Free Web NovelChapter 59: "Open the gates!"
From the shaking walls, Keren’s elite scouts moved with lethal efficiency. Standing unstably on the vibrating timber platform, they bent over the edge and loosed a synchronized volley of heavy throwing hatchets. The spinning blades shredded through the cold alpine air, burying themselves deeply into the skulls and necks of primal beasts able to scale the walls.
With each volley, a few of the beasts were killed in the process... some of the stronger ones were able to reach the top of the walls without too much damage, but they were met with the steel daggers and short swords of the scouts; they were capable of killing the weaker light red beasts with ease.
It was only when one of the dark red beasts appeared that the men truly struggled. Keren had to intervene, and with swift movements, he fought dark red beasts as they appeared on the walls.
Beside them, the other warriors worked as men possessed. They hurled massive, jagged boulders down into the crushing pack, flattening the lower-rung beasts beneath the weight of stone. Those armed with long spears methodically thrust over the iron-oak logs, their steel tips piercing eyes and gutting the frenzied creatures trying to scramble over the top. Blood, thick and steaming in the winter air, sprayed across the canvas tunics of the defenders as the wall became a meat-grinder.
But the sheer volume of the stampede was too great; the walls could not take the structural stress of a continuous siege.
"They’re going to break through!" Keren shouted, his emerald green eyes narrowing as he calculated the impact variables. The rumbling and creaking continued to increase, and without any other option, he shouted, "We need to relieve the pressure!"
"Open the gates!" Bramm ordered, his deep blue eyes flashing with cold determination. Give them a mouth to feed into! Funnel them!"
With a grating of iron hinges, heavy central timbers were hauled back, exposing a narrow, heavily fortified gap. It was a tactical killing zone. ƒгeewebnovёl.com
Bramm immediately stepped into the breach, forming a living wall of meat and iron. Mestin’s strike force stood tightly behind them, weapons high. They were ready to catch any beasts slipping past the front line. Keren joined in when not needed on the walls.
From the north, Bramm could hear the battles raging, Telarin’s excited shouts, and the sudden boom of what appeared to be explosions. Adara and Mestin had joined the battlefield between their position and Telarin’s in the north.
"Come on, you bastards!" Telarin shouted with excited vigor. He had jumped off the walls and into the thick of the battle once the first raging wave had basically been culled. Now, he stood a man alone on the opposite side of the walls, killing beasts left and right like a bloodthirsty fiend.
His men stood on the towers with what little throwing weapons remained to support. They didn’t stay on the walls too long. Another wave of beasts had appeared, and some slipped past Telarin and rammed into the walls, and finally, under the constant battering, even Iron Oak wood would crack. The walls came crumbling down.
The men on the towers jumped down from the walls, and after collecting themselves, they rushed into a formation, straight into the thick of battle, plugging the new ’gate’ that appeared.
Towards the eastern main gate, the hordes finally started moving in.
A massive Razor-Boar lunged through the opened gate, its tusks dripping with foam. Bramm didn’t step back; he dropped his axe, and he leaned into his low center of gravity, catching the beast full-force by its tusks. The beast came to a sudden stop.
"That’s it, what a fine little piggie! Now you can go back!"
With a heavy grunt, Bramm raised the beast and threw it at the entrance. It crashed into the incoming Razor boars. He grabbed his axe with a brutal shrug. He brought his heavy, dane axe down, burying the crescent blade cleanly through the boar’s spine.
To the flank of the funnel, Keren was a spirit in a green cloth cloak. He dropped into a low, coiled posture, his vivid emerald-green eyes monitoring the movements of the pack. When a group of agile beasts tried to jump over the shield wall, Keren exploded forward.
His fluid, silent True Red aura completely suppressed the sound of his movements. His dual hatches spun through the air like a localized gale. freeweɓnovel.cøm
He hamstrung two beasts in a single stride. He slipped behind a third and swept his axe upwards into the base of its skull. Before the other creatures could even register his presence, he vanished back into the shadows of the palisade.
He moved with silent deadliness. Any beast caught off guard, he killed within seconds. Light red and True red posed no threat. He even dispatched a dark red beast within seconds, catching it off guard.
"Watch the gaps!" Bramm’s voice resounded. His aura flared outwards like a roaring hearth. He held his weapon with extreme veracity. With each sweep, blood splattered and darkened the earth. Body parts flew, organs and guts littered the ground.
A small mountain began to form as beasts piled up. Other warriors joined Bramm to handle the growing numbers. They also fought with ferocious fury.
For several minutes, the gate was nothing but a bloody, chaotic choke point. The five men stood their ground against the tide, their boots slipping in the rising mire of gore and red mud, their arms growing heavy with the relentless, physical toll of close-quarters slaughter.
Then, the temperature in the valley suddenly plummeted.
A dense, suffocating pressure dropped over the reach, so heavy that the remaining low-rung beasts instantly stopped their frenzied assault. They screamed in sheer terror, trampling each other in a frantic rush to clear the approach, fleeing from a dominant, predatory entity that had just breached the northern treeline.
Adara and Mestin, who had joined the battlefield to the sides, were busy slaughtering the beasts to the side, when the pressure appeared. The beasts grew even more frantic and scattered in all directions.
