Chapter 502: Southern Gate
The army of the valley tribes rushed into the remains of the southern gate. The portcullis had been destroyed by their battle mages and the gateway was open to their forces, save for the small forces of Houses Glaz and Veres. The Hollow Shade soldiers formed a semicircular blockade around the inner side of the gateway.
Valley warriors clashed against the soldiers and tried to force themselves through, while their battle mages launched spells at the Hollow Shaders from their backlines.
The air was hot and humid. The ground was slick with blood, sweat, and urine. Screams of dying men and women filled the ears. Mortals clashed with each other, slashing with blades, stabbing with spears, and hammering at anyone in the darkness. Few still held torches in their hands, but it did nothing to avail the chaotic nature of the clashing horde.
The soldiers could hardly breathe as they swung their weapons around haphazardly. Their training did little to protect them from the battle as they were squeezed together around the gateway.
House Gale swordmasters danced through the packed battle, slashing away at their enemies while trying to break through the enemy lines and reach the battle mages at the back. But the enemy seemed endless and for every one that fell, several more valley warriors rushed in to take their place.
Lady Gale found herself in the thick of battle. Her steel blade spun in quick arcs around her as she ran through the enemy, blocking enemy blades and spears, and slicing at exposed flesh underneath their armor. Her world was drowned out by a mist of blood and flickers of torchlight.
Life force energy flowed through her burning muscles as her limbs fell into rhythmic patterns she had practiced thousands of times before. Her mind raced with each moment, scarlet eyes dashing back and forth as she fought enemies on every side.
A sword slash to the leg. A spear thrust to the heart. An arrow to the wrist. Gale blocked every strike with breathless focus. She ducked low and slashed a woman’s waist in two when a man swung a hammer down at her head from behind. Gale shifted her weight to dodge, but she was a moment too slow and the hammer struck her shoulder.
Pain spiked across her arm as the shoulder pad collapsed from the strike. She rolled with the blow and slashed her sword across the man’s shins. He fell with a cry and one of his fellow warriors trampled over his head without even noticing.
There was so little space to move, Gale had been forced to carve every inch, but her fall had changed the fight. Her arm radiated with sharp pain and her every swing was off by a second. The enemy quickly closed the space she had made and she found herself being swarmed.
A sudden steel blade pierced a warrior’s chest and he gasped a hollow sound then collapsed in front of her. Gale barely had a moment to frown in confusion when three more men charged her. Another longsword appeared through the throng and slashed all three men. This time Gale saw it, a familiar face in the torchlight. Pale cheeks covered in blood, bright scarlet eyes, and an overly-confident grin.
“Sister! We found you!” shouted Willow.
“We’ve got your back!” yelled Stellan as he hurried to take over Gale’s flank.
Gale smiled tiredly at her cousins and exhaled a short breath of relief. The three swordmasters quickly stood back-to-back and parried the oncoming attacks.
“There’s too many! We need to retreat to the shield line!” shouted Stellan over the clashing of steel and battle cries.
“No!” Gale blocked a spear and stabbed her blade into a drow’s gut. “We have to stop their battlemages! We’ll never hold the gate if their spells keep ripping through our men!”
Willow kicked a man in the chest and slashed her sword out in a wide defensive arc. “We’ll never reach them!”
“We have to try, we’re sitting ducks otherwise!” Gale replied frustratedly.
But try as they might, the valley warriors surged through the gateway and began to push them back.
Gale clenched her teeth and tried to focus on the men in front of her, but her shoulder burned and her arms felt like lead. The dragonbane Nethlas had battered all of them with ease. It had taken everything she had to just survive against the beast.
She was already beyond her limit before the gate had even been broken. But with every step she took and every strike she parried, she remembered her oath, she reminded herself why she fought. For her House. For her cousins. For Uncle Gian. For House Veres. For Elise and Callum.
“Sister! We need to retreat!” shouted Stellan.
“My brother is an idiot, but he’s right, Sister! We can’t hold them off much longer! The gate’s fallen!” said Willow.
“We are the Shield…” Gale muttered under her breath. “We are the Shield,” she repeated, with more strength in her voice. “We are the Shield!”
Willow and Stellan glanced at each other and nodded grimly.
“Be it Monster or Man,” Stellan began.
“Here we stand,” Willow replied.
“And we shall not falter!” the three finished together.
Several high-pitched screams abruptly broke the cacophony of clanging steel.
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“The magic… it's stopped,” muttered Willow.
Gale looked up. She was right. No chromatic spells were flying over their heads and falling upon the Veres and Glaz shield line behind them. Gale narrowed her eyes and looked past the valley warriors towards their backlines.
The valley battle mages were still there, surrounded by hundreds of their warriors, but there was something off. Their focus wasn’t on the gate, they were looking to the west—
A thunderous howl deafened the battlefield and every man and woman stumbled back and grimaced at the earsplitting sound. The valley battle mages looked up in surprise and terror, and stumbled over one another trying to get away, but from what Gale couldn’t tell.
She frowned in confusion, “What is happeni—?”
A host of the largest wolves Gale had ever seen crashed into the enemy backlines like an avalanche, swallowing and trampling everyone whole. The valley warriors standing under the gateway looked back, bewildered.
Frost wolves leaped over their smaller cousins' assault and charged straight at the gateway, led by a white wolf larger than the rest.
Lunae leaped into the fray and the world slowed down to a crawl for Gale as she stood frozen in shock, eyes wide. The wolf’s maw opened in mid-roar, fangs bared, claws outstretched, and a familiar yet almost unrecognizable figure atop her head.
A cloak of snow-pale flowers flowed behind Stryg as he stood, legs bent forward, one hand holding strands of white fur like reigns, the other hand outstretched wielding a scarlet blade wrapped in swirling ribbons of blood. He pointed Krikolm forward towards victory, his lilac eyes unwavering, like a hero born straight from the tales and myths of old.
And just as the white wolf, his expression was fierce, fangs bared and mouth wide open. A single word on his lips, “CHAAARGE!”
A shiver of awe ran through Gale’s body and then the world fell into focus once more. The valley warriors broke into a panic and tried to run but the frost wolves were upon them, ripping them apart with their fangs and claws.
Lunae barreled through the valley warriors in a living storm of fang and frost. The Veres and Glaz soldiers panicked as she went straight towards their shield line. Then she leaped over them, landed a dozen paces behind, and kept running into the dark streets of the city. Several more wolves leaped over the Veres shield line and followed after her, while the rest tore through the valley warriors like squealing rabbits underneath their paws.
“Was that… Krikolm?” whispered Stellan.
“The wolves are eating those bastards!” Willow broke into laughter. “We can actually win!”
Stellan’s gaze lingered on the white wolf, then he shook his head and glanced at Gale, “Sister! What are your orders? Sister…?”
Gale blinked slowly, as if waking from a dream. She turned to her cousins and raised her blood-stained sword aloft, “Brothers! Sisters! With me!”
The swordmasters wading through the chaotic battlefield recognized their Lady’s voice and rushed to her side, wordlessly.
Gale glanced at each of her family one by one. “I know we are all exhausted, but tonight is the most important of our lives. Gather your strength and your steel. Hold fast and follow me. Our lord has returned and he shall not battle alone.”
~~~
Stryg tried his best to hold onto Lunae as she sprinted past the neighborhoods. She took a turn and slowed to a halt. The other wolves stopped beside her and whined curiously.
“What is it?” Stryg asked.
“...Something’s wrong,” Lunae muttered. “The dark storm above the city, it's Caligo’s doing. My sight, it’s… obscured. I cannot see your friends.”
“It’s okay. We know the way,” Stryg said reassuringly. “Tauri, Plum! Go to the academy dorms. Feli and Rhian should be there. Find them and get them somewhere safe.”
Tauri’s wolf trotted up to them and the orc nodded. “I’ll take them to my family’s manor. House Katag will keep them safe.”
“Thank you,” Stryg smiled.
“I never thought I’d ever see the Commoner District in these shambles…” Plum muttered in dismay from behind Tauri.
“...I know,” Stryg admitted. “There are still many enemies in the area, we need to be careful. Mother, go with Tauri and Plum.”
“I refuse,” Aurelia said without hesitation.
“But it’s not safe. You’re an Ebon Lord, if anyone can keep them safe, it’s you.”
“Which is why I’m staying by your side, Stryg.”
“I don’t need your protection, the Mother Moon is with me.”
“I told you, I’m staying by your side,” said Aurelia without budging.
Stryg sighed. “Elayne.”
“Yes, War Master!”
“Take the rest of the honor guard and go with Tauri and Plum.”
Elayne furrowed her brow, “But—”
“That’s an order,” Stryg said in the same unyielding tone his mother used with him.
Elyane bowed her head, “As you wish.” She signaled to the honor guard, and their wolves followed after Tauri and Plum.
“Where are we going next, Mother Moon?” Aurelia asked after the rest had left.
Lunae glanced up at Stryg. “The little one knows the way.”
Stryg glanced around the streets and reoriented himself. “This way. The temple is this way.”
“Temple? What temple?” asked a silky voice.
Lunae stiffened at the sound.
“Mother Moon?” Stryg asked uncertainly.
“Little one, you and Aurelia will have to go on without me,” Lunae muttered grimly.
“What? What are you saying?” Stryg wrinkled his brow.
“She’s saying she should have never come to this city,” taunted the unfamiliar silky voice.
Stryg looked around suspiciously, searching for the speaker. He spotted a small white fox lounging atop the edge of a nearby roof. He turned away, paying no heed, but then he did a double take. The fox’s tail was moving behind it playfully. No, it wasn’t a mere tail, 8 tails were swaying in the air in a mesmerizing pattern.
The fox pulled her black lips back in a taunting spiteful smile, “Caligo is too soft on you, Lunae. She wanted to spare you, but I knew you would be a problem. I have nothing personally against a fellow goddess like you, truly. But we are so close to fixing everything and yet here you are, trying to intervene and only making things worse, just like three centuries ago. And the worst part of it is, I bet you still don’t even understand the damage your actions are causing.”
Lunae narrowed her silver eyes. “What do you want, Lin Lu?”
“It doesn’t have to do with what I want. It’s just what’s necessary.”
She growled, “You can’t kill me.”
“Oh, most definitely not on a full moon, at the height of your power.” The fox jumped down and landed softly on the cobblestone. Her form blurred and she grew until she stood as tall as a frost wolf, though still smaller than Lunae. Lin Lu circled around her slowly. “Perhaps not even on a half moon, but tonight of all nights? A new moon? Well, let’s find out.”