Queen of the Demonweb Pits

'Get down!'

On the battlements, the town guards flung themselves flat as a wave of spells shot upward from the onrushing hordes below. Lightning bolts smashed stone from the battlements and charred soldiers into ash. The Justicar pushed spearmen into cover, then whirled and cut an incoming lightning bolt clean out of the sky. Benelux shrieked, half in pain and half in exultation.

'Henry!' shouted the Justicar.

Henry had seen the enemy sorcerer. The boy slapped five bolts into his crossbow's magazine, took aim, and opened fire. The machine bucked in his hand, the magical bow blurring as it sent five shots hissing into the air. Down below, a drow sorcerer spun and screamed, pierced by three crossbow bolts and smashed to the ground. Henry reloaded, already picking new targets. Jus walked by, Cinders's tail swirling in his wake and the sword of light gleaming in his hand.

'Archers, pick your targets! Don't waste your fire! Kill the officers! Kill anyone who leads!'

The monsters down below had the same orders. An arrow sped up from below toward the Justicar, and he contemptuously swatted it from the air.

'Other soldiers, stay down! I want one man in three back at the stairs as a reserve!'

The Justicar strode the battlements, huge and powerful. His brilliant white sword steamed with blood, and the hell hound cresting his helmet leaked fire and brimstone from its fangs. Soldiers flung themselves into place along the battlements, and the Justicar shoved men to their stations. He caught a new soldier and spun the man around.

'You! Where are your officers for this section?'

'Dead!' Another man yelled over his shoulder, ducking a crossbow quarrel from below. 'Spider bites! There's black widow spiders in the barracks! Millions of them!'

Polk moved backward, tugging a heavy box of crossbow quarrels over to Henry. Jus looked out over the battlements and saw a land turned black with hell.

No inch of ground showed beneath the onrushing horde. There were tens of thousands of creatures down below-spiders, some the size of wagons, others no bigger than coins. Troglodytes, reptilian and stinking like pus, shambled forward. There were trolls and gargoyles and demonic shapes made from molten bone and spikes. There were creatures half spider and half flayed corpse who fought each other to be first to the city walls, leaping and screaming as they fought through the fields of mud. Giant spiders the size of war elephants strode amongst the rabble, and from armored cabins on their backs, lordly drow directed the attack. Whipping the wave forward, roaring in insensate lust for blood, there were the hideous shapes of tanar'ri demons. Darkness spells turned the world around them into night, while abyssal bats flapped like flayed corpses through the skies.

Spiders and drow. Jus cursed and flattened himself against the wall of a tower as the arrow storm began.

Lolth! Benelux seemed stunned. This is her doing! Benelux was shocked when the Justicar seemed undismayed. But we killed her! You defeated her. Good triumphed over evil!

'Evil begs to differ.' The Justicar made a practice cut with Benelux, the huge sword swirling like a toy in his hand. Jus had a sudden, clear vision of his responsibility for the invasion army down below.

Lolth. Coldly judging the enemy's rate of approach, the Justicar walked the battlements as a huge cloud of arrows flew up to smack and clatter from the city walls. Thousands of arrows fell down into the city streets, and the packed mobs living in the alleyways fought frantically to get into the shelter of the houses. Chaos broke out, and still the Justicar watched his enemy, unmoved. He cut another spider strand free, ducking back as a ballista bolt whipped harmlessly past his head.

'Polk?'

'Son? What is it, son? I'm busy here!' The badger had found a ballista crew, and was dragging spare ammunition over to them one bolt at a time. 'There's a million of them down there, son. It's gonna be a last stand! Fight to the finish, backs to the wall, and the last defender dies atop a slaughtered heap of foes! I've gotta get ammo up here, then find somewhere to seal our chronicles. They can be a message of hope, son. A guiding light to the brave souls who will carry on the fight once we're dead and gone!'

'Polk, stop planning suicide notes and find Escalla! We need sorcery up here right now!' The big man felt the darkness growing over the city, the gloom deepening into pure pitch black. 'Torches! I want torches on the wall!'

Henry wrenched a wounded man back out of the line of fire. He treated the soldier swiftly, tugging the arrow from him and jamming the wound closed with spiderwebs. Pale white with shock, the wounded man kept staring over the battlements.

'Th-there must be a hundred thousand of them.'

'Most of them aren't real.' The Justicar crouched, talking loud enough to be heard by the defenders all around. 'Cinders?'

The hell hound's red eyes watched the enemy and gave a feral gleam.

Front wave is illusion. Middle is real. Rear line is illusion.

'Only the middle wave is real!' the Justicar bellowed to the archers along the wall. 'Concentrate fire on the middle ranks! Be careful! There might be a few real ones mixed in with the phantasms!' The Justicar cursed. 'That still makes it forty thousand troops down there. She wants this city taken fast.' He yelled after Polk as the badger blundered down the stairs. 'Hurry, Polk! We need magic up here now!'

Henry had his crossbow reloaded, this time with venom on the bolts. He pulled his helmet strap tight and looked back at the Justicar.

'Here they come.'

The shock of impact seemed to make the wall shudder to its roots. Countless siege ladders thudded into place. On the walls, soldiers began to rise, until the Justicar shoved them straight back down.

'Get in cover and close your eyes! It isn't real!' The big man strode like a god of war, the black hell hound gleaming on his back, a sword made of white energy shimmering in his hand. 'Concentrate on dinner! What did you eat last night? How did it feel between your teeth? Every bite! Concentrate!'

A soldier scrabbled back from the wall as ringing screams filled the entire world. The Justicar stooped, grabbed the man by his armor, and slammed him back into his post.

'Where in the abyss are you going?' Huge with anger, Jus shoved his victim back in line. 'If you desert your friends, then you're one of the enemy! I'll kill you where you stand!'

Illusory monsters swarmed over the wall. The Justicar strode through the darkness, ripped by insubstantial claws. He passed through the monsters, laying a hand on the armored backs of the soldiers, forcing them to ignore the sorcery. As a real invader finally put a ladder on the wall, he reached over the battlements, snared the screaming goblin, and threw the creature straight down into the cobbled streets below.

'All right! Up! Now kill-kill them all!'

The soldiers surged to their feet as new scaling ladders thundered against the battlements. A screaming tide of monsters clawed against the city walls. Huge spiders climbed the stone, while demonic tanar'ri directed their slaves to scale the ladders in droves. Drow sorcerers wove a darkness black as pitch. Jus opened his arms and bellowed one of his own spells, and light spread out to rip into the darkness. In gloom lit with screams, lightning flash, and fire, the city guard met the first wave of attackers to crest their wall.

Swords crashed against goblin helms and lizard scales. Spiders clawed over the brink, rearing and stabbing fangs into warriors before being hacked to death by halberds. Henry fought in a surge of controlled panic, sheltering, reloading, then whipping over the wall to fire at the drow. Men lifted rocks, furniture, even water troughs ripped from the barracks and shoved them over the battlements to wipe entire ladders clean. Scaling ladders cracked and broke as boulders broke them from above. Falling monsters ploughed into their comrades and spattered in the mud.

The Justicar hung back with one third of the men, watching this one stretch of wall carefully. The soldiers fought in savage fury, swords and halberds butchering the monsters as they climbed the wall. Archers and crossbowmen fired in fast, professional rhythm. The soldiers had been hardened by decades of constant war, and the enemy was shocked by their sheer ferocity.

A chunk of wall shook as a spell thudded into it, and a choking cloud of gas made the defenders stagger clear. The Justicar took one look and waded forward, summoning his men.