Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king-Chapter 1087: Strong will(3)

It was Aracina all over again. The same frantic rhythm of steel on steel, the same copper tang of blood thickening the air, and the same desperate, clawing struggle for every inch of stone.

The legate stood atop the ramparts of the Western Bastion, his breath coming in ragged, shallow hitches.He breathed in and out, each one taking a whole handful of air.

With hate in his heart he saw as the enemy had made landfall. Their armored boots were clattering across the parapets, laying a blasphemous claim to the stones he had sworn to protect. The breach was a wound, and through it, the League was pouring its filth.

Unless they wished to witness the Bastion’s final breath, the Third Legion had to act.

"With me!" Asag bellowed, finding his voice were there should been only a ruined rasp. "Iron and stone! Move!" His breath was a statement .

With the few air he held he roared ’’Beneath the iron!’’

They shouted back all as one.

’’Hard blood!’’

They came from the reserve stairs.

Amidst the chaotic cacophony of the scuffle, the high-pitched screams of the dying and the dull thud of stones, the rhythmic, heavy clink-clank of the Legion’s plate he wore rose above the din. It was a the cold and sure heartbeat of an army that did not know how to retreat.

A ragged cheer erupted from the hard-pressed peasants. These boys from the borderlands had learned a simple, brutal truth over the last month: whenever the black-and-white of the Third appeared, the nightmare usually ended.

Asag hoped the old magic still held. He watched his men with a critical, aching eye. They were not the pristine force that had marched out of Yarzat; their armor was dented, their surcoats were stiff with dried gore, and many bore bandages beneath their spaulders. They had been bled white reinforcing a dozen desperate sections of the wall, yet they still moved with the terrifying precision of a closing trap.

No man whimpered. No man moaned. They threw themselves into the heart of the danger as if they were stepping into a familiar room with a vacant seat for each.

The wavering levies scrambled out of the way, parting like a grey curtain to reveal the relief force.

They were the Moses of the Bastion.

And they imparted themselves to open a sea of bodies.

Without a heartbeat’s hesitation, the legionnaires occupied the space, their boots finding purchase on the slick, red stone of a month’s old siege. There was no waver in their hearts, no tremor in their steps. They were the Prince’s iron, and they had come to reclaim their house.

With a shout that seemed to shake the very foundations of the Western wall, they broke into a dead run. Their long halberds, soon to be painted in the crimson of all the people of the South, were positioned high for the cleave or leveled low for the thrust.

They hit the Oizenian line like a falling mountain.

Where the levies’ spears had buckled against polished plate, the legionnaires’ halberds did their fine and bloody work. The heavy axe-heads sheared through gorgets and pauldrons; the top-spikes found the gaps in visors; the back-hooks dragged knights from their feet to be finished on the stones, most of the time left to the trembling boys who were more than happy to return the wounds they suffered.

Unable to give the best of himself, Asag took a moment to breath and catch his breath.

He watched a decurio beside him swing a halberd in a great, whistling arc. The blade bit into a knight’s shoulder, crunched through the bone, and stopped only when the knight went to his knees, he didn’t even have time to scream before the halberd was replaced by another, and then another.

"Hold the line! And then lean into them!" Asag roared,his breath restored as he advanced, his good hand white-knuckled around the hilt of his sword

The Western stronghold was a slaughterhouse, but it was his slaughterhouse.

He would be damned before he allowed his responsibility to fall a single inch short of the expectations of his Prince. He had been given a mission, and he would see it through to the bitter, bloody end. No spite could sour his resolve, no remorse for the dead could slow his hand, and no fear could find purchase in a soul that had already survived the worst the world had to offer.

It did not matter how his wrist throbbed with a white-hot, rhythmic agony that seemed to mock the beating of his heart. It did not matter that his heart itself felt like a leaden weight, drumming a frantic song against his ribcage. He was Asag. He was the brother of Alpheo in everything but blood, the iron fist of the Third, and he would die at this post if that was the price the fates demanded.

And gods, how the bastards of the League tried to collect that price.

He led from the absolute fore, his frame a beacon of battered steel amidst the shifting chaos of the ramparts. He knew better than any man alive just how brittle the Bastion had become; after a month of unrelenting pounding, the stones were weary, and the men were wearier.

He stepped over the twitching remains of a knight who had thought himself the hero of the hour when he went against him , pausing for a single breath to survey the slaughter. To his aching heart’s relief, the Third was doing their work well. The line was a wall of teeth and iron, and the League was reeling, their momentum shattered against the steel assault of the legionnaires.

But the respite was a phantom. The ocean of the enemy surged again, and the world narrowed until it encompassed only the few blood-slicked meters around him.

A man in a sugarcoat of forest green lunged from the press, bringing the battle back into Asag immediate vicinity, his eyes wide with a zealot’s frenzy. He swung a heavy bearded axe, a blow meant to burst Asag’s skull like a ripened melon.

It hit the air instead when he stepped into the man’s shadow, the axe-blade whistling through nothing.

He willed his body to strike back, but the sidestep had been too extend to allow such action. He felt the phantom weight of his missing sword, his hand closing on nothing but air. He let the moment pass, resetting his footing as the green knight spun back around, snarling behind a half-visor.

They danced again.

Asag’s short sword hammered against the man’s shield. Wooden chips, painted the color of spring grass, flew into the air like lethal confetti. It was a dog’s way to fight.one-handed, without the balance of a shield or the reach of a polearm, but that did not dishearten him.

Where his body failed him, his soul picked up the slack. He cast aside the caution of the commander and embraced the desperation of the brawler. He went on a savage over-offensive, forgoing the safety of his guard to drown the knight in a rain of steel.

The gamble paid off.

Some points in the fighting he caught the knight’s axe-handle on the flat of his blade, shunting the weapon aside with a grunt of exertion. In the same motion, he stepped inside the man’s reach and delivered a backslash. He didn’t use the edge; he used the heavy, iron pommel, smashing it upward into the open visor.

The knight’s expression of hatred, which he caught in the man’s eye, dissolved into a mask of agony and surprise as the steel pommel shattered his chin. Asag felt the crunch of steel, and then bone travel up his arm. The man crumpled, his teeth clicking together as he hit his knees, the axe slipping from his nerveless fingers.

Asag didn’t grant him a moment to pray.

He brought the sword down in a heavy, two-handed chop, ignoring the scream of protest from his injured wrist, and sent the man’s head, helmet and all, tumbling away to join the hundreds of others already decorating the stones.

He gave no thought to the kill. There was no time for trophies.

He lunged toward the next struggle, spotting a legionnaire hard-pressed by a bastard in grey.

Asag took the man from the rear, a sweeping downcut that bit deep into the man’s shoulder. The impact sent a jolt of lightning up Asag’s arm, a pain so sharp it nearly turned his stomach.

He shivered, a cold sweat breaking out under his gambeson. He could only imagine the hell it would have been if he’d been forced to strike that blow with his left.

"Keep pushing!" he roared, his voice cracking. "Back to the tower! Push them back to the hell they came from!Give them naught but the long sleep"

As he was about to lead final push to seize the siege tower’s mouth when a frantic cry pierced the din of the melee.

"Legate! Legate !"

A runner,wearing a white ribbon tied to his bicep, scrambled over a pile of corpses. He was gasping for air, as he reached the legate.

He turned to the boy.

"The Eastern Stronghold... it’s failing!" the boy wheezed, clutching his side. "Lord Xanthios ask for reinforcement.’’

Reinforcements? He looked at his own line, at the battered men of the Third who were barely holding their own ground, at the wounded who refused to fall, and the dead who were piled three deep.

"Reinforcements?" Asag echoed. "Tell the Wolf to look around! There are no more men! I’ve given him every spear that could stand"

He looked at the Western rampart, then toward the smoke rising from the East. It would hurt to lose a stronghold, but they could still make a stand.Or at least he hoped.

He grabbed the boy by the shoulder with his good hand, his grip like an iron vice from brittle steel. "Return to Lord Xanthios. Tell him to sound retreat give the stronghold away, and take position on its gatehouse."

’’Legate?’’

’’Have I stuttered?’’ That at the least succeeded in getting the boy running, leaving the legate with an heavy heart to lead back his own men. Perhaps if he was quick enough to stop his own offensive, he would spare up men to aid Xanthios and lead a counterattack to aid the lord, though even that was flimsy hope.

But that was matter for late, he had his own trouble to face.