Swords crashed against goblin helms and lizard scales. Spiders clawed over the brink, rearing and stabbing fangs into warriors before being hacked to death by halberds. Henry fought in a surge of controlled panic, sheltering, reloading, then whipping over the wall to fire at the drow. Men lifted rocks, furniture, even water troughs ripped from the barracks and shoved them over the battlements to wipe entire ladders clean. Scaling ladders cracked and broke as boulders broke them from above. Falling monsters ploughed into their comrades and spattered in the mud.
The Justicar hung back with one third of the men, watching this one stretch of wall carefully. The soldiers fought in savage fury, swords and halberds butchering the monsters as they climbed the wall. Archers and crossbowmen fired in fast, professional rhythm. The soldiers had been hardened by decades of constant war, and the enemy was shocked by their sheer ferocity.
A chunk of wall shook as a spell thudded into it, and a choking cloud of gas made the defenders stagger clear. The Justicar took one look and waded forward, summoning his men.
"Reserves!" The big man fired off his best, most useful spell, dispelling the magic of the poison fog. "Archers stay here! Halberds with me!"
They came hissing and clattering over the wall-decaying corpses with black pits for eyes. Twenty men followed the Justicar as he crashed into the monsters. Cinders sheeted fire into the undead monsters, charring half a dozen into blazing, broken puppets. One cadaver fired a pistol crossbow, the dart ricocheting from Jus's dragon-scale cuirass, then the halberdiers fell onto the undead like a steel wall.
Heavy polearms shoved and cut. The Justicar roared like a bull, his white sword moving in a blur. The undead exploded the instant Benelux ploughed into them. Made of positive energy, the weapon caused the creatures to catch fire like paper dolls, burning from inside out. The undead screamed and fell, withering to ashes even as Jus kicked off their leader's skull. He hacked off a pair of arms that clung over the battlements, then heard Henry scream.
It was a varrangoin-an abyssal bat. Like an obscene, withered corpse the monster loomed over the men on the battlements, its bat wings open to show the spell runes burned into its skin. Its skull face screamed in fury as it landed among the men of the wall. The reserve archers fired, and their arrows rebounded from the monster's hide. The varrangoin reared in triumph and thundered a cloud of flames over the archers. The men screamed, charred instantly to skeletons. Twenty men gone, and the varrangoin blundered forward through the flames and screeched a cry of triumph.
The Justicar came at a dead run, Cinders streaming smoke in his wake. The varrangoin blasted out another cloud of flame, and Jus leaped, turning his back to the fire. Burned, in pain and still moving, he burst through the fire cloud with his white sword whipping around in a lethal swing. Benelux smacked into the varrangoin's skull, hacking into flesh as hard as teak and bone stronger than steel. The monster was wrenched sideways by the huge power of the blow.
Blinded, the varrangoin struck with its daws, lightning fast, only to have each stroke parried by the Justicar. Jus fell to the ground and spun, hacking for the monster's ankles. He felt his sword bite and was already rising, roaring like a maddened god, his swordpoint lancing upward as the monster fell. The varrangoin collapsed, impaled upon Benelux.
The Justicar twisted the weapon, wrenching it from side to side to open the wound. Wailing in agony, the varrangoin tried to stagger back. It fell, spewing blood across the battlements. With his hell hounds teeth gleaming above him, the Justicar poised his sword, gave a yell, and hacked off the monster's head. Splashed with blood, Benelux shrieked in victory.
Burned, his armor smoking and his white sword running with blood, the Justicar held up the head of the varrangoin and flung it into the enemy below. Troglodytes and goblins slithered back down their scaling ladders in terror, fleeing the walls. The assault stalled, then surged backward in panic. Huge tanar'ri tried to stem the flood, whipping and slaughtering their fleeing slaves. Henry and the surviving archers fired into the retreat, killing as fast as they could reload.
The next stretch of the wall hadn't been so lucky. There was a crash as battlements toppled, and a surge of bestial screams as monsters crested the wall. A tower door led through to the next wall. The Justicar wrenched soldiers from their post and led the charge.
"Even numbers! Follow me!"
Jus staggered, hurt and burned. He shoved open the tower door, led the way through the tower, and forced his way out onto the next strip of wall.
To see absolute and total defeat.
Here, the defenders had fought illusions while the real attackers planted their ladders and their grappling irons. The city guards lay dead, except for a few who screamed while being savaged for the pleasure of the tanar'ri lords. Troglodytes, giant spiders, and blood-crazed trolls were already spilling like a tidal wave into the streets, and panicked civilians surged away with terror stricken screams.
Hundreds of monsters were already across the wall. Thousands more flooded the breech in the city defenses. At the head of twenty men, the Justicar could only retreat with his men back to their own patch of wall.
"Retreat!" The ranger could hear another massed charge thundering toward the city. "Is there a keep? Do you have a rally point?"
"Yes!" A soldier wiped his face of blood. "The citadel is on the west side of the city!"
"Rally!" The wall could not be held. There were too many enemy and not enough soldiers. "Rally on the citadel!"
The enemy might only have attacked the west side of the city. There was a chance the population could flee to the east, if enough soldiers could be found to delay Lolth's forces. Roaring commands, the Justicar strode through the soldiers, pulling men back from the wall. Henry stayed with him, guarding his back. As a shower of grappling hooks came clattering over the wall, the boy loaded his last five crossbow bolts into his bow.
"Sir? Do we go?"
"We go!" Jus hauled the boy up by the scruff of his armor, pulling him back to the stairs. "Polk? PoIk!" There was no answer. No sign of Enid or of Escalla. The sounds of demonic roars, screams, and slaughter came from the city streets. "All right! We go east! Run!"
Jus, Henry, and Cinders sped from the city walls. Behind them, the victors gibbered and screamed as they topped the wall, gleeful now that the real killing could begin.
8
Cutting through dark waters, a huge snake swam through the city sewers. Slits of light shone down to make pools of brilliance amidst the murk, but all the rest was stench and filth and gloom. The waters were stagnant and choked with garbage. Wounded and sobbing, the big snake swam, desperately retreating away from the sounds of death and battle up above.
Enid the snake finally found a ledge of rock lapped by flotsam. She slithered up onto the refuse, croaking with agony, and opened her mouth to drop a smaller snake upon the stone.
The little snake was burned over half its length. It held a wand and a little staff in a death grip in its tail, the hold so tight that the snake stayed rigid after it hit the floor. Escalla moaned, her snake eyes bright with pain, and then she tried to raise her head.
"E-Enid?"
"I'm here." Enid lay stiff with pain. "Just need to rest… a little while."
Blood trickled from a gutter slit twenty feet overhead. A hand clawed briefly at the slot, then disappeared. The world above rang with screams of the dead and dying, with bestial howls and demonic laughter. Slowly, Escalla lay her head on the stone and fought to breathe.