Pieces of Eight

Chapter 19

With a mighty roar, Urai heaved her axe and cleaved again.

The soldier in front of her, armored in red, fell with an echoing cry of anguish and despair. Spurring her horse forward, Urai swung again and felled another man wearing red. Over and over, again and again, she and her forces chipped away at the seemingly-endless barrage of red breaking against her column like blood-stained water over silvered rock.

Her shoulder ached on the right from repeated hefts of her axe. Her shoulder ached on the left from carrying a shield and taking hit after hit against it, before it was finally shattered and had been discarded. The muscles in her legs were sore and screaming and cramping from clinging tightly to her horse, a slim and flighty blood-bay racer. Her back was just as uncomfortable, the result of leaning to and fro to strike down her opponents. The callouses on her fingers were burning as her horse yanked at the reins again and she had to fight to keep him from bolting again. Her hair, now just as drenched in sweat as the rest of her body, clung to her neck and forehead and itched terribly. Short of retreating, setting aside her axe, and removing her helm, there was nothing she could do about it. She swiped at it when it fell free and across her eyes, but otherwise had to deal with it.

Blessedly, just then, she found a break. A small pocket opened in front of her for the briefest of moments where every soldier in front of her was already engaged with one of her own. Letting her arm hang heavily, she extended her elbow and felt the joint catch fire as she did so. And then, the pound of footsteps caused her to raise it again, and spin to face her new attacker.

Just as quickly, though, the axe fell again. One of her own, black-armored, spattered with blood but still bearing all his limbs and most of his wits. A damn miracle, Urai considered it. "News!" she demanded, shifting her grip higher on the axe and wheeling her horse back to face the oncoming front.

"We're nearly through!" the soldier reported, jabbing an approaching pikeman with his own lance. "If we can continue to hold out for another twenty minutes or so, we should be able to break their lines for good!"

"Can we hold for another twenty minutes?" Urai snapped, ending another charge before it reached her.

"A rear lookout has spotted The Falcon and The Gryphon entering the city about fifteen minutes ago. As long as they reach us, we will!"

Grimacing, Urai knocked three men aside with one sweep of her axe. "Then see to it that they reach us!" she bellowed, and once again bent to her work.

The wall of bodies in front of her seemed endless. Again and again her axe fell; again and again, another man stepped forward to replace the one she'd felled. Her back and shoulders and arms screeched with protest every time she raised her axe, and she took to passing it from one hand to the other in an attempt to alleviate the furiously-overworked muscles. With every stroke, another wave of blood splashed from the man she'd dropped onto the cobblestones streets, her greaves, her horse, sometimes even as high as her armored thigh or hip or once, even her chestplate. Gritting her teeth, Urai carved into her enemy over and over, fighting with the tenacious willpower of a woman who had decided that failure was not an option. The Keep was directly behind the gates that this band of men were guarding. She'd advanced on them slowly but steadily throughout the day, but now, it was an unstoppable force pitted against an immovable object. While she had thought she had the superior numbers walking into this city, the near-constant stream of reinforcements stepping into the places of men who'd fallen was indescribable. And while her messenger had promised that her own aid was just around the corner, she was beginning to doubt that even that would be enough. Somehow, she'd been duped.

A shadow fell across the street where the two armies were dueling; clouds were drifting across the sun, as if compelled by a wind that was not there. Urai gave them no thought, other than to will them away quickly. It would not do to open up the heavens into a downpour right now.