Keedle.
As if he had sensed Glendar’s eyes on him, the old wizard stopped his attack, and met Glendar’s wide-eyed gaze. Across the great distance, Glendar could see the rage and hatred burning on Keedle’s face.
Then the moment was gone. The wizard’s next crackling blast was larger than the others had been. It shot like a bolt of lightning from his fingers, across the open air, over the battling men below him, towards the piked heads in front of Glendar’s pavilion. They, and the pavilion tent, exploded in a roiling ball of flame. In the sudden light from the blaze, Glendar could see that the Redwolf soldiers were pressing out of the gateway now. More of them spilled out into the bloody mix, and his Westlanders were beginning to fall.
From the north, more of his men were charging through the city to join the battle, a few hundred it looked like. He wasn’t sure if that made him feel more confident or not. As he gained the saddle of an offered horse, he stood in the stirrups, and looked southward. There, a small group of soldiers, maybe three dozen Wildermont cavalrymen, were casually riding up toward the gates. A few of them ranged ahead and dispatched any Westlander who dared to get in their path. At the front of the main group, a rider carried King Jarrek’s personal banner. Glendar’s strained eyes could tell by the brilliant red enameled armor that those men wore, and by the glinting ruby-eyed wolf skull mounted on their leader’s helmet, that it was the Wolf King himself and his infamous Blood Pack.
The realization sent a chill of terror and confusion racing through him. Why would King Jarrek risk himself, when Wildermont was losing the battle so badly? It didn’t make sense. Again Glendar wished Pael was there. The wizard had promised to take Castlemont down for him. It seemed that Pael had forgotten him.
Roark’s gasp brought Glendar’s attention back to the men riding in from the north. Glendar cursed at what he saw. Then he cursed Pael for not being there.
“I think we should get you to the bridge,” the big guardsman suggested.
Glendar didn’t have the heart to argue with him. What he had thought were a few hundred Westland soldiers coming in from the north to tilt the battle in his favor, were really only a few dozen Westlanders fleeing from several hundred Wildermont soldiers.
To make things worse, another wizard, this one with dark hair and white robes, was sending bright blue bolts of energy into the group of fleeing Westlanders by the dozens. Like glowing sapphire arrows, the magical blasts shot forth from the wizard’s finger, one after another, as fast as he could point out a new target. Each magical pulse struck true and the victims fell, only to be trampled flat as the Redwolf Cavalry rode them over.
Glendar didn’t want to watch, but he couldn’t seem to tear his eyes away. He wasn’t in immediate danger. At least he didn’t think so. He still had six guardsmen, now mounted and surrounding him, each of them looking more eager than the next to be allowed to go join the battle. Only a short gallop away was the bridge. He knew for certain that enough soldiers remained there to discourage any pursuit back into Westland if he was forced to cross back in retreat.
A knot of Westlanders, who had been too crowded into the mass at the gateway to be effective, peeled off at the order of a screaming captain. Fifty men or more turned their horses, and rode out to meet King Jarrek’s fearsome looking Blood Pack. One, two, and then a third Westlander fell to the huge swords of the crimson clad wolf’s men. The Westlanders appeared to be outmatched, until a pike found a painted breast plate, and one of the Redwolf’s men flipped backwards off of his horse, and crashed to the ground.
Encouraged, the Westlanders roared out, and went forward. The battle graduated into a gleaming, bloody frenzy. Swords rose, fell, and swept through the air in blood slinging arcs. Men screamed in agony, horses reared, and came twisting down on their sides, as pikes were rammed through their chests and flanks. A helmet flew spinning through the air, smashed from a man’s head by the blow of a huge war hammer. King Jarrek, in his crimson armor, cut through Westlanders like an explorer hacking his way through jungle vegetation, with big heavy slashes that cleaved everything in their path.
Most of the Westlanders that faced the King’s Guard were down now, but more were quickly coming. Half of King Jarrek’s red armored honor guard was dead as well. A pair of them had been unhorsed, and we’re now fighting viciously back to back on their feet. The half dozen Westlanders surrounding them looked weary.
Along the top of the wall, a troop of archers, followed by the black robed wizard, ran southward, trying to get into a range that might help their struggling King.
To the north, the white robed wizard had reined his horse to a halt, letting the Wildermont soldiers he had been leading ride past him. They broke off into groups of four and five, and met, with a sickening crash, the Westland archers who had been firing up at the men on the outer walls. The rest of them charged headlong into the knot of men still battling outside the gates, and began hacking, stabbing, and slashing their way through.
Glendar’s breath caught in his chest, and a powerful wave of sadness and shame came over him. It was a hopeless situation. The siege was broken. The battle was lost. He had failed.
Targon, Willa the Witch Queen’s man, sensed something in the air. It alarmed him so much, that he steered his horse out of the road, and away from the many skirmishes that were taking place there.
The complexity of the spell he needed to cast required his full concentration. He had to find out what it was he was feeling because it seemed horribly wrong to him. The spell he wanted to cast would identify the source of the strangeness, but already the sensation had gotten so much stronger that it might be too late.
Off the horse he stepped, and strode quickly to the semi-protective shelter of a nearby building’s awning. It wouldn’t do to take a stray arrow while he was distracted. He backed himself up against the rock and mortar and began his casting.
Some of the soldiers were feeling it too. Some of them so much so that they stopped in their tracks trying to identify the odd sensation.
The air was becoming static and electric, like it does right before a lightning storm. Hairs rose on the backs of necks, and cold shivers ran down spines. A low, vibrant humming sound began to fill the air. For the briefest of moments, it seemed that, save for the humming vibration, the whole world stood still. Even the fighting had stopped. Then the hum became a droning buzz, and the sound of battle slowly resumed as if it had never ceased.
On the far side of the gates, Keedle was raging from atop the wall. He was so lost in his anger, that he didn’t even notice the strange sensation, or the way it was affecting the soldiers below him.
From either side of him, Wildermont archers rained deadly steel-tipped arrows down into the crowd as quickly and as accurately as they could. From the smoldering remains of Glendar’s pavilion, a few Westland archers loosed back up at them, but not many. One of them struck their mark. The man next to Keedle fell into him, with a Westland arrow sprouting out of his chest. Keedle, seeing how close he had come to being hit, stopped his assault on the Westlanders for a moment. He cast a spell that would shield him from the arrows flying up at him. The spell would protect him as long as he didn’t leave that particular section of the wall. As soon as the magical barrier was in place, he was back at it, sending hot sizzling bolts down at any man or horse that ventured too close to King Jarrek and his crimson armored guards.
The bone-tingling buzz had turned into a deep vibration, a tangible feeling in the guts of all of the men. It frightened a lot of them. Wildermont soldiers, and Westlanders alike, were staring at each other, wide-eyed, making ward signs with their hands, and mumbling prayers. Roark, who looked like the Dark One’s own champion, in his gleaming plate armor and devil helm, was terrified.
But not Glendar, who thought the sensation had a familiar quality to it, a quality he recognized all too well. He wasn’t about to leave just yet. King Glendar shrugged Roark’s heavy arm from his shoulder.
“Just a few minutes more,” he growled at his big horn-helmed guardsmen.
Targon came out of his visional trance with a start. What he had just learned, defied almost every law of magic and demon lore he knew, and he knew almost all of it.
He had to think. Soon, every ounce of available magical energy would be gone from the area, sucked out of this little part of the world into a thing that was part man and part demon. Pael, Shokin, whatever it was, was right here. It was about to unleash all that power it was drawing in, and Targon wanted no part of that horror.
His mind raced through his cataloged memory of spells and protocol. He couldn’t just flee. Queen Willa despised cowardly actions. Targon was no coward, but he was wise enough to know when to retreat. Every base instinct he had was screaming for him to flee. In his mind, he repeated the orders she had given him when she sent him here. A plan formed, and an appropriate spell revealed itself. Without concern for stray arrows, crossbow bolts, or even the straggling Westland soldiers, he hurried out into the middle of the lane. He faced towards the cluster of still battling men by the gates, and began his casting.
