The Jewel of Turmish - Mel Odom [116]
All at once, the realization that Borran Kiosk hadn't ordered the burning sails lowered or the anchor dropped spread through the crowd of warriors. A mass exodus of the front line began, but they had to try to fight their way through the people in back who hadn't yet seen that the mohrg had no intention of turning back.
Haarn was caught in the crowd, pushed and shoved as were Druz and Ettrian, moving but going nowhere.
"Grab onto Broadfoot!" Ettrian shouted over the yells and screams of the scrambling warriors.
Haarn knotted his fists in the bear's pelt, pulling himself close. They clung to the bear while the rest of the warriors abandoned their posts and moved around them like a raging ocean.
Broadfoot growled and swiped at people who came too close to him. His claws never broke skin, but Haarn knew there would be more than a few people with bruises in the morning-if they survived Borran Kiosk's attack.
Haarn watched anxiously as the zombie ships bore down on the dockyards. Nearly all of Alaghфn's piers stood on pilings buried deep in the harbor mud, but none of them were strong enough to withstand the tonnage of ships hurtling at them.
The flaming sails of Borran Kiosk's craft highlighted the zombies standing on the deck. None of them moved, even up to the point of impact.
The two ships struck the docks, reducing the piers to splinters, ripping through the pilings and shoving docks that weren't torn to pieces at once back into the shoreside warehouses. The groaning, shearing, crumbling carnage filled the harbor with deafening noise. Other ships lying at anchor against the docks caught fire as well when flaming debris from the two zombie ships flew onto their decks and into their rigging. In the space of a drawn breath, a dozen ships had caught fire and a conflagration began that looked as though it might well burn the harbor down.
Haarn fought to maintain his position at Broadfoot's side. The stained glass windows of the tall buildings overlooking the harbor caught the red and orange glow of the burning ships.
Borran Kiosk's ships came apart. Zombies tumbled and were thrown onto the ground when the vessels rammed into the land behind the piers and finally stopped. Not much was left of either of them.
The shipwrecks put Haarn in the mind of anthills the way the zombies boiled from their holds. Borran Kiosk must have stacked them on top of each other like sacks of grain in a merchant's wagon.
The zombies stumbled from the wrecks and from the sea, coming into the shore like a tidal wave of dead flesh. Warriors stood their ground where they could.
The battle, thought a certain victory by the living army of warriors and druids only moments before, swiftly became a bloodbath. Haarn watched in helpless frustration as the front line of Alaghфn's defenders went down under the hands and fangs of Borran Kiosk's undead forces.
"Where is Borran Kiosk?" Ettrian demanded, yelling to be heard above the sounds of the one-sided battle.
"I don't know!" Haarn shouted back. "I lost sight of him when the ships struck the docks."
He urged Broadfoot up and forward. The bear was more than equal to the task, shoving aside the warriors who didn't move readily enough for him.
When news of Borran Kiosk's impending return had spread throughout Alaghфn, most of the populace had been of a mind to pack up and leave. Some of them had, but there were a number of others who rallied to the cause. The volunteer army had swiftly grown beyond the ability of the Assembly of Stars to control. When the flaming ships hit the docks, that volunteer army was the first, and least orderly, to beat a hasty retreat.
"A line is forming in front!" Ettrian cried over the roaring chaos.
"I see them!" Haarn shouted back.
His senses whirled, confused by the press of people around him, by the alien landscape of the city, and by sight of the zombies crawling out of the harbor and starting toward the city.
A ragged line of warriors made up of members of the Alaghфn city watch and the Emerald Enclave formed