Another hiss of arrows came hard, downwards over his head, shafts slicing deadly through the air. The creatures took no notice.
They were almost upon them, their red eyes on the Fayre’s deserted stalls. As one, at some unheard signal, their lumber became a run.
Here we go. Jade swallowed, let out a breath.
With a barked order, the shield wall snapped together smartly, spears bristling. Their training was flawless, but the creatures were too scattered, too widespread – as the wall stepped forwards and punched hard into the centre of the attackers’ ragged line, they were already round its edges.
Some turned inwards to lash at the spearmen’s flanks; others ran straight for the Fayre.
Arrows struck them, sprang back.
Jade had no idea what he should do.
The shield wall held, just. Spears clattering uselessly off stone shoulders. Terhnwood shattered – too fragile. Stone hands tore at shield rims, methodical, relentless, grey-cadaver faces chillingly motionless. Their assault was completely silent. He could hear the defiant shouts of the fighters, the archer’s command to loose at will – but they weren’t enough, weren’t nearly enough.
The second rank of spearmen was turning, fearful, needing to see what was happening behind them. Orders were snapped, but they broke anyway, some of them running to save the bared wooden uprights of their livelihood.
Smoke billowed across the battlefield.
His heart screaming in his chest – What are you doing? – Jade saw his first warrior die.
He was flanked, torn down from the shield wall’s edge, claws and ripped skin, a frantic scrabble for a belt blade that snapped like a stick. His cry carved a wound in the CityWarden’s mind – a scar on his memory until the end of the Count of Time. Failure. Guilt. The stone creature was on the spearman, unassailable. It burned his flesh, buried its broken talons in his skin and tore him to pieces, shredding muscle from bone, bearing him down in grim, grey silence, trampling him into the churn of mud and gore underfoot.
Sickened, Jade could only watch.
And it didn’t stop – red eyes brighter than the glow of the setting sun, it reached its claws for the next target, seized him as he turned, and tried to shove his spear crosswise over its chest and push it back. Heat reddened his face. Beside him, the rank was cringing away from a scorching, tearing death – they edged sideways, staggering, frightened, spear-points in every direction as the sides of the formation crumbled.
As the second man went down, Jade saw one of them throw up.
At the centre of the wall, the fighters rallied. Someone was shouting. They were stamping forwards, in hard time, one pace after another, shields slamming as they went. He saw one creature fall back, then another.
Hope sparked – but it was brief. Fire and smoke were rising into the dusk, visibility failing now. A shield rim caught alight. The fighter threw it from her, yelling in shock. Another scream, another man down.
The fallen man’s hand stretched for a moment, begging for help, before he was trampled into the churn of mud below.
The creatures were tearing into the side of the unit, ripping their way towards the centre. Fighter after fighter saw the friend next to them shredded, ground down, burned and screaming. They were turning to defend themselves, their friends, tangling spear shafts. One punched his shield rim with a slam into a stone thing’s face – it hesitated. He hit it again, and again, and again, screaming terror and defiance as it rocked, cracked, and crumbled.
He let out a ragged cheer, echoed by those round him.
Beside him, a horsewoman shouted, “Hit them in the back! Now!”
It was all happening so fast. Jade shook himself, raised the banner, waved the order. Beside him, his mounted drummer hammered out the rhythm, throbbing through the smoke.
It was like a tavern-saga, unreal.
As the horses moved, the foot-fighters were being seized, flesh blackening under burning hands, their bones broken and torn from their sockets like meat at a banqueting table. They were people he knew, people whose greetings and families were familiar to him.
Denial screamed loud in the CityWarden’s head.
Ears back, his mare broke into an unsteady canter, then a run. Around her, a thunder of hooves, a rising of dust – a raw shout of defiance. The curve of Jade’s kite shield bounced at his knee. The drummer continued to pound out the rhythm – it sounded like bravery. Spears were couched. He found his voice and added his cry to the roar. A courageous sound, a futile one.
But they raced for the creatures ripping into the shield wall.
He caught a glimpse of the beasts that had got round behind it. They were skirmishing now, harried by lone fighters, arrow shafts bouncing back from their grinding, shifting stone. Smoke rose round them like shadows. Their reactions were startlingly swift. One lone spearwoman jabbed inexpertly, saw her spear tip shatter – and the thing was on her, bearing her to the ground in pitted grey silence.
Jade saw it for only an instant: it raised a stone fist over her, she struggled to push it away, her hands crisping. She shrieked in fury, a sky-ripping, emasculating sound. The thing punched clean through the front of her skull.
Got up, looked for another kill.
And the wall of horsemen hit.
In the dust, in the heat, in the smoke, in the stench and noise of fear, he kept his seat by sheer reflex. The mare was barging, haunches into stone – he could smell the burning of her hide. His spearpoint was useless. He hung grimly onto his pommel and reins with one hand, used the other to keep the banner aloft, a beacon of green and white. One foot lashed out at a creature. He jarred his ankle and it turned to eye him balefully from skull sockets full of fire.
He heard himself shouting, “For Roviarath! For the Varchinde!”
Chaos swirled round him.
But several creatures had reached the edge of the Fayre.
Jade’s hands were numb, his arms pricking with tension. Disbelief surged through him as the first uprights caught. This couldn’t happen to him, to his city, to his friends...
The Fayre went up round them like matchwood, blazing fierce and immediate. Flames caught and danced with the dusk breeze, smoke poured upwards into the darkening sky. His archers fell back, coughing.
Through the thumping of hooves, drums and heart, he thought he could hear the commander shouting to rally, but the sound was desperate under the spreading, flaring bonfire that was Roviarath’s wealth.
Then a voice, “My Lord! ‘Ware!”
In the smoke, there was a creature suddenly right on top of him, stone claws reaching for his mare, gouging at the flesh of her neck. She whinnied like a scream, teeth bared, danced crosswise nearly costing him his seat. Around him, the thunder of hooves was interspersed with shouts, snorts, the sharp sounds of terhnwood shattering on stone, the cries and slams of the shield wall.
He heard another horse scream – really scream. He heard the crash as it went over, the harsh clatter of its tack as it hit the ground. He heard it struggle, heard it grunt, repeatedly. He heard the rider bellowing swear words.
The spearmen fought on, shields slamming and feet stamping. Their commander was hoarse, his voice a rasp of coughing as he tried to hold the line together.
The drum thundered.
Before him, was the voiceless, faceless thing, the only awareness the vicious glow of red in its skull-socket eyes. Heat poured from its skin.
He had the oddest feeling it knew who he was.
Another horse went down. Somewhere in the smoke beside him, he saw the shape fold sideways. Get up, he willed it, get up! Through the wheeling, stamping chaos, he could see the woman who’d shouted, turning her mount in frantic circles. There were three of them round her – they’d had enough wit to separate her from her tan.