Chris Wraight - Master of Dragons

The melee sprawled onward across the ruined gates, a desperate pack of grappling, thrusting and stabbing. The elves gained the initiative, and their charge carried them under the shadow of the gatehouse. Helped by the steady torrent of arrows from the walls, they pushed the dwarf vanguard back out into the sunlight.

Kelemar drove onward, nearly decapitating a dwarf with a vicious backhand strike. Swords whirled on either side of him, spun and thrust with disciplined speed. The counter-attack pressed out further. More dwarfs piled into the breach, charging out of the dust like iron ghosts.

They seemed to fear nothing. They didn’t move as fast as his own fighters and their reach was far less, but every blow was struck with a heavy, spiteful intent. Kelemar saw his troops begin to take damage — bones smashed, armour dented, swords shattered.

‘Hold here!’ he bellowed, hoping they could drive the dawi back far enough for the engineers to erect some kind of barricade across the shattered doorway. He pivoted expertly, using his bodyweight to propel his blade across the chest of another dwarf, biting clean through the chainmail and into flesh beneath.

It was only then that his gaze alighted on the dwarf beyond. This one was taller than the others; broader, too. His armour was all-encompassing, lined with gold and covered in blood and dust. He strode into battle with a dour, heavy tread, a huge axe gripped two-handed. He didn’t roar his contempt like the others; he just waded silently through the throng around him, striking out with chill deliberation.

Kelemar rushed to engage him, seeing he was the linchpin and knowing he needed to buy more time. He closed in, throwing a wild swipe across the dwarf’s right pauldron.

The dwarf met the strike with his axe and the two weapons rang together, resounding like bells as the metal bit. Kelemar’s arms recoiled; it was like hitting an anvil.

The dwarf counter-swung, aiming for Kelemar’s midriff. Kelemar got his sword in the way — just. He staggered backwards, aware out of the corner of his eye that his troops were beginning to take a similar beating.

The counter-charge was faltering. Kelemar pressed forward, whirling his blade around to where it could be slid into the dwarf’s gorget. The manoeuvre was done well, as quickly as he had ever done it.

It was too slow, though, and too weak. The dwarf thrust his body into the blow, hurling his axe-head savagely upwards. Kelemar’s blade was ripped from his grasp by the viciousness of the dwarf’s strike.

Bereft of options, Kelemar grabbed a dagger from his belt, aiming for the dwarf helm’s narrow eye-slit. By then the axe-head was already sweeping back, careering through the air two-handed. Kelemar didn’t even feel pain as the edge cut deep into his chest; only seconds later, as his innards spilled out across the dust, did the raw agony bloom up within.

Kelemar fell, coughing blood, eyes staring sightlessly at the dark runes on the dwarf’s axe-blade. If he’d had any self-awareness left he might have consoled himself that to fall to such a master-crafted blade was no shame; he had stood no chance, not against a weapon forged to take down the mightiest of living beasts.

His head cracked against the hard ground, just as those around him fell to the remorseless advance of the dawi vanguard. He didn’t see the ladders finally find their purchase on the ramparts above, nor the last of the gate-doors kicked aside, nor the first rank of knights beaten back into the breach.

For a while the dwarf who had slain him stood over the corpse, as if ruminating on the kill. His axe dripped with blood, his breastplate and gauntlets ran thickly with it.

Then Morgrim Bargrum lifted his head, pointed Azdrakghar through the ravaged gatehouse, and broke into his stride once more.

‘Khazuk!’ he roared, at last joining in the wall of noise created by his war-hungry warriors. ‘ Khazuk! ’

Liandra hurled another flurry of star-bolts into the advancing knot of dwarfs before retreating further up the stairway. The front rank collapsed in a burst of crimson fire, their armour cracking and splitting. Dwarfs tumbled down the steep incline before toppling over the stone balustrade and down to the dust below.

More quickly arrived to replace them. Uttering grim dirges to their ancestor gods, the dawi advanced remorselessly. They stomped their way up the stairs, helm-shaded eyes burning with fury.

Liandra fell back again, already summoning up more aethyr-fire. Her palms were raw, her breathing ragged. The watchtower she’d been aiming for loomed up at the summit of the open stairway. Ahead of her, past the square at the stairs’ base, was a scene of pure destruction. She could see dwarfs crawling all over the city’s multi-layered thorough-fares and bridges, slaying at will, driving the remaining defenders back into whatever squalid last stands they might be able to muster.

The battle for the walls had been a nightmare — a doomed attempt to hold back whole battalions of implacable attackers. They had clambered over every obstacle, destroyed every barricade, surged up a hundred ladders and demolished entire stretches of wall with their damned stonebreakers.

She had no idea where the other mages were. She’d seen one of them dragged down into the rubble after a wall-collapse, his screams lingering thinly before being suddenly cut off. After the gatehouse had been taken the order had come to abandon the outer perimeter and fall back towards the central tower, but the retreat had been anything but orderly. Blood was everywhere, splattered against the hot stone like a gruesome mural.

Somehow Liandra had made it to the centre of the city, fighting the whole way with her ever-diminishing band of defenders. The Caledorians with her had fought well but they were hopelessly outnumbered. The watchtower was her last refuge — a squat, four-sided building at the summit of the wide stairway, still occupied by archers and with the emblem of Tor Caled hanging limply from the flagpole.

She retreated further up towards the doorway, now less than twenty feet away, her robes ripped and her staff spitting sparks.

Closer to hand, the dawi clustered once more at the base of the stair, ready to pile upwards towards the tower. Liandra slammed her staff on the ground before her.

‘ Namale ta celemion! ’ she cried, angling the staff-point and dragging more aethyr-energy from the sluggish winds of magic.

A nest of crimson serpents crackled into life, spinning from the tip of her staff and flailing outwards. Liandra swung the staff around twice before hurling the writhing collection down at the dawi labouring up the stairs.

The snakes scattered across the foremost, clamping on to the joints of their armour and burrowing down like leeches. They snapped and slithered as if alive, their unnatural skins blazing with arcane matter.

Liandra didn’t wait to see if that would halt them — she knew it wouldn’t for long — but turned and scampered up the last few steps. A few dozen guards held the doors open for her.

She slipped inside, heart thudding, feeling the trickle of blood running down her forearm.

‘Brace it,’ she ordered curtly. Soldiers around her hefted the heavy wooden bars into place.

She pressed on, running up more stairs, a tight-wound spiral that ran up the interior of the watchtower. As she went she passed rooms with archers crouched at the narrow windows. They looked low on arrows, and some were already turning to their knives.

At the top level she joined a disconsolate band of swordsmen, all of them streaked with grime and gore, their robes dishevelled and armour cracked.

‘Who’s in command here?’ Liandra asked, limping over to the outer parapet.

Several of them looked at one another for a moment, as if the idea of ‘command’ belonged to a different age, before the tallest of them replied, ‘You are, lady.’