Fimbulwinter (Daniel Black) (27 page)

bouncing off. Then the fire spell went off, and the wood ignited.

The troll stumbled back with a howl of pain, now more confused than

ever. The magic fire burned much hotter than normal, quickly consuming the

sliver of wood. But just as I’d hoped, the troll’s flesh caught fire.

It clawed awkwardly at the wound, and managed to dig out what was

left of the projectile. But by then it was too late. I concentrated my meager fire

magic on encouraging the flame, making it spread faster, burn hotter, consume

its fuel more quickly than normal.

A goblin arrow struck my reformed shield and glanced off. I ignored it,

hunkering down behind the barricade while I fed the flames.

The burning troll turned and tried to flee. In its panic it managed to step

on one goblin and set a couple of others on fire, and the whole attack dissolved

in confusion. Half of the goblins fled, while the rest found themselves caught

between the men defending the barricade and their burning ally.

Cerise vaulted over the barricade and danced through the group, her

silver knives gleaming in the firelight. One, two, three goblins died in as many

seconds, bright sprays of arterial blood arcing through the air as they fell. Her

nimble feet easily avoided the spikes, and as she dove back over the barricade

I saw that the cut on her arm had healed.

The troll stumbled in circles for a few moments, its arms waving

uselessly, and then collapsed.

161

A ragged cheer rose from the defenders. There were a couple dozen of

them now, and a group of women were already carrying another table out of a

nearby house to finish the barricade. The blacksmith clapped me on the back.

“That was a fine sight, sir wizard,” he said. “What do we do now?”

“Hold them here. What’s your name?”

“Oskar, sir. Oskar Smith.”

“Good to meet you, Oskar. I’m Daniel Black. I need to go rally the

people and get barricades set up on other streets so they can’t circle around us,

so I’m leaving you in charge here. Gather more men, and hold the line until the

garrison shows up.”

“Yessir,” he nodded. “But what if another troll attacks?”

“Cerise!” I called.

She slipped through the crowd like a ghost to appear before me, her

dark eyes gleaming. Her dress was ripped and stained, exposing pale patches

of flawless skin beneath. She’d discarded her cloak of concealment, and her

power sang hungrily beneath her skin.

“Yes, Daniel?” She purred.

“You getting enough from ganking goblins to keep you going?”

She smiled nastily. “Oh, yeah. As long as they can’t dogpile me I can

go all night.”

“Good, you may need to. I’m going to go set up more barricades. I need

you to stay here for now, and make sure this one holds. They don’t have that

many trolls, but if another one shows up here you get to kill it.”

“Alone?” She gulped, suddenly less confident.

“We’ll help, miss,” Oskar said confidently. “But clubs and knives

won’t keep a troll down.

She looked him up and down, and licked her lips. “You can help me

anytime. Alright, Oskar, if you guys can distract a troll I can make it die. Will

you be back soon, Daniel?”

“Depends on how fast the garrison musters,” I told her. “Hold out as

long as you can. If things start looking hopeless and I’m not back yet, head for

162

the tower. You can hole up there if you need to.”

“You got it,” she smiled. “The way you charged up Avilla we can call

plenty of help if we need to.”

“If you have to,” I nodded. “Stay safe.”

I turned and limped off down the street. Going airborne was too

dangerous, so I’d have to do this like a normal person.

Distant screams and shouts filled the deepening gloom. Most of the

buildings I passed were locked up tight, and there were a handful of bodies in

the street. Goblins who’d gotten too far ahead of the main group, and the

civilians they’d cut down before someone was brave enough to fight back.

Most of the buildings were built right up against each other, sharing

walls and covering whole blocks in a single solid mass. The ground floors

were mostly brick, with heavy wooden doors and stout shutters over the

windows. A troll could try to smash its way through, but it would probably just

bring a building down on top of itself. So most likely the invaders would be

limited to moving along the streets.

The cobblestone road emptied out into a small plaza crowded with

refugees, most of them huddled under blankets around several small fires.

Several men armed with farm implements watched my approach.

“Everyone arm yourselves!” I called. “A goblin raiding party is inside

the walls.”

The crowd stirred, and a few of the younger men stepped forward

uncertainly.

“What should we do?” One of them asked.

“You men, come with me,” I said to the ones who’d already been

armed. “The rest of you, send a party back down this street. We’ve thrown up a

barricade, but we need more men to defend it.”

“Who are you?” One of the older men asked, eying my bloodstained

clothes.

“I’m the wizard, Daniel the Black. I’m going to break this damned

goblin tribe, but I can’t be everywhere at once. I need you to keep the little

runts away from your women and children while I kill their leaders. Now get

163

moving, we don’t have time for arguments. Roust out the neighbors, and get

them to help.”

His eyes went wide. “Yessir, lord wizard,” he stammered. “Ah, Jerzy,

Adrianna, you two start knocking on doors…”

I left him to it, and headed out of the plaza with a half-dozen farmers

in tow. There was a street leading almost directly away from the wall, so I

took that and followed it for a bit until we hit an intersection.

There I found another troll caving in the front of a building while a

dozen goblins capered and jeered around it. I interrupted the party with a flurry

of force blades.

Half the goblins went down in pieces, and the troll turned from its

work to growl at me. My companions flinched.

“I’ve got the troll,” I told them. “Finish the goblins.”

Time for troll-killing method number two. Hopefully this would work,

because my shield wasn’t going to stop more than one hit from the thing.

I threw another force blade, cutting a shallow gash across the troll’s

chest. “Come on, ugly! You’re too stupid to fight me!”

As expected, it roared and charged.

I extended a lance of force from my left hand, an eight foot tube of

invisible energy narrowing to a point at the end, and jogged towards it. I saw a

flicker of confusion in the brute’s eyes as we closed with each other, and it

glanced at my outthrust hand.

I turned a small patch of road under its feet into mud.

It stumbled, suddenly too distracted to wonder what I was up to. I

plunged my force lance home, and our combined momentum drove the magical

construct deep into the troll’s chest. But I didn’t know if being stabbed through

the heart would be enough to kill it, so I dissolved the end of the lance and sent

a blast of flame roaring through it into the wound.

The troll started to fall, and I certainly wasn’t going to hold up its

weight in my current condition. I dropped the lance and backed away. A glance

around showed a couple of goblins fighting the peasants and the rest turning to

flee. Excellent.

164

I took a minute to decapitate the troll, and then followed the fleeing

goblins back towards the breach.

This time it took a bit more work to get some resistance organized.

The goblins had had more time to work, leaving the street littered with bodies.

Several buildings on this road had been smashed open and their occupants

killed, while others the goblins had simply set on fire.

I put out a couple of buildings, killed another group of goblins, and

recruited a few more townspeople before we reached the next intersection.

There we found a couple of abandoned carts, and rolled them across the street

leading back towards the breach to make an improvised barricade. I conjured

enough dirt to fill the space beneath them, so the goblins on foot couldn’t just

crawl under them and attack the defenders, and paused to take stock.

I was still badly injured, but ten minutes of healing had made a

noticeable difference. I was moving a little more easily, and my broken bones

no longer felt like they were going to pop lose if I moved too fast. My right arm

was still useless, but I could probably run a little if I had to.

My scratch force included nearly twenty men, most of them

townspeople and all armed with improvised weapons. More were starting to

emerge from nearby houses as they realized someone was fighting back

effectively, and there weren’t any more trolls in sight.

Good enough. I picked the most assertive-looking man in the crowd

and put him in charge, and headed off to find the next street we needed to

block.

By now I was starting to wonder where the garrison was. I know it

takes time for men to throw their armor on and get organized, but surely the

Baron kept some of his men ready to fight? Maybe not enough to stop the attack

cold, but shouldn’t there be some sign of the town’s defenders?

I found one group of them around the next corner. A couple dozen

men, including a few knights along with the regular soldiers, were locked in a

desperate melee with two trolls and a whole lot of goblins. The battle filled an

intersection between two narrow streets, and one of the adjacent buildings was

already on fire.

“Damn it,” I muttered. “I need these guys alive. Back into the fight, I

guess.”

165

There was a wrecked wagon partly blocking my approach, apparently

smashed by one of the trolls. I cut off a hefty sliver of wood and set the same

fire and force spells on it I’d used a few minutes ago. Unfortunately I didn’t

have a clear line of fire through the confused melee, and if I waited for a clear

shot we were going to be down half a dozen men first.

So I checked my shield strength, and jumped over the mass of

swordsmen around the troll. It was facing away from me, and I landed in the

middle of its broad back with a thump that made my knees ache.

I rammed the wooden spike home, and jumped away as it caught fire.

The troll roared in pain, and a guy with an axe ducked under its club and laid

its belly open. Good, a couple of seconds of distraction and it would be too

late to pull the spike out. But where was I going to land?

I almost came down in the middle of a clump of swordsmen and

goblins, but threw myself back up and sideways at the last second. Where? Ah,

a clear spot on the edge of the fight. I pushed again, angling towards my chosen

landing spot with half my attention while the rest was focused on burning that

troll.

The other troll’s club swatted me out of the air, and through a brick

wall.

Fresh pain flared up, and my shield collapsed. I sat up with a groan,

seeing double for a moment before my vision cleared. Crap, that was a bad

sign.

I was lying on the floor of some kind of shop, half-buried in broken

bricks and smashed wood. A couple of goblins peeked through the hole in the

wall in front of me with wide eyes. One of them saw me, and snickered. The

other raised his bow with a nasty grin.

I threw a force blade at them, and the snickering one lost his head. But

the one with the bow ducked aside.

Damn it, I’d lost focus on that fire spell.

I threw up a fresh shield spell using my personal reserves, and

hobbled back out of the building. As expected a goblin arrow hit me the instant

I exposed myself, but I just tossed a flurry of force blades back and headed for

the fight.

166

If I thought things were confused before, now they were a dozen times

worse. The troll I’d hit was running around in circles with half its back on fire,

randomly stepping on goblins and knocking men down. Several goblins were

trying to smother the fire with their cloaks, jabbering furiously in their native

tongue.

The other troll was storming towards me with blood in its eye. One of

the soldiers took advantage of its distraction to ram his spear into its side, but

the troll just batted him away with a sweep of its club and lumbered on.

Well, at least it gave me a clear line of fire. I conjured a force lance,

and rushed it.

A couple of arrows rattled off my shield, draining a little mana but

doing no damage. Then something less tangible hit me, and a moment of intense

vertigo made me stumble.

It was a spell. Some kind of goblin curse. I could see the magic of it,

and hurriedly tore it away. But I was on my knees now, the troll towering over