The night before the raiders came passed in fragments of restless sleep and hurried whispers. The village lay under a sky thick with clouds, the cold so sharp it bit through wool and leather alike. Fires burned low in shallow pits, their light carefully shielded so no glow would betray positions to distant eyes.
Damien moved among the defenders one last time before the false dawn touching shoulders, meeting eyes, speaking quiet words that carried the weight of command without ever rising to a shout.
Rosalynn walked at his side until the final hour. She kissed him deeply behind the mill-house wall, lips fierce and trembling against his, then pressed her forehead to his.
"Mother will hold the cottage," she whispered. "Mother will guard the heart while you guard the walls. Come back to me, my son. Come back whole."
He kissed her again long and claiming then released her and climbed to the northern platform.
The first light bled gray across the treeline.
No birds sang.
Then the bells began to ring.
Small, frantic chimes rippled along the northern approaches first one, then three, then a dozen. Trip lines sang their warning. Lirael's voice cut through the stillness from the watch post.
"They come."
The raiders emerged from the forest like a dark tide. Fifty became sixty as stragglers joined the column black iron armor, wolf pelts draped across shoulders, axes and spears glinting in the pale light. At their head rode a broad man in spiked plate, face hidden behind a wolf-skull helm, banner flapping above him: a crimson claw on black field. They advanced at a steady march, no war cry yet, only the crunch of boots and the low clank of metal.
Damien raised one hand.
"Hold."
The raiders reached the ditch. The first rank stepped forward and screamed as thorns tore through boots and greaves. Men stumbled, fell, impaled on iron spikes hidden among the branches. Arrows hissed from the palisade, Lirael and Vaeloria loosing with lethal precision. Three raiders dropped before they even reached the stakes.
The wolf-helmed leader roared then, raising a maul.
"Burn them out!"
Torches sailed over the ditch. Some caught on the stakes and guttered out in the damp wood. Others landed inside the walls on roofs, in the square. Sand buckets were already in motion; children and women hurled water and sand, smothering flames before they could take root.
The raiders charged.
Axes bit into the palisade. Men swarmed the ditch, using fallen comrades as makeshift bridges. The bells rang wildly now, drowned by shouts and steel.
Damien drew his sword and stepped to the firing step.
"Loose!"
Rifles cracked, Garrick and Renn and the new men firing in disciplined volleys. Lead tore through armor and flesh. Bows sang beside them. The front rank of raiders buckled, bodies piling in the ditch, yet more pressed forward, climbing over their dead.
The first breach came at the northeastern corner.
A section of stakes gave way under repeated axe blows. Raiders poured through ten, fifteen howling now, blades raised.
Tobin met them with a roar, old sword in one hand, pistol in the other. He fired once, dropped a man and then cut another down before a spear took him through the chest. He fell without a sound, gray beard dark with blood.
Garrick bellowed and charged the breach; rifle clubbed like a Warhammer. He smashed one raider's helm, then another, before an axe caught him across the ribs. He staggered, fired point-blank into a face, then went down under three more bodies.
Lirael leapt from the platform, bow discarded, twin short blades in her hands. She danced through the melee graceful and lethal opening throats, hamstringing legs. She took three before a mace crushed her shoulder. She spun, drove one blade into an eye, then another into a throat. A spear caught her from behind, through the ribs and she fell to her knees, amber eyes wide with fury, still trying to rise until a boot crushed her skull.
Vaeloria screamed, an elven war cry older than the forest and loosed arrow after arrow until her quiver ran dry. She drew her dagger and met the tide head-on. She killed four before they overwhelmed her blades hacking, blood spraying across snow-white hair. She died snarling, violet eyes fixed on the cottage in the distance.
The square became a slaughter yard.
Renn, barely sixteen held the east wall as promised. He drew the longbow with trembling arms, loosed, drew again. Arrow after arrow found marks until a thrown axe took him in the throat. He toppled backward, bow clattering beside him.
Aeloria and Sylvara fought from the mill-house doorway magic flaring in desperate bursts. Aeloria's healing light kept defenders on their feet; Sylvara's soothing voice tried to calm panic. Raiders reached them. Aeloria took a sword through the stomach, still pouring light into a wounded child until the blade twisted. Sylvara dragged her back, screaming, then turned and unleashed a final wave of calming magic that dropped three raiders to their knees only for a spear to silence her forever.
The palisade burned now in places. Smoke rolled thick across the square. Defenders fell one by one, old women with kitchen knives, teenage boys with spears, mothers shielding children until blades found them both.
Damien fought at the center of the breach.
His sword was red to the hilt. Blood streaked his face, his arms, soaked his tunic. He moved like a storm cutting down any who reached him, mesmerism flaring in his voice when he shouted commands.
"Hold the line!"
But the line was breaking.
He saw Mara, chestnut braids flying dragging a wounded child toward the cottage. She had a knife in her hand, small and trembling, yet she slashed at a raider who came too close, opening his cheek before another struck her across the back. She fell but scrambled up again, shoving the child through the cottage door.
"Get inside!" she screamed. "Mistress—take him!"
Then she turned back eyes wide, terrified, yet refusing to run.
A raider loomed over her.
Damien roared and charged sword cleaving through armor, through bone, but more poured in behind. He killed three, four, five each death costing him blood, breath, strength.
The square was carpeted with bodies human, elf, raider. The mill-house roof was ablaze. The palisade smoldered in sections. Smoke stung his eyes, choked his lungs.
He staggered, sword heavy, vision blurring.
And then he heard it.
From the cottage, a sound that cut through the din of battle like a blade through silk.
Rosalynn's screech.
Raw. Desperate. Furious.
A mother's cry of rage and grief and defiance.
Damien's head snapped toward the sound.
The cottage door stood open.
Silver hair flashed in the doorway wild, blood-streaked.
A raider loomed inside axe raised.
Rosalynn's dagger glittered in her hand.
She lunged.
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