Heir To The Nova (Book 3) (33 page)

“Pull the wizards back to the curtain walls,”
Winya commanded.
“Iron Maidens, shields up. Guard your charges!”

By now, the swifter ghouls were attaining the top of our main walls. Most were being cut in half by Elsa’s warriors or skewered by the Maidens. I noted uneasily that the top of the walls must not have been spelled against undead, as it didn’t seem to be working up here. Maya and I killed several that veered our way.

More of the more mobile undead came up onto the walls, slowly driving the defenders back as more undead and demons poured over the ramparts.

“We need to get rid of those siege ladders, like right now!” I shouted.

“Agreed,” Maya said shortly. She ran to the back railing that overlooked the courtyard. “Hons! I need your earth wizards to try and break those things off my wall!”

“Yes, Ma am!” saluted the young Primus.

“Come on,” Maya winked. She sprouted her wings and diving off the wall, lifted above the battle effortlessly. We had attracted the attention of a couple of bat demons, but they fell easily to our weapons. Darting back, we hovered over one of the siege ladders leaned up against our fortification. Dropping softly onto the front parapet, I brought my hammer down two-handed on the spot where the ladder leaned, pausing first to kick a weird horned demon that looked like a legless moth off the battlements. Apparently very light, the impact sent it howling out away from the wall and all the way into the shallow edge of the river. But for every one I knocked off, there were five more charging up the ramp; strange malformed creatures, which had no rhyme or reason for looking like they did. Wow, the Lifebane must really be scraping the bottom of hell’s barrel for these winners.

Even my most energetic attempts at loosening the ladder’s grip on my wall were in vain. I could blow chips off it all day, but I needed to find a weaker spot. Maya came up behind me and touched me on the shoulder. “Alex, you need to take this thing out already. I’ll deal with the undead.” She did some impressive aerial flips with the aid of her wings, landing mere feet in front of me with her sword pulverizing the undead that were there.

Out of good ideas, I elected to go with the fallback, bad idea option. I fluttered up and over my dark elf holding the line against the invaders, and then came down in front of her on the down slope, cancelling the weight offsets on my armor. Immediately gravity seized me and, more importantly, my six thousand pounds of armor. With my wings still extended, I did a barely-controlled slide down the ramp, knocking off every demon, ghoul, zombie, and skeleton racing up the ladder. About halfway down, I slowed somewhat knowing that I certainly didn’t want to land in the mob at the base. Flipping my hammer over, I slammed the spike into the stone back of the now-deceased demon and watched with satisfaction as cracks spider-webbed throughout and, more importantly, across the ramp. I felt a deep rumble like stone grating on stone, and suddenly I was in free fall as the structure quickly collapsed, snapping neatly in half below me. A few decent wing beats and I was back up near my mate. We both watched the carnage below, as hundreds of attackers were crushed by the falling ladder bridge.

I hovered there for a few seconds while Maya dispatched the group that had clung to the rampart when the bridge dropped. I took a few moments to take stock. The air battle was going reasonably well, largely due to the bolt shooters and Dusk and Dawn’s efforts. But on the walls, it was another story. We had already lost high numbers of our dark elves and dwarf fighters. The Iron Maidens were taking up the slack, but just barely; and Higs was rushing our human contingents up the stairways to plug the gaps. Looking out, there seemed to be no end to the sea of bodies rushing to overwhelm our walls. Suddenly, four more of the infernal portals opened up beyond the river, and another phalanx of the centipede-like bridge demons crawled out, brushing the undead aside in their haste to cross the barriers.

“Four more are coming,” I shouted to Maya.

“Where the hell do they keep coming from?”

“You know you answered your own question, right?” I growled.

..................................................

Maya

The battle was not going well for us at all. Without the advantage of our massive walls for protection, we cannot hope to match the Lifebane’s nearly unlimited resources man-to-man. The tops of our walls were three and four bodies deep, be they demons, undead or our own defenders. It’s probably been no more than an hour since the first of the ladder demons tilted against our walls. But since then, it has been nothing but heavy fighting. Our people have fought gamely, but they were exhausted. Most were wounded in some form or another, and that’s when you made mistakes and when you die. Alera’s healers were diving in and out of close hand-to-hand to patch people up, but they were starting to falter and become glazed with fatigue. Even the Helios could no longer contain the demons to just the great wall. Small groups of attackers were starting to trickle down to the streets and alleys off the main courtyard, engaging our thin line of human reserves.

Alex and I tried desperately to get the dead ladder demons off the walls to give our people a break, but every bridge we destroyed was soon replaced by another. If this battle wasn’t ended soon, I didn’t think we would last much longer.

“
Maya, Alex, we’re needed at the front gate right away!
” Winya shouted in our minds.

Alex bashed a few last undead in our area and nodded to me that he was ready. Diving off the side of the walls, we quickly landed in the main courtyard with ease. I have to admit that wings have actually been very useful in these battles. They allowed Alex and me to quickly get to where we were needed in almost no time at all. However, that didn’t seem to matter much, we were still losing.

Sprinting to the front gate, we immediately found what the problem was. Something was bashing on the front gates…hard!

“Winya, I want everyone pulled off the main walls and out of the courtyards. Get them behind the secondary curtain walls. Now!”

Even as people started pulling off of the walls, the bashing on the gate intensified. But I noticed that the remaining Helios weren’t leaving like the rest were.

“Winya, why aren’t they pulling back?”

“
The dwarves won’t abandon their siege engines, and the Iron Maidens won’t abandon them, or you!”

Damn it all! “Form up around the ballista then and abandon the rest of the wall. You’ll spread yourselves too thin otherwise.”

“
Understood. You heard her, protect your ballista teams! Tempests, I want this courtyard cleared and locked down!”
Winya commanded.

Calimus appeared in front of us, seemingly right out of thin air. The cloaked man bowed formally. “It would be our pleasure, my Queen. It is our sworn duty to guard you; we will defend you to the last.”

Just as silently as he came, he departed in a cloud of darkness. I quickly risked a glance down the city streets to see what they were doing, and I was surprised to see several demons vanish in a haze of fluid movements and speed. Tempests were the true masters of the deadly dance; but still, there were only ten of them.

“Get ready,” Alex said, patting me gently on the back. I reluctantly pulled my gaze away from the Tempests and back to whatever was pounding on the front gates. The slams paused for a few extra moments as whatever it was wound up for one final strike. The walls and earth shook at the impact. The blow had enough force to crack and splinter the wood and steel supports and gear system that held the stone doors shut. One more smash was all it took for the massive beast to bash in the doors completely.

“So much for our impenetrable doors,” I quipped.

“Actually, I think the doors themselves are just fine; but we’ll definitely need to work on those hinges tomorrow,” Alex said seriously.

“You really think there’s going to be a tomorrow?” I asked. Of course, I couldn’t see his face behind his helm to tell if he was joking or not. Before he could answer, hell’s own honey badger smashed through the entrance.

It was easily thirty feet high at the shoulders with a hide made up of imbedded rock and gemstones woven into steel wool fur. Massive jaws and rows of triangular teeth in layers grinned at us mockingly. The beast had short stubby legs with steel claws that would make the twins envious and a short muscular tail. Just judging from the rippling musculature beneath its hide, this was one nasty creature.

Our portcullises might as well have been paper to this thing because I don’t think it even noticed the heavy iron bars. All it seemed to care about was finding us. The only advantage that I could see for us was that its small piggy eyes didn’t look that effective; it was probably more of a scenting beast.

Alex and I both easily avoided its first few attacks; simply back-stepping was all it really took. But the thing apparently had brains to go with its brawn, and it seemed to have our scent now. I fired crossbow bolt after bolt into its eyes and nose, but none of them seemed to affect it in the least. Even Alex’s hammer was only irritating it, and Winya’s sharpest enchantment just scored its hide; so we danced with the creature for a few minutes, dodging and lunging in to strike as best we could.

But I was tired and distracted and that made me careless. I had forgotten how close I was to the wall and when I tried to dodge again, there was no room to move. The beast’s tree trunk of a tail swung around with a vicious snap, propelling me across the courtyard and slamming me into something hard and unyielding. Even with my advanced armor, that hurt like hell; and I’m pretty sure I broke something, most likely a few ribs.

“
By the stars, that hurt!
”

“You’re not the one with the broken bones.”

“
True, but you would be dead if I hadn’t locked up the armor like that; and in case you have forgotten, I feel it too when our armor is hit.”

The clouds in my vision cleared, and I could finally start to get my bearings again. I had been slammed into the curtain wall, and a good portion of the first layer of rough hewn stone had fallen on top of me. Both my legs and my right arm were pinned under the rocks. Even with all my enhanced strength, I wasn’t nearly as strong as Alex and couldn’t lift these rocks with just one hand. My only option was to watch and hope my lover could survive without my help.

Alex had taken several hits by now; that armor of his is larger than mine and a lot more restricting. Used on a normal opponent, loss of speed from the armor would still allow him to run circles around them. But with this thing, speed doesn’t seem to matter; it’s sheer power.

Alex was forced to shield block another hit that sent him skidding backwards; but amazingly, he still stayed on his feet. My attention was diverted away from him again as something rustled at the edge of my vision. I looked over to see Rosa kneeling in the dirt at the edge of the stone rock pile about fifteen feet away.

“Rosa, what are you doing here?” I demanded. “You’re going to get yourself killed!”

The tall, thin elf paused absently for a few moments and then answered, “You two are my children, whether you like it or not. And I’m not going stand by and watch you both suffer like this. I might not be any good in a fight like you two, but I can still do my part.” She started to work an enchantment on the rock that had me trapped.

A sudden crash from the courtyard alerted me to more trouble. Alex had been hit hard by a lightning fast paw that sent him crashing through several oak support beams and into a nearby wooden building. With nothing else to entertain the demon, it went looking for something else to kill, and its deadly gaze fell on Rosa.

“Rosa, get out of here! That thing is coming this way!”

“Just a few more seconds!” Winya and I were forced to watch helplessly as the demon came closer. Then its mouth split open and I could see a vile green and black energy pooling in its throat. It laughed as it launched the green fireball directly at Rosa’s back, impacting right on target.

“Rosa!” I screamed as she was engulfed in smoke and flames.

“Silly girl, I’m not quite dead yet, you know.” The smoke cleared and there she was, in the exact same position that she was when she started.

“How…?” I stammered.

“You honestly didn’t think that Alex was the only one who came up with the idea to make enchanted clothing, did you? Besides, I also had this.” She brought out the amulet that Alex had made for her during the wizards tournament, and held it up for me to see. Oddly, moments later it turned to dust, leaving only an empty chain. “I guess that’s what he meant by it only having one shield…interesting.” Rosa concentrated a bit more. Finally with her enchantments done, the rocks lost all mass and floated off me like dandelion seeds in a light breeze.

I scrambled up and tested my arms. They still worked fine, but I had definitely broken at least one rib, if not more, and I was tasting blood in my mouth. Winya appeared in my hand again. “I need to help Alex.”

..................................................

Ryliss

“I need to help Alex!”

Lin and I just gaped open-mouthed at Julia. Throughout the battle she had been virtually silent. I had put it down to fear of battle; after all, she is the youngest and least prone to violence of the three of us. We were all watching from the stone parapets of the curtain wall that surrounded Sky Raven’s massive keep. Hons had ordered us here after we lost control of most of the main walls. From here, we could still see pockets of Helios valiantly defending the few remaining ballista teams up there, but there were now more demons racing across our walls than our people.