Arm Of Galemar (Book 2) (88 page)

They had no chance of prevailing.  Sloan fought relentlessly,
giving his all to the battle.  The only orders the Fourth Unit heard came from
Giles, and they needed no encouragement.  Ahead, the first two units were
already in retreat.

Riley forced a hole through the rear assault where the
monsters were thinnest.  His remaining guardsmen held it open, many falling,
long enough for the baron and his surviving forces to stream through.  The
border baron’s group ran, quickly catching Fraser’s units, whereupon all the
Galemaran fighters released their full speed.

It was a rout, an uncontrolled flight from certain
death.  They ran to escape.  Their speed proved insufficient.  The
longer-legged monsters outpaced the fleeing fighters.

They could not run.  They could not win.

Marik had believed he understood what fear felt like. 
In a battle against hell-born demons with no prayer for victory, he learned
otherwise.

The only difference between a cringing coward and
brave warrior is that a warrior rules his fear, and a coward is ruled by his
fear.

Strange to hear his father’s voice now.  That day,
sitting on the woodpile out back while a young Marik scrubbed hard at a rusty
buckle…it came clearly to memory.  Most of the fragments he retained of his
father were indistinct, the time between then and the present robbing the
images of their clarity.  This moment came sharp as a winter wind, clear as a
storm-rinsed sky.

Nothing for it but to face this as best I can.

Marik pushed to the front as the monsters swelled,
surrounding their isle of resistance.  He would need to concentrate his all. 
Fancy tricks and difficult dual channeling would have to be eschewed.  His
reserves filled when he quickly gathered in the nearby mass diffusion.

Strength blossomed through his arms.  His legs felt
able to shatter stone.  A steel rod replaced his spine while his whole being
transcended the normal bounds of human frailty.

His strength working brought not only physical power
with it this time, but also leeched away the incapacitating fear as well.  He
had long since mastered the dangerous sense of godhood this working bestowed. 
This was different.  With the power coursing through him, he no longer
despaired that fighting these creatures would be futile.

He passed Dietrik, who wisely stayed back, if
wild-eyed.  His rapier was of no use at all against foes such as these. 
Arvallar proved that as he gazed upon his own rapier in stunned disbelief, the
blade bent at a thirty degree angle.

Near the frontline fought Wyman beside Chiksan.  The
loner’s sword work proved distinguished enough to wound the beasts, though he
had failed to land a lethal strike yet.  This was due both to the creatures’
arm length and their seeming resistance to any but what, in a man, would be a
mortal blow.

Chiksan used his spear to greater effectiveness than
the swordsmen were managing.  His axe-like pole arm reached to harass their
faces and throats.  Their impossibly muscular arms seriously threatened his
weapon’s shaft if he grew careless for a single instant.  The Tullainian
mercenary alone appeared to hold the beasts back, yet he, too, also had not
brought one down.

Every kill the Galemaran forces claimed resulted from
the missile fighters.  Churt and Edwin stood behind, shooting whenever openings
between Chiksan and Wyman formed.  Edwin’s bow had drawn blood from several
beasts.  He had only killed one through the eye.  The crossbow in Churt’s small
fast hands had claimed the most so far.  Each quarrel loosed by the young
archer tore deep into demon flesh, penetrating the leathery hides to cause real
damage.

Floroes fought to Wyman’s left, the size advantage
usually commanded by the larger man having vanished completely.  The smallest
of the beasts still towered over the amateur chirurgeon by no less than a
foot.  He wielded his battle axe in one hand, his war hammer in the other.  Raw
gashes in the beast he fought showed that the spike on his war hammer also
proved effective.  Blood covered his head from a wound under his scalp, and
Marik prayed they would be able to escape in time for Glynn to work his Healing
on Floroes.

The frontline moved like no other Marik had ever been
in.  Warriors used their weapons to sting the beasts, causing pain to any that
closed in, but the few monsters armed with massive clubs were by far the
deadliest.  There could be no blocking such an enormous weight swung with
crushing force.  Avoidance was the only possible way to survive.

Men in the frontline had spread from each other,
unlike the usual battle formation which called for the closing of ranks lest
the enemy break through.  These enemies were too large to squeeze through a
minor opening and the fighters needed the space for dodging incoming blows as
best they could.  The line undulated while Marik stepped forward, men leaping
or throwing themselves down to avoid death by severe impact.  Others quickly
leapt into the gap if the first man failed to dodge completely, or if he would
not regain his feet in time to lash back.

He noticed one last man when he pushed through to the
front.  Colbey stood behind Floroes, neither waiting to take advantage of an
opportunity nor looking to aid in the fight.  The man stood with his sword
still sheathed gazing at the monstrous creatures, eyes flitting from one to the
next as a man searching a crowd for an acquaintance he expects to meet.

Marik could not believe it.  What in all the hells was
Colbey
doing?
  They needed a fighter of his ability if they were to have
any hope of surviving!  He nearly stepped aside to grab Colbey and shake him
until he explained his inaction.

But…forget it.  The scout could go to whichever hell
he fancied however he liked.  If they survived, he would see to it Colbey came
forth with answers.

Floroes dodged to his left, slipping on the compacted
snow in an unplanned dive.  Marik stepped to the front to take up the fight.

This beast fought bare-handed.  It stared at the
mercenary in stupid interest when Marik raised his sword.  The dangling
loincloth fluttered between its furry legs as rolling eyes fixed on him.

Marik waited for it to advance, minimizing the
openings he would present during the first strike.  He watched the creature
staring at him until suddenly its eyes narrowed and it leaned forward.  Its
neck extended, its lips pealed back when it opened wide the jaws, freeing a
throaty roar Marik could feel beating against his heart.  The teeth were
sharpened fangs lining the elongated horse-like muzzle.  Saliva dripped in long
strings from several.

The roar nearly forced Marik back through sheer
terror.  Only the heightened power racing through his being lent him the
fortitude to stand fast.  When the beast lunged with clawed fingers swiping in
a scythe’s arc, he swung his broadsword.

A man would have been cut in two by his assault.  His
steel met the monster’s forearm and bit.  Elation raced through him, an
understanding that these demonic nightmares
could
be killed,
could
be defeated…but the euphoria poisoned into fresh horror when the creature
repelled the blade with a fresh snarl.  A bleeding gash rent its flesh, a wound
too shallow to be bone deep.

He had kept from swinging with every scrap of his
phenomenal might.  Marik braced his fluttering hope with that knowledge despite
feeling stunned.  What were these monsters that they could withstand such a
blow?

The creature had retreated several steps and stood
licking the wound across its arm.  Marik increased the energy flooding through
him and noticed it abruptly narrow its eyes again before charging.  It closed
fast, amazingly fast, and he could not bring his sword up in time.

Marik saw the large claws streak for his throat.  He
reacted before he wholly knew what he did.  His knees buckled, dropping him
down to the cold dirt.

Not fast enough.

Hard claws ricocheted off the side of his helm. 
Marik’s head rocked to the right.  Pain lanced through his neck and for a
moment he feared it had broken.

Surely his neck would have had the bone and sinew not
been strengthened.  His helm skewed around.  Marik ignored the intense pain to
find the monster.

It stood only a step to his right, having lost
interest as soon as Marik fell.  Again it licked at the wound he had inflicted,
the abnormally long tongue flicking out over the sharp teeth.

Marik lunged.  He meant to cut through its neck before
it could react.  His movement startled it and made its terrible stare fix on
him.

It lashed out with its claws while Marik swung from
the side, both weapons clashing.  Marik almost expected the sound of steel on
steel.  He felt the strength in the creature’s claws through his blade. 
Perhaps not the same as quality steel, but terrifyingly similar.  No beast in
Marik’s knowledge possessed such natural weaponry.

He pushed hard on his sword, hoping to cut into its
fingertips.  The monster used the curve in its claws to hold his blade fast. 
It roared in challenge.  Marik was close enough to feel the heat from its body
and smell the fetid breath blowing back his hair.

Frantically he struggled to unlock his sword.  The
creature snapped at his face, massive jaws darting from above.  He cried out,
his trapped sword and body weakened from the earlier blow making him fall a
second time.

This twisted his blade around until it finally freed. 
He tightened his grip as he turned the fall into a dropping crouch, barely
keeping from slipping on the frozen ground.  The beast did not forget him this
time.  It loomed overhead, obviously meaning to lift the mercenary and…his mind
refused to imagine his fate.

Marik drove upward.  He let out a cry of terrified
resistance and thrust with all his might, catching the monster off guard.  His
sword point drove into its chin.  The resistance was like thrusting through a
tree trunk.  He bore on, forcing his sword deeper.

At last it would delve no deeper.  Marik expected to
see the sword protruding from the thing’s head.  It did not.  From the amount
of blade remaining, his sword must have barely gone through half the skull.

For the first time ever on a battlefield, Marik’s legs
gave way.  Their watery shaking unhinged his knees and he collapsed.  His
entire body shook in the cold while sweat poured from his brow.

He might have sat there, staring at the demon-thing
he’d killed until the next day if his preservation instinct had not started
kicking at his overwhelmed mind.  Sluggishly, he cast his gaze about, hoping
his victory over a seemingly unbeatable foe had inspired his shieldmates to
greater effectiveness.

Beasts everywhere swiped with claws that returned
coated in blood.  Men died horribly, twitching on the ground.  Unholy roars
rent the air as the demons’ excitement mounted with every new human
slaughtered.  The visions he beheld were ghastly, the smells of eviscerated
bodies horrible.  Their entire force would have been vanquished already had the
monsters not been equally as busy slaughtering unarmed refugees.

He forced his legs to support him and rose
unsteadily.  His sword was lodged inside the beast’s corpse.  A hard tug did
nothing to dislodge it.  Only a sustained pull with all his strength finally
freed it.

Marik’s head rang.  His neck had been filled with
ground glass.  He struggled to think what he should do when Colbey stepped
beside him from behind.  The scout cast one scornful glance over him before
sneering, “Now you learn what it means to be ready to fight!”

That made Marik angry enough to push away the other
emotions roiling in a turbulent turmoil.  Colbey had not fought!  He had stood
behind like a coward!

He nearly shouted this before he noted the scout held
a bow.  Fresh panic plucked at him until he saw it was different from Edwin’s. 
Wherever Colbey had acquired it, Edwin must still be alive and shooting.

“There!” Colbey shouted before Marik could ask.  “That
white-robe!  They are the minds behind these beasts!  They are the
controllers!  Kill them first!”

The scout fired before Marik could see what Colbey
spoke of.  A tumbling body caught his eye, a man shape amidst the demonic
hoard.  He must have been sitting curled in one’s arm to have tumbled as he
did.  Colbey’s arrow had pierced his chest.  His white robe rippled in
free-fall, a hood fluttering from his back, unused despite the cold
temperature.

Why did a man travel in the arms of a monster?  His
mind stuck on that question for a heartbeat until a change exploded through
their demonic ranks, all the more terrifying for its inexplicable nature. 
Several nearby creatures threw back their heads while clutching their temples
around their horns, shrieking rage-filled roars that made their previous
bellows sounds as whispers.

Marik’s legs collapsed anew under the horrendous sound
assaulting him.  His ears were going to rupture!  He clasped his hands over
them and felt childish screams ripping from his throat, completely inaudible to
the man originating them.

When he unclenched his eyes, wet from terrified tears,
he saw that three monsters had ceased their attack.  They stood as the one he
had faced, licking wounds or otherwise ignoring the humans.  That state lasted
for a further ten seconds until a different beast came closer than the first
cared for.