• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Taking but a moment to check which way lies the shortest distance to the wall, he turns to the right. There ahead of them, the wall looms high over the tops of the buildings. They can hear the screaming and shouting of soldiers from behind them, as they pour into the street from a junction further back. Glancing behind them, Jiron guesses there must be a hundred or more soldiers back there.

Ahead of them in the street is a large square with a fountain that had seen better days. At one time it used to have four tiers where water would rain down from one to the other. Now, it lies all but broken, only a small section of what used to be the top two tiers remains.

As they come toward the square, four soldiers enter from a side street and charge. A slug takes one out before they even have a chance to close the distance. Jiron moves to intercept as a second slug takes out another.

The first to engage Jiron strikes out with his sword. Jiron deflects it to the side as he follows through with a thrust using his other knife, taking the soldier in the chest. Kicking the dying man off his knife, the soldier flails into his partner, throwing him off balance.

Jiron moves in quickly and takes the remaining soldier out. As the last dead body hits the ground…

Crumph!

…the street behind them explodes upward. Looking back, he sees a dust cloud in the torch light as bodies rain back down to the street. Pursuit momentarily halted from that avenue, they turn and continue toward the wall.

“How are you doing?” he asks James, worried that the magic may be making him weak.

“So far I’m doing alright,” he tells him.

“Good, I’d hate to have to carry you out of here!” he says with a grin.

“I wouldn’t care for that either,” he replies.

They race further on, horns still sounding behind them, but are eerily quiet before them. James figures most of the pursuit has been directed back behind them before he started doing magic and letting them know their whereabouts.

The wall now looms large before them. The street they are on comes to the base of the wall and they are forced to either turn left or right. Both ways look the same, so they turn to the left and race along the wall, hoping to find a way out.

Out of the dark ahead of them, they begin to see light as they approach the gates. Coming to a stop, they see arrayed before them, over a hundred men as well as a dozen or more crossbowmen. Five other crossbowmen man the walls above the gate.

“Man, what are we going to do?” Jiron asks him.

“I don’t know,” he admits. “The magic I would need to use to clear that away would leave me unconscious if not outright kill me.”

They make to turn around when from behind them, the force that had been stopped by the exploding street now boils into view behind them. When the soldiers see them standing there, a cry goes up and horns begin to sound as they charge.

The force at the gate, now aware of their presence, forms into ranks as they make a wall of iron across the street. The crossbowmen ready their crossbows.

Crumph!

The ground behind them erupts, throwing the leading edge of the charging men in the air in the hopes of slowing them down. It does, but only momentarily.

James readies a spell for the group by the gates when their lines begin to buckle and he sees the crossbowmen on the walls turn and appear to be firing at their own forces. Whatever the reason, he changes his tactics and begins peppering the crossbowmen on the walls with slugs and they begin to fall.

“Look!” cries Jiron as he points to the force in front of the gates.

James turns his attention to them and sees them fighting with men in slave rags. The slaves!

“Come on!” Jiron says as he races to the gates and the fighting going on there.

James runs behind him as he sees a group of twenty slaves bearing nothing but makeshift clubs and scavenged weapons, race toward the gatehouse. The crossbowmen on the ground see them and a flight of bolts cuts down half before they make it.

The ten or so left reach