44. War on the Wall

Whatever excitement Earon had managed to rally in troops of the outer wall, it quickly vanished as the crowds of dwarves below gathered.

Volleys of arrows sprayed against their wall of shields as more gathered, the occasional ballista bolt crashing through and severing limbs. But the mood was feverish, and the horde of bulky, armored warriors was unchallenged by the losses.

Gargled cries sounded across the battlefield and the heavily armored army charged up from trenches and past their mantlets, some carrying ladders, with a couple of siege towers lagging behind, and a giant battering rams came rolling down the middle of the imposing army.

Earon readied the iron ball in his hand with a couple of soldiers beside him, readying to hand follow-up shots as he fired off his magically charged missiles. He arched back, readied his throwing arm, and waited for the enemy to charge into range, but froze a second before they did.

Sailing through the clouds three giant serpents. One green, red, and purple came, their limbless, scaled bodies and horned heads traveling through the sky as if they were swimming, a toxic green cloud trailing behind them.

To both his horror and relief, they traveled over the outer walls and into the city before crashing down amidst a cacophony of screams and destruction.

“Earon!” Tyan screamed. “Eyes on the front.”

Slapping himself, Earon refocused. The enemy had already closed the distance between them and were setting up their ladders.

Stepping back and then forward into a wide throw, he sent the metal ball flying and it caught fire a second after it left his hand as a spark ignited it, and slamming into a siege tower a moment later. Without a second to pause, Earon charged across the wall and engaged his rune on the closest ladder, assisting the soldiers to throw it away in seconds.

As he ran across to one side of the wall, another ladder reached the far end. Earon turned. There were already dwarven warriors climbing over the edge. And the siege tower was still moving forward.

He dashed forward, reaching the stack of ammunition he had stored, filled both hands, and sent two more magically charged shots flying at the tower, exploding in flames as they hit. It was alight now, and that would have to do.

He continued, passing through a corner tower that connected his section of wall with another, and hurled rocks as he charged toward another ladder two dwarves had already ascended, slid against the ground, and charged one of his zaps as much as he could, slapping it against the metal armor of dwarf that had climbed over the parapet.

He didn’t waste a moment to appreciate his work, instead diving forward for the ladder, engaging his rune, and pushing it off himself.

The zapped dwarf staggered, falling to a knee but then pushing himself back up. A single apprentice-level spell wasn’t going to kill any of these warriors, even if their armor was poorly designed to engage Earon.

An axe flew toward Earon’s back as the other dwarf turned toward him, but a halberd crushed down on it before its axe reached him, sending a stream of blood running down the dwarf’s helm.

The second dwarf was back to his feet now, but a couple of quickly tossed pebbles from Earon sent him off balance, and a follow-up strike from a halberd and warpick to his head, finished him off.

The wall shook as the giant battering ram slammed into the Gates of Caedstad below. Earon stumbled on his feet as another shocking wave traveled through the brick, falling to one knee as he stabilized himself.

Just as he got to his feet, a flaming boulder crashed through the corner tower at his back, bursting into flames as rocky rubble flew about, setting down in flaming clumps across the wall and its surroundings.

Earon turned to check behind him, past the flaming rubble of the corner tower, he saw the siege tower; it had reached the wall but was well and truly on fire now.

Good enough, he thought as he turned his attention back around.

Running up to the center of the wall, above the gate, Earon looked over to the battering ram that had to be at least twenty meters tall.

The parapet bricks had been loosened in the assault, and he got an idea. Pushing against them, Earon engaged his rune and lightened them enough to push through. The first couple of bricks harmlessly fell below, as he failed to remove the weight decrease and instead increased their weight. But the following half dozen bricks Earon pushed down slammed against the timber roof plated in iron and smashed through it creating rough holes.

“Now,” Earon called out, directing a couple of disheveled soldiers carrying boil buckets of tar to his location. “Down there,” he added, pointing to the now-damaged ram.

The thick, black liquid poured down splashing against the edges of the holes as it poured in. Within seconds several dwarves had come screaming from their relative safety, hopelessly rolling across the ground as the boiling tar stuck to their skin and fried them within their armor.

Flaming arrows followed a second later, and bursts of fire could be seen from beneath the plated timber roof.

Across the other side of the wall, screams could be heard, and Earon looked over to see a dozen or so dwarves already upon the wall, cleaving through their inferior foes.

There wasn’t enough time to help them, and when looking back across the wall, he saw two more ladders laid against it.

Bounding over flames and rubble, Earon made his way back across. Two dwarves fought beside the far corner tower where Tyan commanded from, and three others across the wall.

He threw a distracting pebble and closed in on the closest, zapping the dwarf’s armor once, twice, and again, dropping the dwarf to his knees.

Picking up a rock from the rubble, Earon lowered its weight enough to easily carry it and with a wide swing, slammed it into the dwarf’s face, increasing its weight back up to normal just as it slammed against the immobilized dwarf’s helm, sending a torrent of blood flooding out as it collapsed backward.

Stumbling forward, Earon grabbed hold of the nearby parapet to stabilize himself. He felt woozy and weak. 

Mana, he was running low.

Another dwarf reached the top of the ladder, and Earon grunted as he pushed himself forward, grabbing hold of the ladder and pushing it back before the warrior could jump down to the rampart.

Falling to his knees, Earon put a hand to his temple.

A nearby soldier dropped to his side. “Commander, are you okay?”

Earon nodded, but he wasn’t. He tried to stand, and wobbled to the side, only staying upright as the soldier wrapped an arm around his shoulder.

Tyan, hacking back one of the dwarves with a warpick, broke through from the corner tower, two others following him. “Look!” he shouted, pointing below as the Gates of Caedstad burst open with a rush of flames, the ram falling through the gates as flaming debris rained down.

Bodies fell as a stampede broke loose, hundreds of dwarves pushing against one another as they charged across the courtyard toward the inner walls.

The inner walls were lower and far thinner, but the damage to attacking force was evident with their thinned numbers. 

Already the siege on the walls started to subside, many choosing to head for the open gates instead.

The last couple of dwarves already fighting on the wall were outnumbered and cut down as their reinforcements never arrived.

“Earon, we’ve got to get out of here,” Tyan said, approaching his side.

Earon’s grip melted in Tyan’s hand. “You’re weak.”

“Mana, I've exhausted it.”

“We need a potion, damn it!” Tyan shouted.

A young priest who had been stationed with the outer wall came stumbling from across from the other side as they stabilized the situation and handed Tyan a potion.

Earon gulped it down as if dying from thirst, strength slowly returning to him.

“Earon, you with me?”

“Yeah,” Earon nodded as he pulled himself up. “I’m getting there.”

“We’ve got to get out of here. We’ve lost the wall.”

“Incoming!” A soldier shouted as dwarves began to climb the internal staircase toward them.

“Pick him up,” Tyan commanded, directing two of the nearby soldiers.

Turning toward their escape, Tyan blocked an incoming strike with his shield as a dwarf ascended the stairway, and then he returned with a strike from his warpick, slamming it into the dwarf’s helm and impaling it into its skull.

“Keep going!” Tyan commanded as he followed up with a kick, sending the dead dwarf falling backward and taking out another of its kin.

Only a dozen soldiers, along with Earon and Tyan made it across the courtyard and to a hidden alley down the street that they knew of. A couple of dwarves had split off from the main army flooding towards the inner walls, but they had been cut down with relative ease.

By the time they made it, Earon was on his own feet. His mana was still recovering though, and it will be at least ten or twenty minutes before he could safely cast again.

The small group funneled through a doorway nestled down the thin alley, charging through in a hurry as several dwarves caught up and slammed the timber door behind them. They gathered anything they could find to push up against the door and began climbing the stairway.

Axes caved through timber as dwarves screamed at their backs, and the door was carved to pieces when they had only made it halfway up.

The fresher attackers stormed up the stairway at twice their speed, but as the fleeing group neared the stop, several archers from the inner wall appeared overhead and brought flaming arrows down on the timber stairway that climbed around inside of the wall tower, setting it alight and forcing their attackers back into retreat as flames licked the walls.