Then she shouted, “One thousand gold coins to the one who brings me Killian Calorian’s head.” Her host shifted restlessly around her, and she laughed again. “Five thousand to the one who brings him to me alive.”
Shit.
Killian’s heart hammered against his ribs. Thud thud. Thud thud. Thud thud. Then he felt something shift. “Here they come.”
Rufina snatched hold of her standard and lifted it into the air. With a roar, the enemy army charged past their queen, tripping and stumbling over one another in the deep snow, those who fell crushed beneath the snowshoes of the thousands who followed. An inky tide crossing the white snow.
“Steady!” Killian bellowed over the noise, watching the approach. Waiting for the right moment. “Shoot!”
The air filled with the twang of longbows, and a heartbeat later the front ranks of the enemy fell, screams echoing up to the top of the wall.
“Shoot!”
Volley after volley, and then the enemy hit the wall, grappling hooks launching upward, indiscriminately catching against flesh and rock, men screaming as the ropes dragged them down even as the enemy began to climb those that held true.
The Mudamorian soldiers drew their blades, cutting through ropes, dozens of enemy dropping to their deaths on the ranks clustered below even as more of Killian’s men poured the vats of boiling water down on their heads.
Screams.
Screams.
But they kept coming, the archers among them firing up, arrows striking true. Killian sidestepped a blur of black fletching, but even as he killed the archer with an arrow of his own he was turning, his gaze on the darkness outside the fortress’s wall. They’re coming from behind.
“The reinforcements from Tarn are here!” The shout came from below, several of his men running toward the gate.
From behind her?
Or from behind him?
“Don’t open the gate!” Killian stumbled toward the steps, heedless of the arrows flying past him. “It’s a ruse! Don’t open the gods-damned gate!”
He was too late.
His soldiers lifted the heavy beam, and as they set it aside, the gate swung open and a man wearing the uniform of a Mudamorian officer stepped inside. In a blur of motion, he caught hold of one of Killian’s soldiers, hand around his throat, lifting him up like a shield.
“Close the gate!” Killian screamed, halfway down the steps and too far away to help. “Kill it!”
Life drained from the struggling soldier’s face, years compounding on years until all the corrupted held in its grip was the desiccated corpse of an ancient man. With a wild laugh, the corrupted tossed the body aside.
Lifting his bow, Killian shot an arrow, the metal tip punching through one of the corrupted’s flame-rimmed eyes, the creature dropping like a stone. Leaping off the side of the stairs, Killian hit the slush and mud of the courtyard, rolling to his feet. “It’s the enemy! Close the gods-damned gate!”
His men were moving, but it seemed at a snail’s pace, the only soldier near enough to close the gate staring in horror at the corpse of his fallen comrade.
The cold air burned his face as Killian ran, closing the distance.
You aren’t going to make it.
He pulled his sword as the gate flew the rest of the way open, disguised Derin soldiers surging through, corrupted in their midst.
Killian carved into the first, nearly cutting the man in half before turning on the next, parrying twice before running the man through.
It was a blur of blood and steel, the air filled with screams and smoke, the stables aflame. Men and horses careened around the courtyard as Killian rallied his soldiers, but for every enemy he killed, another sprang up in his place.
The corrupted lost themselves in the madness, most bent over victims, stealing life, their faces wild with ecstasy.
But not all.
Three hemmed Killian in, swords in hand, backing him step by step against the twin portcullises that were all that held out the horde of enemy beyond the wall.
Exhaustion bit at Killian as he fought, blood running down his face, freezing in his hair. There was snow falling now, and it whirled and gusted as he twisted and parried, trying to take the corrupted down. Trying to get past them.
He pulled a knife and threw it, catching one in the chest, but the creature only plucked the blade out and laughed, not even feeling the pain. “You’ve lost,” it hissed, even as Killian gutted one of its companions, the thing shrieking as it tried to stuff its innards back inside the healing wound.
“I don’t lose,” Killian replied between his teeth.
But his men were.
One by one, they were dropping. And if they lost the gatehouse, it was over.
“Things change.” The corrupted leapt backward as Killian swung. “The Six grow weak. Their Marked Ones grow weak.” It lunged with preternatural speed, its blade slicing against Killian’s ribs, his chain mail all that kept him from being cut in two. “You grow weak.”
Fire enveloped the scaffolding that ran up the inside of the wall, building materials raining down as the wood gave way.
Killian coughed, trying to catch his breath, and then there was a sharp crack. Blocks of stone fell from the sky, one smashing the skull of the corrupted as Killian stumbled against the inner portcullis, the overhang all that saved him from the same fate.
Swiping at his stinging eyes, he blinked back tears from the smoke and heat, his vision clearing in time for him to see the last of the men defending the gatehouse fall and the enemy force their way inside. Behind him, the inner portcullis rattled upward.
“No!” Leaping over burning timber, Killian staggered as an arrow punched through his chain mail, embedding deep in his right shoulder. Switching sword hands, he ignored the hot flow of blood running down his back and broke into a run.
The broken door to the gatehouse fell aside with one blow of his boot. In the dim light, the Derin soldiers struggled with the ancient winch of the outer gate. He killed one and was about to turn on the other when a blow caught him in the side, his ribs cracking beneath the force.
Clenching his teeth against the pain, Killian rolled, then struggled to his feet. His sword was nowhere in sight.
“Looking for this, Lord Calorian?” A corrupted stood in the doorway, Killian’s sword held in her hand.
Fumbling, hands slick with blood, Killian searched for another knife. But they were all gone. All lost in the fight.
“Mudamora will fall,” the corrupted whispered through the smoke, her eyes burning with the Seventh god’s fire. “And it will only be the first.”
“The wall is not the kingdom.” Killian coughed. “And one battle is not the war.”
Then he lunged.
His shoulder took the corrupted in the stomach, and they rolled out of the gatehouse. He could feel her hands searching for exposed skin, and he pinned her against the ground, his body screaming with the effort.
She writhed and struggled, stronger than him but unskilled. Except his shoulder was giving out and his ribs burned.
With a snarl, she jerked her arm free of his grip, her bare hand slapping against his face, her eyes burning with triumph—
Right as the outer portcullis rattled skyward.
Derin soldiers surged through the opening, fighting with one another to get to the other side. They rolled over Killian and the corrupted like a wave, snowshoes twisting and tripping them up until it was nothing but a churn of bodies and limbs.