Author's Notes: Hey everyone, glad you liked the last chapter and I hope you like this one as well, as always I own nothing.
Karl rose from the pile of straw he had thrown himself along with the soldiers after they had delivered their report to the bürgermeister and council of Hamlinburg, looking out through the door of the barn that they had been sleeping in he saw that it had to be around noon. He was stiff and sore but it was clear that he was no going to be able to go back to sleep so he rose and went to look for Clare and see how the preparations were proceedings. After they had delivered their report the bürgermeister and the town council had set to work preparing a plan for the defense of the town. Apart from Sargent Holt, the highest ranking survivor and Clare, the expert on magic, the others had no part in the planning and had been sent to get some rest. A large barn had been provided as it could easily hold them all.
As he walked through the streets Karl had no need of any special abilities to see that fear was permeating the town. People were rushing through the town, not running yet but it was clear that it would not take much to push the people into a full-blown panic. Chants from the temple indicated that a priest was delivering a sermon to a well-attended service. As the last place that he had seen Clare was the town hall that was were Karl headed towards. When he arrived there the guards, now looking uneasy, parted and let him through. Before he could go in, however; he met Clare as she was leaving it. She looked about ready to drop, but her face lighted up when she saw him coming towards her. Seeing how tired she was Karl had the urge to carry her again. However; aware of how that would look to the townspeople he instead fell in beside her, rather like a bodyguard. She was obviously on her last legs and even though she was obviously glad to see him she said little at first.
"The Bürgermeister was kind enough to grant me a room at the Drunken Dwarf Inn, it's not far from here." She led the way to a well-built two story building with a sign shaped like a red-nosed Dwarf hanging in the front. There were few people in at the time, too early for drinking and all able bodied men busy with preparing the town's defenses. Those that were there for the most part ignored them. Some of them, however; gave Clare dirty looks. Karl thought he heard someone mutter "Warlock" just loud enough that it could be heard and several mutter in agreement. Karl growled and turned towards them but Clare grabbed his arm.
"Let it go. It's not worth it." Despite her words her grip was firm and Karl could clearly hear anger in her voice.
The barman tried to smile as they approached but it was clear that Clare was making him nervous and he would be much happier if Clare turned around and left. Clare strode up confidently and demanded food and then to be shown to her room. The barman dropped his effort at congeniality though he was still too nervous to be openly hostile. He showed them to a table well away from his other patrons and brought two bowls of stew, half a loaf of black bread and two mugs of watery ale. As soon as he had delivered these he went back to the bar and did his best to pretend that they weren't there at all. Clare and Karl ate in silence, doing their best to ignore the hostility in the room.
"Is it always like this?" He asked at last, his voice barely more than a whisper.
"Usually." She said simply, in a tone of voice which told Karl that she did not wish to continue the discussion. After they finished eating they went up to Clare's room. It was some with only a bed, chamber pot and washbasin for furniture. Clare sat on the bed and Karl leaned against the wall. Clare was clearly tired and Karl was about to leave her to rest but she indicated that she wished to talk to him.
"We need to discuss what was decide at the council." Clare said.
"What was decided?" Karl asked.
"While they have boats there are nowhere near enough of them to evacuate the town. So instead they are sending as many of the children and the others unfit to fight on the boats as they can and send them upriver, both to keep them safe and to warn of the defeat and request aid. Meanwhile, those who remain behind will do what can be done to strengthen the defenses of the town. They will also send out parties of men to search the woods for survivors to bring back to the town in order to strengthen the garrison. The search parties will also attempt to determine the path the Beastmen are taking and warn the town if they are coming this way. However; this town is out of the way, so it is hoped that this place will be bypassed altogether."
"What will we do if they do not come here?" Karl wanted to know.
"I must make my way back to the college in Altdorf. My training is far from complete and I must be assigned to a new master to continue my training." She paused and when she spoke again her voice was hard and cold. "I hope that whomever I am assigned to is part of the force that goes after the Beastmen. They have killed my family, destroyed my home and now they have killed the man teaching me and I will have my vengeance." Karl did not know what to say and so he rose to go.
"I think that I will see about joining the search parties." As he moved towards the door Clare reached out and grabbed his hand.
"When you come back will you stay here with me, please?" Her voice had lost its belligerent tone and had an almost desperate quality to it. "I feel safer when you are with me. And it is nice to have at least one person who is not glaring at me." Karl took his free hand and patted her hand which was holding his arm.
"I will." He told her and was rewarded with a smile.
He left the inn and went to the gate where they had first entered the town. There the woodsmen who had joined them in the woods were getting ready to set out. With them were some of the townsmen who knew the woods around the town well. Without a word Karl moved to join them. Two of the woodsmen remembered him from the time he had spent with them till the battle and they offered a few words of welcome which he returned. Shortly thereafter they set off into the woods.
They wondered through the woods the better part of the day and though they saw no sign of the Beastmen army the animals were nowhere to be seen and they could all guess that what the cause of their abscess. On a far happier note, they found a number of survivors wandering in the woods. They were hungry, many of them were injured and more than a few had lost their weapons but even so they were a welcome sight, Karl had been told that the town had more weapons than men to wield them in the town armory. This went on for several days, they never so hide nor hair of the enemy but each day yielded more survivors, far more than Karl had anticipated.
Unfortunately, the survivors were from a variety of different regiments: spearmen, handgunners, pike men and more, even a few Pistoliers, most of whom had lost their horses. This meant that the survivors could not be effectively formed into new units as most were trained in the usage of different weapons, formations and tactics and the Pistoliers were problematic in another way. They were all the young sons of nobility and in the absence of any knights, General Hassel or any members of his staff they all insisted that they were in charge and refused to take instructions or orders from 'burgers and peasants' though they were eventually persuaded that it would do no good to go hunting the Beastmen with the forces that they had at their disposal and that if it did come to battle horses would do them no good.
Karl was far more pleased with the efforts of the townspeople. After the initial wave of fear had swept through the town, the people of Hamlinburg got to work to prepare for the possibility of attack. One of the first things that was done that the river barges and fishing boats were loaded with as many of the children and old people and those too disabled to fight who could be fit into them. These were then sent up river, not only were they being sent to be safe but also to spread word of the battle and seek to send aid.
The people were also busy felling trees to reinforce weak points in the town's walls, which had been allowed to decay. While this was being done other people were set to digging a ditch in front of the town wall. As this was being dug others were sharpening stakes and inserting these into the ditch as it was dug. The only place that the ditch was not being dug was in front of the gate. This was both so that the people could enter and leave the town and if they were attack the enemy would naturally head for the one opening in the ditch, this would have a channeling effect and allow the defenders to more effectively focus their limited number of missile troops that the defenders had.
Fortunately, due to the river, the town would not suffer from lack of food or water. However; Karl doubted that it would come to that. In his experience Beastmen were not much into sieges, they were far more likely to attempt to storm the town than to attempt a siege. This gave him little comfort, at a glance that he could see that the defenders would have little to no chance of fighting off a determined assault on the town if the enemy was determined and came in great numbers. If a whole army could not defeat them, how could a force a fraction of the size of the army do? He kept these thoughts to himself and continued to do what he could to prepare for battle if it came to that. His mood was not improved by the way many of the people were treating Clare.
She spent her days first recovering her strength and then doing what she could to aid in the preparation for any trouble that might come. Unfortunately, her efforts were hampered by several factors. The first and foremost was the fact that she was still only an apprentice and her skills were far from fully developed. She confided to Karl that her master could have placed a number of traps and wards around the town which could have devastated dozens, if not hundreds, of Beastmen but such skills were years away for from her. The second problem was that the fear and hostility that Karl had seen on the first day was apparently shared by virtually the entire town. People would stop speaking when she drew close and everywhere she went she got dirty looks.
That both angered and worried Karl. She was preparing to possibly give her life to protect them and they treated her as if she was the enemy. It also concerned him, he remembered Father Fredrick and the Scourges and he could just see a mob forming and rampaging through the streets baying for her blood. Fortunately, it seemed that the bürgermeister had had a word with the town's priest, a chubby, pleasant-faced man about the problem and had asked him to help prevent it. The priest would spend his days going around to the various work groups bringing water to those working there. When he did he would deliver impromptu sermons to bolster the people's spirits. In each of these sermons the priest would make a point of stressing the importance of all humans coming together for a common cause. The man went even farther in his efforts by making a point of being polite to Clare in front of the townspeople, Karl did not know if it made any difference but Karl was grateful to the man for trying. So things went for the better part of the week, till at last something began to happen.
Karl awoke before dawn as he was going out on another patrol. Clare was still asleep curled up beside him, he kissed the top of her head and slid out of the bed, being careful not to wake her. Once out of the inn he went to the gatehouse where everyone was gathering. Once all of the rest of the patrol, mostly woodsmen, had gathered they moved out. As they moved out into the woods they spread out, moving about five feet apart, far enough to cover ground but close enough to come to one another's aid if they should come under attack. For several hours nothing of interest occurred, then the leader of the party, a man named Max or something like that, raised his hand to halt the party.
At a signal from Max the men all crouched down. From where he was Karl could not see anything but then the wind shifted and Karl caught the scent of something, a very hated scent, Beastmen! He fought the urge to growl. Max had sent several men ahead to investigate but Karl already knew what they were going to find. He had learned to tell the difference between the different types of Beastmen based on their scents. From the smell he guessed that what he was smelling was a party of the smaller variety of Beastmen, a scouting party most likely. The party waited in tense silence till the men returned and reported back to Max. The man squatted in silence for a moment and then signaled for the men to move slowly back the way that they had come, being sure to make as little noise as possible. As soon as Max was satisfied that they were far enough away from the Beastmen he called the men together.
"Beastmen patrol, about a dozen of them. I don't think that we were spotted but we need to be sure. So we are going to go around behind them to see if they are following us and if there are any more of them. They moved now in tense silence, their ears straining for any sounds that would indicate that they had been discovered. Karl, for his part, was also sniffing the air in an effort to catch the enemy smell. All of these efforts proved to be in vain for some time and when he did smell something it was ahead of them and before long they could all hear the sounds of the Beastmen coming from in front of them. They moved up a small incline and then lay down to crawl forward on their bellies. From there they could see down onto the Beastmen below.
As Karl had expected they were all of the smaller variety of Beastmen, he did not see any that had horns, there were about twenty of them and they were indeed following the trail that Karl and the others had left and which led straight back to the town. If the men did not interfere then the Beastmen would discover Hamlinburg. Max gave a signal and the men readied their weapons and prepared to strike. Before they could act one of the men frantically waved his hand to stop them. At first Karl did not know what had the man so aggravated, then he heard it. Off to the left came the sound of another party of Beastmen.
It was too far away for the men to tell how many there were and the wind was blowing from the wrong direction for Karl to get a smell of them. Then he could smell them, but the wind hadn't shifted. He was confused for a moment and then realization hit him, it had to be a third scouting party. Just then one of the Beastmen gave a cry. Karl was not sure what had caused it to do so but it did serve to alert the rest of the men of the existence of the third Beastmen scouting party. Max clearly wanted to attack the Beastmen in front of them, but if they were to do that the other scouting parties would be alerted to the humans' presence. At last Max came to a decision and signaled for the men to go back the way that they had come. Once at the base of the incline they again went around the Beastmen scouting party, taking care not to ensure that while they were far enough away to avoid not being seen by the Beastmen but not far enough away that they would give their presence away to the other Beastmen bands, once they were certain that they were ahead of the Beastmen they headed back towards Hamlinburg. As they drew closer to the town they heard the sounds of yelling and fighting.
They burst from the trees and found a group of at least a hundred Beastmen throwing themselves at the walls of the town. While several human bodies lay on the ground in front of the town, clearly not having made it back to the safety of the town wall's in time when the Beastmen attacked, a dozen or more Beastmen bodies lay on the ground in front of the walls. Just as Karl and the others came out of the woods a ball of fire struck a clump of Beastmen near the gate. The fur of four of them caught fire and they ran about screaming before they fell to the ground and lay still. Arrows, crossbow bolts and the crack of firearms dropped more of them and when Karl and the others raised a cry it broke the Beastmen and they scattered and ran back towards the trees. Karl and the others killed more of them. However; just as they were about to give chase, they heard the sounds of the other Beastmen bands drawing close.
Max ordered them back to the town and they fell back towards Hamlinburd. As they drew close the gates opened up and they rushed in. Once they were inside townspeople and soldiers closed the gates and both braced the gates with long logs and rolled a heavily ladened wagon against them. Karl and Max rushed up to the gatehouse, which was already occupied by several archers and Clare. She had lost her staff and instead wielded a sword from the town's armory. They all stared out at the woods, looking for signs of the Beastmen. They saw the shapes moving around just within the tree line but none emerged into the open. Once they determined that the town would not be attacked again the defenders turned to looking for signs of the other patrols that had been sent out. Finally, near sundown, they heard the sounds of fighting going on in the woods.
Karl and a number of others sallied out to aid them. They rushed into the woods towards the sounds of battle. They found the members of several patrols engaged in battle with Beastmen. They clearly had been caught as they hurried back towards the town but had been caught before they could make it. Fortunately, the Beastmen were so focused on the scouts that they had attacked that they were blind to everything else and Karl and the others were able to come up on them without being seen.
Several of the men had bows or handguns, including Karl, these ground to a halt and loosed a ragged volley into the Beastmen before charging in. This downed a number of Beastmen but many more were still standing and many of these turned to face the humans as they rushed to engage the Beastmen. Anticipating that the fighting would be in the woods all of the humans were armed with swords and hatchets instead of pikes and swords. While the terrain made formation fighting impossible they still made an effort to stay close to, and support, one another. This gave them the edge over the Beastmen, for while many of them were stronger than the humans they all fought as individuals. The humans took advantage of this the humans moved to split them off from one another and take them down.
Karl found himself facing off against a horned Beastman who was clearly one of the leaders. The brute had a hide shield and a heavy axe, which it swung at Karl's head. Karl parried with his left sword then counterattacked with his other blade. The Beastman brought his shield up and blocked the blow, though it did have enough strength behind it to cause it to stagger. Seizing the opening this provided Karl kicked it in the shins, letting enough of the wolf into the blow to cause the bone to snap. The creature fell to the ground bleating in pain and Karl moved in and stabbed it through the throat as it lay helpless on the ground.
Just as he was pulling his blade free he jerked and went rigid, one of the little ones had run up and thrust a spear into his back. It hurt but it seemed that the beast had failed to hit anything important. Screaming in pain, Karl twisted and turned around. The wound flared as if a red-hot iron was being thrust into his back but he managed to jerk the spear out of the Beastman's grip. Before it could react Karl buried his left blade in its skull. Then, gritting his teeth, he reached around, to hold of the spear and pulled for all he was worth. Again he screamed in pain, his body went numb and his vision turned white for a moment. Gasping he looked around to see what was occurring in the rest of the battle. To his relief it was nearly over, the surprised Beastmen were for the most part either dead or fleeing. There was no cheer raised once the fighting was over, instead they silently gathered up the dead and helped those too wounded to walk on their own and made their way back to the town. Fortunately for Karl by now it was dark and no one saw his wound regenerate, one man did ask about the bloody tear on his shirt but Karl claimed it was only a minor cut and the man accepted the explanation.
When they got back into town and the wounded were being seen to the leaders of the patrols went to speak to the bürgermeister and when Karl returned to the inn he found that Clare had gone as well. Not having any other clothing he took his shirt off and did his best to scrub the blood off of it in the wash basin. He was still at it when Clare returned, she came in and gave his bare chest an appreciative look.
"Where were you at?" Karl asked, feeling slightly uncomfortable.
"The bürgermeister called a meeting of the officers and the patrol leaders. It seems that the Beastmen that you were fighting were patrols from an oncoming force."
"Their army is coming here?" Karl asked, alarm clear in his voice, while he had known that the possibility had always existed that the Beastmen would find the town he had begun to hope that the creatures would pass the town by. Clare shook her head.
"It doesn't seem to be the army, not the whole one in any event. They think that it is more likely that what we are facing is only portion of the army. None of the scouts have reported seeing any of the Minitors or centagors, the four-legged kind." This last was said in response to Karl's confused look. She then continued on; "Neither have they seen any shamans. It is more likely that this is a raiding force, though they will likely still outnumber us by a large number. If they do attack they will likely simply launch an assault on the town."
"Do we know how far away they are from the town?" Karl asked.
"We are not certain, though we do not think that it will be long, no more than a day or two. If they are made up of more than one tribe then their leader will have to attack quickly before the Beastmen start to fight among themselves."
"So what can we do to prepare?" Karl asked.
"I am not sure if we can do any more than what we have already done. Really at this point all we can do is hope and pray."
Her predictions proved accurate, as the next few days passed they saw more and more shapes moving just within the tree line. After several patrols failed to come back the decision was made to halt them, it was clear that the enemy would attack soon and it was deemed a waste of lives to risk more patrols. From the walls the sounds of trees being felled, it was assumed to be some sort of siege works. Though everyone served shifts on the wall to ensure all got a chance to rest Karl wasn't sure if anyone actually got any rest on their down time.
Karl was in the inn around noon eating without actually tasting his food when the horn blow which was to signal the enemy attack sounded. He leaped to his feet and rushed to the walls along with everyone else. When he reached the wall he saw that Clare was already there along with the bürgermeister, who had donned a suit of brigandine armor, as had several members of the town council. Karl's attention, however; was focused on the woods where the Beastmen were beginning to emerge from the woods.
As the scouts had reported there did not appear to be any of the very large or four-legged Beastmen among, nor did Karl see or smell any spell-casters among them either. What he did see was that the Beastmen before them seemed to be even more burley than the ones he had seen before, even the small hornless ones seemed more intimidating than the ones he had seen before. Also, many of them were sporting the same sort of brand, it looked like some kind of X, on their foreheads. Leading them was a large brute with four arms and six horns. In its hands it held four axes and wore a rusted breastplate as well as bracers and grieves. Then Karl noticed a number of Beastmen emerging from the trees carrying burdens. They had indeed been constructing siege equipment, though these appeared to consist of no more than some crude ladders and a larger tree whose limbs they had lopped to make a battering ram.
Other Beastmen continued to pour from the forest to assemble into rough formations. While it was clear that this force was nowhere near as large as the horde that they had faced before it was still far larger than the force of the defenders, which Karl thought was somewhere around eight hundred including the townsmen. The leader moved a little ahead of its force, though still out of range of the defenders. It turned to face it its warriors and began to roar, grunt and snort at them. Karl assumed that it was their form of communication, it meant nothing to him but it seemed to be getting the other Beastmen excited, judging by the way that they began to stamp their hooves and began to chant and bellow in excitement. This went on for several minutes, with the creatures becoming more excited by the minute, the sounds growing louder and louder. At, last when it seemed that they could get no louder or no more worked up, the leader turned towards the town, thrust its axes at it and roared. That apparently was the signal that they had been waiting for because at it they surged forward.
There was no attempt made to maintain any semblance of order or formation, they all simply charged as a mass of muscle and fur. They rushed forward roaring and bellowing with savage glee as they closed in on the town. Karl looked around at his fellow defenders, gaging their staying capability. Many of them, especially the townspeople, looked on the brink of running and most likely did not only because there was literally nowhere to run. Even on those who did not appear to be afraid gave off the scent of fear so thick that it was near chocking. Still, no one ran and as the Beastmen came into range Captain Oswald, the highest ranking survivor that had been found, raised his hand and then brought it down.
"FIRE!" He roared at the top of his voice.
At his command all those along the wall with missile weapons, which ranged from handguns to crossbows to hunting bows, opened fire. As they were so many different weapons and levels of training that it was decided that it would be ineffective and a waste of time to try to organize volleys so everyone fired at will. What was agreed on was to, whenever possible, target the larger horned Beastmen whenever possible as these posed a far greater threat than the smaller hornless ones.
Fire from the defenders tore into the onrushing Beastmen. Some shots failed to find a target and some Beastmen shrugged off two or three hits without going down. Most, however; found their mark and many Beastmen went down. This did not deter their fellow Beastmen, who pushed on regardless of loses. Clare, the hatred clear in her voice as she chanted her spells, launched blasts and lances of fire into the onrushing horde, always aiming for where the enemy were massed thickest, dozens screamed and burned but still they came on.
The first ranks of Beastmen, consisting mostly of the hornless ones with a few horned ones to drive them on, reached the ditch that the defenders had dug. They seemed not to have even noticed it till they were almost on top of it. When they saw it they tried to halt but the pressure of those behind kept pushing them on and many were pushed into the ditch and impaled on the stakes. This contained till by the time the larger Beastmen reached it they were able to cross over on the bodies of those who had come before them and reach the wall with only a few lost to the spikes. Once they reached the wall they raised up the ladders that they had made, as soon as they had these in place they began to scale them. Karl and the others knocked several of these down. However; the ladders were promptly raised up again.
Meanwhile, other Beastmen had brought up the battering ram and headed towards the strip of ground in front of the gate. As they drew close to the gates the cannons in the guardhouse atop the gate opened fire. These were nothing like the ones the army had employed, these had been brought ashore from several river patrol craft and were, when loaded with their usual grapeshot, more akin to large blunderbusses. While their range was short their effect within that range was devastating. All the Beastmen carrying the ram and many of those around it were blown apart, their bodies reduced to bloody chunks. Other Beastmen rushed forward to pick it up, but before they could reach it Clare sent a ball of fire which engulfed the battering ram and forced the Beastmen back as it burned.
While this was a blow to the attackers, they gave no sigh that they were going to give up. They charged the gate on mass. While magic and mundane firepower poured into them they kept on coming. When they reached the gate they attacked it with axes, hammers, swords and even claws. The gate groaned but for the moment held and all the while the defenders rained fire down on them. The defenders elsewhere on the wall were unable to come to the aid of those protecting the gate. They were too busy defending their own areas. The ladders were raised up every time they were thrown down and then the Beastmen below got the idea of bracing the ladders on either side of the ladders and bracing them so that the defenders could not throw them to the side and as more Beastmen clambered on the ladders they became too heavy to push back.
Fortunately for the defenders the Beastmen could only come up the ladders one at a time and these were attacked by the defenders as soon as their heads cleared the parapet. Unfortunately, some of these were able to get a blow or two in and some of these managed to kill or wound, some of these defenders, in addition to several who were brought down by javelins thrown by Beastmen farther back from the wall. These enabled several attackers to gain a footing on the wall and kill more defenders, even when the Beastmen were brought down they had opened up gaps for more attackers to get up on the wall.
Karl had just thrust one of his swords into a Beastman's throat when his attention was grabbed by a crashing sound. Under the constant attack of the Beastmen, the gate had partially given way. Captain Oswald had also heard the sound and he took advantage of a pause in the fighting around him to take in the situation at the gate. He then turned to Karl, who was standing near him.
"Take some men and hold the gate!" Karl had no time to offer so much as a nod before the captain had turned back to his other duties. Karl turned to the men around him and pointed to a dozen men.
"YOU LOT WITH ME!" He yelled at them and then headed down towards the gate, as he did so he heard the men following behind him. By the time they reached the gate one of them had been partially torn away and several arms had been thrust through the hole and were grabbing at the bar that held the gate shut. Karl jumped up onto the cart which had been placed in front of the gate to help keep it shut, along with two of the men who had come with him and attacked the offending appendages. They stabbed and hacked at several of them and the rest were pulled back. But while they had stopped that effort, it failed to halt the Beastmens' efforts. They continued to hammer at the gate with their weapons and began to throw their bodies against the gate and it was clear that the gate could not hold much longer.
Seeing this, Karl started to arrange the men into the best formation that he could think of in order to block the enemy when they broke through. Luckily for Karl and the others the gateway was narrow and Karl and two others were enough to block it. Karl, with two swords, took the middle and two men, with swords and shields, took up positions on either side of him. Behind them the others, equipped mostly with spears, positioned themselves in order for them to thrust over the shoulders of Karl and the others into the Beastmen. Before much longer the gate gave a final groan and gave way. With triumphant roars, the enemy surged forward climbing over the wreckage.
None of them made any effort to launch a coordinated assault on the defenders and did not even wait for more of their comrades to get through before they charged Karl and the others. A large brute rushed at Karl with a flint-headed spear and thrust it at Karl's chest. Karl stepped to the right and with his left-handed sword he parried the thrust down and to the left, at the same time he stabbed towards the creature's chest. The beast saw the blow coming and stepped back while twisting to the side, causing Karl to over reach and stumble forward. Before Karl could regain his footing his opponent punched him full in the face. Karl's vision blurred and he felt his nose break and several teeth be nocked free. The beast seized the opening and prepared to thrust at Karl again.
Before it could do so the man on Karl's right moved in. He slammed his shield into the brute before it could defend itself against the man. The blow made it stagger and before it could recover itself the man rammed his sword up and under its ribs. It jerked, went rigid and then fell to the ground, blood bubbling from between its lips. Another Beastman moved in to attack the man before he could return to his guard positon. Fortunately one of the spearmen saw the danger and thrust out with his spear, taking the creature full in the throat.
Karl only caught that out of the corner of his eye. Another Beastman had come at him. This one had a two-handed club with a massive stone head which it raised over its head to bring down in a massive blow. Karl copied what his earlier opponent had done. As the blow came down he stepped back and the club thudded into the ground and embedded itself there. As the Beastman worked to free its weapon Karl took its head off with his long sword. To his left the swordsman caught the descending axe of his own opponent on his shield and then jerked it upward to allow him to slash at the creature's exposed belly. Then more opponents were on Karl and the others.
More and more of them were coming through the torn down gate, though fire from the gatehouse still claimed many of them. Karl found himself facing two of them at once, which put him at an immediate disadvantage. While he had faced more than one opponent before he had usually had the advantage, they had mostly been weaker than him, afraid of him or had been taken unaware. None of these were the case here and Karl soon found himself being forced back. Unable to simply hack through them he found that whenever he focused on one his concentration on the other, which would cause him to neglect the other, which would then take advantage of his distraction to force through his guard. Karl would then have to switch his focus to that one and then the other one would press their attack and the cycle would repeat itself. This went on for several minutes before one of the spearmen managed to injure one of them, which allowed Karl to dispatch it and then turn to deal with the other one.
Shouts and screams from the wall seized Karl's attention and caused him to take a quick glance up to take in the situation. The defenders were being forced from the wall by superior numbers. Seeing that the wall could not be held those in the gatehouse were likewise falling back. Before the battle had begun the leaders had discussed the possibility that the gate might be breached. If that were to happen then it was decided to fall back to the town hall, it was the largest building in town and being made of stone was one of the strongest buildings in town. It was clear to Karl that those on the wall had decided that the wall could not be held and were falling back before it was reduced to a rout.
From their position the majority of the ladders down from the wall were behind Karl and the others so they found themselves the rear guard of the retreat. Unfortunately this left them in a tricky position, if they fell back to soon the other defenders might be overwhelmed. On the other hand, if they stayed too long then they risked being cut off by the Beastmen swarming over the walls. Suddenly Clare was beside Karl, fire licking up and down the blade of her sword. Her cloths were stained and torn and blood dripped from a cut on her arm.
"FALLBACK!" She yelled. At her command they began to fall back, walking to avoid turning their backs to the enemy. These, now coming over the wall and through the gate unopposed, pressed them hard. Clare sent bolts of fire at them and when she had an opening she set fire to buildings around them, the flames on either side of the street acting to channelize the advance of the Beastmen. All of these efforts slowed the enemy but did not stop them and they pressed Karl and the others hard. The man on Karl's right was overwhelmed and torn apart as he struggled to pull his sword from a Beastman's chest. Throw spears killed two of the spearmen at Karl's back and wounded several others.
At last they reached the town hall. Missile troops were drawn up on the steps leading into the building while spear and swordsmen were arrayed in front of the steps. Karl wanted Clare to go up the steps to marginal safety but she refused to do so.
"My magic is almost exhausted, I can do as much good here as anywhere. And I am tired of running if this is the end I want to end it how I wish and with whom I wish." This last was said with a significant look at Karl. He for his part took the opportunity to seize her and plant a firm kiss on her lips. This caused several wolf whistles and howls of appreciation from those around them.
"Sorry to interrupt you two," Captain Oswald said dryly while the bürgermeister smirked nearby. "But I fear that this is not the best time for a romantic interlude." Then the Beastmen were on them and there was no more time for words.
The two lines crashed into one another and it all became a mass of roars, shouts and screams. There were no orders issued, not that anyone could have heard them in any event, and it became simply two masses of bodies pressing against each other, the battle would be decided by which side was the first to break.
Karl had just decapitated another of the creatures when he realized that Clare was no longer beside him. He wanted to look for her but the enemy was pressing them too hard and he had no time. Then, rising over all of the other sounds, Karl heard her voice. He could not look for the location of the voice but he could tell that she was chanting in a language he could not understand and he could smell the magic in the air increasing. As she continued to chant her voice rose in pitch and volume till it sounded more like a scream than anything else. At last, when it sounded she could continue any longer, she gave a final shriek and a ball of fire sailed over the heads of the defenders and detonated among the attacks.
When it detonated it seemed the whole world burst into flames. The ball had become a whirling pillar of fire the seemed to be spreading to consume all the Beastmen in the town square. All the air seemed to be sucked from Karl's lungs and the wave from the detonation had knocked him and a number of others to the ground. When he at last got to his feet Karl beheld a scene of devastation. The column was gone but all the buildings around the town square were ablaze. The enemy was gone, there was nothing but piles of charred bones and the air was so thick with the sickly-sweet smell of burning flesh the Karl felt the bile rise in his throat, while around him several men last the battle and were heaving their guts out. After a moment a ragged, chocking cheer was raised. Karl was about to join in when he remembered Clare. Frantically he looked around looking for her, then he saw her.
She was at the top of the steps, even from where he was Karl could see that she was soaked with sweat. Then her body began to shake and she fell to the ground. Karl and several others rushed to her and as he drew closer he could see that her body was wracked with convulsions, she had vomited and her eyes had rolled up in her heads. All Karl could do while someone called for a physician was hold her as she shook and convulsed.
Author's Notes: Hey everyone, sorry that it has been so long since I updated, I hope this makes up for it. I have been feeling that I am falling into a rut with my chapters, what do you think? Till next time please pray for the Sudanese pastors, who were acquitted but are not allowed to leave, the man missing in the Badlands, victims of kidnapping and human trafficking, those held against their will the people held in Pakistan because of their Christian faith and all who need prayer. Bye and may Jesus bless you.