Chapter 143


    Mushrooms that Grow in Battle


    Daegan couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw the sky beginning to lighten to an azure blue. We’ve been fighting all night? His body certainly felt like they had. They’d been pulled into reserve to rest and for the wounded to get healing. There was no healing surged soldiers being pushed back into battle here though. Torvin was a strict commander and ensured that proper protocol was followed. Anyone too injured to keep fighting needed to pull back into reserve.


    Torvin also had all the squads on an intense thirty minute rotation. This gave defenders enough time to engage effectively in the battle without exhausting themselves completely. Then allowing them a chance to rest and regroup for their next rotation.


    Daegan’s honour guard was a score of soldiers—a mix of Twin Garde men and Reldoni bodyguards handpicked by Torvin. The Commander did not want a dead Prince on his battlefield, but also knew that he couldn’t keep Daegan from the fighting. There were a dozen other squads in rotation on the same bastion that they’d been fighting alongside.


    Over the course of the night, Daegan’s squads had steadily been drawn further and further to the Westernmost Bastion of the wall. Daegan had wondered if that had been Torvin strategically trying to move Daegan away from where the bulk of fighting was happening. Daegan had to give the man props for being able to handle a political problem while also trying to effectively command the battle.


    Daegan and his soldiers were taking shelter in the bunker at the foot of the wall. Yaref was busy healing minor wounds alongside another Reldoni bloodstone healer. Daegan and the others were all sitting, recovering their strength for their next rotation back onto the wall.


    Jerrin—one of the Twin Garde survivors who had a strange accent—was pointing at Daegan’s revolver. Tar was restoring the light of the inlaid aradium gemstones—and thus giving Daegan more shots for the next fight.


    “I’d thought these pishtols were a mushroom, but they’ve saved our arses, do ya ken,” Jerrin said. His face entirely serious despite the nonsense of his words.


    “What the hells is he talking about?” Daegan asked Cru.


    “Don’t pay no mind to Jerrin,” Cru grunted, “he’s from Belthier Gulch, even we don’t understand ‘im most days.”


    “He means he thought the pistols were just a fad,” Yaref answered, trying to tend to Tanlor’s bleeding forehead. “But he was wrong.” Tanlor himself kept trying to wave the man off, insisting there were others that needed the healing more.


    “What’s that about a mushroom?” Daegan asked Jerrin.


    “They grow in a night, ken?” Jerrin replied as if that answered everything.


    “Right,” Daegan nodded.


    Another boulder crashed against the wall. Shuddering it.


    “Gods they really don’t give up, do they?” Tar growled, pulling the stumps of his arms back from Daegan’s pistol, the aradium now fully charged. Tar claimed he still visualised his hands guiding his edir to stoneshape despite him no longer having them.


    “Even if they don’t,” Daegan said. “We’ll keep fighting them until they’re shattered and broken on these walls.” The men nodded and Daegan was once again surprised by how much trust they had in him when he said stuff like that. He didn’t know if it was true.


    He didn’t have fucking clue.


    In truth Daegan hadn’t known what the hells he’d been doing for months, let alone tonight. But they kept following him. Looking to him to decide what needed to be done.


    Scont ran up to them, breathless.


    “What’s the word, lad?” Cru asked before Daegan could.


    “Commander Jarryk is still holding the central gatehouse. Commander Torvin is sending another squad of riflemen to this Bastion. He wants to know if you need more reinforcements than that?”


    “We’re holding fine,” Daegan responded, “tell him to distribute elsewhere.”


    Daegan had agreed with Commander Torvin, that Torvin himself should lead the battle. Daegan might be playing at soldier here the past few weeks, but he knew he was no tactical genius. He could play a good game of Three Kings or Queensblood but he wasn’t smart enough to translate those game tactics to an actual battlefield. True he’d had plenty of tactical training in his youth, but Daegan had drunk so much wine over the years that all that knowledge had surely been burned away by the alcohol. He’d have been an incredible fool to try to use his newfound authority to assert control of the battle.


    “How’s the eastern Bastions holding?” Tanlor asked, his voice croaky.


    “One of them is complete ruins, but the rest are still fighting. The waves between the rakmen, well… they seems to be thinning.”


    Daegan had thought that too on the last wave. It hadn’t lasted nearly as long, and they’d only had one hellhound to contend with.


    “Torvin think they’re pulling back?” Daegan asked.


    “He didn’t say, my lord—er, Prince,” Scont replied.


    “He won’t want us giving the last of our strength if we think it’s the last wave,” Cru guessed. “He’ll hold that until he knows for sure they’re withdrawing.”


    “They could just be repositioning,” Tanlor put in, “changing their tactic, but keeping waves hitting us to stop us realising it.”


    “Or could be they’re just as exhausted as we are,” Yaref pointed out. “They might be demons, but they need rest like us all the same.”


    “Commander Jarryk wanted to chase down the last retreating wave out in the field,” Scont revealed. “Your Commander Torvin had to talk him out of it… well more so yelled him out of it.”Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.


    “Jarryk surely wouldn’t fall for a bait and trap tactic,” Daegan scoffed.


    “Rakmen don’t use tactics,” Cru replied, “they’re not crafty like that. At least, never before. Jarryk’s still thinking that’s how rakmen fight—like savages.”


    “So he’s learned nothing tonight,” Tanlor grunted, which Daegan felt was a bit unfair. This was Jarryk’s town. His wall. His responsibility to defend. Daegan could understand wanting to finish this battle off for good.


    A horn blared from their Bastion tower signalling the rotation.


    “Right,” Daegan blew out a breath, “back we go.”


    Within moments, they were back on the circular battlement of their bastion. Cannoneers were sending blasts down into another wave that was fast approaching the wall. The rakmen were carrying quickly lashed together logs that acted as makeshift bridges that they would toss across the river, but many of the rakmen simply waded or swam through.


    The cannoneers were aiming for the bridges and ladders that were being carried, along with any hellhounds or those crab-draega. There was another kind too, a kind of serpentine-like draega with two forearms that ended in a sharp talon, although those kind were held back, considering the hellhounds and kraglings—as the Reldoni called them—made easy work of scaling the walls.


    Lines of ranged defenders, a mix of archers, crossbowmen, stonebreakers, grenadiers and riflemen manned the battlements firing death on the approaching rakmen. The runewielders focused their efforts on draega.


    Cru began barking out the orders for the squad rotations, and the soldiers hopped to obey. Again, Daegan was the authority here, but Cru was a seasoned captain and far more suited to leading their squad in battle.


    Daegan shouted some words of encouragement. He was barely even thinking about what he was shouting now. Fancy words about ‘the strength of man’, ‘driving back the darkness’, ‘keeping the lands of men safe.’ He was mostly looping through all the same bullshit he’d been spouting throughout the night. But the soldiers actually responded. He could see their swelling strength and pride. Many of the other squads actually cheered when he and his soldiers arrived back on the top of the Bastion.


    “Another boneface,” Tanlor called out to Daegan, pointing with his greatsword into the horde. The Rak chief was mounted on one of the hellhounds, charging the wall a few feet down from their Bastion. The draega leapt the width of the river landing with a crash on the other side before launching itself at the wall, claws digging into the stonework as it pulled itself up.


    Daegan drew out his bloodstone dagger with a smirk.


    Rak chieftains were dangerous and unpredictable. Like the defending runewielders they were all varying degrees of skill. But Daegan’s dagger was their anathema.


    “We take down the chief!” Daegan called out, darting to where the hellhound would crest. Cru followed after bellowing orders behind to ensure that their squad position would be covered while they dealt with the threat.


    Daegan was grateful for Cru in this regard. Daegan made decisions, and Cru made sure all the things Daegan didn’t think of didn’t kill them. He really was a great captain. Probably the main reason he’s the only captain that actually survived Twin Garde in the first place.


    Tanlor with his great arcing swings was first to engage the rakmen cresting the battlements. He roared a battlecry, his blade swinging. Others jumped to his side. Daegan found it amusing how little Tanlor realised the impact he had on the battlefield. He was a ferocious fighter, and he boosted the morale of everyone near him, all of them fighting harder and stronger simply because of Tanlor’s presence.


    Daegan took aim with his pistol and shot a rak climbing over the wall, sending him flying back. He watched as another attempted to flank Tanlor, and took a shot at him. The bullet clinked off the creature''s iron chest plate, and Daegan fired another three shots in succession until one landed, piercing through a gap in the plate.


    With a crash, the hellhound''s claw slammed on top of the battlement. A crossbowman who should have long since withdrawn to the rear line was caught by its claw, and was thrown back, blood pouring from the open gash on his chest.


    And then the hellhound was hauling itself up, bouncing onto the walltop with the grace of cat. A cat the size a fucking wagon. Daegan didn’t bother shooting at the hellhound, he knew by now that his bullets had zero effect on the creature. He’d leave that to Tar’s stonespears and the other Reldoni runewielders that had been added to his guard by Torvin.


    Daegan instead focused on the rak chief. Whose masked face was darting back and forth as if looking for something. And when his face locked onto Daegan’s, he locked on. Daegan realised the chief was looking for him. Or more importantly, the glowing red dagger in his off-hand.


    The rak still wasn’t close enough for the dagger’s ability to work. Daegan needed to be within just a few yards for it to start sapping a target. Daegan and most of the squad were so distracted by the chief, that he only caught sight of the rak charging at him seconds before the creature’s jagged spear tip would’ve been rammed into his chest. But Daegan did see him in those seconds before, so Daegan jumped out of the way of the charge. He didn’t have time to aim his pistol for a shot as he scrambled to his feet, instead lashing out with the dagger. Lashing out metaphorically that is.


    The dagger pulsed in Daegan’s hand. Daegan had no edir. At least not in the way that he’d always been told it should feel. Like an extension of will like a limb or even a pulse as some people described theirs. But when he held the dagger, Daegan felt something almost like what he had always wished to experience.


    It wasn’t a true edir. But the dagger latched on to people. Through the dagger, Daegan sense the presence of all the soldiers and rakmen in the few paces around him, even when he wasn’t looking. The dagger had a hunger—the only word Daegan could think to describe it. It wanted something inside of everyone near it. But it couldn’t draw it on its own. It didn’t have any will behind it. But Daegan did. And when he willed it, the dagger’s hunger was indulged.


    Daegan let the dagger feed now. Letting it suck the rak who had just charged him. Daegan rose to feet, the dagger extended before him and felt his strength surge. Again, another experience Daegan could never have experienced before was the healing surge. The rush of adrenaline when a bloodstone healer used his skills to heal you, the process involved using one’s own edir to heal the body. Daegan having no edir, could never be healed in this way. And thus never experienced the healing surge that so many had described before. But this must surely be what it felt it like.


    Daegan felt adrenaline coursing through him. He felt like he could jump any distance, cut through any armour. The rak gasped and buckled to its knees, breathless. The dagger wanted more and Daegan felt a hungry grin pull at his own lips, giving in to that hunger. He drew more and more until the rak was writing on the ground.


    The dagger gleamed with a bright red light. And then the rak spasmed, and lay still. It’s lifeforce completely drained. And with it, the surge dissipated immediately. However the light in the dagger remained. Daegan knew the light would slowly diminish on its own.


    Drawn away to that… other place. But he didn’t think about that now. It was the heat of the battle and he no time ponder what happened to that rak’s lifeforce.


    The Twin Garde men were engaged with the hellhound. Stabbing out with spears, and dodging swipes and that wild whipping tail. The rak chief was conjuring stonespears and launching them from where it was mounted. Daegan realised one of those had just been shot towards him and he dived out of the way.


    Daegan heard Tanlor’s roar of victory as he drove his greatsword up through hellhound''s chin and into its head. The creature crashed to the battlement, dust and debris puffing out around it. The rak chief leapt off the dying beast before it fell, landing gracefully in front of the line of fighters.


    They were twenty against one. The chief didn’t stand a chance.


    And then Daegan saw it.


    A flash of red light as the rak drew his own bloodstone dagger.


    Oh shit.