On Wings of Chaos (Revenant Wyrd Book 5) (14 page)

“Wait for it,” an archer beside him said. “Wait until they start coming up. The little bastards will pack on there like rats on rot. They’ll swarm up the ladder, and when there are enough on it, we can heave it back and hopefully kill some of the ones higher up.”

So Russel waited. And waited. The soldiers were growing tense around him, waiting for the combat to start. But the wall had another defense. Deep inside there were slits, holes that pikes could be thrust through. It was those soldiers, inside the wall thrusting their pikes out, who were doing the damage now. But it was only a matter of time before the dwarves numbered too many for the pikes to take care of.

As the first deformed, greasy head came into view, the archer that was beside him yelled: “NOW!”

Forked poles were positioned on the top rung of the ladder, and Russel heaved with all his might. The dwarf on the top of the ladder hissed at him, drew a rusty sword, and started hacking at the pole he used to shove him back.

A soldier was on the dwarf in a moment, and one good swing of an axe buried deep into the chaos dwarf’s head ended the threat. The dwarf tumbled back down the ladder like a pebble over a waterfall, knocking some of his comrades off and raising a yell from below.

Still more came, and Russel pushed harder. An archer to his right put his muscle behind the effort. The soldier who had helped him had lost his axe, and reached behind them to the backside of the wall where replacement weapons were kept. He readied himself for another attack.

Once the ladder was on the downswing, the force of his push wasn’t needed, and nearly sent Russel over the edge of the wall. The archer grabbed his shoulder, steadying him and pulling him back from the edge, but Russel was still able to watch the ladder slip backwards, fading into the night to end with a violent crash and screams from below.

“Be careful,” the archer slapped him on the back. Russel watched pikes skewer climbing dwarves as he caught his breath and tried to ease his hammering heart. “You have to know when to let up. Those ladders are hard to push, but once you get them past a certain point, they carry themselves. Also, sometimes dwarves might try to grab on to the post, pulling you with them. If you feel any resistance,
let go!
”

Russel nodded. He looked to the archer, and some part of his mind registered that it was a small blonde woman.

“That ladder didn’t break, so it will come up again until the fall busts it.”

“Is there any other way we can break them?” Russel asked.

The woman shrugged.

Moments later the ladder slapped against the top of the wall again. Russel waited.

“Dwarves have reached the top!” the orb yelled, but Russel could barely hear the words over the chaos that ensued to his left. He looked — dwarves were flooding onto the wall, and the melee started.

“Focus,” the archer said. “They’re a ways off yet, the soldiers will get it under control. Just focus on what you’re doing so we don’t have more.”

And so Russel focused. When the next head appeared, the soldier who’d lost his axe before was ready, chopping at the dwarf before it had a chance to harm Russel or the blonde woman. Russel placed the forked end of the post against the top rung and pushed. This time he pulled back in time, noticing the difference in feel when there was less weight at the other end.

He waited and listened. This time there was a resounding crack, and the archer slapped him on the back.

“Perfect! We broke it. Now, on to the next!”

Jovian was frozen in place. The ringing faded, and when it did he heard the chaos. The sound of falling rock and the crumbling of glass. It was a noise and a sensation of rumbling in the floor like he had known in the Shadow Realm, when the train had pulled up.

“Jovian!” Maeven yelled.

“AVALANCHE!” he heard yelled outside.

“Are you okay?” Maeven asked.

Jovian nodded numbly. “They need help!”

He pushed to his feet and made his way steadily to the window, which was no easy feat because of the rocking of the keep. He swayed at the window, looking out at a large green orb floating mere inches above the ground. Inside the orb he could see the middle-aged face of Mag, her voice slipping out across the ground, finding the ears of the soldiers below.

The frenzied activity and the rushing noise from behind the keep blocked out most of what she was saying, but Jovian saw her words lilting across the surface of the orb.

WYRDERS!
The orb commanded.
All able bodies to the battlements!

Before the orb smoldered a large burning ball, which Jovian imagined was the thing that had hit the keep.

Rivers of snow raced down from each side of the keep, tumbling in a sea of white to bury the courtyard in a blanket of snow. The naphtha ball was quenched, a large hissing of steam floating to the heavens like a funeral pyre. The green message orb faded out as well.

Soldiers spilled from the barracks that weren’t buried, running like rivers to the left and right sides of the ramparts, cresting the stairs. Some even slipped inside the wall through doors Jovian hadn’t noticed before.

Moments later, another green orb raced from the keep in the direction of the wyrders.

Jovian’s attention was drawn by the sound of popping and snapping behind him. When he looked, the large golden eagle peeked out from inside Maeven’s clothes, laying in a red heap on the floor. The eagle stepped out into the firelight, its feathers glinting like some metallic ore.

Jovian nodded without needing to know what Maeven was asking. He opened the window, and Maeven took flight, winging out among the falling drifts of the avalanche and toward the action on the battlements.

The keep swayed again, and soon the noise of the avalanche drifted away, even before the last bit of snow washed around the sides of the keep.

“Jovian!” Grace pounded on his door. “Are you alright?”

He raced to the door and pulled it open.

“How bad is it?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Grace said. “Check on Angelica. I’ll go to Sara.”

“We’ll follow.”

Grace nodded.

He crossed the room to Angelica’s door, but she didn’t answer when he knocked. He shouldered the door open and saw his sister sprawled across the floor, her head bleeding across the tile, painting her golden dressing gown and blonde hair scarlet.

Jovian slid to his knees beside her, gathering her to his arms. He checked her pulse. Steady.

“Help!” he yelled.

Shelara made it to him first, gathering Angelica to her and taking her to the central room, laying her on the green divan.

“Caldamron,” she ordered in her proper accent. “Get me some warm water and bandages.”

“What happened?” Joya asked, cinching her white robe around her body as she came out of her room.

“Which?”

“I know about the attack and the avalanche,” Joya said. “Angelica hit her head?”

“No, I clubbed her when she came out, of course she did!” Jovian flared. Shelara looked at him warningly.

Joya took a breath, but bit her tongue.

“Sorry,” Jovian apologized. It wasn’t Joya’s fault that she asked dumb things when she was nervous, any more than it was Jovian’s fault he got testy when scared.

“Where’s Grace?” Joya asked.

“Checking on Sara.” Jovian walked to the window, keeping one eye on the action outside and one eye on Angelica.

“Are they doing anything more out there?” Joya asked.

“No,” Jovian said.

No sooner had he said it, than arrows arced up through the night to rain down on a place some distance from the keep.

“Shooting,” Jovian said.

“At what?” Joya wondered.

Jovian didn’t have time to answer, because Maeven stepped out of his bedroom at that moment, buttoning his brown breeches as he came.

“Chaos dwarves are here,” he said.

“Already?” Joya asked. “We didn’t see them coming.”

“They have wyrders,” he said, shrugging.

“How? What about the stone?” Jovian asked.

“Beats me,” he said.

Caldamron came back with a towel, warm water, and some bandages. Maeven followed him and started helping Shelara in whatever ways he could. She whispered to him, he handed her what she asked for, and so they went.

“I wish there wasn’t such sediment in this water,” Shelara said. “What is it, anyway?”

“Mineral deposits, I’m told,” Maeven said. He was sweating.

“Are you okay, human?” Shelara asked.

“I’ll make it. Just the cramps all wyrders have been feeling lately.”

Shelara looked to Joya, but she didn’t seem to be affected presently. “Will it taint the wound?” she asked Maeven again.

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“Alright.” The dark elf continued to clean and dress the wound.

“Guardian, what do you require of me?” Caldamron asked, clasping his hands behind him.

“Um,” Joya looked to Jovian, confused.

“I don’t know,” Jovian told her.

“See what Mag needs. I doubt you can get to the battlements across the snow in the courtyard.”

Caldamron nodded, and headed for the door.

“What are they doing now?” Joya asked, coming to the window to look out at the battlements. She looked as helpless as Jovian felt.

On the battlements of the wall the archers were still firing, and now the wyrders were stepping up. Multi-colored wyrd wreathed each of the people, painted in a shade of their own energy, readying for an attack.

“Now!” they heard a voice shout, barely audible over the muffling snow.

Lightning lanced out from the wyrders, but as it arched across the open air, a shadow bloomed up, intercepting the wyrded attack. It drank it in, drawing the wyrd into itself. Once tethered to the darkness, the shadows slipped back down through the wyrded lightning to each wyrder. The sound of the thundering wyrd gave way to echoing screams as the Wyrders’ Bane slipped into the minds of those casting from the wall.

Joya grasped Jovian’s arm in a talon-like grip. “No,” she whispered.

“What?” Maeven asked.

“I think Wyrders’ Bane just attacked,” Jovian said, watching as wyrders stumbled, and then fell, some into the snow of the courtyard, some pitching over the other side, and others crumbling to the floor of the battlements, clasping their stomachs and screaming in pain.

“There!” Shelara said triumphantly. “All patched up.”

Jovian turned at her words to see Angelica, sleeping as if she hadn’t just been rendered unconscious when the blow to the keep came. A white bandage wrapped the top of her head, and blood was drying on the left shoulder of her gown.

“Joya,” Jovian said. “Go see if Grace needs help.”

But as Jovian spoke he felt a twinge in his stomach, a sickness that crept into the darker recesses of his mind and flared with pain. He lurched, fell into a cabinet beside the window, and stumbled to regain his footing.

“What’s going on?” Maeven leapt to his aid, bringing Jovian over to the other sofa, the one Angelica had woken on after the dream of their mother.

“I think I felt the sickness everyone else is feeling,” he explained.

“Is this the first time?” Joya asked, resting a hand worriedly on his shoulder. Jovian sunk into the embrace of the couch. Leaning back, he placed a hand on his stomach, as if that would chase the sickness away.

He nodded.

In her slumber Angelica gasped, and another twinge struck Jovian. He doubled over, his stomach churning. He gagged and tried to vomit, but nothing came up.

“What do we do?” Joya asked.

“Why aren’t you sick?” Shelara asked.

“What kind of question is that?” Maeven asked.

“Go get Grace,” Joya said. Unsure what to do, she turned to the one comfort left to her in this uncertainty. The old tutor she had known her entire life. The one who always had the answers.

“She can’t do anything,” Jovian said. Another gasp tore from his lips, and Angelica writhed on the couch.

“What’s happening?” Shelara asked.