ached from the thunder. The dead shone red in the evil light, with blood on their rotting fists and great lipless grins.
The archers broke, overrun.
“Stand your ground!” Osric shouted, despite knowing they would neither hear nor obey.
The undead surged up the banks, half chasing after the archers, the other half curling around to trap the defenders upon the bridge. A handful charged directly for him, and he met them with his shield. Their slimy fingers reached, and he beat them back with chop after chop of his sword. He decapitated one, removed both hands from a second, and then slammed a third back down the bank, to where it rolled until it splashed into the water.
Too many remained. He felt one sink its teeth into his forearm, crunching the metal of his vambrace while simultaneously shattering its own teeth. Another shredded its own skin pulling on the top of the shield, its dead eyes staring at him. Hungry. Vicious. Unstoppable.
“He can’t win,” Qurrah cried behind him. At some point he’d fallen to one knee, yet he kept his arms skyward toward the storm. “You can’t let him win!”
Osric flung them back and then slashed wildly with his blade. He remembered what Qurrah had said earlier, and did his best to cut their necks or slam his sword through an eye socket and into the brain matter. Their fists beat against him, hurting even through his armor. He felt his flesh bruise under their assault. He tried to push, but his weight was off-there were too many. He fell onto his back, his shield pinned against him by putrid bodies. Too many…
“Be gone!” Qurrah screamed. He grabbed one by the wrist, igniting its rotting flesh. He waved a hand at another, flinging it back with an invisible force of magic. Two more died, their spines ripped out of their backs.
“No!” Osric yelled, smacking away the half-orc’s offered hand. “Them! Not me, them!”
He pointed to the bridge, where the red lightning was tearing through Theo’s ranks, killing tens at a time.
“I’m sorry,” Qurrah said, and Osric could barely believe the words he heard. “I couldn’t sit here…I couldn’t just watch as they killed you.”
Once more he lifted his arms, shielding the army. Shouts echoed over the sound of thunder, followed by combat far too close to be on the river. Half the army had abandoned the bridge and come to their defense. Steadily they pushed back the tide, forming a solid line along the bank at either side of the bridge. Osric cleaned his sword on the grass and then sheathed it. He thought to check his wounds but lacked the time. Qurrah’s arms shook with every breath, and his skin had taken on a sickly color paler than his normal shade of gray. The storm he weathered was incredible.
“Second wave!” one of the knights along the riverside shouted. A fresh surge of undead came roaring forth, gurgling the name of their deity. Osric wished he could join them, but instead he stayed before Qurrah, making sure none jostled or interrupted him while they rushed from the bridge to join the battle. More and more he wondered if the half-orc would endure. The lightning flared so bright it seemed a bloody sun had risen. The translucent shield shimmered and bent under the assault. Sweat ran down his face.
“I can’t!” he screamed, a cry of horrible despair.
Osric grabbed his shoulders and held him steady. “You will! You must!”
“Too much,” he said, his voice dropping to a whimper. “Please, I can’t. He’s too strong…”
And then the storm ceased. Qurrah collapsed into the knight’s arms. Osric held him, struggling to see in the sudden darkness. One by one the fires along the far bank faded and died. Trumpets signaled the retreat of the men on the bridge. They’d held, but for how long, he didn’t know.
“You’ve got another chance to recover,” Osric told the half-orc. “Just rest, relax. They’ve run out of tricks. How many dead you think we’ve killed? A thousand? Two? We’ve made our stand, Qurrah, and we’re not done yet.”
Qurrah laughed. “You haven’t even fought the demons.”
He lifted his hand, looped it around twice, and then pointed a single finger toward the sky. A soft ball of light shot upward, and after rising to the clouds, it exploded into a great flare.
“This darkness is no accident,” he said. Hundreds of winged silhouettes filled the air, rising from behind the army. Osric felt his blood chill, and then the flare died, hiding the war demons from their sight.
“Can we survive their attack?” he asked.
Qurrah glanced at him, then shook his head.
“Soldiers with wings, ancient armor, and skill beyond any man here? No. We won’t.” Osric felt despair, but then the half-orc clutched his wrist and used it to steady himself. “But it doesn’t matter. We’ll take as many of them with us as we can. You with me?”
“Until the end,” Osric said, and slapped the half-orc’s shoulder.
The defenders on the bridge saw the demons’ approach as well, and they braced their shields and wondered in what way they would attack.
“We’re vulnerable here,” Osric said, glancing at the archers. “What do we do?”
“Onto the bridge,” Qurrah said. “Hurry. Even the archers.”
Osric started shouting orders, motioning over any nearby knights he saw.
“To the bridge!” he shouted to them. “Hurry, we have no time. Get to the bridge!”
The men that had lined the water’s edge backed away, then stopped when another wave of dead emerged.
“Ignore them!” Osric shouted. He led Qurrah by the arm amid a great throng flooding the back end of the bridge. “Form up ranks. Protect the front lines!”
About half of them had made it when the demons arrived in a hail of spears. Some archers fired arrows in random directions, but most flung their bows down and rushed for safety. A few made it. The rest died as the demons flew low, their glaives sweeping down to slash their throats and cut off their heads. The undead curled around, now free to exit the water without difficulty. Steel rang out from the front lines, a fresh assault from Thulos’s human soldiers.
“Stay calm!” one of the knights shouted, trying to organize the defenses. Qurrah looked uncomfortable there in the center, with combat on both sides. There was hardly any room to breathe, but Osric did his best.
“They’ll seek me out,” Qurrah said. “Velixar will make sure the spells he casts reveal my presence.”
Men screamed as the demons made another pass, their long glaives slashing while they remained far beyond retaliation. Those at the sides kept their shields high, but the following wave dipped low, taking out their legs. Blood spilled across the stone and into the water.
Balls of fire hurtled in from the riverside, and Qurrah countered them with orbs of frost. Mere seconds from casting his spell, a spear thudded into the stone, missing him by inches. The half-orc, instead of appearing frightened, laughed at the night sky.
“Still alive!” he cried.
Velixar’s spells looped in, more fire and darkness that the half-orc countered. He seemed re-energized, though Osric feared it a last gasp, a second wind that would soon run dry. Demons scattered about, but in the darkness they were impossible to track.
“Can you give us light?” Osric asked him.
Qurrah was busy flinging bolts of shadow to counter similar bolts, and without missing a beat, he flicked his hand in a circle. Fire erupted along the tops of the massive supporting arches that lined either side of the bridge. In their light they saw the war demons circling like vultures. One was in mid-dive, and Osric flung his shield in the way. The glaive scraped off, and then they crashed together in a pile of wing and armor. Nearby soldiers hacked the demon to pieces and pulled the corpse off him.
“Thanks,” he said once he stood.
“Make way!” a burly man screamed from further up the bridge. “Make way for the king!”
The men parted, and a squad of five knights arrived carrying Theo, who bled from a vicious wound on his shoulder and chest. His armor had been split in half, and Osric shuddered to think what such a blow would have done if the protection had not been there.
“Osric,” one of the knights shouted, recognizing him. “At our side! We must protect him from these winged devils.”
“Come!” Osric said, grabbing Qurrah’s arm and pulling him amid the circle of knights.
“Get that wretch out of here,” said one at the half-orc’s intrusion.
