him I have retaken the tower”
were the last words of Hammerfall he could hear. John dragged himself along the bottom of the wall not knowing what to do with himself. Should he go back? Get help for his wounds? All he could do is keep walking.
He did not know how long he walked when he felt a vibration coming from the wall, putting his ear to it he could feel it getting stronger. It made him start to forget about what had happened that day, it got louder and louder and soon all he thought was that rumble. Right before John blacked out he saw a battle Ram break through the wall and himself hit with pieces of the wall.