The Exodus Sagas: Book II - Of Dragons And Crowns (49 page)

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Shinayne cut through the armor of another plate armored guard of Harlaheim, Carice doing its work clean into the ribs
and chest of the man as she deflected a rapier slash from another guard
with the shorter blade, Elicras.
Two more armored Harlian men charged her as she weaved her way through slashing steel toward the gate. The elven swordswoman ducked a rapier,
rolled under a whirling polearm blade, and spun as she stood. Her matched elven blades caught a rapier thrust intended for her chest and her crossed swords held the enemy weapon for a split second. Her eye caught the other three men moving after her to surround and she plunged her sword tips through the shoulderplates of her adversary and dropped to her back.
His fall forward with the elf was p
ushing the blades in deeper, Shinayne kicked her feet up and hurled her opponent as he screamed, his heavy armored weight launched over her and into two of the charging guards behind. Up on her feet in an instant, the elven noble spun Elicras across and down blindly, stopping the rapier of the third Harlaheim royal guard and followed
with the longer blade
through his unprotected neck. Kicking him to the ground as he gurgled to his end, Shinayne
looked across the courtyard
amidst the fiery explosions above on the wall, to match her timing with that of Saberrak the gray.
Three more guards with many more behind them marched toward the elven woman as she paused. Spinning her enchanted blades in her gloved hands and feeling their weightless perfection and balance, Shinayne smiled and breathed deeply. Centered and in perfect stance, she waited for Saberrak to move, to keep in step with her minotaur counterpart on the other side of the courtyard.

“Aaarrrggghhh!” the guard felt his shoulder rip from its socket as the hulking gray minotaur threw him like a bag of manure into the castle wall. His impact caused the wall to shake and several stones to chip and fall onto his armored body. Still alive, yet broken, the Harlian soldier
looked up from his numb position on the courtyard floor in the middle of a surprise battle. As he gazed to the darkening sky, the shadow
of the horned warrior
cascaded over him, as did the cleave of a greataxe into his chest.

His curved shamshir, taken from the Altestani vessel
over
a month ago, spun through the air and landed through the plate of another royal guard’s abdomen. Saberrak placed two hands on the shaft of his double bladed greataxe, lowered his shoulders and horns, and charged the mass of adversaries that stood between him and the gate. He saw the polearms lowered by half a dozen men in armor, ready to spear him as he ran in for the kill. The gray minotaur leapt into the air early, landed inches before the wall of blades and spears, and rolled low underneath them just as they had raise
d up in anticipation
. On his knees in the middle of more men than he could count, Saberrak whirled the greataxe through the mass of thighs and legs, severing the appendages of three armored H
arlians in one brutal
swing. He rolled again, over the blood splattered screaming men, then turned and stood to
charge again. Saberrak
could see the fear in the eyes behind their helmets and he saw the shaking on the long shafts that held the blades and pointed steel tips meant for his body.

His rage took over, his huffs and growls became louder and bestial, and he charged again. This time his leap over the long weapons was real, several of them cut through his steel scale armor, but he did not care. The axe swung down in mid jump, slicing the head of one of his opponents in two. The blood covered his axe and face as he landed on his feet right behind the terrified men of Harlaheim. Grabbing one of the polearms, the horned warrior slammed one of the men into another with
his brute strength and chopped down into a third with his axe, cleaving off an armored arm at the
shoulder. Another, another, and yet more
bladed spear
s
deflecte
d off of his armor, then one finally
stabbed deep into his thigh right below the scale protection. Saberrak bellowed in anger, not pain, and swung his axe through the enemy weapons which snapped easily from the sharpened blades and muscle of the gray minotaur. Before they could draw their rapiers, horns plunged into one guard, an axe into the other, and the last man standing in front of the raging gray minotaur felt his throat grabbed and crushed as blood poured from his mouth and nose.

The faint sound of charging horses, blended with more armored guards, yells from the elven woman across the courtyard, and explosions of fire mixed with screams of battle slowly brought Saberrak out of the bloodlust carnage he was buried in. He looked to the gate, dropped the
bodies he held in hand and horns, and ran for the gate. His leg was losing blood, almost as much as he had covered over him from the men he had killed. The gray hulking minotaur dropped his axe and hit the gate with such force that stone chipped and fell from the mountings above. He lifted the crossbars of solid iron, heaving with his legs, arms, and chest. Clink by clink,
heave by grunting bestial heave,
slowly the portcullis began to raise.
His eyes glowed blue, shimmering with illuminated mist. He felt no pain, none at all.

Shinayne saw the first horse charging from the barracks and knew that it was James without a second thought. Having a dozen men around her on the ground defeated by her elven blades and decades upon decades of training, the elven swordswoman charged across the courtyard to intercept the men that had
rallied behind Saberrak
. With only moments before the cavalry would reach the open gates held up by the minotaur, Shinayne realized that Saberrak would be speared in his vulnerable position as James led the men of Saint Erinsburg out to the field of battle. She dove across and under the reach of the weapons intended for the minotaur’s back. Facing five armored guards in close, the highborne elf dodged her head under two dealy stabs of the points, then ducked two sweeping cuts with the blades at the end of the long shafts the men wielded. She stepped back to avoid the fifth guard’s attack, then lunged forward and plunged Carice into the sternum of the sergeant in the middle as Elicras thrust into the neck of the man to his right. The screech of ancient steel through steel armor sparked and echoed as Shinayne withdrew her weapons and deflected
three more attacks meant for the minotaur holding the portcullis high. Her parries were perfect, yet the force of the two handed spear-like weapons against her blades
forced her back to back with Saberrak. Just as she cut again with short precise cuts in close quarters, the golden hilted broadsword of James Andellis cut through the back shoulder of one of her adversaries.

James kept his charge, ducking the portcullis spikes that the minotaur had raised above his head and heard the men behind him cut down the armored royal guard of Harlaheim that stood against his friends in the courtyard. Arrows loosed from the walls toward he and the uncounted men behind him on horse. Fiery cinders and explosions blasted the a
rchers
above him on the castle catwalks and battlements. Raising
his sword toward the purple sunset
in the east, with the charge of cavalry behind him, James lowerd his head and kicked his steed to full run. He saw a stone wall that had a mass of hundreds of cavalry and soldiers in front of it, and it was glowing with orange and red heat. Outnum
bered more than three to one
, the knight of Chazzrynn bravely charged the fie
ld to the aid of Lord Cristoff. Zen
and Gwenneth Lazlette
,
who were
standing their g
round against overwhelming odds, were barely visible in the close quarters of battle.

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Azenairk Thalanaxe lowered his shield after the soldier had struck it a third time and whipped his shoulder around. The warhammer landed dead center into the chest of the
soldier, knocking him out of breath as his sternum and ribs cracked, and he hit the gra
ssy ground with a thud and crunch o
f heavy armor. Zen rounded the summoned
wall
of arcane stone and heat
, two dozen men behind him, and came face to face with a scattered army of ca
valry and footmen four times that
. The dwarven priest raised his hammer, took a breath
next to the glowing wall that Gwenne had brought
to stop the direct charge, and noticed the gleam of a sword. He squinted his eyes to focus, and saw James on horseback some three hundred feet and closing with a line of cavalry with him. “The cavalry appro
aches from the castle, charge!”
Zen yelled over the chaos of battle enough for all to hear and ran into the opposing army.

The longsword pulled fre
e of the cavalryman as he and
horse toppled over to the side. Cristoff marched forward with his men into the th
i
ck heat of
battle. The Lord parried to his left and riposted with a slash across the chest to a charging soldier. Before he could step he raised his blade high to deflect another attack from a horseman charg
ing past. Lowering his guard, t
he veteran Lord of Saint Erinsburg chopped two thrusting rapiers in front of him, then cut across with a sweeping high arc, catching the flank of one of the two adversaries. He continued his turn, lowering his stance, and then cleaved the leg off of the second soldier below the knee and finished him with a downward stab
through the chest as he hit
ground. Pulling his sword free again from an enemy body, he looked to his remaining men and the charging cavalry led by James Andellis of Chazzrynn. Knowing that his men would not last much longer unless the Harlaheim army fully turned their attention to James, Cristoff looked to Gwenne behind the stone wall.

“Forget the archers! I need t
ime here on the field!” h
is enchanted armor boomed his voice over the deafening field of clamoring war loud enough for the barely guarded wizard to hear. Seeing her nod, Cristoff marched forward again with his remaining men and plunged his blade deep into a passing horseman.

“Herli asmandi guthrendi oohm
!” Gwenne Lazlette raised her staff, another of her Harlain bodyguards dropped from the cut of a p
assing cavalryman from the royal army
, leaving her with two. The staff glowed a brighter green from the gem atop it and deeper red from the runes
carved into the whit
e
ancient wood. The ground below the back half of the opposing army turned soft, like thick mud with no bottom, and the men and horses slowed, stumbled, and fell into the morass of what was solid cold ground a moment before
. “Guthar sesmandi hernoom!”
h
er voice echoed over the field as the soft ground full of a third of the enemy force began to scream and freeze. The ground had hardened moments after it had softened, trapping them and their horses in solid earth anywhere from ankle to waist.

Gwenneth heard the clash of the charge led by James mere seconds after the ground had become ground again, but then her two guardians fell to the blades of six soldiers that had made it past Lord Cristoff
and her spells
, leaving her surrounded and alone behind the battle.
The six soldiers, one of them a capitan by the crown and chevrons design on his armor, pointed their blades inches from the prodigal wizard.

“On your knees woman!” t
he capitan of the occupying army had seen enough of her arcan
e
power, but knew the king would want her as a prisoner.

“Very well, capitan.” Gwenne replied with a smile and a flash of her green eyes that matched the emerald flash from the top of the staff of Imoch in her hand.
Her body sunk into the ground as she empowered the staff to repeat the spell she had just cast moments earlier. The swords dove and slashed at her, but too late as she melded into the soft ground at her feet and disappeared. Suddenly, the hot glowing rock wall exploded near the center sending splinters of stone and heat and a veil of black smoke into the air. Gwenne stood amidst the rubble with her staff pointed toward the men and a menacing look on her face as her body rose into the air slowly. “Now, on your knees men!”

Just as they turned to charge, her hand tightened into a fist and a wave of translucent energy erupted from her hand. Bone breaking snaps, armor tearing force, and howls of pain flowed from the gasping throats of the soldiers and their capitan as they fell to their knees on the cold ground.
“Vishroon han valish!
” Gwenneth raised her palm and through the staff she grabbed six weapons from the nearby field of battle from the fallen. The array of polearms, spears, and swords glowed with a green acrid light and moisture as they spun with lightning speed into the air and plunged down into the helpless Harlian men
who lacked the power to move their broken legs. The weapons impaled them to the cold earth as the green acidic vapors choked them with every deep breath full of terrified scream they let out. The twitching overtook the screams and moans of the dying men, and Gwenneth turned with a twirl of her black robes to face the army on the other side of
the arcane wall of
smoldering
rock.
The
prodigal wizard concentrated on the staff once more, and a dozen swirling blades and weapons swirled around her and began to glow with orange flames
as she hovered into the foray. She had never seen power like she felt at this moment.