Chapter 476: Siege Part 2

 

  Commoner District… Southern Quadrant…

 

  Shirleen watched from the floor of her ruined house as the undead sentinel and stone golem encircled each other. The sentinel’s whip suddenly lashed out and struck the golem’s shoulder. The steel spikes at the end of the chain whip cut deep lines into the golem’s shoulder plate, but it didn’t flinch. The golem grabbed hold of the chain whip and tackled the sentinel with surprising speed.

  The sentinel’s smaller body fell to the ground with a thud of metal. Before it had a chance to stand, the golem’s arms raised into the air and came crashing down with a heavy blow. The golem attacked over and over, its arms crashing down without cease, flattening the sentinel’s armor and the undead underneath, until all that was left were scraps of metal and bits of dead flesh.

  A cold shiver ran through Shirleen’s body. She turned her neck and grabbed her daughter’s hand with what little strength remained in her. “Sophi, please, you need to run, now!”

  The small goblin child bit her trembling lip and shook her head stubbornly, “I don’t want to go!” She sniffed, “Not without you.”

  “Sophi, there is no time, please, run!” Shirleen begged.

  The golem turned to the sound of her voice and marched towards her, a hulking 2 meter creature of enchanted stone, jade eyes glowing with an inner light.

  The sound of clanging metal echoed through the ruined street. Three sentinels rushed out from the darkness and attacked. A pair of chain whips wrapped around the golem’s legs each. The last sentinel’s whip caught the golem’s head and yanked backwards, toppling the heavy construct to the ground.

  Without a single word, the sentinels pulled out a mace from their sides, and jumped atop the golem, hammering it with the full strength of the black necromantic magic coursing through them.

  “The sentinels are killing it!” Sophi yelled triumphantly.

  Shirleen realized with relief that the destroyed sentinel must have sent out some sort of alert when it died. Still, as she looked around at the other ruined houses, she knew more of those stone monsters were soon to emerge.

  “Sophi, baby, I’ll be alright. The sentinels are here. So please, run to the temple, I’ll catch up,” Shirleen pleaded.

  “B-But… I…” Sophi gripped her nameplate.

  “Sophi! Mom! Dad!” a familiar figure ran into the street. Karen glanced around desperately, her eyes searching through the ruined houses and rubble.

  “Sis!” Sophi ran to her in a stumble.

  “Sophi, you’re alright!” Karen picked her up and hugged her fiercely.

  “You’re really here,” Sophi smiled through tears.

  “Of course, I am. I came as soon as the boulders started falling. I couldn’t just leave you guys here. The house is too close to the wall,” Karen said.

  “Karen…” Shirleen mumbled with relief. Behind her eldest daughter stood a lanky human holding a spear.

  “Witt, you’re here too?” Sophi said, surprised.

  Witt grinned, “What? You think I’d let your big sis run out here by herself?” 

  “No, it’s just…” Sophi began to tremble and she buried her head in Karen’s shoulder. “There was a big explosion and the ground was shaking and then the house fell and Mommy—”

  “Where’s Mom?” Karen looked around.

  Sophi pointed to the rubble and the small figure lying limp at the edge.

  “Mom!” Karen screamed and ran over to her. She knelt on the ground and looked her mother over. 

  “Karen…” Shirlen muttered.

  “You’re bleeding!” her daughter gasped.

  Shirleen’s clothes were ripped all over and small cuts covered her skin. Splinters coated her scarlet-dyed hands from when she had gripped the wooden beam.

  “My gods…” Karen mumbled. “What happened? Where’s dad?”

  Shirleen glanced painfully at the small torn hand poking out from the rubble of their house.

  Karen paled in horror and a hollow sound escaped her lips. 

  “We can’t find him,” Sophi said. “We need to find him!”

  Karen turned to her little sister who clearly had yet to realize the truth.

  “Karen, I can’t move. I’m done for. You need to get your sister out of here, please,” Shirleen whispered.

  “Mom…”

  “I know we haven’t spoken in a long time. I’m sorry, for what I said to you, I shouldn’t have—”

  “We can talk about this later, Mom,” said Karen. She glanced at the torn hand in the wreckage one last time then turned back to her mother. “I’m not leaving either of you.”

  “What?”

  “Witt!” said Karen. “Carry my mother. We’re leaving, now!”

  “Understood,” he nodded and knelt down next to Shirleen. “Hello, ma’am, it’s an honor to finally meet you.”

  “Hello?” Shirleen said uncertainly.

  “I work with your daughter. She’s an incredible person and she’s told me so much about you—”

  “Not now, Witt,” said Karen.

  “Oh, right.” He nodded once more, then reached out and gently picked up Shirleen into his arms. “We’ll get you and your family to safety, I promise.”

  “Sophi, can you run?” Karen asked.

  “Yeah!” Her little sister nodded with the sort of confidence that only children had.

  Karen glanced warily at the three undead sentinels bludgeoning the stone golem to pieces a few dozen paces away. “...We need to go.”

  They ran through the streets, keeping to the shadows, avoiding the hundreds of people running around in a panic. As they ran Shirleen saw the chaos that had been unleashed throughout the Commoner District. The jade boulders had crashed down throughout all the neighborhoods all around them, flattening houses and sending flying debris crashing into nearby structures. The houses from the Commoner District were old and made of wood, built in a time when Hollow Shade’s trade with Undergrowth and their forests were plentiful.

  The old houses stood no chance against the crashing boulders. After the initial crash, stone golems emerged from each one and had begun slaughtering any survivors. Undead sentinels, the fear of most common folk, had for once come to their rescue, fighting off the golems.

  But the golems were larger and stronger, and though there were more sentinels, each trebuchet volley slowly closed the gap between their numbers.

  “The district is doomed…” Shirleen said sadly. “We need to head to the Trade District.”

  Karen shook her head. “We can’t. The cross-district streets are full of people trying to do the same thing. When we were running over to the house, Witt and I saw people being— trampled. Goblins like us won’t make it past. Our best bet is the temple.”

  “And what if the temple gets hit by one of those things!?”

  Witt glanced down at her in his arms and smiled, “Don’t worry ma’am, the temple has magical defenses.”

  “What?” Shirleen blinked in surprise.

  “Stryg hired some brown mages to enchant the temple after a pair of drunks tried robbing us,” Karen admitted.

  “Stryg? That foreign friend of yours?” Shirleen mumbled. She could never forget meeting him that night three years ago. He was covered in the blood of those thugs. The cold look in his eyes had never left her memory. 

  “He insisted the kids needed to be kept safe,” Karen added.

  “Never underestimate the deep pockets of a mage,” Witt said with a tinge of envy.

  “There!” Karen pointed to the temple within sight.

  The old temple was built from solid stone and had large wooden double-doors at the front. 

  Karen ran on ahead and knocked as hard as she could. “Open up, it’s me!” 

  The sound of locks being moved were heard from inside and the door slowly opened. An old man with a bushy beard poked his head through the crack.

  “Karen, oh thank the Traveler! Get inside, quickly!” said the head priest, Elm.

  She smiled gratefully and hurried the others inside first before walking in. As soon as they were all inside, Elm slammed the doors shut and threw back on the iron latch.

  “My mother is hurt, she needs help,” said Karen.

  Elm glanced at Shirleen’s bloody hands and frowned. “Witt, lay her down in one of the beds. I’ll go get some needle and thread. Karen, boil some water and bring me some clean towels.”

  “On it.” Karen ran to the kitchen, stopped, and glanced back at her sister. “The other kids are in the main hall. They’ve been worried about you, why don’t you go say hi.”

  “O-okay,” Sophi nodded and looked at her mother for confirmation.

  Shirleen smiled weakly. “I’ll be fine, go say hi to your friends.”

  “Okay!” Sophi nodded and kissed her mother’s cheek, before she ran off.

  Karen walked into the kitchen, grabbed a pot from the cupboard and hurried to the well in the back of the temple. As she filled the pot, her eyes were drawn to the molten cascade of magestone that only minutes ago was a sturdy segment of the shade wall. It glowed with a hot orange foreboding light in the darkness. The wall had been broken. Most citizens were worried about their own lives and what the fall of the shade wall meant for them, but all Karen could think about were the lives of the older orphans who had gone out to fight in the city’s defense.

  Melfyn had promised that they would be stationed at the edge of the fighting, in one of the small barrack fortresses supporting the soldiers. The fortresses stood between the wall’s territory and the Commoner District. Kren thought they would be safe there, but now she had a dreadful feeling that their lives would be at risk.

  She prayed to the Guardian, the war goddess, Bellum, for all of her children’s safety.

 

~~~

 

  Southern Wall… 30 minutes earlier…

 

  An army of shades swarmed dragonbanes. The soldiers had cheered their triumph over the monsters. But their cheers died in their mouths as the white light pierced the shade swarm and struck the wall with blinding force. The wall underneath them shook and the soldiers fell to the ground, as waves of energy crashed overhead. A soul-chilling sound screeched at their ears and the world spun around them in a daze.

  The Cinder Brood tribe teenagers huddled around each other instinctively. Rowan, the only drow among his tribe, raised his shield and covered himself and their leader, Melfyn, from the blinding light.

  The slight reprieve gave Melfyn a chance to shake off the surprise. “Shields! Shields!” he screamed through the roaring waves of energy.

  His voice was drowned out by the dragonbanes’ blast, but his tribemates next to him heard.

  The void flame undulated across the wall, in pulsating waves of void energy that sent the soldiers on the wall to their knees. The magestone melted apart and the white-black flames died out.

  A ringing sound echoed in Captain Talia’s ears. The vampiress groaned weakly.

  Bulwark Commander Stonehand’s voice pierced through the noise. “Up! Get up, you bastards!”

  Talia shook her head and staggered to her feet. She reached for the betterment and leaned on it for support, her legs too shaky to hold her up.

  They had all been caught off guard. 

  The blinding light was gone and her crimson eyes were slowly getting accustomed to the darkness once more. All around her, soldiers were slowly helping each other to their feet. Some stumbled and fell back down.

  None had been directly hit by the blast and yet they could still feel the void energy in their bones, like a sickness slowly sapping their strength away.

  Commander Stonehand seemed to be the only one unshaken, the only one standing on his own. No, as Talia looked closer she noticed the slight tremor to his step. Even his body had been affected.

  Talia stared at her own shivering hand. It was as if she was taking an icy bath, her body reacting to the freezing temperature, trying to stabilize itself.

  A vampire’s body was stronger than the others and even she was finding it hard to stand on her own. Most of the soldiers on the battlements were drows, some orcs, a few humans, even less vampires. 

  If a legendary warrior-mage like Lord Stonehand could be hurt from such an attack, then what hope did ordinary soldiers have?

  The children! Talia’s eyes widened in panic. She spun around, searching for the teenagers she had so foolishly allowed on the wall.

  Talia froze.

  The teenagers were huddled together, their backs to the wall. An array of shields, each slightly overlapping one another, surrounded them in a defensive dome.

  “W-what is this…?” Talia mumbled in shock.

  A deep roar echoed across the night sky and a dragonbane, a beast larger than any monster Talia had seen dived towards their battlements.

  Soldiers screamed in panic and pushed their comrades away in an effort to escape. Commander Stonehand shouted at them, trying to rally his soldiers. Few listened, fewer held their ground.

  Talia would have cut them down for their desertion, but as the dragonbane drew closer, its black eyes met her own. A shiver ran down her spin and sheer dread filled her veins. She tried to steady her fear, but her body refused to move, her eyes unable to look away from the dragonbane’s.

  The void monster snarled in malicious hunger and swooped down.

  The shield dome abruptly parted and the group of teenagers emerged, standing tall, weapons at the ready.

  Melfyn stepped forward. “Cinder Brood! Bows!”

  Each one of them dropped their shields and lifted their bows at the monster flying towards them.

  “A lone goblin will be picked off by the wolves,” muttered Rowan.

  Jack notched his arrow, “But together—!”

  Sandra pulled her bowstring back. “We can slay a dire bear!”

  “Fire!” yelled Meflyn.