Cendel had never seen the stakes used before. A part of him anticipated the spectacle, while also fearing having to resort to the measure.
Cendel leant forward in a quick half-bow before racing back to the seawall. He dropped his bow and grabbed a sword from one of the many weapons racks positioned along the streets.
The Akurai ships dropped their anchors into the water. Their ships began turning on the spot so that they floated parallel to the seawall.
Cendel thought he heard a flock of birds flying overhead in the dark.
Nope. Another volley of arrows.
More Imperial ships smashed into the seawall in a similar manoeuvre.
Cendel heard shouts as he climbed the stairs, pulling out his sword.
“Ladders!”
“They’re climbing up!”
The Imperial soldiers lifted ladders, the bases of which were mounted on the ship decks. Others tossed barbed grappling hooks, snagging them in the gaps along the battlement.
Cendel shuddered upon seeing the menacing spiked helmets rise from the void as the towering Akurai soldiers scaled up the wall.
The Port Denarim soldiers attempted to hold them back and push them off. The Akurai soldiers, broad-shouldered, heavily armoured, and easily a foot taller than the defenders on average, climbed over the battlements with surprising ease.
Cendel hurled himself into the fight, shoulder-charging one of the climbers. The Akurai soldier was unable to brace in time and was thrown backwards, tumbling back down onto the ship deck below with a crash.
One after another they came, like frenzied monsters.
The Imperials ploughed through the crowds of defenders along the wall. Some fell backwards off the other side, others stood their ground and fought head-on. Swords clashed with maces and morning stars in an ear-splitting symphony.
One Imperial stood at least eight-foot tall with huge, armoured shoulder pads and a skull painted on his black helmet. He roared as he swung a flail through the air.
Without shields, the defenders were helpless.
The flail struck a soldier in the chest, shattering his ribs with a crack. He doubled over, having all the breath struck out of him. Two other men filled the void to try fighting the huge Imperial, but he only made them cower back as he flailed the barbed weapon around in the air.
Cendel was not as adept with his sword as he was with his bow, so he fought very carefully. The last thing he wanted was for a sword to slice somewhere it shouldn’t.
Again.
Cendel waited for the Imperial to swing at him before dodging underneath it and hurling himself forward. He grasped his weapon with two hands, one against the pommel.
He stabbed the towering invader in the thigh, where the armour was not as strong. The hit cut deep from using both hands. He sliced the sword horizontally from its fixed position, freeing not only his sword but also the Imperial’s leg from his body.
The flail-wielder collapsed as his leg was amputated. Blood pumped from the wound in a sort of stream.
Cendel finished him off by pushing his sword through the visor of the skull-painted helmet until it stopped against the stone beneath.
Akurai soldiers came pouring over the walls, overwhelming the defenders. They were vicious- dismembering and disembowelling without remorse. Standing taller than the defenders made them far more difficult to fight against.
The air fast became thick with the putrid mix of blood, sweat and sea salt.
Cendel engaged a group climbing over the battlement nearby.
He was punched in the face by the closest Imperial, splitting his lip open.
Cendel swung back around faster than the Imperial had expected, stabbing the soldier in the gut, and running forwards with the sword still impaled. The groaning Imperial was forced backwards, smacking against the stone battlement behind him.
Cendel pulled the sword free. The Akurai soldier clutched at his spilling bowels, and Cendel brought the blade around again to slice his throat open.
Blood spattered into Cendel’s face from the gash.
In that moment of horror, he saw the faces of his younger sister Enoia, and her baby boy Raston. Sweet, innocent, the epitome of love and joy, horrifically juxtaposed to the image of an eight-foot-tall soldier in green and black, clutching at his open throat, gasping for air as his airways filled with blood.
Cendel whispered to himself in that moment as the Imperial slid down to die. “Creator, please let me survive the night.”
The battle raged on.
Cendel stepped over towards a ladder and tried pushing it back down to slow the flow of soldiers, but it was far too heavy with climbers already on it.
Realising the walls were being overrun, Cendel turned back towards where Sergeant Reneda had last been. Thankfully, the Sergeant was still barking orders, only a dozen metres from Cendel.
Cendel shouted to Reneda from across the battlefield. “Ser! We cannot hold them!”
Reneda somehow heard Cendel’s call over the white noise of men perishing, weapons crashing, the roaring ships and the ocean swell.
“Tower!” Reneda shouted with his hands around his mouth, glancing up to the top of the Port Tower.
A bowman stuck his head out from the top, peering down at his commander.
“Trigger the stakes! The walls are overrun!”
Up in the Port Tower, as others rained arrows down at the ships crashing into the seawall, the lone archer who had received the command made a quick glance at the battlefield below him.
Soldiers in black in green were flooding over the walls all along the harbour, like flies over old food.
It was clearly a battle that Port Denarim was losing.
The archer wrapped his gloved hands around an old, rusted, metal lever. He pulled as hard as he could, but it would not budge.
The lever was as old as Port Denarim itself, and in all its history had never been
