When it crashed, the diapson crystals that powered the ship and launchers erupted in a series of massive explosions that consumed the wreckage in seconds.
The attackers on the ground who had fallen back in the face of the fires from the trough oil and the fire launchers returned, carrying makeshift ladders that they threw up against the walls. Then they began to climb. Again the defenders used poles and spears to try to push the ladders off, but attackers still on the ground held the scaling equipment in place while those clinging to the rungs grappled with the implements being shoved at them and wrenched them away. Fire launchers and rail slings were brought into play, and archers sent arrows raining down on the climbers. Many were stricken and dropped away, but some got through and, once on the wall, became almost unstoppable. Heedless of their own safety—or their very lives—they tore at the defenders like animals, leaving them shredded.
The battle seesawed back and forth as dawn broke and the sun rose into the morning sky from behind the eastern mountains. The gloom faded, but the haze remained, thick and swirling in the rising heat and the slow approach of a storm coming down out of the north. Screams and shouts reverberated across the city, and men and women died with the passing of every minute as the struggle intensified.
An hour after sunrise, the army massed at the the west wall attacked.
Keeton, still rallying his soldiers on the southern battlements, left for the west instantly. By then Sefita Rayne had four warships in the air, two flying into each battle. It made all the difference. Fighting as a pair so that one vessel warded the other and both had sentries aloft in the crow’s nests watching for the dragon’s return, they hammered the attackers on the ground with onslaughts of rail sling missiles and fire launcher flames alike.
It became a war of attrition on both walls, but the deciding factor was the presence of the warships. The dragon returned briefly, but was sighted quickly in the improving light and met with intense weapons fire from each pair of vessels when it tried to approach. Only once did it get close enough to set fire to one of the light sheaths, but the sheath was cut loose quickly and dropped away before the fire could spread.
On the ground, the defenders kept control of both the south and west walls, and the gates held firm against any number of efforts to force them open. As noon approached, the demon army began to withdraw, leaving their dead and wounded where they had fallen. They turned away with studied indifference to the arrows still tracking them, their rage undiminished. Keeton was appalled that his soldiers had killed so many of them and still the creatures seemed as numerous as ever. He called for a cease-fire from his defenders, not wanting to waste resources that would be needed later.
Below the west wall and on the approach road winding between the now abandoned watchtowers, scavenging beasts from the demon army caught hold of the bodies of fallen defenders and dragged them far enough away that they could feast on them, still within view of those soldiers manning the city walls.
Standing with Wint, peering through the smoke and ash rising from the last of the oil burning in the trough, Keeton watched the remnants of the demonkind slowly disappear into the distance.
“They’ll be back, Commander,” his second said quietly.
Keeton nodded in agreement. “They’ll be back.”
Seersha was exercising on the Home Guard practice field, using various members of the elite corps as sparring partners, when the messenger arrived. He stood to one side looking flushed and impatient until there was a pause in the fighting, then he rushed over.
“The King wishes to see you immediately,” he said.
No matter its portent, this was welcome news. The Druid was eager for anything that would break the monotony of her current life, of endless hours spent waiting for the King to mount an Elven advance into the deep Westland to monitor the prospect of an anticipated demon breakout. She had thought it would happen long before this. She had been certain, after Aphenglow and Arling departed with the Ellcrys seedling, that their grandfather would move quickly to advise the High Council of the danger and then act on it.
She had been wrong.
The old King had waited two more days before telling the High Council of the collapse of the Forbidding, of the fate that had befallen the Druids and their companions, of the warnings given by the Ellcrys of its failing, and of the need to prepare for war.