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.’
Liandra smiled humourlessly, and peered through the nearest embrasure.
Dust and smoke rose up from the corpse of Oeragor. The gatehouse was now a gaping scar through which marched an endless stream of dwarf warriors. A few islands of resistance remained – clusters of asur defenders holed up in towers or rooftop terraces.
Even as she watched, a griffon-rider swooped on an advancing column of axe-carriers. The huge beast crashed among them, lashing out with claw and beak. Its wings beat ferociously, sending dozens of dwarfs staggering backwards. For a while its lone assault chewed through the oncoming warriors, crushing those within its grasp, flattening others rushing to help. Eerie shrieks of anger rose up above the howl and holler of the battle, a single voice of defiance amid the wreckage of the city.
Then, slowly, the volume of warriors around it began to tell. Liandra watched
