IronGuard

CHAPTER 18

"Keep pushing them into their camp!" Lord Lezin ordered, seeing as Lord Harold and his forces can barely stand on the mud but the rain has stopped and the sky has calmed down.

Beside him is his son, Lezin II the oldest and heir. "Father, why did you allow Liana to act by her own?"

"She's useless to me, you know that"

Lezin looks far beyond the battlefield and stares at the old citadel and notices shadows on the wall. "That can't be" he whispers.

"What are you muttering about boy!" His father shouts.

"Nothing...Nothing father" He takes a look closer and is certain that there are strangers waiting inside the old citadel. "I'll go round the camp and make sure we have surrounded them"

"Good! Kill anyone that won't surrender"

Lezin leaves his father's side and rallies his knights then disappears.

*Inside the camp*

"The enemy is advancing again and our men are breaking"  A general says to Lord Harold. "Tell your IronGuard to push through the center" Lord Harold listens but does not reply, he still stares at the on going battle.

Meanwhile inside the camp, Lady Therese is quickly bandaging Dello's wounds. He's still alive but barely.

"Give me that" She points out a bottle resting on a table, filled with some red liquid. Owen grabs it and hands it to her without a second delay. "You can go back to your comrades. I can handle it from here"

"But Lady..."

"Go! If the lines break, all of us will die anyway" She says while applying the liquid on Dello's back. Her voice still has confidence in them but also has fear. Owen swallows his thoughts and disappears. "Don't die Dello, Marcus is still counting on you"

Outside the old citadel, Liana and Marcus continue to hammer each other with deadly blows. Mordin and the rest of the Demal watched as the battle grew fiercer and fiercer.

"You've...changed" Liana says while trying to catch her breath.

"So have you but for the worst"

Liana chuckles and strikes Marcus again and again but each time he stopped her.

"What drives you to do this Liana?" Marcus asks hoping that she would give him a reasonable answer.

"I just want you dead" Not the answer Marcus was hoping to get.

"Then you've given me no choice" Marcus prepares his sword and so does Liana but before the two could move, a group of riders approaches.

"Liana!" A rider called out. As they drew closer they became clear to Marcus and Liana's eyes.

"Lezin!" She replied.

"Men defend my sister at all cost!"

The riders who appear to be knights, spread out and began to encircle Marcus but he is unfazed by their presence. "Why isn't he moving?" Lezin asks himself but then a sudden urge to look at the old citadel controls him and he sees the shadows watching them from above. A horn sounds in the distance, it is not the horn from any army.

In a gust of wind the shadows disappeared from the walls of the old citadel and seconds later they appeared right in front of Lezin and his men. The knights were slaughtered in minutes, Liana panics and runs away from the fight, leaving her brother alone with the demons.

For a moment the entire battlefield froze in silence when all heard the horn, a sound that no one knows where it came from. Even the IronGuard were stuck in silence.