NOVEL NEXT 30. Through the Breach
The outter wall is breached, the second inner one remains.
Others splatter acidic gore that travels along the ramparts.
Defenders caught in the spray liquefy, armor and flesh becoming indistinguishable slag that drips between stone cracks.
The fortress stands, but the Demon Duke's loyal minions know their master is weak.
Their howls hold a frantic edge.
A demonspawn with vulture wings impales itself on a defender's pike. Rather than die, it pulls itself further down the shaft, grabbing the defender's arms. Both topple from the wall. Land with wet impact.
Time to advance.
These chosen bones move through the melee, fifteen feet of undead might pushing between lesser fiends.
My presence forms a wedge.
Marnac's warriors instinctively yield space, letting me approach a section of inner wall that has begun to buckle under repeated impacts.
A narrow battering ram, an immense spinal column reinforced with iron rings, slams into a narrow postern gate set lower in the inner wall.
With each strike, flakes of curse-stone rain down, and the defenders inside scramble to reinforce from behind.
A devil nearby falls, skull split by a crossbow bolt. Its companion dips claws into the wound, painting sigils on its own chest with fresh ichor. The fallen devil's essence transfers, muscle mass doubling as bones crack and reform.
They pour molten resin through murder-holes, cooking a half-dozen insectoid devourers alive.
Chitin pops and sizzles.
Mandibles click in death spasms. The stench of boiled organs follows.
Their screams are short-lived, cut off when I raise Aeternus and hack apart a wooden barricade blocking the ram's crew from advancing.
Freed, they push harder, roaring encouragement.
The gate timbers creak.
Another blow.
Something snaps.
A chunk of the gate crumples inward, revealing a gap.
Snarling Marnac's minions thrust spears into the gap, tearing at anything beyond. A defender's face appears, mouth open in defiance. Three spears pierce it simultaneously. The head remains stuck on spear-tips, still blinking, still trying to scream as it's paraded like a trophy.
The defenders retaliate with hooked poles that drag several howling demons inside, where wet chopping sounds ensue.
Limbs fly back through the gap.
A demon's head rolls out, expression frozen in surprise.
I step forward and swing my blade at the hinge supports.
With runed steel and impossible strength, I carve through old iron and curse-bound wood.
The next ram strike shatters what remains of the postern.
Splinters fly, embedding in demon flesh. None reach these bones.
A flood of monstrous infantry surges through the second breach, screaming devotion to Marnac.
A troll tries to push ahead of me, hunger for slaughter overriding caution. Its spine distends as something bursts through its chest from behind, a defender's spear. The troll grabs the weapon's shaft, pulling both it and its wielder through the gap. The defender dangles, kicking. The troll bites off his head before collapsing.
No words follow as the troll starts to heal.
I follow, stepping into the fortress's outer courtyard, a space lit by red torches and lined with grotesque statues.
The ground is paved with flagstones etched with demonic glyphs.
Dead defenders, impaled on their own spears, lie scattered. Some still twitch, armor fused to flesh by magic gone wrong. One tries to crawl despite missing everything below the rib cage, intestines leaving glistening trail.
Those who still live form a desperate shield wall before the inner gates.
The courtyard erupts in chaos the moment we breach.
Marnac's warriors charge en masse.
A winged horror swoops low, talons extended. A defender raises shield. Too slow. Talons puncture eye sockets, lifting the screaming victim skyward.
The defender's struggles dislodge helmet, revealing not a head but a writhing mass of tentacles that ensnare the winged attacker. Both spiral upward, locked in mutual destruction.
The defenders, fiends of hulking shapes in armor grafted to flesh, wielding polearms with stored lightning.
They stand shoulder-to-shoulder in disciplined ranks, refusing to break.
Their eyes, glowing slits of infernal light, fix on the intruder.
They know their Duke is weakened.
They know they must hold.
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Marnac's legions crash against this line.
I press forward through the chaos, Aeternus leaving trails of blue light as I cleave through anything blocking my path.
My massive skeletal form towers over most of the demons, making me a clear target. An elite defender breaks formation, hurling a lightning-charged harpoon that pierces my rib cage. Energy crackles through bone, but I do not fall.
I grasp the harpoon's shaft, pulling it.
The defender's boots scrape against stone as it struggles. I lift the creature by its throat, bones creaking under pressure, then slam it into two others approaching from my flank.
Lightning chains between their armor, cooking them from within.
The shield wall shifts, closing the gap where the elite had been.
I charge, bringing Aeternus down. The blade meets a raised shield. Ancient runes flare against infernal sigils. The defender staggers but holds.
Two more step up, bracing their comrade. Their shoulders lock together, polearms extended at perfect angles to maximize coverage.
My second strike cracks a shield but fails to break through.
Marnac's demons rush past me, hurling themselves at the wall. They die in waves.
The shield wall endures.
I back away, reassessing. These are not common troops. Each bears the Duke's personal mark—bone-white stigmata burned into their foreheads. Elite guardians, bound by infernal contracts that prevent retreat.
They will die before yielding.
The shield wall forms a semi-circle now, protecting the final gate to the Duke's inner sanctum. Each defender stands perfectly still between attacks, conserving energy. Their discipline rivals anything I've witnessed on mortal battlefields.
Yet the shield wall endures.
One of the defenders, a hulking figure with a single cyclopean eye, thrusts a runed polearm at my chest.
Sparks and runes clash.
The blow glances off dragon-bone plating.
I respond by bringing Aeternus down in a swift, brutal arc.
The blade cleaves the cyclopean warrior's helm and skull in one motion, continuing through chest cavity. The body remains standing, split vertically into uneven halves that slowly peel apart like rotten fruit.
Black ichor fountains, drenching the flagstones.
Screams from Marnac's infantry as they press advantage.
Now a gap forms in the defenders' line where I struck.
Marnac's troops rush in, biting, clawing, stabbing.
A demon with spider limbs grafted to its torso seizes two defenders, pulling them together with force. Their armor crumples. Bones snap. The spider-thing continues squeezing until both victims burst, showering nearby combatants with pulped organs.
The disciplined formation shatters into brutal skirmishes.
The courtyard chokes with corpses.
Body parts pile high enough that smaller demons use them as vantage points, leaping onto defenders from above. A gnoll slips on spilled entrails, falling into a defender's waiting blade. The sword stabs through its chest, emerging between shoulder blades.
The gnoll slides down the length, clawing at its killer even as life fades.
Arrows from upper balconies rain down, forcing us to keep moving.
A demon nearby sprouts three shafts from its back. It spins, confused, before its head explodes from a fourth arrow. The headless body continues fighting, swinging blindly.
Near a fountain, a group of defenders tries to hold a fallback point.
They have erected a barricade of overturned braziers and statuary fragments.
Marnac's lieutenants command for siege-beasts to move in.
A muscled beast with chitin plating and multiple limbs lumbers forth. Victims scream as exoskeletons crack and puncture internal organs. The beast discards broken bodies, reaching for fresh prey.
I add my blade to the carnage, severing a support beam that topples a stone column onto their heads.
Bone and rock explode on impact.
Six defenders vanish beneath crushing weight. Limbs protrude from rubble, twitching briefly before stillness claims them.
The defenders yield ground, retreating toward a set of massive double doors that lead deeper into the fortress.
Those doors are carved with twisting scenes of torment and glory, no doubt the main entrance to the reception hall beyond.
A last desperate stand forms before the doors.
Three defenders with tower shields lock together. A dozen spears thrust from behind this wall. This wave of Marnac's forces impales itself, creating a barricade of thrashing bodies. The second wave climbs over their dying kin, accepting spear wounds to close distance.
They slam shut as the last defenders slip inside, leaving us in the blood-soaked courtyard.
Marnac himself strides up behind me.
He cackles at the sight before him.
"Well done, bone titan," he snarls. "The yard is ours. Onward, into the heart of the keep!"
He kicks at a fallen defender, whose chest still rises and falls. His clawed foot punctures the dying creature's torso. It makes no sound as life departs.
I do not acknowledge him.
My purpose remains.
Let them think I fight for them.
I stride forward, stepping over corpses and broken arms.
The courtyard is ours.
The defenders withdrew inside, planning to make a stand in the more defensible interior.
Wise, but doomed.
We face the sealed double doors.
Marnac's warriors bring forth a second ram.
The doors groan under the assault.
Defenders from within brace them, but each impact makes them shiver.
Torches gutter as shockwaves roll through stone corridors beyond.
Arrows and bolts from slitted murder-holes on either side of the doors pick off some of Marnac's lesser minions. A bolt fires through a gnoll's eye, the tip emerging from the back of its skull trailing brain matter. Another demon loses its jaw to a barbed arrow, tongue flopping uselessly as it continues the assault.
I stand before those holes and raise my left arm, letting arrows clatter harmlessly against bone plating, shielding a group of imps that pry at the door's edges with hooked tools.
After a few moments, a hinge pin dislodges.
The ram strikes again, splintering the lower half.
A third strike, and the entire door collapses inward in a shower of oak and iron shards.
Marnac's legion howls and rushes into the reception hall.
I follow, blade at the ready.
Inside, the reception hall is vast, supported by twisted columns shaped like intertwined serpents.
Banners of flayed skin hang from rafters.
A long crimson carpet, woven from unknown fibers, leads from the doors toward an inner gateway.
Defenders line the sides, archers perched on balconies, heavily armored brutes forming staggered rows on the floor.
Chanting comes from alcoves where robed figures channel protective wards, causing runes on the floor to shimmer.
No sooner do we enter than a volley of runed javelins flies at us.
Some strike Marnac's lieutenants, pinning them to pillars. The javelins pulse, burrowing deeper like living things. Victims scream as metal shafts writhe inside their bodies, sprouting barbed tendrils that flower outward through flesh.
Others glance off my armor.
I wade forward, swinging Aeternus in a wide arc.
The blade crashes through a formation of halberdiers trying to keep the legion at bay.
Their shrieks fill the hall as limbs separate from bodies. One defender, split at the waist, continues crawling forward on arms alone, intestines dragging behind like obscene tails.
Winged horrors swoop at balconies, engaging archers hand-to-hand.
Black feathers and broken wings tumble earthward.
A winged demon plucks an archer from his perch, soaring upward before dropping him onto his own allies below. The impact breaks backs, crushes skulls. The winged attacker dives to feed on the carnage, only to be netted by survivors and torn to pieces.
Gnolls scale the columns to reach the chanting robed figures, but several are blasted off by arcs of violet lightning. Their fur ignites, burning even as they fall. They land still fighting, spreading fire to nearby combatants.
Marnac's voice echoes, ordering his magi forward.
Pale-faced demon sorcerers emerge behind me, hurling counter-spells into the alcoves. Magical energies collide, creating explosions of raw power. A robed defender liquefies from inside, skin rupturing as bones dissolve. Another's head explodes in a shower of teeth and brain matter.
I carve through a defender's helm with Aeternus, splitting skull and torso in a single strike. The body remains upright as black ichor fountains across the flagstones.
The shield wall fractures.
Marnac's troops flood the gap, howling with bloodlust. A spider-limbed demon seizes two defenders, crushing them until armor and bone collapse inward. Pulped organs shower the melee.
The disciplined formation dissolves into chaos.
I stride through the carnage toward the massive double doors leading deeper into the fortress. My purpose remains singular—the Duke waits beyond.