David Dalglish - Blood Of Gods

“Uh, Patrick?” he heard Preston say.

“Yeah, this isn’t good,” Patrick replied.

They retreated back toward the center as the wrapped women barreled over the suddenly motionless undead. They made no sound as they charged, but it didn’t matter, for whatever noise they might have made would’ve been swallowed by the war cry of Karak’s soldiers. They stampeded down the road in front of Ashhur’s brave warriors, a massive wave of flesh, armor, and sharpened steel, while another division simultaneously assailed the rear of the convoy, which was still wrapped around the corner on the main road. The clash of steel and the screams of dying men overtook all else. Patrick, his heart beating a mile a minute, snapped his head around, staring at the wall and towers of Veldaren’s castle. Only two hundred yards at most separated them, but it could not have seemed farther away.

All the while, Ashhur remained on his knees and hunched over, screaming in pain.

Patrick glanced at Preston. “Forward!” he shouted, holding Winterbone out before him. “Never stop moving! Head for the castle!”

The Turncloaks, as well as a small group of Ashhur’s children and Wardens, heeded his call. Twelve horses and thirty men on foot fell in behind Patrick as he urged his stallion through the road’s cramped confines. All around him was commotion as the wrapped women leapt and stabbed and hewed, sending geysers of blood into the air. Fortunately for those from Paradise, given how tightly they were bunched and the borrowed armor they wore, more attackers fell than defenders.

That close proximity and armor would mean nothing once Karak’s soldiers met their ranks, however. And they were approaching fast, the whole screaming lot of them. Patrick finally reached the front of the line to find Ahaesarus, no longer on horseback, trying to organize the terrified men who formed the front line. Half of them had no shields. There were undead here too, standing still, wavering, and useless for anything but a simple obstruction.

Patrick tossed his shield to one of the men without one. “All of you, do the same!” he shouted to his ever-growing squad. One by one they handed over their shields to the men forming the barricade. “And any of you who wish for a good death this day, follow us!” A few chose to line up behind him, but most simply knelt there, shivering behind their shields. A couple of them even tried to scurry back away from the front. Patrick turned away quickly before he snapped at them. The Master Warden could handle the cravens. He had better work to do.

“Onward!” he shouted, kicking at his stallion. He took off at a gallop, knocking aside bunches of stagnant undead and charging straight for the onrushing soldiers. The Turncloaks fanned out to either side of him. Pikes and shields were raised, but that didn’t slow either party’s advance.

Patrick crashed into the first row of soldiers, barely turning his body to the side fast enough to miss a lunging pike. His stallion hollered in pain as the animal was battered by a soldier’s hardened steel, but it pressed onward, urged on by his commands. From atop the beast Patrick brought Winterbone down again and again, cleaving through armor, batting aside enemy blades, slamming those who tried to yank him from the saddle with his elbows. And still he kept yelling, “Hyah!” to keep his stallion pushing forward.

The unified cry of a thousand souls broke above the din of battle, and Patrick kicked a man in the face and turned around. It seemed Ahaesarus had decided a new strategy was necessary. Instead of waiting to be run through by the enemy, the massive throng of Paradise’s defenders had followed Patrick’s lead, hurtling past the dormant undead and into Karak’s soldiers. Bodies collided, steel crashed. It was absolute pandemonium.

Whirling back around, Patrick continued onward, determined to reach the castle walls. He fought the urge to check on the location of his mates; that would only slow him down. He kept bringing his sword down again and again, the muscles in his powerful arm singing with strength. Men died by the score, their flesh torn asunder, their armor no match for Winterbone’s gleaming edge. He sat high above it all, dishing out death in the name of Ashhur.

“DuTaureau!” he heard Preston’s voice call out from somewhere amid the chaos. “Horsemen!”

Patrick lifted his head and saw at least two hundred men on horseback appear from a pair of alleys on the right side of the road. They galloped toward him just as arrows began to fly from above, descending into the mass of humanity far behind him. He glanced up at the rooftops, only instead of disheveled women, he saw tall, elegant beings up there, launching arrow after arrow with quickness he had never seen before. Elves, he thought. Great. Patrick turned away from the sight of them, slashed through the helm of a soldier wielding a giant hammer, and charged toward the horsemen.

He never reached them.

A solid blow took his stallion out from under him, and the animal screeched as it toppled sideways, crushing two soldiers. Patrick fell from the saddle, landing solidly on a group of men, armor clanking. He rolled, avoiding stomping boots and plunging blades, before swiftly getting to his feet and pitching backward. A soldier’s face was crunched by his armored hump, and he snarled as two more soldiers turned to face him. He went to lift his sword, but it was snagged behind him somehow. One of them got in a good swing, his sword catching Patrick on the vambrace and sending a shudder through him that rocked his shoulder, but the other one didn’t attack. Instead, his eyes bugged out of his skull as the pointy end of a spear ejected from his neck. His blood splattered against Patrick, who freed his sword and ran it through the first man. He felt someone closing in from behind and whirled around, Winterbone leading. His blade met Preston’s with a resounding clang .

The old Turncloak grinned. “Not today, my friend.”

Patrick nodded. The two of them swiveled at once, their swords unlocking, and began scything their way through the soldiers. Sharp edges found gaps in his armor, opening what felt to be a hundred tiny cuts all over him, but he didn’t care. He noticed many others wearing the white-painted armor of Ashhur’s legion behind him, including most of the Turncloaks, and grinned. His people were with him. He could ignore his pain so long as that was the case.

When the horsemen entered the fray, crashing through their own brethren as if they didn’t care about their lives, Patrick went back to work. He sliced at the horses’ legs and sides, severing tendons and spilling intestines. His men followed his lead. Many of the horses toppled over, tipping their riders into the melee. After felling yet another horse, nearly severing the beast’s head with one massive hew, Patrick spun around and was almost run down. He fell straight backward, slashing out to the side with Winterbone at the same time. The blade cut through the horse’s front leg, snapping the bone and separating it just above the ankle. The horse crashed head over heels. Bones crunched, and more men screamed.

Someone helped him back to his feet, and then he felt himself being shoved from behind, carried along by his men’s rush. He bounced off soldiers, punching and stabbing at them, until finally he fell forward into open space. He tumbled, smacking his cheek on bloody cobbles, jarring his neck in the process. But there was no time to wallow in his pain. He shot to his feet, ready to face his next challenge, only to see that he now stood a mere twenty feet in front of the castle walls. There was nothing but the slate walk between it and him-no soldiers, no horses, no wrapped women, nothing.

He’d made it.