Janis nodded in approval, chewing at his lower lip. “Good shot. We’ll need as many of those as we can get. The battle goes poorly.” He fired off a bolt and began reloading his crossbow. “How the blazes did they get over the wall so easily?” he muttered, frowning.
“Sergeant Wilkes and the others are advancing,” Sermas interjected.
Khollo caught sight of bright sword blades and shining helms hurrying across the courtyard. One cadet slipped on the icy path and went down hard. The others followed their sergeant to the nearest stairs to the wall, where a trio of vertaga had broken through and were scrambling for the keep. Wilkes took the first one quickly, in a blur of steel Khollo could not follow with his eyes. The cadets fell on the remaining two in packs of prickling sword points. The vertaga swung back and forth like great bears surrounded by baying hounds, attacked from all sides. They fell quickly, and as far as Khollo could tell no cadet suffered injury. Wilkes retreated with his small force intact, looking for the next weakness in the defenses.
“The gate, Khollo! Ondus could use some help!” Janis said urgently. As he spoke, he sent another crossbow quarrel zipping away into the night.
Khollo swore and looked over at the gatehouse. Vertaga were swarming thick as flies on a carcass, black iron swords rising and falling. A small island of defenders was grouped above the center of the gate. Khollo saw Ondus’ axe sweeping in devastating strokes. A knot of six warriors was grouped around him; Clemon’s bodyguards, recognizable by the higher quality of their armor, and the rich blue cloaks swinging from their broad shoulders.
Khollo nocked an arrow, drew, sighted, and released. The arrow buzzed away towards the gatehouse. Khollo just missed a large vertag, but he thought he got another beyond the wall. Reloading, the young warrior fired again and this time took the brute in the shoulder, staggering the beast. A soldier finished him off a moment later.
Vertaga were on the south and west walls now, driving the defenders into small knots, surrounding them, cutting them off. A few were making their way down into the courtyard. Khollo grimly picked them off as fast as he could. Below, he saw Wilkes turn to the cadets and issue orders. Two disappeared into the keep. The rest followed Wilkes to the west wall. They loped up the stairs in his wake and took several vertaga in the rear, fighting their way through to a small group of beleaguered defenders. Thus reinforced, they pushed on in tight formation, fighting as a unit, rolling the vertaga towards the south wall.
Khollo shot down yet another monster trying to cross the courtyard, then was distracted by Hern’s shout of alarm.
“The east wall! They’re coming over the east wall!”
Khollo heard Janis’ curse and the ugly smack of the crossbow being fired. He half turned and saw that vertaga were racing past the bodies of six soldiers, lying dead on the battlements. They had been left to defend the east wall, while their comrades reinforced the south and west walls, which had seen the heaviest part of the assault. Now, the vertaga were practically unopposed to the east. The monsters ran across the courtyard, towards the keep. They were stopped by the heavy wooden doors, which the two cadets had apparently secured before retreating.
The trap door in the roof of the keep suddenly shook under several heavy blows. Khollo spun, arrow nocked, and nearly released before he recognized Genal, pale and frightened-looking in the dim light.
“Sergeant says there’s no keeping them out of the keep,” he announced. “Wanted me to warn you. He sent Jase to the kitchens to help defend the others. Sir,” he added as an afterthought, nodding to Janis and climbing onto the roof.
“Nothing for it,” Janis replied, shutting the trap door again. “We’ll just take as many with us as we can.” He paused. “Although Sergeant Wilkes’ counterattack seems to be going remarkably well.”
“They’re pushing the vertaga back!” Hern said excitedly. “They’ve cleared the west wall!”
Wilkes and the cadets had been joined by a dozen others and were turning onto the south wall now. They advanced in a wedge formation, splitting the vertaga forces, driving them apart, surrounding them, and destroying them. They reached Ondus’ circle of warriors and continued on, leaving Ondus and the other exhausted survivors behind.
A series of splintering impacts drew Khollo’s attention to the front steps of the keep. A dozen vertaga were busily reducing the doors to matchwood, fighting to get in. Khollo distracted them with a few well-placed arrows, taking down two of the monsters. Janis stood beside him, firing quarrel after quarrel at the beasts, reloading as fast as he could. The vertaga snarled to each other and redoubled their efforts.
Just as the doors fell inward, hitting the ground with a crash, a ground floor window shattered. Khollo caught sight of a small, clay vessel, then the night exploded in fire and light. He blinked and stumbled back, throwing up an arm to shield his eyes.
What the-?
New war cries shattered the night. A booming, bellowing voice sounded the charge. Khollo blinked away the pin wheeling stars of light that the explosion had printed on his eyes in time to see dark shapes boiling from the shattered kitchen window. In the lead was Master Smith Tarrik, a hammer in one hand, a poker in the other. Behind him, the other two smiths followed with short swords and grouped behind them were stable hands with pitchforks. A cook leaned out the window and lobbed another projectile at the vertaga. Khollo recognized it as a small clay pot. When it shattered on
