Hunkering down beside Guy, Amos nodded. “The best. All things considered, we did all right. A little more luck here or there, and we’d have had his guts on a stick.” Amos sighed. “Still, there’s no use dwelling on the past, I always say. Come along, let’s go bleed some of those miserable land rats.” He leaped to his feet and grabbed the throat of a goblin who had just cleared the wall. The creature had not seen any defenders, and suddenly there was Amos, seizing him by the throat. With a jerk he crushed the creature’s windpipe, and cast him back down the ladder, dislodging three more who were right behind him. Amos pushed the ladder away as Guy slashed with his sword at another who climbed through a crenel beside Amos.
Amos stiffened and gasped and, looking down, discovered an arrow in his side. “Damn me!” he said, apparently astonished by the fact. Then a goblin breasted the wall, and struck out with his sword, the impact nearly spinning Amos around. The former sea captain’s knees buckled, and he fell hard to the stones. Guy cut the goblin’s head from his shoulders with a savage blow.
He knelt next to Amos and said, “I’ve told you to keep your damn head down.”
Amos smiled up at him. “Next time I’ll listen,” he said weakly, then his eyes closed.
Guy whirled as another goblin came over the wall, and with an upward thrust he gutted the creature. The Protector of Armengar, former Duke of Bas-Tyra, slashed right and left, bringing death to any goblin, troll, or moredhel who came close to him. But the outer wall of the keep was breached, and more invaders swarmed over, and Guy saw himself being slowly surrounded. Others on the wall heard the call for retreat and hurried down the stairs to stand within the great hall, but Guy stood over his fallen friend with sword ready, not moving.
Murmandamus walked over the bodies of his own soldiers, ignoring the cries of the dying and wounded around him. He entered the barbican of the keep, passing the shattered outer doors. With a curt motion of his hand he ordered his soldiers forward with the ram to begin the assault upon the inner door. He moved to one side while they began beating on the door, their comrades seeking to rid the walls of Sethanon archers. For an instant all within the killing ground of the barbican were intent upon the splintering door, and Murmandamus stepped back into the shadows, silently laughing at the folly of other creatures. With each death he had gained power and now he was ready.
A moredhel chieftain ran into the killing ground seeking his master. He brought word of the battle in the city. Fighting over spoils had broken out between two rival clans, and while they had been distracted, a pocket of defenders had escaped certain annihilation. The master’s presence was required to keep order. He grabbed one of his underlings and asked Murmandamus’s whereabouts. The goblin pointed, and the chieftain shoved the creature away, for the dark corner he indicated was empty. The goblin ran forward to work upon the ram, for another soldier had fallen to arrows from above, while the moredhel chieftain continued to look for his master. He asked about, and all said that Murmandamus had vanished. Cursing all omens, prophecies, and heralds of destruction, the chieftain hurried back toward the section of the city where his own clan battled. New orders were about to be given.
Pug heard Macros’s words in his mind. They are trying to break through.
Pug and Macros’s minds were linked, with a rapport beyond anything Pug had experienced in his life. He knew the sorcerer, he understood him, he was one with Macros. He remembered things from the sorcerer’s long history, foreign lands with alien people, histories of worlds far distant, all was his. And so was the knowledge.
With his mystic eye, he could ‘see’ the place they would attempt to enter. It existed between their physical world and the place where Tomas waited, a seam between one time frame and another. And something like sound was building, something that he could not hear but could feel. A pressure was rising, as those who sought to enter this world began their final assault.
Arutha tensed. One moment he had been watching Pug and Macros standing like statues, then suddenly another moved in the vast hall. From out of the shadows came the giant moredhel, his face a thing of beauty and horror as he removed his black dragon helm from his sweating brow. Bare of armour, his chest revealed the dragon birthmark of his heritage, and in his hand he held a black sword. He fixed his eyes upon Macros and Pug and moved toward them.
Arutha stepped out from behind a pillar, standing between Murmandamus and the two motionless mages. He held his sword at the ready. “Now, baby killer, you have your chance,” he said.
Murmandamus faltered, his eyes growing wide. “How –” Then he grinned. “I thank the fates, Lord of the West. You are now mine.” He pointed his finger and a silver bolt of energy shot forward, but it was warped to strike the blade of Arutha’s sword, where it danced like incandescent fire, pulsing with white-hot fury. Arutha flicked his wrist and the point of the blade touched the stone floor. The fire winked out.