The Red Knight

There were daemons among them, a dozen or more, fast, lithe, elegant and deadly. And they simply ran up the walls.

His crossbowmen loosed and loosed into the horde coming at them, and he did his best to walk up and down behind them on the crenellations, murmuring words of encouragement and praising their steadiness. He knew how to command, he’d just never done it before.

The first wave almost took the wall. A daemon came right over and started killing guildsmen. It was nothing but luck that its great sword bounced off a journeyman armourer’s breastplate and the man’s mates got their bolts into the lethal thing. It still took four more men down while it died, but the sight of the dead daemon stiffened the guildsmen’s spines.

They staved off the second wave. The daemons had grown careful and led from the back. Alcaeus tried to get his crossbowmen to snipe at them, but there was never a moment when they could do anything but fight the most present danger.

A guild captain came to him where he was standing, leaning heavily on his pole-axe because he knew enough not to waste energy in armour. The man saluted.

‘M’lord,’ he said. ‘We’re almost out of bolts. Every lad brings twenty.’

Ser Alcaeus blinked. ‘Where do you get more?’

‘I was hoping you would know,’ said the guild officer.

Ser Alcaeus sent a runner, but he already knew the answer.

The third wave got over the walls behind them, they heard it go. The sounds of fighting changed, there was sudden shrieking and his men started to look over their shoulders.

He wished he had his squire – a veteran of fifty battles. But the man had died protecting him in the ambush and so he had no one to ask for advice.

Ser Alcaeus set his jaw and prepared to die well.

He walked along the wall again as the shadows lengthened. His section was about a hundred paces, end to end – Albinkirk was a big town, even to Ser Alcaeus who hailed from the biggest city in the world.

He stopped when he saw three of his men looking back at the town.

‘Eyes front,’ he snapped.

‘A house on fire!’ some idiot said.

More men turned and, just like that, he lost them. They turned, and then there was a daemon on the wall, killing them. It moved like fluid, passing through men, round them, with two axes flashing in its taloned hands – even as Alcaeus watched, one of the daemon’s taloned feet licked out to eviscerate a fifteen-year old who’d had no breastplate.

Alcaeus charged. He felt the fear that it generated – but in Morea knights trained for this very thing, and he knew the fear. He ran through it, blade ready-

It hit him. It was faster by far, and an axe slammed into his arm. He was well-trained and caught much of the blow. His small fortune in plate armour ate the rest, and then he was swinging.

It had to pivot to face him. The twitch of its hips took a heartbeat, and he swung his pole-axe up from the garde of the boar, like a boy swinging a pitchfork at haying, but with twice the speed.

Ser Alcaeus was as shocked as the daemon when his axe caught the other creature’s axe-hand and smashed it. Ichor sprayed and its axe fell. It slashed at him with the left, turned and kicked him with a taloned foot. All four talons bit through his breastplate and knocked him flat, but none reached him through his mail and padded arming cote.

A crossbow struck the daemon. Not a bolt but the bow itself, swung by a terrified guildsman.

The daemon bounded onto the wall, scattering defenders, and jumped.

Alcaeus got to his feet. He still had his pole-axe.

He was proud of himself for two breaths, and then he realised that the town behind him was afire, and there were two more daemons on the wall with him, and irk arrows were suddenly everywhere. Worse, they were coming from the town.

He had a dozen men by him, including the stunned looking man who’d hit the daemon with his crossbow. The rest of his fools were leaving the wall, running for their houses.

He shook his head and cursed. They were surrounded, half his men gone, and it was growing dark rapidly.

He made his decision. ‘Follow me!’ he called, and ran along the wall. He was headed for the castle, which towered over the western end of town by the river gate. It had its own defensive walls.

The whole town was falling. It was the only place to make a stand.

When he paused to breathe, Albinkirk was afire from south to north, and a sea of Wild creatures were running through the streets. He knew the difference between the irks – elfin and gnarled and satanic in the firelight – and the boglins, with their leather midsections and their oddlyjointed arms. He’d studied pictures. He’d trained for this, but it was like a nightmare. He was running again with the half dozen of his crossbowmen who stuck with him. The rest ran off into the town despite his admonitions. One died at their feet, ripped to pieces by boglins and consumed by something worse.

He could see the river, and the castle, but the next section of wall was crowded with enemies. The streets below were worse.