CHAPTER
58
THEY TURNED THE FIRST corner and the next, their formation impeccably turning on its axis and up onto the avenue toward the plaza. Arcturus felt helpless, walking at the back. All he could do was stare into the scrying crystal in Sergeant Caulder’s hand, and watch as the traitor soldiers turned and saw the approaching shield wall.
“Let ’em know we’re coming!” Daniels shouted.
Wood clattered on wood as the men drummed their spears against their shields. With each beat, they chanted in unison, a great outpouring of breath.
Hoom. Hoom. Hoom.
Arcturus could feel the sound deep in his chest, and the men stamped forward in time, as if they could shake the very ground with their steps.
Hoom. Hoom. Hoom.
Suddenly, Sacharissa unleashed a howl, the cry so loud and keening that it hurt Arcturus’s ears. The other demons joined in, adding to the din, an unearthly caterwauling that would chill the rebels’ blood.
The Nandi’s roar seemed to rattle the windows of the dwellings on either side of the avenue, and Arcturus heard the sound of locks being turned and bars being lowered on the lower floors, while terrified faces watched from the windows.
“Hellfire, there’s a lot of them,” Prince Harold shouted over the din. In the crystal, the rebels milled around, unsure whether to charge. Behind Harold’s men’s shields, it was impossible to tell if they were friend or foe.
“They don’t know how many we are,” Arcturus yelled. “Give them a taste of steel and they’ll run.”
Hoom. Hoom. Hoom.
Their thin line was so close to the enemy, no more than a dozen steps away. Beyond, the shield’s surface glimmered and swirled, casting their battlefield in an unearthly glow.
“Fire!” Percival screamed.
Eleven crossbows jerked, and as many rebels were hurled back into the mass. There was panic as the nearest ranks scrambled to get back, while those behind blocked their path.
“At will, at will!” Daniels ordered.
More crossbows spat, sending rebels tumbling. They were so close. Now Arcturus could hear the first bolts being fired back, thudding into the wood of the loyalists’ shields. But in their formation, it seemed they were untouchable.
Arcturus saw the elbows of the third rank jerking as they stabbed between the shields, their long spears joining those of the first as the sides met. Screams of pain echoed down the street, and now Arcturus could hear weapons thudding on wood.
“Step over them and kill the bastards. Forward!” Percival cried.
Hoom. Hoom. Hoom.
Their chanting was breathless now, but still the men stepped forward. In the crystal, Arcturus saw rebels throwing themselves against the shields, beating at Harold’s men with their swords. But the shields of the third rank protected the heads of the first, while the crossbow bolts whistled through the gaps and the double row of spears stabbed and stabbed again.
Bodies began to appear, trampled underfoot. An injured rebel flailed as a member of the third rank stabbed down, ending the traitor’s life before joining the shield wall once more.
“No mercy,” the soldier bellowed. “For Hominum!”
They were winning. The rebels were falling over themselves in their rush to escape the meat grinder that approached them, and the white dome drew ever closer with every step.
But then Prince Harold let out a gasp, and Arcturus looked behind him. Scores of rebels were emerging from side streets, a hundred feet behind them.
“Bastards,” Sergeant Caulder called, brandishing his blade. “Our shield wall will be cut to pieces from behind. It can’t turn around.”
Hoom. Hoom.
Arcturus glanced over his shoulder. The dome was so close—the traitor soldiers in front of it were running around its rim into the corners of the plaza, thinning the mass of men who still fought a running battle against Harold’s loyalists.
But the shield wall could only move so fast, one step at a time.
“Good thing we’re here to protect them,” Rotter snarled. The soldier drew his sword and pointed it down the way they had come, where the new rebels were still massing. It seemed there might have been as many as a hundred dark-clothed men there.
Hoom. Hoom.
“They’re disorganized,” Sergeant Caulder called out, shading his eyes. “Those are no soldiers. They’re citizens.”
Now that Arcturus looked, he could see the different colors of cloth, and the weapons held were mostly kitchen knives and lengths of wood.
“No crossbows,” Ulfr said. “We might just hold them.”
Then, as if some order had been given, the mass of rebels charged.
“Sacharissa, with me,” Arcturus called, firing his crossbow into the approaching mass and watching the bolt disappear into the crowd. Then he threw the weapon aside and tugged free his axe.
“Come on!”
They were four warriors and four demons, a single line against a mass of snarling men and women. But Arcturus didn’t have time to be scared, only step into his place and scream defiance as they met in a clash of metal.
The front-runners came first, a scattered handful ten feet in front of the others. A screaming man ran at Arcturus with a broom handle. Arcturus did not think, only fell to one knee as it swung over his head and then sliced deep into the man’s waist. The man choked and fell, the handle falling from his hands. Sacharissa finished him with a lunge from her teeth, her ribs flaring with pain at the sudden movement.
Then another, a bearded monster of a man armed with a spear, who slowed down, his spear held in front of him. But another rebel slammed into him from behind, and Arcturus chopped down once, then parried as a third man slashed a cleaver at his head, cutting a sliver of wood from Arcturus’s axe handle before Sacharissa opened the rebel’s stomach with a slash of claws.
“Come and die,” Harold yelled beside him, his sword red with blood. “Come and die!”
The Nandi roared, and the nearest rebels slowed, while those behind shoved them forward to be slaughtered. A great swipe from the bear-demon’s claws sent two men flying, and then it pulled another from the crowd and savaged him with its jaws.
“Die,” Sergeant Caulder yelled. He and Rotter held the edges, while Gelert and Reynard flanked them. The two men were like dancers, lunging and dodging back and forth, while men fell and writhed beneath the onslaught of their blades.
A terrified man was pushed onto Arcturus’s blade as he hacked down, and blood sprayed the air. He had just killed a man, and he felt sick and angry and scared. Yet all he could do was swing again and again, his axe thickening with blood, the rebels pushing back and screaming as the momentum of the mass shifted them ever closer.
“Prince Harold!” Percival called. “Your way is clear.”
“Hellfire,” Prince Harold cursed, hurling his sword into the crowd. Then he and the Nandi were gone. Arcturus had no time to turn, no time to see how close they were. Only step to the side to fill the gap that the prince had left.
Ulfr flanked him now. The broad-shouldered dwarf was red with blood, his own axe making brutal work as men darted close to try their luck. A knife scraped across the dwarf’s chain mail, and the axe bit deep, sending another rebel screaming off this mortal plane.
But they were spread thin now, and the crowd lurched forward. Arcturus felt the scrape of a blade along his breastplate, cutting a shallow wound in his side before Sacharissa clawed the culprit’s legs out from under him. Arcturus finished him with a swift chop, and his arm sang with pain as a length of wood broke itself on the vambrace on his wrist.
“Back,” Sergeant Caulder called. “Back, damn you.”
A crossbow bolt whistled past Arcturus and into the crowd, taking a rebel in the neck. Arcturus snatched a glimpse over his shoulder. The third rank of the shield wall had turned, and were giving them covering fire.