Sons of Ironstorm - Book 4: Griffon's Stand

Chapter 11: Death of a Nation

"Of the human kingdoms of the Hammer Peninsula,

Xanchalda, by far, is the least understood.

With demons and demigods populating its pantheon,

And warrior societies dominating its politics,

It is an enigma within the heart of a puzzle."

- from a recent druidic survey of Hammer Peninsula kingdoms

Watching his knights pound through the enemy, Morgan fought off the urge to quit the walls, find a horse and join them. It was desperate work, sending armored men on horseback thundering into the midst of a determined foe that so heavily outnumbered them, but that was the way of it. Cavalry was often forced to use both shock and surprise to win through before the enemy pulled them from their saddles. And of the handful of nations that used heavy cavalry and knights, Galental had made the work of a charge almost into an art, her knights well trained in every method of warfare from horseback. Few enemies had successfully withstood a charge of Galentaler heavy horse, a fact Morgan was counting heavily on to get these newcomers to safety.

At least the desperate column of people his cavalry were fighting to reach, had changed their angle of approach to lend whatever aide they could to their rescuers, their determination and extravagant use of weaponry continuing to cut a swath through the dark soldier ranks. If they could hold their course but a moment longer, then Nadien and his knights would be to them with a path back to the sally port open behind them.

A cold shock of reality sent rushing through his veins by the sound, the hiss of an arrow passing close to his helmeted head rudely pulled the powerful Galentaler war king from his musings to pay attention to matters at hand. With the sky darkening towards a storm once more overhead, he threw himself back into the deadly battle for Quillus' walls, his longsword humming as it bit through the air.

Forged by the first King of Galental, Tusk the Mighty himself, the longsword cut through troll and tjor'riin with equal fury, quickly clearing a space around the broad shouldered war king. There would be no pause to rest for Morgan, however, as the whine of his main gates under stress drew his eyes from the dark soldiers swarming still up their ladders onto his walls, to the gates where massive Wendigo swung their battering ram with eerie precision. As his eyes swung across the battlefield towards the beleaguered portals, they fell upon buckets of oil for throwing on attackers and fired as an additional defense. Somehow they had avoided destruction at the hands of dark soldiers.

The knot of heavy wooden containers gave Morgan an idea, one that puzzled him why it hadn't been tried to this point.

"You, you and you," he said hoarsely, pointing to a number of nearby soldiers before ducking a wild swing from a troll. A hard swing with his sword and the troll fell away, missing most of its arm and bearing a long mortal rent in its reinforced flesh.

"Follow me," Morgan curtly ordered then charged towards the buckets without looking back, the sword of the kings of Galental cutting a path through the horde of dark soldiers for them.

His determination propelling him irresistibly through the enemy, the Galentaler monarch quickly reached the buckets, the three soldiers he had selected right behind them.

"Take up those oil buckets and dump them onto the Wendigo assailing the gates," he tautly directed, knocking a pair of tjor'riin aside as they ran howling towards them, somehow deducing what the humans were about to attempt. Nearly cut in half by the longsword's razor edge, they tumbled into the courtyard, dropping hard to the cobblestone ground to join a legion of their comrades who lay side by side with fallen human defenders where their deaths had left them.