Sons of Ironstorm - Book 4: Griffon's Stand

Chapter 27: A City's Fall

"The Kata recorded that the Sa'an grieved

Each time one of their cities fell to the Kaal Eran.

That they sorrowed each time one of their great ones died

Defending what couldn't be defended against the demons.

Yet the only time they actually wept was when Jair Kalial,

First of their cities, and more fair and beautiful above all others

Was destroyed with fire and darkness by the Lords of the Shadow.

- from Ciradaan of Aquila's personal journal

Lawrence felt the tear cut through the dust and dirt on his face, welling from deep within to make its way past the resolve armoring his features to silently tell the tale of how he felt in his heart.

"Damn them," he husked, the muscles clenching tightly in his jaw with the force of his emotions. "Damn them straight back to the Abyss!"

His city, the capital of his kingdom and the reason he had returned to Talemon, was burning! Smoke rose in twisting columns from the Merchants' Quarter, from the Tor, the Cathedral ... burn him because it was true, from every part of his beloved city. In gouts of flame and in shudders of destruction, Tal Morun, last of the Cadremoor fortress cities and the center of the Talemonese heartland, was dying.

Fists clenched on the balcony railing he leaned on, Lawrence tore his eyes from the dying city that stretched out from the feet of the Caer Aslan and squeezed them shut against the flood of hot tears that threatened to overtake him as wave after wave of frustration washed through his exhausted body. Yet, even in the darkness found behind his lids, the vision of Tal Morun's fall continued to unfold before his mind's eye, unrelenting and unforgiving as time and time again the big Ironstorm king watched the city burn as memories of the past few turns of the small glass, bitter and searing, lashed at his mind.

The enemy had come in a dark wave, thousands of demons in their midnight armor disgorged by the shifting shadow portals in an unending stream until the horizon was black with them. Only then did they begin to march on the uneasily waiting city and the handful of defenders that manned her walls. Gathering his power and magic, Lawrence had given the order for the vanguard to embark on the Giant's Way, carrying with them the heart of Talemon's army to the distant Storm Keep. There, if all things went according to plan, they would make their last stand against the Shadow with the walls of the ancient First Alliance fortress protecting them.

Unfortunately, as the grim king quickly discovered, no plan could've prepared them for the ferocity of the Kaal Eran assault. Along with foot soldiers, the demon commanders also brought artillery: mobile platforms of moving machinery that carried massive columns of carved crystal. These had quickly moved into position to begin firing precise blasts of pure negative energy that quickly smashed aside the Cadremoor city's magical defenses to begin knocking her walls down. With the magic protecting the city from evil gone, the demons quickly began to march forward, weapons at the ready, intent on pushing through the crumbling walls and into the city itself.

Seeing that they no longer would give them any protection, Lawrence then swiftly had given the order to withdraw from the great walls that had kept the city safe from attackers for hundreds of cycles. Gathering his forces in the courtyards between the first and second walls, Lawrence decided to try and mount a quick counterattack on the ground using Tearn's quadan cavalry, in the hopes of gaining some breathing room for the abruptly beleaguered rear guard.

Led by the quadan Scion himself, the charge hammered into the demonic ranks before they could adjust to the rapidly moving centaurs. And, for a moment, it had looked as if the counterattack would be effective. The bemused and stunned Kaal Eran were pushed back almost a full league before the quadans' relentless drive.