The effects of Balidor’s death were felt rather quickly after the fact. By the time I woke up and started to make my way back through the wreckage of this town towards the western wall, I could see the disarray beginning to take hold of the defending soldiers. The runners were clogged up dealing with the situation of losing their commanding officer, now trying to find someone else to take charge. One voice has now become a dozen, as all the captains probably had their own plans of how to deal with the situation and it was immensely more difficult to get a clear direction.
The situation closer to the wall was already deteriorating before the loss of Balidor. With the swarm of former slaves spread out and harassing the soldiers from one angle and the encroaching army pushing their way up the wall, the soldiers were starting to lose hope. I could see the situation at the top of the walls after I had gotten close. The fighting had now spilled over onto the ramparts, with several member races of the coalition now fighting their way across the wall.
Victorious cries and bloodlust roars could be heard over the utter chaos of the scene. The screams of the dying and wounded were a chilling choir to the sounds of steel clanging. Eventually a horn was sounded from the wall, which was echoed somewhere off in the distance before the sounds of a whole army crying out in celebration. The walls were breached, the coalition forces streaming inside, victory was only a matter of details now.
With the news of the wall being surmounted, the Thrainian soldiers in the area all started to retreat, morale crumbling with each passing moment. I didn’t feel the need to hunt down those who were falling back or running away. Even if the coalition didn’t feel like actively pursuing them, they would be cut off from their supplies, which would mean they would be forced to give up else they would starve to death. Perhaps terms of surrender could now be reached that would prevent further bloodshed.
I was largely ignored by the Thrainian soldiers who were now in survival mode as they ran to relative safety. They might have been able to mount some sort of organized defense to bottleneck the coalition around the wall, but as things were, trying to fight back was not an option for them anymore. They would hole up behind the inner walls, and hopefully not become stubborn.
As I walked, I saw the first coalition soldiers making their way around the streets, probably trying to set up a perimeter. I was momentarily perplexed when their reaction to me walking towards them was to level their weapons and threaten to charge me. Realizing my mistake, I immediately started to quickly correct their assumption that I was a Thrainian soldier.
Throwing my free hand up while quickly sheathing my sword, I called out to them before they could trample me. “Whoa! Easy there guys, I'm on your side.”
Thankfully they paused, their hostilities being replaced with confusion. Some quick murmuring between them ensued before one of them, an Ulgor, called back to me. “You the spy?”
I nodded. “Glad to know that they actually got word around about me like I asked.” Convinced that would be the end of it, I started towards them again before a Valus slithered up and leveled a spear at me.
“Hold it! How do we know he’s telling the truth?”
Ahh, shit, maybe I should have made a callsign. Hindsight is twenty-twenty after all, but it was too late to gripe about my lapse in planning. “Durdan can vouch me, if I can just see him, he will confirm that I am on your side.”
“Bet you would like that, a chance to assassinate him.”
For fucks sake, I can admire the caution, but this is getting ridiculous. Just as I was about to launch into what probably would have been another pointless argument that did nothing but go in circles, a third party chimed in from off to the side.
“I’ll vouch for him.” My gaze was drawn towards the new voice, and I recognized the fuzzy face that I hadn’t seen in a while. Hargon came sauntering up, wearing some leather chest armor that had a small metal heart protector on the chest. In one hand he held a crowbill hammer that seemed a little small for him, but was probably an extremely deadly weapon in his hands. The most striking thing about him right now was that his horns were dyed red with blood and may or may not have had bits of gore still attached as well.
He stopped in front of me with his back to the others. “He may be ugly, but he’s definitely on our side.”
I scoffed. “At least I don’t smell like all the worst parts of a barn”
He smiled widely at me. “Glad to see you haven’t lost your edge being around all these ‘civilized’ folk.” His eyes scanned me up and down for a second. “You look like shit.”
I smiled back at him while making a vague gesture to his head. “Didn’t know viscera was a fashion statement now.”
“Helps with intimidation. So, you want to talk to Durdan?”
“Yeah, I figure I should probably update him on the situation and learn what’s going on myself.” While it had felt amazing to simply banter with someone again, there was still work to be done, and neither of us had much in the way of free time right now.
“We’ll have to wait for him at the wall then, he should be approaching with the rest of the army as we speak.” With that we started to walk towards the wall. The passing coalition forces who were streaming into the castle and securing as much territory as they could, gave me strange looks as we walked by. I’m sure I made for a strange sight given the situation, but the presence of Hargon warded off any more attempts at impeding my progress.
We were getting close to the epicenter of the massive explosion that I had inadvertently caused. My mouth hung open slightly as I bore witness to the extent of the damage that happened here. The tower no longer existed, and part of the wall had a large divot in it as the explosion had chipped away at the integrity. All the buildings around it that had a direct line of sight were little more than rubble, having been blown apart by a combination of the shotgun of stones and concussive force. In fact, there was actually a large chunk of jagged crystal embedded into the ground where a house once was.
Streams of bodies were marching into the castle now, bringing in supplies, setting up barricades, and generally creating a staging ground for further pushes deeper into the keep. The divot in the wall where the tower once stood was the access point of choice for the army, and it had appeared that some earth mages had created a sloping path up and through the gap to better facilitate the movement of bodies.
It seemed we would be waiting here for Durdan to make his entrance as Hargon was making himself comfortable. About five minutes passed with us just watching the proceedings. After those few minutes had passed a number of more heavily armed individuals entered the scene. I had not, until this moment, seen a fully armored Ulgor or Droln before. They were a walking mountain of metal each of them, with enough intimidation factor to repel a small army. I certainly wouldn’t want to try and fight one of them.
I made the leap in logic that Durdan was amongst them, and it was confirmed when Hargon pushed off the wall he was resting against to approach the group. One of the armored individuals stepped forward once they noticed us and threw up a hand in our direction.
“Halt! State your purpose.”
Hargon seemed like he was about to start explaining, when a hand was placed on the shoulder of the questioning guard. “It’s alright, I was expecting them.” That was certainly the voice of Durdan behind the metallic echo of the helmet. His authority confirmed that as the guard stepped aside and threw out a quick salute before turning to establish a defensive position.
Now that the situation was cleared up, Durdan stepped forward to talk with us. Hargon threw out a salute to his superior officer as was expected of him. “At ease soldier.” Durdan allowed Hargon to return to a resting posture before he turned towards me. “Well, James, it’s been a while.”
“Indeed, it has.”
He took a partial turn to look at the ruins of the tower behind him before swinging back towards me again. “You’ve been quite busy here, though I have to say that I didn’t expect the whole damn thing to blow up.”
I awkwardly scratched at the back of my head for a moment. “Yeah, neither did I, sorry about that. I hope that no one got seriously hurt because of that.”
“Some minor injuries, but the larger rocks were thankfully redirected by our mage corps before they could do any real damage.”
“Well, that’s a relief.”
Durdan just nodded a little. “Now, I don’t think you came here just to say hello.”
“No, I figured it would be best to report to you to catch you up on what’s going on inside the walls, and for me to hear what the general situation is.”
“A logical move. Come, speak to me while we walk.” A busy man in a chaotic situation, he needed to keep working while receiving updates.
I started my synopsis of what I've seen and done on the inside. “There’s a lot of panic going on right now, soldiers simply just trying to survive. What leadership they do have is scattered and uncoordinated, too many voices trying to take control.”
“Strange, one would think such a fortress would have unified leadership.”
“Well, they did, but I... removed him from the equation.”
That made Durdan pause for a moment. “You killed the commander of Yol’vastume?”
I wasn’t exactly proud of that, but I did. “Yes, the commander was also the owner, Balidor Kirthwain. I used my disguise to get close to him, and when it was just the two of us, had a duel with him which resulted in his death.” While I couldn’t see Durdan’s face right now, I imagined he had a smile.
“That’s wonderful news James! With their leadership fractured they will crumble much sooner. You’ve probably saved many lives today. If you were a soldier I would have you promoted for that.”
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
It was bizarre for praise to create such a hollow feeling. “Thank you, but I'm just hoping that terms of surrender can be reached sooner rather than later.”
“That will depend on how stubborn the enemy wants to be, not to mention we have to deal with two groups of holdouts. The last report I received said that a majority of the forces had retreated towards the inner keep for a last stand, but that a number of them have also made their way into the eastern district where they are holding onto the supplies that...”
“Wait, they are in the east district?!”
“Yes, why? Is something the matter?”
“Kala and the others were evacuating the non-combatants through the eastern gate. They’re going to walk right into the retreating Thrainians on their way back!”
Durdan brought his hand up to his chin, but it was stopped by his helmet. “I see, that is a problem. I was going to clear out that district first, so I'll get to work creating an assault team to take it.”
“They might not have that kind of time! We have to go now!”
“Rushing in will only put more lives at risk. Do not think I am apathetic to your plight, but you must understand the position I am in.”
“Then I'll fucking go, you just show up whenever the fuck you feel like then.” I turned and was already storming off by the time Durdan could get another word in.
“James, wait. You can’t just charge in there by yourself.”
“Watch me! I’m not going to let them die while I sit here doing nothing!” There were some more words of protest, but I wasn’t paying attention to them anymore as I was now in a dead sprint towards the east district.
I was in a panic now, tearing through the streets and careening past the confused forces of the coalition, some of whom tried to stop me and almost immediately regretted their choice. “Move asshole before I move you!” Many did, surprised by the outburst and manic behavior. Those who didn’t quickly learned that I was not joking. I shoved or threw elbows at anyone who was too slow or too stupid to heed my warning. Probably created a few enemies like that, but again, I didn’t care as I was in full burn trying to make it in time. How much time I had I did not know, nor did I care to find out.
My frantic sprint was only interrupted when I found myself blocked by a large, closed gate that divided the districts. My adrenal addled brain went through several different curses as an immediate response before I remembered the part of the wall that Silia had shown us. Immediately switching targets, I ran in that direction.
Skidding to a stop in front of the section of flawed wall that we had used last night, I leaped up and sunk my fingers into the sockets along its surface. I scrambled up the side as fast as I could, which meant that I was inevitably going to slip. Of course, I didn’t see that at the time, so as I clawed my way up the side of the wall, I neglected to make sure my grip was proper, and inevitably slipped.
I wasn’t high enough to cause any permanent injuries as I fell to the ground, but I certainly bruised my tailbone. That bit of pain cleared my head a little, and despite the urgency I still felt, it would only slow me down to rush this part. Taking a deep breath, I started to climb again, though more methodically this time.
My progress was steady, though it felt agonizingly slow. I wanted so desperately to just fly up the side of the wall and continue running, but I was forced to take the measured approach. After what felt like forever, I managed to pull myself atop the wall once again.
Now able to release my pent-up frustration at the slow climb, I burst into motion again and ran along the wall. I decided to take the stairs this time, the short tower stairwell in question being a bit further down the wall than where we had dropped down last time. The door to the tower barely slowed me down as I crashed through it. It was just closed and not bared, but the mechanism that held it shut was reduced to splinters as the door slammed open against the wall.
I went down the spiral staircase two or three steps at a time, eventually emerging at street level. Not knowing where everyone was, I just started running around at top speed to cover as much ground as possible. My head was snapping in every direction as I made my way through the alleys and streets, trying to catch some sign of Kala and the others, no matter how small.
As I came tearing around a corner of a street, I froze as I processed what I had found. There were about fifty Thrainian soldiers in different states of haggardness on the street. A few of them looked injured, many of them appeared dirty or disheveled, but I glossed over most of that as I noticed that they were surrounding another group, Kala’s group.
She and the others numbered only a little over a dozen that were still standing. Several of them were on the ground, either not moving or too injured to do so. I could see familiar faces in the group, and the sight of them made my blood pressure start to rise.
Holdrem had an arm hanging limply at his side, his mouth was bloody, whether his own or someone else's I did not know, and his still functioning hand contained the top half of a broken pitchfork. Otar was on one knee, grimacing as an arrow was protruding from his gut along with several smaller cuts across his body, but he still held tightly to his sword. Jorn I could not decide if he was worse or better off than his brother. He was missing a whole damn hand, the stump wrapped tightly in the rags that used to be his shirt while he glared at the soldiers around them. But the sight that really set my blood aflame was Kala. She was bleeding in a few places, most prominently her brow as the blood ran down the side of her face. She stood defensively over her mother who seemed to have had her leg broken in some way and was lying on the ground, desperately trying to get up and fight again.
Seeing Kala injured awakened a fury in me I scarcely knew existed. All I could see was red, all I could feel was rage, and all I could think was that those who hurt her needed to die. Before I even realized it, I was charging forth, screaming at the top of my lungs a wrathful war cry.
All the soldiers who weren’t currently surrounding my friends looked in my direction. I’m sure I was a strange sight to behold, but not strange enough that they didn’t see my intentions that I had laid bare to the world. As I lashed out with my sword at the closest Thrainian in reach, trying to stab him in the throat, he was already prepared to receive an attack.
With a sweep of his own sword, he redirected my attack harmlessly to the side, but that didn’t stop me from continuing into him with the built-up momentum of a charging bull. Hooking him with an arm, I dragged him up off his feet and slammed him into the ground. Barely even breaking stride, I shot out again, deeper into the mess of soldiers, slashing, stabbing, punching, and rampaging through them with reckless abandon.
I didn’t care about the numbers disadvantage, nor the injuries I was receiving as they took swipes at me in turn. In that moment, I embodied the berserker mentality, unfeeling rage given only the bare minimum of direction. Right now, that direction was whatever the shortest path between me and Kala was and pity the poor bastard who stood in my way.
Just as I finished trying my hardest to cave in another skull of some idiot who thought he could bar my path; I felt the dull pain of a spear being thrust into the back of my leg. I only growled and spun around with my sword whistling through the air. There was a loud clang as I struck my attacker up the side of the helmet, sending him sprawling.
The injury wasn’t the important part, it was the fact that he had stopped my charge. With me standing still, someone tried to tackle me from behind. He could only stagger me a bit before I turned and grabbed him, throwing him into another group of soldiers. Two more immediately hit me from my blind spot again, trying to force me down. The duo was quickly joined by a third who managed to finally knock me down to the ground in a chaotic struggle.
I thrashed and punched and kicked at everyone, but soon my arms were pinned beneath a body each and I had one of them sitting on my back. I wasn’t about to give up, far from it. I roared and started to push myself up again, getting a few inches off the ground before I felt two more sets of hands grab my legs and pulled them out from under me. There was no more leverage for me anymore, and I could only shout and curse at them while squirming beneath the five men holding me down.
In the middle of my rage, a voice cut through the chaos. “What in the pits is going on here?” What was probably the de facto leader of these holdout soldiers pushed his way into view.
One of the men holding me down answered him. “Sir, we were attacked by this man, he appears to be insane.”
A growling sigh came from the commander. “We don’t have time for this! We have to get to the capital and warn the king of Yol’vastume’s fate. These delays are...” He stopped for a moment, and craning my neck, I was able to see him staring intently at me. “Wait, this man isn’t just some insane civilian.” His eyes showed recognition before a smirk spread across his face. “This is the traitor that attempted to kill the king, James, if I recall correctly. It seems we have a little luck after all. If we can make it back to the capital and present this traitor before the king, then we will all be rewarded.”
I could only bare my teeth at him while attempting to burn a hole through his head with my eyes. Another soldier came up behind him to speak. “Sir, what do we do with the escaped slaves?”
He just waived his hand. “Just kill them already, they are of no value anymore.”
“Don’t you fucking touch them!” The words came out of me like fire, but the commander was not impressed with them.
“Silence traitor, you will be dealt with in time. Get on with it so we can get out of here.”
“STOP! I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU!” My threats fell on deaf ears as the soldiers once against started pressing inwards on Kala and the others. “NOOOOOOO!” My throat was ragged as I screamed and writhed under the bodies pinning me down.
No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t move. It was like I was stuck in some waking nightmare, forced to watch as they slowly pushed closer with their weapons ready to strike, to kill. I couldn’t do anything, I had nothing, not even enough magic.
Magic... the damn snake! It was the only thing I could think of, that stupid magical serpent the bitch put in me. I didn’t know how I was going to connect with it, but I was desperate, so I just started trying.
Why does it only work when Sert sets up his ritual? That was a question that I needed answers to immediately. I started picking apart his process. Laying down, crystals, positioning, around my body, head, arms, feet, head to toe, whole body... My whole body! I had a fundamental misunderstanding that I just realized. I was trying to find the damn snake inside the flow of magic when it was the magic. It was made out of it, and me looking at one small part was like staring at a singular scale on its body and wondering why there was no snake there.
I immediately reached out and gathered everything inside me, pushing it down, controlling it, condensing it. Once I had pulled it all into a tight ball at my core, I began to feel it, the consciousness that existed within me. Wasting no time, I plunged myself into that sensation, and was enveloped by it.
It had been a long time since I last stood in this void, similar to, but distinctly different from death. I tore through the abyss in search of the head of this serpent. “Show yourself!” I shouted in the darkness.
A moment passed before the black started to shift and shimmer around me. Then, from the dark came the piercing gaze of the snake’s violently green eyes. The massive inky form of the serpent, once intimidating, held no concern for me right now as I immediately started to make demands.
“I need more power! They’re in danger and I have to save them.” Infuriatingly enough, the damn overgrown reptile just looked at me, oblivious to my urgency. Then, it did something that left me stupefied. It started to slither away from me.
My stunned expression lasted only a second before I exploded into rage again. “Where the FUCK do you think you’re going!” Reaching out with my senses and feeling the magic around me, I projected my will upon it, quite forcefully. The result of this was the snake’s head being suddenly thrust into the ground and pinned in place.
I stormed up to the damn thing and put my face right next to one of its eyes. “You’ve been living in my body, uninvited, and now it’s time to pay the fucking rent! If you’re not going to help me, then you can get the fuck out and go tell that bitch that she can unfuck this world herself! What good are you if you can’t even help me save the people I care about you useless fucking worm!”
That last bit seemed to have struck a nerve in the serpent. Its pupil suddenly dilated to a slit. Whatever control I had over the magic around me was undone, and the snake lifted its head up slowly, deliberately. It was now staring down at me again, predatory gaze locked firmly on my form. I did not relent and glared back at it. If it could talk, I bet it would have said ‘you asked for this.’
Its maw slowly parted open, jaw unhinging in a way only a snake’s could. I stared resolutely past the shadowy fangs of its mouth and into the abyss of its body that was somehow darker than the surroundings I was currently sitting in. A hiss escaped its mouth as its head coiled backwards slightly. Then, quick as a flash of lightning, it struck...
And swallowed me whole.