David Dalglish - The Death of Promises

Lathaar reached the end of the gateway and stared out at the giant mass sent to kill them. The orcs glared and howled, but dared not move. The paladin raised his swords high, and he laughed despite the blood that soaked his armor.

“Is this the great army of Karak?” he shouted. “Is this the legion that will wipe life from this world?”

His words carried, and one man amid the host of orcs heard and was made furious.

“That damn pally just won’t die,” Krieger spat on the ground and drew his scimitars. Beside him, Carden drew his giant sword and watched the black flame surround it.

“Leadership through action,” the old man said. “Let us show our brethren the strength of Karak.”

Side by side the two dark paladins pushed their way through the orcs, the flame of their weapons filling all who saw it with fear.

T his is it?” Harruq shouted as he slammed the body of a hyena-man against the wall. Condemnation hacked off his head. Meanwhile, Salvation buried deep into the gut of another. The creature yipped and clawed the air. A twist of the sword finished it. All around him, men with shields charged forward, slashing at their enemies before falling back. Only Harruq remained where he stood, a bloodied behemoth towering over them. Claw marks marred his face and covered his arms, but their pain was insignificant. Side to side his swords swept, his long arms covering every inch of the gateway’s width. His swords glowed brighter from the blood that stained them.

The orcs were the only thing keeping the hyena-men fighting. Many tried to turn and flee, but a wall of flesh and swords pushed them on. Many never even fought back as Harruq slaughtered them. He didn’t care. He felt no guilt. His home was under attack, and he would defend it. Two claws slashed across his cheek. He tasted blood. In return, he slashed out the creature’s throat and spilled its intestines along the gore-slick ground. Another leapt onto his swords just so he could bite his neck. The others charged, thinking him vulnerable. Harruq screamed, louder and crazier than the dying hyena-man. He flung him away, his vision red and his pain distant. Those that thought him vulnerable found their claws cut from their hands, their teeth smacked from their jaws, and their lives rent from their bodies.

“Pull back, brute!” Sergan yelled to him from behind the wall of shields. “Pull back before you get your sorry ass killed!”

The half-orc kicked a body off his sword, knocking down two more behind it. He roared out in mindless primal fury. Soldiers stormed past him, locking together their shields so Sergan could grab and pull him further into the city. Harruq pushed the general back and walked inside, wiping some gore away from his eyes with his thumb. When he neared Tarlak and Aurelia, he sheathed his swords.

“How many?” Tarlak asked.

“Lost count,” Harruq said. The ground suddenly shifted on him, as if it was rumbling and bumping, but he was the only one to drop to his knees while the others looked on. He heard the other two talking, but their voices were strangely distant.

“He’s lost a lot of blood,” he heard his wife say.

“I’m fine,” he said.

“Where’s Calan?” Tarlak asked.

“I said I’m fine!”

The half-orc staggered to his feet and drew his swords. He knew it was morning, but the sky was darker, the city dark as well.

“We need more time,” Aurelia said. She ran to the gate, lightning crackling on her fingertips. Tarlak pulled on the back of Harruq’s armor. He tried to resist, but the ground betrayed him again. Salvation and Condemnation fell from his hands. The wizard sat down on his knees in front of him and took off his hat.

“Drink this up like a good little boy and we’ll let you kill more baddies, alright?”

Tarlak pulled a vial out of his hat like a petty magic trick. He popped the cork off the top, pried open Harruq’s lips, and shoved the silvery liquid down. The taste reminded him of somewhere, but he couldn’t place it…couldn’t…

He slipped into unconsciousness, still trying to remember.

A urelia watched as the last of the hyena-men fell to the swords of the Neldar troops. Orcs tried to drag away the dead, but the archers above fired volley after volley. The piles of bodies grew larger. In the momentary reprieve, Aurelia stepped just inside the shield wall.

“Kneel down,” she said. Sergan, recognizing her for who she was, ordered the front to their knees. “Keep them off me,” she said as she began her spellcasting. She had a small window in between the shoulders of the men to either side of her. She’d have to be careful. The orcs funneled into the gateway, ready to bury them in their numbers.

A bolt of lightning tore through their center, killing seven. A second took five more. Her hands stretched over the men’s heads, and from her fingers flew a hundred arrows of fire. Those that avoided her spells hurled their bodies at her, but the soldiers had seen her power. Three shields pelted one orc’s body as he tried to hack off the sorceress’s fingers. Another had two swords pierce his belly and hold him back as Aurelia flung a ball of fire through the gateway and into the mass of orcs. It exploded over fifty feet in diameter. Orcs shrieked and died.

“Roast ‘em!” one shouted beside her. The elf smiled amid her concentration.

“Sure thing,” she said, ten black orbs dripping from her fingers. She flicked her hands, and the orbs flew into the charging orcs. Each orb exploded when it struck flesh or armor, engulfing the hapless victim in fire. Faster and faster her spells came. She hurled a ball of ice over the wall, crushing two poor orcs underneath. Magical arrows buried into gray throats. Lightning blasted huge lines of them to the ground, but still they came. The soldiers pushed them back, one even flinging his arms in front of an axe strike so the elf could complete her spell.

“There’s too many!” Sergan shouted to her.

“Trust me,” Aurelia said. Her head pounded, her back ached, and her fingers felt made of lead. “I know!”

She made a ripping motion with her hands. A wall of fire stretched from the ground to the top of the city’s outer entrance. She cast the spell again, forming a second barrier of fire on the inner side. A few orcs howled as they were pushed into the fire to test its strength. Blackened and dead, they rolled out the other side.

Aurelia grabbed the shoulders of the nearest man and pressed her head against his chest. With eyes closed, she tried to gather her strength. She had used so much magic, it felt as if her eyes would melt out of their sockets and blood would seep from her ears.

“Well, hello,” the man said. “Always knew I’d sweep you off your feet one of these days.”

She opened her eyes to see the soldier she had collapsed against was actually Tarlak.

“Comfy?” he asked with a grin.

“You sure know how to ruin a good thing,” she said, pushing away from him. “Did you find Calan?”

“Aye, I did,” he said. “And I must say, they know how to have fun.”

Aurelia raised an eyebrow, but the wizard just shook his head.

“Either you’ll see it or I’ll tell you about it later. For now, how are things here? Nice fire walls, by the way.”

“We’re holding,” she said, rubbing her eyes with her fingers. “But once you and I are exhausted, and Harruq’s bled out every bit of strength he’s got, what then? They’re so many…”

“At least we have the archers,” Tarlak said.

“Yeah,” she said. “At least.”

V elixar said not a word as he watched the assault progress. Qurrah found it difficult to read his face, for every second the chin shifted higher, or the cheeks sunk lower, or the eyebrows changed color. His anger, though, was loud and clear.