Fragments of your Soul (The Mirror Worlds Book 1) (31 page)

For a moment, Arvid looked after him, confused about his strange reaction, but then she pulled away and started moving.

The battlements were filled with soldiers, frantically rushing about, but no one paid attention to Arvid. She ran upstairs and downstairs, past narrow watchtowers, and densely crowded viewing platforms. Every soldier, every marksman, every armed fighter Arvid gave a searching look, but there was no sign of Loke.

Soon the first ominous howling of demons rang out in the distance. The longer Arvid sought and the farther she went, the closer it seemed to come, and it wasn’t only having an impact on her. The soldiers, but above all the townspeople, seemed to almost break out in a panic at the sound. Not all followed the instructions of the City Guard and returned to their homes. As empty as the city had seemed upon their arrival, it now became clear how many people lived in this confined space.

A short time later Arvid was completely out of breath. She had been jostled by heavily armored defenders so often, her arms were full of bruises. With each step she took, the howling of the demons grew louder. Her anxiety and restlessness grew. Behind the palisades on the other hand, a fearfully tense calm slowly seemed to spread.

Arvid had just walked down a flight of stairs and was about to cross a street, when she was tossed aside by some hastily passing people and fell hard against the corner of a house.

Panting, she straightened up and looked around. People with anguished faces were everywhere, no longer in wild haste, but waiting, watching and listening with raised heads.

Sharp commands suddenly broke through the general noise. There was a brief moment of silence. Everyone seemed to hold their breath, but it was just a moment.

A roaring wave of hissing and lashing sounds resounded as the archers began to shoot from the battlements. The polyphonic howling of demons suddenly swelled up, and a deafening chorus of shrill, piercing roars filled the air. Shortly thereafter, the palisade wall was hit by a blow so powerful Arvid thought she could feel the vibration of the ground. Wood crashed and splintered. In the distance, the whole wall shook as if under a gigantic fist.

Chaos broke out around Arvid. Fearful shouts and screams rose; people ran in panic. Some tried to run in one direction; others in the opposite direction, but most fled headlong away from the city wall, which at this moment was hit with an iron force again.

She had to go back to Nod. Arvid pushed away from the wall of the house, slipped through the first available gap in the crowd, and made her way back in the direction from which she had come. Rudely she pushed people aside, ran up stairs, over streets and up further steps toward the upper city gate.

Again and again, the city wall was hit, and each time the deafening crash and splintering of wood was heard. Incomprehensible commands were shouted; the ground shook and trembled under the blows hammering on the palisades.

“Protect the wall!” a man yelled not far from her. Further, desperate voices joined in. “Protect the wall! To the gate, to the gate!”

Finally Arvid had reached the street in front of the gate, but as soon as she stepped out from between the houses, she found herself facing a wolf-sized demon. With a horrified scream she stumbled back and escaped the snapping jaws of the black beast only by a whisker. She lost her balance, but still managed to pull one of her daggers. She gave the beast a kick that made it fall back with a shrill shriek, which gave her a brief moment.

While she pulled her second dagger, she caught a glimpse of her surroundings and realized with horror that large sections of the stockade had been downright bulldozed and torn half of the city gate down with it. Everywhere were demons, soldiers and people caught up in a wild mass of fighting and panicked escape.

The demon set out for a new attack. Arvid tensed, but at that moment the beast was felled by a mighty sword blow.

“Where have you been?” shouted the man beside her.

Arvid realized after a short moment of confusion that it was Nod. He had not only decided to act as a man again, but also managed to acquire a shield and a helmet.

Arvid did not respond, because another demon jumped straight at her. She gasped in pain as its claws scraped along her thigh. Hot anger flared up in her and with it the feeling of darkness. Two lightning-fast steps brought Arvid behind the attacker. With a forceful blow she rammed her dagger right through its back. The demon collapsed, motionless. Arvid tore the weapon back out with a violent jerk. For a moment she stared at the sticky, black blood on the blade, then she hastily looked for Nod.

“Have you found Loke?” she called out to him when she saw him next to her in the tumult.

“No,” he replied. “Try to find a safe spot in the center of the city. Now that the palisades are broken, the beasts are pouring in like moths toward the light!”

A deafening bursting and splintering caused them to reel around. Under a multi-voiced cry of the defenders a gigantic, black creature burst through the gaping breach in the timber wall, burying another portion underneath it. Arvid had never seen such a monster before. She knew instinctively that it had to be a Rock. Its body was massive and reminded her of an elephant, but the legs ended in powerful paws with sharp claws. The neck was short and thick, the head plump, wide and topped by huge, heavily curved horns.

With a sweeping blow the demon swept the defenders aside like cardboard cutouts, then it began to bite around with a deep, rumbling growl. Screaming, the fighters tried to bring themselves out of his reach, but the giant was faster and more agile than it looked. With a loud crash and rumble he jumped over the rubble of the palisades and battlements. He collided with a house, then went after the fleeing.

“Run to the city center!” Nod screamed at her. He turned and plunged into the midst of the chaos of black shiny beasts and doggedly fighting people.

Arvid did not take a single step. Stunned, she watched as a tall man in a red cloak jumped from the tattered remnants of the rampart stairs. “Lances over here!” he shouted. “Lances and spears to the Rock!” He hacked and struck with his sword after more of the little demons who began to circle him. No sooner had he reached the bottom than his words seemed to make a difference. Several fighters, armed with long spears, were trying to clear a way through the turmoil.

“Lances over here!” cried the man in the red cloak again. “Stay at its flanks! Go for the throat!”

From the corner of her eye Arvid suddenly saw a black hushed movement and spun around. Another demon tensed to leap. Arvid stared into the red glowing eyes of a Roker. They were like red-hot needles that stabbed deep into her soul. There was so much hatred, a deep, inexplicable pain and a roaring, burning lust for destruction. It was nothing that belonged to this world.

The demon jumped. Arvid dodged at the last moment; however, she stumbled over a corpse on the ground. She narrowly escaped a fall, but her knees scraped so hard along the paved ground, it brought tears of pain to her eyes. The darkness in her seemed to suddenly rise and completely enclose her like a wave of pure, exhilarating power.

The Roker froze in the middle of the air like a heavy sack. Arvid pushed herself up and drove her dagger so violently through the demon’s back that she could feel the backbone splinter. Twitching, the destroyed body fell to the ground. A surge of black blood spilled over the street, but the sight brought her no satisfaction. It only seemed to strengthen the feeling of darkness inside her.

She turned to the city gate, where chaos still prevailed and the Rock still raged like a force of nature. Arvid ran, driven by the almost unbearable flames of dark anger burning in her. She realized at a glance that the soldiers were no match for the huge beast. Several spearmen tried to approach the colossus, but almost as many of them the demon had wiped away or simply buried under its body. More and more scouts and Rokers pushed through the gap in the city wall and pounced at the defenders, who were desperately trying to fight them off.

The armored, scaly skin of the Rock seemed to be impenetrable. Its sheer size made the attackers’ weapons look like toothpicks. The man in the red cloak, apparently the commander, had armed himself with a halberd, but he shook hard and his leg was covered in blood.

Nod had been right, it shot through Arvid’s head. It was a bloodbath, caused by the world transition. All this happened because the old gods wanted to explore the limits of their power and had created something that they could not control. But none of them were here. It was the innocent people of Erendal who had to pay the price. The thought turned the darkness in her into an all-devouring inferno of wild, black flames. Arvid gave a wild cry and rushed straight at the raging Rock.

A Roker jumped at her from the side, but Arvid was furious and drugged with anger. Her hand twitched and hurled the demon away in a burst of light.

“Out of the way!” she shouted to the spearmen as she approached the Rock. The head of the monster jerked around. Its glowing eyes focused directly on her. It let out a loud roar, then it leapt forward and snapped at her with huge, curved teeth.

Arvid tore away from the flow of time and dived under the rapidly approaching jaws of the beast. Her hand shot up, directly towards the little protected neck. A deafening bang rang out. Everything was suddenly bathed in blinding white light. The explosion tore the huge scaled armor apart like thin paper and swept the colossus to the ground so violently that it slid and tumbled on for several meters, and simply dragged the demons behind it with it.

The Rock was instantly dead. His throat had literally been torn to pieces, and only consisted of smashed meat and tendons. A huge, gaping tear ran along its belly. The sight was abominable, but Arvid felt like in a dark trance. Neither the destroyed body nor the rapidly forming pool of blood could touch her.

As Arvid’s breathing calmed a bit down, she slowly looked around. The soldiers around had taken cover, frightened and blinded by the bright light. Most of the smaller demons had retreated or fled. As Arvid looked at the torn palisades, she knew that the battle was far from won, though.

The rocky terrain before the city was black with demons. A stone’s throw away the massive outline of another Rock loomed. Arvid doubted that it was the last one. She knew that the defenders could prevail over the smaller demons, but against those giant monsters they were almost helpless.

The commander seemed to have come to the same conclusion. He had fallen to the ground not far from her, staring at her in shock, but now pushed himself up on his halberd laboriously.

“Protect the goddess!” he shouted. “All fighters to me!” He grabbed his weapon with both hands and stepped toward the continuously approaching demons, although he was obviously in pain. “We can fight them back!” he shouted. “Hold the Rokers off the goddess!”

Amid the chaos the remaining defenders followed the orders of the commander with a breathtaking pace and precision. There was a surprising number, probably over a hundred armed men and a few women, who came running from all directions and opposed the assailants.

The defenders were actually trying to keep the demons off her. However, a short time after the battle had broken out again, Arvid once again found herself at the front of the group. The attackers were quickly driven back by the newly-formed defenders, back through the splintered wreckage of the palisades and out onto the rocky scree. Again and again new black scaly creatures stormed in on Arvid, but none of them reached her.

Loke’s training paid off now. The gift of time bending made it easy for Arvid to escape all the snapping jaws and flashing claws, and yet she never left the stream of time for more than a moment. She avoided the attackers, ducked away under their impetuous attacks and cut at the shiny black bellies and necks with her daggers. The demons she didn’t kill immediately fell victim to the two dozen armed defenders who were right behind her.

Arvid was still driven by the black flames inside her that lent her almost superhuman powers. Around her there was a sea of sounds, dull at times, then shrill and clear again, always following the solid flow of time. The flickering light of the transition seemed to have disappeared, but she was still surrounded by wild movement. Black, scaly bodies on either side of her, entangled in the crowd of defenders. Weapons and armor crunched and flashed, red cloaks fluttered in the icy wind. Then, all of a sudden, Arvid felt her strength beginning to wane.

The Rock towering above the crowd was barely a stone’s throw away from her, but the numbing feeling of weakness was too familiar to her to ignore. Part of her anger inexorably turned back into fear, and the numbing sensation of soothing darkness in her slowly disappeared.

Arvid stopped. With sudden, terrible clarity she looked at the chaos of battle and destruction around her. Although she tried to pull herself together with all her might, she was seized by an overwhelming fear.

“Back!” she heard the roaring voice of the commander somewhere behind her. “Get away from the Rock! Drive back the scouts!”

Arvid stared at the two daggers she was still clutching. Not only the blades, but also her hands and arms were full of sticky, black blood and another red, slimy substance that she could not place. Her hood had been torn from her head by the wind. One of her braids had partially come undone, so that strands of her dark hair fluttered around her face.

Suddenly, she was hit by a powerful blow and thrown to the ground with such force that she saw nothing but stars. Her head slammed into something hard, and at the same moment she heard a terrible roar. A terrible pain shot through her arm and made her cry out. She dropped the dagger, and only now she could see clearly again. A Roker had locked its jaws on her arm, but before Arvid could grasp the situation properly, the black beast was pierced by a sword and violently hurled down from her.

Someone held out a hand, and Arvid let him pull her to her feet. “We have to defeat the Rock, my lady,” the man said, panting, and Arvid realized that she faced Nod, who was barely recognizable under the helmet and a layer of dirt.

The droning roar of the Rock made them whirl around. She saw that some soldiers tried to keep the giant monster at bay with their lances. As before, their efforts bore little success. The gigantic head twitched around, and huge jaws closed around one of the men with a crash. He could not even scream before his body was crushed.