Wraith Riders galloped hard down the main thoroughfare, heading for the palace. Ethan was sure Mordred would be among them, but they all looked the same. There was no stopping them at this pace without shifting and there were too many demons around for that.
Ethan suddenly realized why the demons were even present. They didn't seem to be doing much in the way of fighting in this battle and yet they were everywhere among the combatants. Could it be that Mordred, or even Jericho, had figured out a way to keep him from utilizing his power in this fight? Were they all busy looking for him?
A hybrid soldier tried to dispatch him from behind, but Ethan beat him to it. As the creature fell, Ethan ran to intercept the last of the Wraith Riders.
The rider swept down with his broadsword as he approached. But instead of ducking the blow, Ethan leaped over the blade in a split second realm shift that knocked the rider from his saddle. Ethan took his place seizing the reins and goading the black horse on even faster.
Ethan raced through the streets, trying to catch the other riders. A group of Anakims lunged toward him from up ahead, forcing him to change course. The Wraith Riders disappeared around a bend on the main road where a group of buildings were still smoldering from the earlier bombing.
The horse obeyed his commands smoothly and Ethan avoided the giants easily. But now he wasn't sure how he might catch the black riders. He took several side streets in succession and noticed the fighting had largely remained on the main road. Most of Mordred's army was either headed toward the palace or making sure his Wraith Riders got there unhindered.
A winding lane opened up before him. A group of houses lay crushed beneath one of the fallen airships, spilling its debris into the street. Ethan and his mount leaped over some of the wreckage and dodged around the rest, making their way steadily toward the palace now visible in the distance.
RETREAT
Levi and Seth remained among the priests of the Wayland Order as they and King Stephen's soldiers escorted him back to the palace. No sooner had the King and his entourage managed to escape being pinned on the wall than Mordred's giants and hybrids flooded through the breach in the main gate. They were on the run, trying to get their sovereign to safety, if there even was such a thing in Evelah now.
Levi and Seth lagged behind with some of the other priests, like Kline and Devon, taking down giants that had managed to keep up with them as well as the much faster hybrids. Some of these abominable soldiers had taken on wolf-like characteristics, maintaining a fast pace, even traveling at times on all fours with their swords upon their backs.
Seth dodged one attack, countering with a sword to the hybrid's belly. His clean, effortless attacks made Levi a little envious of the blind man's prowess. He reminded him of a calmer Gideon. Despite multiple enemies and various kinds of attacks, Seth never grimaced or cried out. As far as Levi could tell, the man hadn't even broken a sweat yet.
For his own part Levi remained blood and guts and glory. He yelled at his enemies and gritted his teeth, using his anger to keep up with the ceaseless drain on his strength. He looked like someone who had just been keelhauled compared to his blind friend.
The other priests were doing fairly well. Some of them had fallen, but others had stayed behind, trying to keep a cushion between the frontrunners of Mordred's army and King Stephen. Devon and Kline, both expert archers, provided a good deal of in flight cover backing steadily away from the advance as they let arrows fly from their bows into the breasts of the enemy. When they and the other archers ran out of ammunition, they caught arrows from the air or grabbed them from the street as the enemy fired them astray.
After a mile or more of steady retreat and fighting, the king's entourage found a few undamaged wagons. They all piled into them and took off at a much greater pace for the palace. Seth deftly leaped into one of the wagons and called back for Levi as he screamed furiously cutting down another hybrid.
Levi smiled at his fallen foe and then looked up at the sound of distant, closing hoof-beats. Wraith Riders, five or six dozen at least, charged hard up the main road after them. Levi turned and ran for the wagon as it started away with the King and all of his surviving personal guard. "Wraith Riders!" Levi yelled as he leaped for the speeding wagon.
Seth caught Levi's arm with one hand, his belt with the other and hauled him onboard. He shouted back to the driver, warning him of the threat. The wagon lurched away even faster. But the palace remained another mile away. At the rate the Wraith Riders were closing on them, it would be close getting inside with the king before they were overtaken. The Anakims may have been big and the hybrids brutally vicious, but the Wraith Riders were both, with the sort of fighting skill found in the warrior-priests of Shaddai added in.
Their wagons passed through the palace gates. Levi leaped from the back of his wagon in order to close the gates upon the Wraith Riders and give the King and his men more time to fortify. Devon followed and together they pushed the sculpted iron gates into place. Levi found the lever which locked them together and pulled it down. With a heavy click, the deed was done and only just in time.
The Wraith Riders, wearing their leather masks with devilish faces painted upon them and midnight black armor, raced through the streets toward the gates. They looked like a wave of beetles coming to claim a carcass. Levi and Devon ran back through the main palace courtyard, following the trail of the wagons.
As the two men reached them again, the King's entourage of soldiers and warrior-priests escorted Stephen inside the palace. Levi found Seth and they followed. Heavy wooden doors were shut and great cedar beams laid into place across the frame to seal them.
"Come, men," Stephen said. "We must retreat to the armory. It is well fortified and we'll have all the weapons we need."
The men followed him through the palace, rising level by level. Seth stopped and grabbed Levi's arm. He listened with his more attuned hearing for a moment. "I hear the riders. They've stopped at the gate." A moment's pause. "They're cutting through."
"Through iron bars?" Levi asked, but he already knew it must be true. After all, they weren't dealing with natural things, but unnatural. After all that Levi had witnessed in this war, he found his own seeming surprise moot. A moment later, as they started after the king again, Levi heard the renewed sound of many horses galloping upon the cobblestones of the main courtyard.
He knew already that the doors they had shut after themselves throughout the palace would do nothing to keep these riders at bay. Soon they would find them. Then it would be a fight to the death. He would do his best, but he wasn't sure how long they would hold out. At the very least, he was fighting side by side with some of the finest warriors he'd ever known and that might make a difference.
Suddenly Levi wanted very much to have Ethan with him. The boy had become separated from them during the fight at the front gate. He dwelt on it for only a moment as he moved on.
By the time they had all reached the armory, and were about to shut up its solid iron doors, Seth grabbed Levi's arm again. "They're in the palace!"
Gideon reached the palace in time to see the King and his men shutting themselves up inside. The Wraith Riders had reached the courtyard gate and had sliced through solid iron bars with little difficulty. Two of the riders launched their black steeds at the gate and kicked it down with their front hooves. The lot of them, more than fifty as far as he could tell, stormed across the cobblestone courtyard toward the palace rising above it.
Gideon ducked around the palace, looking for another way in. He'd managed to find a grappling hook from one of the fallen soldiers along his way and spotted a terrace several stories up that looked like a good place to enter. He threw the four pronged steel head up and over the stone rail; pulled it to make sure he had good purchase and then steadily pulled himself up the wall.