Sons of Ironstorm - Book 4: Griffon's Stand

An Unexpected Player

Possessing speed and strength greater than most humans, the Nahkiwin easily turned to meet Morgan, broadsword ready. But Morgan wasn't most humans. He was directly descended from one of the greatest warriors Humanity had ever known, Tusk of Galus, founder of Galental after the fall of the Cadremoor Alliance. A fact the reptilian dark soldier was about to discover, much to its chagrin. 

Seeing Morgan's sword angling in high, it shifted to meet it. Only to see Morgan change direction in mid-swing, a task virtually impossible with a longsword's momentum and inertia, to bring the long blade slicing downward. The Nahkiwin barely had time enough to drop its sword hard to catch Morgan's blade close to the hilt, by the guard, the impact jolting the reptile's arm nearly enough to force it back a step.

Not letting the hasty block deter him, Morgan wheeled tightly about, both gauntleted hands on his sword's hilt to snap the longsword around in a tight arc the Nahkiwin somehow managed to block with a thick-bladed dagger, jerked up into place at the last moment. Nowhere near the size of the broadsword that had stopped his original attack, however, the dagger was knocked roughly to the side and Morgan's return swing sheared through the chain mail and muscle keeping the reptilian warrior's head attached to its body.

The big dark soldier gurgled as it took an unsteady step back, a gauntlet hastily lifted to the gash opened up in its throat. Then it was falling limply to the walkway, murky blood pouring unabated from the mortal wound as strength abruptly left its legs. Sword ready, Morgan stepped over the fallen dark soldier to confront its comrades.

"Who's next?" he hissed out the grill in his visor that let him breath through the protective metal and with guttural snarls the Nahkiwin charged forward, weapons ready. The air quickly filled with the ringing of blade against blade and the shouts of men and beast in battle.

This deadly scene, a microcosm of the battle being fought by Galental for its very life, was this day being repeated all along the western wall as the Shadow took advantage of the momentary storm to throw themselves forward in an obviously practiced and well-rehearsed maneuver. Running at top speed, they reached the walls virtually untouched before Morgan's wizards managed to cast a counter spell and disperse the magical storm. Men were just rising back to their feet when heavy scaling ladders of metal-reinforced wood began smacking heavily against the wall before disgorging their burdens of Nahkiwin, tjor'riin and trolls onto the wall top. In the space of a few brief moments, the walls were engulfed in dark soldiers.

In addition to the tide of darkness that washed up against Quillus' first line of defense, the Wendigo continued their battering of the main gates, swinging in unusual rhythm to drive their iron-shod battering ram again and again against the reinforced gates. Seasoned wood and oil-quenched iron, the gates still resisted, but not for long. The massive dark soldiers weren't on the minds of the builders of the fortified city and their power would soon prove too much for the gates to hold back.

But these were warriors, soldiers of Galental, born to conflict and strife in the turmoil that continually engulfed the warring states of the Hammer Peninsula. They would resist to the end and hurl themselves howling on the blades of their enemies, if it bought their beloved land a moment longer from the enslaver's collar.

Grimacing, Morgan cut down the last Nahkiwin, hammering the reptilian warrior's guard aside with a series of well-placed blows before cutting through breastplate and chain mail to open the beast up like a letter. And, for a brief moment, the war king found himself surrounded by an eerie calm, as if the Maker himself had reached down from the heavens to hold back the enemy and give the King of Galental rest.

In that pause he looked out over the flatlands stretching to the west and south from Quillus' main gates. And Morgan felt his teeth grind in frustration when he found them filled to overflowing with dark soldiers. The Shadow had come to crush Quillus this day and, despite the might of his army and the determination of his defenses, a force that size would surely overcome them. 'But not before I send my fair share to the dark Abyss that awaits their shriveled souls,' he silently vowed, shaking the blood from his battered blade before renewing a two-handed grip on its worn hilt.