It would, he decided, make a better weapon than this stupid spear.
Holding both, the spear in his left hand and the rod in his right, he ran toward the wall.
Most of the villagers had taken up positions on the platforms that ran the length of the village walls. Men and women alike fired bows and crossbows over the wall, ducking behind its protection when similar missiles flew at them. The attackers were screaming threats and warning of what they’d do if the villagers didn’t surrender, and the villagers responded in kind. Several had already fallen, and others worked to move their bodies away from the foot of the wall and to patch the wounded.
Aric saw Ruhm, Amoni and Sellis up on the wall, and he climbed a ladder to join them. Raiders, dozens of them—more than had initially captured them—swarmed around the village on kanks, on erdlus, and on foot. Most carried shields and weapons, some even wore helms and armor of chitin or bone.
Sellis glanced at him. “What’s that?”
“It’s a piece of iron.”
“What’s it for?”
A raider leapt from a kank’s back, grabbing onto the wall nearby and starting to haul himself up. Aric raised the rod and slammed it down on the man’s head, cracking his helmet and knocking him from the wall. “That.”
“Good enough.”
An arrow clattered against the wall right beneath Aric. Aric ducked away from it, then rose again. The archer was far out of range for him, but others were approaching, including a couple of elves running toward the wall at full speed. When they reached it, they would launch themselves over it and land inside. Aric rested the rod on top of the wall and shifted the spear to his right hand. He waited another few heartbeats, until he could see the elves’ eyes, their parted lips, drawing in air as they ran. One had a pink triangle of tongue showing at the corner of his mouth. Aric aimed at that and hurled his spear.
The obsidian point sank into the meaty area near the elf’s shoulder. The elf slowed, cursed, and yanked it out. He threw it back over the wall, without taking aim, and kept running. Blood poured down his chest and arm.
That’s why I don’t like spears, Aric thought. He hoped his hadn’t hit any villagers, but didn’t dare take his eyes off the approaching elves to check.
The unwounded elf jumped first. His leap carried him to the top of the wall. He had a mace in his hand, and he swung it, trying to clear a path. But defenders stabbed him with swords and a pike, and he fell backward, landing on the ground below with a loud thump. The second elf sprang over his comrade’s body and, in spite of his wound, landed on top of the wall with momentum to spare. His right foot barely touched the wall, and it flexed, giving him enough spring to keep going into the village. Aric swung his rod up. It struck the elf square in the face. The speed of the elf’s forward motion combined with Aric’s powerful swing was sufficient to flatten the elf’s nose and crush his skull. He howled as his face collapsed. Blood spurted everywhere. The elf fell, inside the wall—the first raider to make it that far. But he would be no threat.
The raiders retreated, regrouped, and attacked again.
More villagers fell under this second assault. The raiders were less anxious to rush the walls this time, but fanned out around the village, pelting it with arrows and bolts. Every time a villager fell, another took his or her place.
There was, however, a limited number of villagers. Soon there wouldn’t be enough to replace the dead and wounded. Aric and his companions had brought this on the village, and that certainty sat on Aric’s shoulders like a horrible weight.
When the raiders again charged the wall, some carrying crude ladders, he and his friends fought with all the urgency of any villager. Again, they beat back the assault.
But in another place, at the back of the village the wall was breached.
Word spread quickly around the platforms. Raiders had made their way through, and were even now working toward the front, where they hoped to fling open the village’s only gate. Some defenders had to leave the wall to stop them, but most had to stay at their posts to prevent more breaches.
Hotak jumped down from the platform and ran down the street his shop was on. Aric clapped Ruhm once on the back and did the same. If the raiders got behind the defenders on the wall, they’d bring them down quickly, and then there would be no one to keep the walls from being breached or the gates opened.
A party of raiders had reached the town square. Most villagers were at one wall or another, so defenders were sparse here, but Hotak and a few others blocked their way. Even Mazzax emerged from Hotak’s shop, holding a maul with a blunt, heavy steel head.
When Aric joined them, a raider shouted, “You!”
It was Ceadrin, the elf. “I thought you were dead,” Aric said.
“No thanks to you that I’m not. He’s the reason we’re here,” Ceadrin told the villagers. “Turn over him and his friends and we’ll leave you be.”
“It’s too late for that, elf,” Hotak said. “You’ve slain too many of ours, and you’ve been a bother too many times. We’ll end this today.”
“Very well,” Ceadrin said. “Though you won’t like the ending.” He turned to his fellow raiders. “Kill them all, then we’ll burn this village to the ground.”
The raiders rushed the villagers. Steel flashed and blood flew, and first one villager died, then another, and a third. Raiders fell too, but more came in from the breached wall. Aric used his iron rod like a sword and a club, striking with it, swinging it, jabbing. Hotak battled with a fine sword he had doubtless made himself. Mazzax wielded his maul with ferocity and determination.
It began to seem as if they would repel the raiders.
Until one of them used sorcery.
Aric should have seen it coming.
The raiders were fighting the villagers with every weapon at their disposal. Then, as if at a prearranged signal, they drew back. The pretended to be merely catching their breath, and the villagers took advantage of the moment to do the same.
But one of the raiders was standing back from the others, partially obscured by a wagon parked in the road. He was, Aric realized, performing a spell. As that raider finished a series of wild gestures, Ceadrin tossed a small bundle of sticks toward the defenders. The sticks landed on the ground and the bundle broke apart.
The scattered sticks transformed into vipers, writhing toward the villagers, venom dripping from long, sharp fangs. Two of the villagers were bit right away. Hotak swung his sword into a serpent, cutting it in half, but the two halves each grew longer, the back half sporting a new, snapping head.
“This is magic most foul!” he cried.
The villagers defended themselves against the snakes, no longer paying the raiders any mind.
Hotak was right, foul magic indeed was at work. The handful of trees and the small patches of grass decorating the square were already drying out, turning black. Dying.
Mazzax bludgeoned one of the vipers with his maul. This one didn’t come back to life or split into two. But while he was doing so, another one reached him, slithering up his stubby leg. He saw it and screamed. If he used the maul on it, he would cripple himself.
Aric rushed to the dwarf’s side. His iron rod had no point, but many magical creatures, he’d heard, disliked iron. He thrust an end between the snake and Mazzax’s leg, scooped the snake off him, and then ran forward and hurled the serpent back at the raiders. It landed at one’s foot, sinking its fangs into her, and the woman wailed until the venom had paralyzed and killed her.
So they weren’t safe from their own vipers. Aric swept up another on his rod and threw it, then one more. Raiders darted away from the snakes. Aric caught one more and, making sure to keep it from climbing up the rod toward him, ran right into their midst. No raider challenged him. Finally, he tossed it at one standing between him and the wagon, then he leapt into the wagon’s bed, and off that, coming down behind the raider who had made the vipers in the first place.