Fimbulwinter (Daniel Black) (26 page)

the healing spell, trying to fix everything that was wrong with me and leaving

only a tiny trickle to recharge the shield. I’d have to change that later, assuming

I was still alive.

Finally, sensation returned to my legs. My broken bones weren’t really

healed, but they were set firmly enough that I could move without causing more

damage. That would have to do for now. I set myself down, and stood on

wobbly legs.

“Done!” I announced. “Let’s get out of here.”

Three arrows hit my shield immediately. They didn’t penetrate, but the

barrier wavered ominously. Damn it, where was Cerise? I couldn’t throw any

ranged attacks or I might hit her.

“Turn left and walk a little,” Cerise said from behind me. “I’ve got

your back.”

“Got it.” I turned, and hobbled forward through the darkness.

A large shape loomed in front of me. I extended an eight-foot force

blade from my left hand and swept it across the shadowy bulk. It collapsed

with an agonized animal sound, and I stepped around it.

Another dark shape, but this one was just a wall. Heavy stone, thicker

than I was tall. Right, the town wall. This must be one end of the breach.

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“Can’t hold the darkness much longer,” Cerise warned.

I nodded, and put my back to the wall. With my amulet’s energy flow

mostly tied up I couldn’t afford to waste magic on anything big, but shifting

some of the broken stone beneath our feat to give us cover wasn’t too hard.

“Alright, let it go,” I said.

The darkness faded to twilight. Cerise stood beside me, breathing

heavily from the fight, with a nasty gash on one arm and bloodstains all over

her knee-length dress.

In front of us the breach was full of monsters. Hundreds of goblins,

about half of them on wolfback, were pouring into the town. Here and there a

troll strode through the rushing crowd of smaller monsters, roaring and looking

for enemies. A handful of archers on the wall above rained arrows down into

the mass, but it wasn’t nearly enough.

I threw a volley of force blades into the press, and a whole group of

goblins fell in a spray of blood and severed body parts. But they could see us

now, and the nearest goblins immediately rushed us.

I manifested an eight-foot blade of force from my left hand and swept it

across their ranks. Goblins and wolves fell, cut in half by the invisible blade.

But there were too many of them, moving too fast.

A javelin bounced off my shield. I swept my blade back and forth,

cutting down more attackers. A goblin leaped off his dying mount with swords

like meat cleavers in both hands, but Cerise knocked him out of the air with a

curse. Arrows fell around us, and a ball of sparks arced over our attackers to

detonate on my shield.

It collapsed.

A troll lumbered into range, raising a broken-off tree trunk high over its

head. I stabbed it in the groin with my force blade, and it dropped the

improvised club to clutch at itself. More goblins poured around it into melee

range, stabbing at me with spears. Cerise gutted one that got too close, and I

cut down more with another sweep of my hand.

There were too many of them. I turned the ground in front of us to mud

to buy us a moment’s respite, and grabbed Cerise.

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“Hold on!” I told her, and threw us both into the air.

My previous experiment in flying hadn’t worked out so well, but this

time I wasn’t going any further than the top of the wall. Cerise gasped in

surprise as we left the ground, then whooped and clutched at me.

“We’re flying!” She yelled.

“More like falling in the wrong direction,” I corrected. A second push

up, a wobble to keep us from hitting the wall, and then we were above the

level of the parapet. I glanced down to see startled guardsmen looking up at us.

Down in the breach two more trolls were headed for the spot where

we’d been fighting, and the first one was getting back up. Yeah, that would

have ended badly.

I managed an awkward landing on top of the wall, and put Cerise

down. She leaned against me in a way that would have been a lot more

appealing if not for my broken ribs, and kissed me.

“We’ve got to do that again,” she said excitedly. “Only next time try not

to crash in the middle of a horde of monsters.”

“Good advice,” I said dryly. “Watch the ribs. I take it you were out in

the town?”

She nodded, and gave me a suddenly worried look. “Are you going to

be alright? You looked really bad, but I figured it would be like the fight with

the giant.”

“It will be, but I can’t afford to spend an hour healing right now.

Thanks for the save, by the way. I don’t think I would have made it out of there

on my own.”

“I still owe you two more,” she grinned. “So, how do we save the

town? Or do we need to pack up and get the hell out?”

“There aren’t enough of them to sack the town,” I pointed out. “There

must be three or four thousand people crammed in here, and one on one a

civilian with an improvised weapon is probably about as dangerous as your

average goblin. But they’ll kill a lot of people, especially with those trolls.”

“It’s not just that, sir wizard,” one of the soldiers put in. “Goblins love

setting fires. If they get out of control they could burn the town.”

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“Oh. Damn.”

I desperately needed to sit down and fix my amulet’s enchantment. If I

could just throttle it so it would only spend half its power flow on healing me

that would leave plenty to keep the shield up and recharge my own reserves.

But a change like that could easily take twenty minutes, and by then the

outcome of this fight would probably be decided.

What could I do with what I had?

There was a tiny trickle of free power for me to use. My shield was

back up, and at this rate it could probably take a hit from a goblin weapon

every now and then. But a troll or a flurry of hits would collapse it.

My personal reserves were still mostly full, but I’d have to limit myself

to small spells or I’d run dry fast. So force blades and balls of fire, but no big

area-effect spells. Well, it was too late for that anyway. The last of the

attacking force was already moving through the breach and into the streets of

the town.

They’d caught us by surprise, and the Baron’s men were still trying to

mobilize. I was pretty sure they’d push the goblins back out of town when they

got organized, but until then there was nothing stopping them from rampaging

through the streets killing people and setting things on fire.

Alright then.

“You men, make sure the wall is secure and see what damage you can

do from up here. Cerise, follow me. Let’s see if we can rally a defense.”

I hurried down the wall as best I could. I was still limping, but at least

I could walk more or less normally now. Every passing minute was the

equivalent of several days of natural healing for me, and it was starting to add

up.

There was a street running parallel to the wall, and I kept an eye on it

as we moved. At first there were goblins on wolfback running everywhere,

along with the bodies of dead civilians. But the ones who’d gotten into town

first were busy looting the buildings nearest the breach, and only a few had

gotten as far as setting them on fire.

Further down the goblins were still beating at doors and windows,

trying to break into homes and shops whose owners had gotten enough warning

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to bar their doors. Beyond that there were still people in the street, some of

them fighting while others ran for their lives. I searched frantically, looking for

a possible center of resistance.

There. An open-air smithy, where a cluster of burly men were laying

into the goblins with hammers and iron bars. An older man and three younger

ones, probably his sons. Some of the goblins had already detoured around them

looking for easier prey, but not too many.

I opened my shield and pulled Cerise against me. “We’re jumping

again.”

She sheathed one of her knives and wrapped her arm around my waist.

“Ready!”

I stepped off the wall, and threw us across the street. A few seconds of

frantic maneuvering dropped us lightly in the middle of the goblins, between a

snarling wolf and a shaman who’d just started to wave his staff and chant.

Cerise stabbed him before our feet even touched the cobblestones.

I cut the wolf in half with a force blade. Cerise cut the shaman’s throat

just to be sure, and flicked a blob of darkness into the back of a goblin who

was trying to stab one of the blacksmiths. Then there was way too much

happening for me to keep track of it all.

I slashed madly with my force blade, hacking up goblins and trying to

dodge their little swords and spears. A snarling wolf leaped at me, and I cut it

in half. But the body kept going, smashing into my shield and sending me

stumbling back.

A sword bounced off my side in a shower of blue sparks, and my

shield failed again. I cut a goblin’s arm off and kicked another one away. A

spear sank into my side an instant before my blade found its wielder. I gasped,

and send a flurry of blades flying through the air.

Several goblins went down in pieces, and the rest fell back.

“Holy bells. What happened to your shield, master?” Cerise was at my

side in an instant, carefully extracting the spear. Fortunately goblins aren’t all

that strong, so it hadn’t penetrated far enough to perforate my intestines. The

bleeding stopped almost immediately, but it was one more injury slowing me

down.

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“It’s going to be weak until I finish healing,” I told her, and turned to

the smiths.

“Thanks for the save, sir wizard,” the older one said. “You look like

hell. You need to come in and sit down for a bit?”

I shook my head. “After we’ve beaten off this attack. Gather your

neighbors, quick. We’ll stop them here.”

I stepped into the middle of the street, and started shaping the

cobblestones beneath my feet. A proper wall capable of stopping trolls would

take more energy than I could spare, but we didn’t need anything that

ambitious. Instead I made the stones grow long spikes, turning a stretch of road

into a field of caltrops. Then I stepped back a few feet, and started making a

low barricade of earth.

A couple of the blacksmith’s sons quickly joined me, setting tables and

workbenches on their sides atop the dirt. We had a chest-high obstacle laid

across half the street in minutes, and more men began to gather.

They weren’t much to look at. Frightened peasants dressed in rags,

clutching worn-looking scythes and hoes. Townsmen, a little better dressed

and not quite as thin, armed with improvised truncheons and the occasional

kitchen implement. One man with a spear, another with what was probably a

hunting bow. Not a single scrap of armor among them.

But even the puniest man was twice the size of a goblin. They could

hold, as long as they didn’t have to deal with a troll or one of the more

powerful shamans. If they had the determination to stand together and fight,

instead of running.

The roar of a troll drew my attention back to our enemies just in time to

see them charge. Another pack of wolf-riders flanked the lumbering troll, with

a dozen or so goblins on foot bringing up the rear.

Alright, time to show these men they could fight back.

“Kill the goblins!” I shouted. “The troll is mine.”

The charging monsters hit the field of spike stones, and faltered. Some

of the wolves balked, while others stepped on spikes and began howling and

thrashing in pain. A few, either lucky or smart, managed to avoid the spikes

and make it to the wall.

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The troll’s huge feet came down on several of the spikes. The creature

stumbled, looking down in confusion, and I struck.

I’d been thinking for days about how to kill trolls more effectively.

Thrown force blades just didn’t have the momentum to do more than annoy

one, and getting within melee range of something that dangerous was a stupid

risk. My more ambitious ideas weren’t practical right now, but one of the

smaller ones might work.

While the troll was distracted I carved off a chunk of one of the

overturned tables making up the barricade, layered it with force and fire

magic, and launched it at the monster’s chest.

The creature’s flesh was tougher than wood, but a charge of cutting

force magic meant the projectile penetrated a few inches and stuck instead of