The Radiant War

Chapter 28b

     The first men came rushing through the doors, continuing to run as they passed the two ballistae and the men standing beside them until they hit the far wall, cushioning the impact with their spread hands. More men came through, then more. Twenty, thirty, until the hall was crowded. Captain Machett detailed members of the Tower garrison to take them deeper inside the Tower, to where the rest of the refugees were waiting, but the soldiers hesitated, anxious to see if their fellows behind them made it.

     The last of the enlisted men had a limp, they saw. An injury gained in battle, they presumed. The officer took him by the arm and half carried him towards the Tower, still twenty yards away. Some members of the Tower garrison, looking splendid in their ceremonial uniforms, started forward to meet them half way and help them in, but Machett yelled at them to stay where they were. They stared at him in disbelief, but obeyed, watching as anxiously as the rest.

     “Your Majesty,” said Machett, “those doors are big and heavy, it takes time to move them. We should begin shutting them now.”

     “No! They're almost here!”

     “We can leave them open a crack. A big enough gap for them to squeeze through. If we don’t, we won't get them closed before the Radiants get here.”

    “Begging your pardon, Sire, but he’s right,” added a member of the Tower garrison. “Takes us a good long time to get ‘em closed usually. Takes four of us to do it too.”

     The King stared at him, then nodded reluctantly and four of the brightly uniformed men ran forward, two to each door. They heaved with their full strength to get the massive wooden doors moving and had to keep pushing as they turned with glacial slowness. More men ran forward to help them and, seeing it, Leothan feared he’d made a mistake leaving it for so long. Behind him, the ballistae crews loaded bolts into their weapons and stuffed the ‘eye of a needle’ hole with oil soaked rags. The crews then began winching the launching plate back, the mechanism clacking as the ratchet stop slipped from one tooth in the winching cog to the next. It took them nearly a full minute to complete the operation. Plenty of time, once the door had been breached, for a Radiant to push its way in and slaughter the crews before they could launch another bolt. They might kill one or two Radiants before being overrun, but that was the best they could hope for. A numbing sense of despair began to settle over the King.

     “Your Majesty,” said Darnell, “You must go deeper into the Tower. It's not safe here.”

     “Nowhere is safe, Phil, but if we're all going to die, I want to see a Radiant burn first.”

     “You have to survive as long as possible. The bulk of what’s left of the army is here, in the Tower. They'll sell their lives defending you...”

     “Is that what you want for me, Phil? To stand there and watch while hundreds of good men are butchered defending me? No. I'm staying here.” He drew his sword; a ceremonial weapon decorated with gold and precious stones. It had never been intended to actually be used in combat, but it had a core of steel and had a sharp edge. It would bite through Radiant flesh as well as any normal sword. “My wife and children are below?” he asked.

     “Yes, Sire, and no doubt wishing you were with them.”

     “They'll understand. My place is here, with my men...”

     A disturbance at the doors attracted his attention. The left hand door had been closed, the inch thick steel bolts being shot top and bottom, while the other was almost closed, with a gap of just eighteen inches or so left. Through that gap, Leothan saw the last two men struggling onward, the officer half carrying the injured man, but there was a Radiant right behind them, its piping rising to a higher tone as it prepared to cast a curse. “I have a shot!” cried the Sergeant in charge of one of the Ballista crews.