Tom Lloyd - The Dusk Watchman
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- Название:The Dusk Watchman
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- Год:неизвестен
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- Рейтинг книги:4 / 5. Голосов: 1
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The hilltop was close to flat, but at its very centre the ground rose up in an approximate circle around the great carved monoliths. More defenders were stationed there: Ruhen’s final line, protecting the entrance to the barrow. From where he stood Vesna could see they were heavily armoured, an elite troop standing with shields locked and weapons ready. There were no archers among them, and for a strange moment Vesna felt a sense of calm: the faint breath before the storm returned.
They had scattered entire divisions. King Emin and his close guard were still fighting in the wake of the Legion’s dwindling but inexhaustible troops. Daken and Vesna, the point of the spear, had driven right through the enemy.
Vesna turned back the way they had come He gasped in horror: the disordered, unarmed mob of Ruhen’s Children had swamped the legions left to protect their centre. One whole side of the square had been engulfed, and even as he watched the rest folded in on themselves.
‘ There is magic on them,’ Karkarn whispered in his ear, ‘ the touch of Aenaris.’
Vesna shuddered. Whatever Ruhen’s Children were now, they had just overrun and crushed several legions of battle-ready soldiers. ‘This is Ruhen’s tactic — he’ll break us from the rear,’ he cried to Daken, then roared, ‘Ozhern!’ his voice amplified with unnatural power, but he received no response from the commander of the Legion.
He ran towards the nearest of the Damned, the Crystal Skull he carried pulsing with warmth. He reached out a hand and grabbed at the air, the flicker of Karkarn’s spirit inside him obeying his unspoken command. The undead mercenary jerked around as he was yanked bodily through the air and hurled towards Vesna, driving his spear into the ground to catch his balance as he hit the earth. Tattered hair fell across the dead man’s face as the weapon was tugged out of the ground.
‘Look!’ Vesna yelled, feeling the War God again stir inside at the mercenary’s hostile poise. He pointed, and after a moment the undead warrior turned towards the rout at the base of the hill, then jerked back towards Vesna with a flash of understanding. In the next moment the entire remaining regiments of undead had broken off and were barrelling headlong down the slope.
‘Emin!’ Vesna yelled, ‘get the regulars to turn and attack them, Kingsguard too!’
The king turned too, visibly startled, by what he saw there. At his side Dashain, one arm hanging limp and useless, barked orders to a captain of the Kingsguard.
‘My mage is dead,’ Emin shouted back. ‘I cannot contact them!’ He cast around for a few moments, then yelled, ‘Legana! Order our regulars to withdraw and engage the centre!’
The Mortal-Aspect stood amidst a pile of corpses, long-knives bloody and an aura of emerald light shining about her. She glanced at the spear legions just starting up the lower slope before returning her piecing gaze to their direction and gesturing: it was done.
Vesna didn’t wait; it would take them a while before anyone was able to react to the orders. Shoring up the rear would mean nothing if they couldn’t break through this final defence and reach Isak in time. Daken had already set off towards the standing stones and Vesna fell in behind the white-eye, realising what the man intended. The blossoming taste of magic filled the air and he hesitated, for a moment not sure if it was Litania, Daken’s own Aspect — but the power far exceeded hers. With a thought he threw out a wild, unfocused mass of energies, just as two enormous detonations crashed down on his shield.
The impact stopped him dead and he rocked back on his heels. The blistering shield above them exploded into a shower of sparks. From behind him he sensed Legana hurling something in response, and the sky turned emerald as she lashed at the standing stones. He gathered his wits and moved on, struggling to catch up with Daken, who was ploughing on regardless. With an effort he threw up another shield around them, a haze of sparks obscuring the hunkered soldiers ahead of them, but in the next moment he realised it was not necessary.
From the standing stones a figure rose up in the air, four fat crackling bands of light driving into the ground beyond the soldiers. He glimpsed a robed figure wreathed in fire, a slender man with white-blond hair, moving away from Vesna towards the rocky back slope of the hill. With Larim dead and two Mortal-Aspects advancing on him, the mage who’d grabbed the dead Menin’s Crystal Skull knew he was outmatched. He was no fanatic, he had no desire to die for his master, so he withdrew, dropping behind the defending soldiers, leaving them to their fate.
Daken, half-crouched behind his shield, charged with a roar as Litania’s trails of blue light reached out to the waiting spears. Vesna stopped and channelled the energy of his own shield towards Daken, throwing the force behind him just as the white-eye reached the line of defenders. Blue sparks burst on the waiting spear-heads, their shafts shattered into splinters and leaving only unarmed men in his path.
Vesna pushed forward and the white-eye was bodily thrown into them, crashing right through the overlapping shields and scattering soldiers left and right.
With Doranei and Forrow as his side, Vesna raced to the breach before the defenders had even worked out what had happened. He cut through the first man and beheaded the next. Doranei turned the other way, attacking the right-hand side of the hole with long, sweeping blows of his star-speckled sword, while Forrow went in after Daken, roaring as though possessed by the mad spirit of his predecessor.
In their wake came the Ghosts, breathing hard but far more skilled than anyone they faced, and close behind came the swift Sisters of Dusk, spreading out around the ring of soldiers while the Ghosts attacked from within. Vesna found himself on flat pavestones, beyond the main line of Devoted, and a Harlequin leaped forward, twin swords whistling through the air. He caught one on his own blade. The other hammered into his pauldron, but the God-blessed armour turned it. Before he could counterattack, the Harlequin had peeled away and was dancing towards a Ghost. He slashed down at the back of the man’s knee and the Ghost faltered, crying out in pain, but he never even had the time to fall before he was spitted in the side. Vesna whipped a fistful of sparks towards the Harlequin, but the figure jinked to the side with inhuman speed. He lunged forward and was parried, but this time Vesna charged on and crashed bodily into the Harlequin. A blade scraped down his armoured side, and then he had driven it from its feet and they fell together, Vesna’s greater weight driving the wind from the Harlequin’s lungs as he landed on it. He head-butted it, and the white mask it wore shattered and fell away as Vesna stabbed his sword into its belly.
The Harlequin spasmed and cried out, its voice high and feminine, and Vesna felt a jolt in his gut at the sound. He looked down and saw a woman’s small features, her face contorted by pain. He hesitated, even as she moved, stabbing the point of her sword into the joint of his armour and driving him off her, his sword tearing out of her gut in a great spray of blood. For a moment they lay side by side, staring into each other’s eyes, and then a boot stamped down on her neck.
‘Get up, you bastard!’ Daken roared, turning as he shouted to swat away a spear with the butt of his axe. He brought the weapon back around and chopped down into the Devoted soldier attacking him, dropping the man with a crunch.
Vesna felt a sharp pain in his side as he fought his way unsteadily to his feet, and then he felt Karkarn invade his mind quite suddenly, and gasped as the War God turned a weapon and cut clean through a man’s arm. The cold, clear soul of a God washed away the grief threatening to consume him.
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