Siege of Stone

CHAPTER 36

During his training on the Wavewalker, as a naive young man, Bannon had learned to fight with his sword, prancing across the ship’s deck as Nathan showed him true skills. He had never imagined facing such impossible numbers of enemies. Now he did.

He ran forward along with hundreds of fighters into the enemy ranks, reminding himself that they were only targeting a small portion of the huge camp. It should be something they could accomplish. These ancient warriors would have been extraordinary foes under normal circumstances, but now, to make matters worse, they were also partially stone.

Beside him, Lila didn’t seem intimidated at all. She threw herself into the fight.

Utros’s army formed orderly ranks for defense, while the Ildakaran warriors were independent and wild, turning any military response into a melee. Through sheer momentum and energy, their first charge crashed into the enemy’s hastily erected defenses, shuddering the line. Once the city’s surge broke the front ranks, each clash came down to single combat.

Bannon steeled himself and rushed into the fray, holding his iron-tipped club in one hand and Sturdy in the other. His discolored blade met the downsweep of a curved scimitar, and the ringing impact sent a shock wave down his arm. He grunted, but held firm as he swung the iron club in his opposite hand, bashing his opponent’s chest. The blow did little apparent damage, but it forced the soldier back two steps. Bannon pressed forward and swung with Sturdy, chopping the base of his opponent’s neck. The impact felt like an axe hitting solid wood, but the blade cut through even the hardened skin. The enemy toppled to the ground.

“That was good, boy,” Lila called to him, her lips pulled back in a hard grin. “Now do it a dozen more times, and we’ll make some progress.” With a feral hiss, she leaped forward, wielding an iron club in each hand. The muscles on her bare thighs rippled as she sprang, battering and clubbing. She moved from one opponent to the next, smashing hard. The ancient soldiers reeled, but they kept coming back.

Thorn, Genda, Ricia, and the other morazeth women fought in a cluster, selecting targets to strike and destroy. The ancient warriors were powerful, but their stony bodies made them sluggish, while the more nimble morazeth struck, retreated, and struck again, like angry vipers. The women ranged ahead, setting an example for all the arena warriors they had trained.

The morazeth were whirlwinds, and Lila glanced over her shoulder as she sprinted ahead. “Follow closely, boy! I’ll damage them, and you finish them off.”

“I’m trying.” Bannon swung the heavy club in his left hand, breaking the face of an ancient warrior. His sword arm already ached from hammering enemy soldiers, smashing their armor, damaging their skin.

Jed and Brock fought clumsily nearby, shoulder-to-shoulder. Their silk cloaks offered some protection as enemy soldiers pummeled them, but the bright colors made them targets. The two men battled defensively, not seeking targets, just trying to survive.

On the other hand, Timothy was exhilarated. The young yaxen herder had trained with a sword in practice sessions, but now seemed much happier with his club, which he swung with reckless glee. The enemy soldiers were startled to encounter such a wild fighter who also had a chalky, hard complexion like theirs.

Leading the more organized city guard, High Captain Stuart bellowed orders. One of his guards blew a golden horn, rallying the uniformed soldiers into a singular attack against the forward contingent of the enemy. The crash of the Ildakaran guard against ancient soldiers resounded like a thunderclap.

In the loud, violent frenzy, Bannon couldn’t keep up with Lila and the morazeth. He spent all his time defending himself against oncoming warriors, thousands of them. His sword cut into the breastplate of a bearded soldier, but that did not deflect the enemy’s charge. As the bearded opponent swung his scimitar for a killing blow, young Timothy sprang in and hammered the man on the back of the helmet. The enemy soldier grunted and crashed to his knees. Timothy made a “be my guest” gesture to Bannon, who swung his sword to chop the soldier’s neck.

The fighting grew more frenetic on the battlefield, the sounds deafening. Riding ahead on horseback, Nicci and the wizards of Ildakar unleashed magic in volleys of rock-hard wind and slashes of lightning. In a different part of the battle, Nathan and Elsa hurled fireballs, intentionally setting the dry, grassy hills ablaze with strategic fires.

Then Bannon saw a tan blur out of the corner of his eye as Mrra darted in. The powerful sand panther crashed into an ancient warrior, mauled his hardened skin, then sprang away to attack another, dodging blows from enemy swords. Mrra raked the prey with her claws, tearing their armor and doing some damage to their hardened skin. Her golden feline eyes met Bannon’s for an instant, and then she streaked off.

Jed and Brock fought back-to-back, their faces tense and terrified.

Timothy ran in, challenging two large warriors. Foolishly thinking himself invincible, he struck right and left with his iron clubs until the two hardened soldiers turned on him. They swung their heavy swords and sent Timothy reeling. The cocky grin on his face faltered.

“Watch out!” Bannon yelled. “Get away from them.”

Instead, Timothy swung his clubs even harder. “For Ildakar!” He smashed the arm of one of his opponents. The other soldier struck the yaxen herder from the side, spinning him around. Because his half-petrified skin made him resistant to the damage, Timothy recovered, but his enemies had the same protection. From behind him, a third warrior struck the boy hard with the flat of his blade, stunning him.

Bannon fought an enemy of his own. Slashing and pounding, he tried to dispatch the man quickly so he could help the young scamp, but his opponent was more skilled than he expected. Bannon needed all of his concentration just to stay alive.

Timothy flailed his clubs and kept the three enemies at bay for a moment, until a fourth soldier joined them. They all pressed around the boy, raising swords and clubs. One carried a massive mace. In a concerted, horrifying effort they pummeled Timothy, and his defenses faltered. A heavy blow from the mace shattered his arm. Even though it was half stone, the bone broke, as did the skin.

The ancient soldiers took turns: one hammered Timothy, then stepped back while a second dealt another blow, and a third drove him to the ground. The yaxen herder was broken, his shoulder smashed, red and white, like a bleeding statue. He sobbed, “For Ildakar!”

Bannon finally killed his enemy. His lungs burned and his arms trembled from the effort, but he lurched after the trapped boy. “Timothy!”

On his knees, the young yaxen herder could no longer hold his clubs. The four enemies kept hammering their victim into the bloody mud of the battleground.

Bannon arrived too late. More burly soldiers trapped him. In desperation, he looked ahead and saw that Lila and the other morazeth had pulled out of reach, fighting wildly and slaying countless opponents. He shouted for Lila, but the clamor drowned out his words.

Jed and Brock were also surrounded, fighting for their lives. As clashes continued around them, hundreds of one-on-one duels, he saw that many enemy warriors had fallen, but it seemed that half of the Ildakarans lay dead as well.

General Utros had roused his army, responding with a vicious counteroffensive. Thousands of reinforcements came from the other side of the valley. The Ildakaran attackers were driven back as the enemy numbers flooded in.

Bannon backed closer to Jed and Brock, forced to fight alongside them. He feared they didn’t stand a chance. He pushed away the ache and exhaustion and understood that this would be his last fight.

Remembering Timothy’s defiance in the face of despair, Bannon yelled, “For Ildakar!” He looked at Jed and Brock. They were sweating, terrified, flailing their iron-tipped clubs—the same weapons they had used to bash motionless statues as a prank. The two young men didn’t echo his battle cry.

Feeling his blood boil with the battle rage that sometimes came upon him, Bannon prepared to fight to the last. He yelled again, this time without words as the enemy warriors closed in, and he lost himself in the combat.