An Alturian Legacy- Chapter 4

Chapter 4-  Kal’shem

Far from Middlewood, and far to the east of the kingdom of Alturia, the town of Kal’shem was very much at war. Kal’shem was a town on the plains of Lyda, with a population of around two thousand and a quaint infrastructure of farmers, blacksmiths and clothiers it was very much typical of a simple plains town. Nestled neatly within palisade walls on a small hillock amid the acres of grass and farmland, Kal’shem was historically untouched by political events, it ticked over nicely and due to its distance from the capital city of Medulida it, though still proudly Liydan, was for the most part free to work as it pleased. It was picturesque, things worked and though on the northern frontier of the kingdom, nothing more menacing than a few friendly trading dwarves had come from the north in a long time. But times had changed.

Whilst in Alturia Tristain and Corbin stood behind Tarbin and diplomatic relations occurred, Silban stood shoulder to shoulder with his townsmen. They were before the town’s walls in what was a desperate attempt to buy time for the gates to be rebuilt. On the walls behind him stood those too wounded to hold a pike and a sword steady were now holding bows on the walls. These were indeed desperate times, lamented Silban, his father had already fallen in battle, his body dragged away by the vile creatures who attacked them. The steel that covered his body was covered in blood, he was uncertain as to what quantity of this was his own but that didn’t really matter, they would stay here for as long as was necessary to provide enough time for the defences to be rebuilt.

There was no other choice; if they fled they would be completely defenceless, when they were caught, which was inevitable given the nature of some of the creatures that attacked. Their only hope was to survive for long enough to allow the women and children an adequate distraction for their escape, and hope to the gods that some form of reinforcement or relief would arrive. The women and children had left what was four nights ago, a full day before the full attack had reached them, with any luck before this night was out they would have reached Medulida, and there would already be hundreds of riders on their way to the town to support them, any day soon their trial would be over. For now though rebuilding the defences was priority as, if they could, this would mean that the enemy would have to take time to break them down again, precious time.

Silban thought of his child and his wife Miya, they were both but a few years into adulthood but he and Miya had been together in one way or another since childhood. She was the one leading the procession of mothers and children to Medulida, he hoped to the gods that they would survive as he was certain his time was limited to whatever attack came next. It was a miracle that they had survived thus far, the creatures that had attacked them were vaguely humanoids, some eight feet in height, others but half of this, though all were heartless killing machines. When the first attack arrived they were unprepared, although scouts had picked up the movements from the north to give enough time for an evacuation, the very nature of the assailants was what decimated them in the first battle.

The first wave four nights ago was under cover of darkness, Gibberlings had scaled the walls and quickly decimated the night watch of the walls without much of a sound, it was only Silbans father who had given the call to arms when he saw the vile creatures entering the sleeping quarters. Sadly this was too late, over half of the militia was killed that night as after the alarm was raised the assault began at full scale with the wooden palisade being assaulted from all sides by creatures that had not been seen this far south since even the elders were in their youth.

The darkness beyond the walls was like a veil, the torches reached around a few hundred yards and stopped dead. So far they had come in small waves, only 50 at a time maximum, not enough to kill all present but enough to certainly take a chunk out of the defences and find weaknesses. There were only around two hundred left in the town, eight hundred having remained behind following the evacuation. These were busy repairing the gate or preparing to defend those doing such. If another wave of fifty came they could manage it, but something told Silban that the time for small strikes was over, when the gate fell, they were vulnerable and the everyone, friend and foe, knew it. The full size of the enemy force was unknown, they had been attacked by all manner of creature but once the attack began to be deflected they had all fled back to the fields. When daylight came there was no enemy to be seen, the assumption being that there was somewhere close they chose to hide in such hours to hide their numbers.

Silban felt the rain begin, falling in a perfect cliché, it was the kind of drizzle that would saturate quickly and in the most depressing fashion. From the veil of darkness they came, first the Gibberlings, small hairy creatures like a freak hunchback human with black mane and covered in fur with features like that of a dog. They crawled forwards and stopped just short of firing range from the walls. There were around two score of them in total. They made disgusting nashing and yelping noises like hyenas in some severe discomfort, their nature was to burrow together and due to this the grotesque creatures were covered in filth and various parasites, harbouring also a disgusting smell. Had this been the only force to attack the night would have been survivable, it was not to be.

What walked in to the light behind the Gibberlings could only have been described as an army. Hundreds of dark creatures of varying shapes and sizes, all covered in steel lurched, crawled or strode into the light. Hope disappeared, tools were dropped to the floor and those on the walls lowered their bows. Nothing could save them from this. As the army rolled forwards the builders reached for their weapons and joined their companions in the front lines.

For Silban all noise ceased, it all occurred in slow motion, volleys of arrows flew through the air and struck the foremost row of charging Gibberlings knocking them clear from their feet. The ground shuck with the constant impact of the machine, now driving at full pace towards the bedraggled and weary warriors. His mouth opened with what would be his final battle cry in this life as they pressed forwards, pikes forming a phalanx before them as the leaping yelping and gnashing Gibberlings flung themselves on to pikes before the true force of the army crashed through all defences.

Using clubs and giant swords the dark army made short work of the first line of defences only a few had been caught on the phalanx, after the Gibberlings had decimated themselves on the pikes they were very much ineffective. The militia of Kal’shem was not willing to die without putting up one hell of a fight, this is what caught the dark army in surprise, they expected a massacre, they were getting a fight. The second row already had their shields ready when they were attacked and went to work on the beasts attacking them.

Silban was a large soldier and well trained, but this was not a fight with which you used the correct parry or block and countered in a gentlemanly way, this was a brawl. He hacked horizontally at the bare neck of the first beast that attacked him, then using his round shield to daze an attacker form his left before burying his sword deep into its belly. Behind him another creature raised a club with shards of bone and metal buried deep within it before an arrow sunk into his exposed underarm causing him to spasm before another Liydan decimated him from behind before he himself was struck to the ground.

Silban was fighting in a daze, hacking to one side before defending himself behind and to the sides. Around him though things were grim, there was already only fifty militiamen left on the ground, with a score more on the walls firing into the battle, those remaining were scattered throughout the battlefield fighting and falling fast.

Silban felt he was doing quite well against creatures at points over a foot taller than him. This was until the large bulk appeared before him, belonging to a troll from the caves to the north; he thought they were all wiped out in the clan wars with the mountain trolls. Apparently not, a club swung down hard and fast at his head, instinctively Silban began to raise his shield, little good that it would do. In the final split second the club caught the shield, ricocheting the shield fast into his head knocking him to the floor before the club could hit him at all. Satisfied that he was dead, the troll moved on to his next victim.