He was beyond exhaustion. Somehow, he knew that Earl Tilgar had joined the fray with more of his housecarls, heard the man's hoarse war cries echo out over the wall. Although he was not certain how, he was aware of Sarnakyle sending spell after spell into the masses, the wizard protected by a ring of guards. As the red-tinged moon rose into the starry sky, the fetid stench of blood and death filled the air.
And then, abruptly, the demons stopped.
Siggard stood at the wall, his blade and mail-coat covered in blood and gore. Somehow, during the battle he had shed his black cloak. He suddenly wondered where it was, and whether he would have to get a new one.
"Are you all right?" Sarnakyle panted, stepping over several bodies towards him. "Are you uninjured?"
Siggard nodded. "I took no wound."
"That must have been the first wave," Earl Tilgar stated, leaning against the wall nearby, cleaning blood from his sword. "How long did that last?"
Siggard shrugged. "I've lost track." When he looked down, he saw vague shapes moving in the darkness, but nothing else.
"I'll try to get some light down there," Sarnakyle said, holding out his hand and chanting softly. A bolt of lightning split the air, landing just outside the wall. In the flash of light Siggard saw the still-roiling landscape, a pile of bodies lying beside the wall.
Siggard blinked, suddenly noting the unnatural silence. "What happened to the catapults?"
"They ran out of boulders a while ago," Tilgar replied. The earl then turned to one of his housecarls. "Have lit bundles of wood lowered down the wall. We need to be able to see more than the moon will allow."
As the soldiers carried out Tilgar's commands, Siggard wished Assur himself would attack, scaling the wall so that he could strike at the monster that killed his family. In that moment, Siggard did not care about the archdemon's enchanted glyph, or whether he himself would survive the battle. He shook his head clear of these thoughts to look over the battlement, the bottom now illuminated by flickering flames.
"Here they come again!" came a cry from the north, and Siggard looked over the parapet. In the moonlight, the goat creatures were attacking, carrying giant ladders to the hoary stone.
"Poles to the ladders!" Tilgar ordered. "Don't let them reach the top!"
Siggard joined the others in a desperate race to topple the ladders, long bpoles pushing them from the walls, demons screaming as they fell to their deaths, but for each ladder that fell, another took its place. Siggard came to one, only to have a grinning goat head rise before him. With a stroke of Guthbreoht, he sent the head flying, and then helped the pole-men knock over the ladder.
The whistling of arrows filled the air, and several of the housecarls fell. Siggard heard a grunting behind him, and he turned just in time to skewer a goat demon. Guthbreoht's song surged through him, and he began a dance of death, every step leaving a dead monster.
"They're gaining the wall!" came a shout, and Siggard turned to see a mass of demons scale the parapet close to Earl Tilgar. With a shout of rage, he charged. The first monster he cut down from behind. Another turned and attacked, and he first cut the creature's
club in half, and then spilled its intestines onto the parapet.
Somebody shouted a warning, and Siggard turned, his sword raised. A demon was running at him, screaming for vengeance. With a thrust he put Guthbreoht through the creature's head, splattering pink and white brains onto a nearby guardsman. He withdrew his blade only to attack the mass of monsters again in earnest.
Three more goat creatures fell to his sword, and then it became quiet, Guthbreoht's song still throbbing in Siggard's head. Tilgar looked up, the earl's mail-coat torn and so blood-soaked that it no longer shone in the torchlight, yet little of the blood was his own. "Once again, I owe you a debt of thanks," Tilgar said. "You just saved my life. If you ever have need, come to me or my family, and we will see to you."
"If we survive this, I'll redeem your pledge."
Something twigged at Siggard's mind, though, something important that he should be remembering. But the only thing he could liken this situation to was Blackmarch, and that was a stand-up battle rather than a siege.
"Where's the third wave, do you suppose?" Tilgar asked.
Siggard shrugged, wiping sweat from his brow. How he was fending off exhaustion was beyond him, but he wasn't going to complain about the blessing. "I'm happy for any break we can get."
Tilgar smiled and nodded. He turned to a housecarl. "Have these bodies flung from the wall, and see what can be done about the blood. If we get attacked again, we'll be in greater danger of breaking our necks from tripping over the slain and slipping in their gore than from the demons."
"I am the favored Baron of the Lord of Terror!" came a bellowing roar from the demonic ranks. "You have seen the might of my army! Know now that I have many more ready for battle! I will give you a choice, pitiful mortals! If you give us the town now, only half of you will die! If you fight, none of you will survive! Give me your answer!"
Tilgar rose and stood by the wall. "It is you who will not survive, Assur, Baron of Hell! Know now that any one of us would rather die than serve you! Come to fight me, and I will kill you with my own hands!"
"You are a fool, little man, for no creature alive can slay me!" Assur cried. "All of you will die, mortals! For you have already lost!"
Even as the archdemon answered, Siggard's stomach sank in realization. The battle at the wall had been a diversion…
"By all that's holy, Tilgar, evacuate the town," Siggard cried.
Tilgar turned to him in shock. "Surely you aren't going to believe this foul…"
Suddenly, from the keep there was the hiss of arrows, and almost half of the soldiers still on the wall fell, struck down by the deadly bolts. A great roaring came up from the demonic ranks as they surged forward, bearing more ladders.
"The Hiddens took the keep while we weren't looking," Siggard said. "Give the signal to evacuate. This battle is lost!"
Tilgar gave Siggard a look of horror, his face pale as a ghost. Then he turned to the housecarl and nodded. The soldier raised a horn and blared several notes.
"Siggard, Sarnakyle, you are coming with me," Tilgar ordered. "The city guard knows what to do now."
"Are you sure we aren't needed here?" Sarnakyle asked, stepping forward. Siggard turned to see the wizard's face was flushed with sweat, the man swaying from exhaustion.
"Any man who stays on the wall now dies," Tilgar said, motioning to the men around him with his mace of office. The blue-clad soldiers were busy knocking over the ladders and loosing arrows on the keep. "The guards know what they must do, and they are all ready to make the sacrifice. We now have a sacred trust to the innocents in this town. They have already been taken into the tunnels. We must ensure that they are not followed."
Siggard nodded, and looked towards the demonic ranks. "This isn't over," he vowed, speaking above the hissing of arrows. With that, he and Sarnakyle followed the earl down, trying not to look back at the brave men on the wall, who knew that they would die that night but continued fighting regardless.