The Last Stand (The Eleven Years War: Book One)
Chapter Forty-Seven

Olrick slipped his breastplate on,trying to focus on the task at hand to keep himself from thinking about theimminent fall of Caitha. Unlike Eza, he, Silas and Kael hadn’t taken up posts withthe army. It meant that, by the time they were up and ready to fight, theyalready knew just how dire the situation had become in the short time since thebattle had started through what they saw outside the castle’s windows: therewere bright fires flaring on the wall, ones where Olrick knew for a fact thatthere weren’t any braziers, and many of the civilians were flooding the castlegates, praying to the gods that they would be able to replace asylum from thecoming invaders. The castle’s staff, already made small from people getting onships on their way to Mirinia, were completely overwhelmed with the flood ofcivilians, but they still managed to spare one person to tell, Olrick, Silasand Kael what was going on and to help them get their armor on.

“What’sgoing on out there?” Silas asked the servant that had come to grab them as heslipped on a helmet. “How many troops do they have coming in?”

“I-I’mnot sure,” the servant said as he helped Kael into a thick, leatherbreastplate. His eyes were wide as saucers, and his hands were shaking sobadly, he could barely do up the straps on their armor. Olrick couldn’t helpbut feel sorry for the poor man; Caitha hadn’t been involved in a war for solong, most of the citizens had forgotten what it was like. “Th-the messengersaid that the Giskens have thousands of mages, though.”

Olrickfrowned, confused. Though Gishk wasn’t nearly as superstitious as itsneighbors, there were enough that he was positive that a good portion of Raul’stroops thought that mages were the spawn of the devil. The fact that he wasstill using mages to his advantage despite that said a lot about what he waswilling to do to succeed.

“Don’tworry about them,” Silas said as he strapped his sword onto his hip. “If thosemages even exist, our men are skilled enough to fight them off.”

Olrickconcentrated on getting his own sword onto his hip before he could object. Heand Silas knew full well that that was a lie, but it seemed to comfort theservant; he saw no need to correct it if a lie from Silas was actually doingsome good for once.

“So,will we be heading for the outer wall, then?” Kael asked as he slipped on hisown helmet. It looked a little big for him, but it would have to do: theleather worker only made helmets in one size, since all of his clients werefull grown men.

“Ofcourse we are,” Silas said as he pulled on some armguards. “That’s where theGisken bastards are, isn’t it?”

“Whichis why I’m coming with you.” Marion had walked into the room, the Matisse swordin her hands. Olrick found his eyes growing wide when he saw it. He couldremember a time when the sword had passed through his father’s smithy for atouch up, when he was still apprenticed to him. Though his father had allowedhim to work on swords that would go to nobles who only ranked below theMatisse’s themselves, but he hadn’t been allowed to do much more than look at the sword; seeing it again wasan honor he didn’t think he would get to have.

“Justbecause Polain said you were allowed to fight doesn’t mean you’re coming to thefrontline with us,” Silas said as he finished putting on his armor. Marionsighed.

“Nowyou’re against me?” she asked. “Bythe gods, why is everyone so against me trying to defend my own country?!”

“We’renot against it,” Silas said. “Raul’s probably going to want to kill you beforethis business is done, and the first place he’ll come looking for you is here.If I were you, I wouldn’t waste my time going to him when I know that he’s justgoing to spend a lot of time and energy trying to get to me.”

Fora few seconds, Marion gave Silas a look, then sighed. “I guess you’re right.”She began to put her armor on despite that. “Might as well get ready for him ifI’m just going to sit around here.”

Bythat time, Olrick, Kael and Silas had strapped on all their armor. They alltook a few seconds to check the straps on their armor to make sure theywouldn’t give under the strain of battle and began to head for the southernwall.

Thecloser they got to the wall, the more and more they saw just how chaotic thingswere getting. Everyone was trying to get away from the battle, with theexception of soldiers and a few doctors with supplies in their hands. The twocrowds going in opposite directions made for utter chaos, enough that Olrickfound himself overwhelmed, despite having lived in the city all of his life.They had to shove through throngs of people hoping for shelter from the battleat the castle just to get anywhere near the wall.

Whenthey got there, they saw that things were taking a turn for the worst. At thetop of the wall, Olrick could see pyromancers throwing their fire at soldiersand setting them on fire, glaciomancers blackening their skin with frostbite,oraniomancers striking men with lightning, sending their bodies flying acrossthe wall; it seemed that the servant at the castle was right about the mages.

“Well,that’s new,” Silas said nonchalantlyas he drew his massive broadsword. “I thought you Giskens didn’t like mages.”

“Mostdon’t,” Kael said as he drew his father’s sword. Even though he had a helmeton, Olrick could see that the prince was nervous, to the point where he wasstarting to look a little green in the face. “Raul doesn’t care about that kindof thing, though; he would kill his own mother if it meant winning a battle.”They began running up the stairs of the wall, heading for the battle above.

“Well,it looks like we just have more dangerous Giskens to kill,” Silas said. “Kael,if you have any sort of reservations about killing your countrymen, it isn’t toolate to turn back, and we won’t think you a coward.”

“It’sfine.” They reached the top of the wall-

Andentered hell.

Thesecond Olrick stepped onto the wall, a pyromancer threw a ball of fire at him.He just barely managed to duck out of the way so it didn’t slam him in theface, but his helmet was scorched on the top. He drew his sword and beganrunning toward the Gisken mage, who shot more fireballs at him. Luckily, Olrickmanaged to duck and weave out of the way of the fire, and he cut down the mage;one down, hundreds more to go.

Olrickbegan to look at the carnage that surrounded him. Things were going even worsethan he could have imagined. Dead soldiers lay everywhere in heaps, with allsorts of injuries: burns, cuts, crushed and amputated limbs, and most of themwere Caithians; the Giskens wore metal breastplates instead of leather ones.The ones that were left fighting were covered in cuts, burns and otherinjuries, terrified of being the next of their comrades to fall. The Giskensalmost seemed to relish it, making faints at the Caithian soldiers, thenlaughing when they flinched before they decided to finally kill them. It pissedhim off to see it, enough that he ran in the opposite direction of Kael andSilas to put a stop to it.

Thefirst Gisken he attacked was a big, burly one, who was torturing a poor soldierby ramming his sword through his body at points that he knew wouldn’t kill him.The soldier begged him to stop, but the Gisken wouldn’t, the damned sadist.

“Leavehim alone!” Olrick swung his sword at the Gisken’s back, intending to kill him,but the Gisken was fast. He turned around and parried the blow, a smile on hisface as he eyed Olrick’s gray cloak.

“Iwas wondering if one of you would show up,” he said, his voice thick with a guttural,harsh, Gisken accent. The soldier he’d been torturing slowly began to crawlaway as Olrick and the Gisken began to circle each other, examining one anotherfor weak spots. “They say you Watchmen are craven.”

TheGisken made a jab at Olrick, but he ducked out of the way and knocked the bladeaway from him. He took a step closer and tried to slash at his face, but theGisken stepped back. Olrick’s blade still managed to touch skin, though, andmade a deep, red cut against his cheek.

TheGisken gently touched his cheek, examined the blood on his fingertips, andsmiled.

Hegot back into a fighting stance, one that Olrick found himself cursing. ThisGisken was a trained swordsman, and a good one. “You really shouldn’t have donethat, Watchman.”

TheGisken lunged.

Olrickblocked the blow, but he knew the second their swords clashed that the attackwasn’t his real one. As his arm was still swinging his sword to keep theGisken’s blade from cutting into him, the Gisken sent his foot into Olrick’s stomach,hard. He stumbled backward and just barely managed to block the next attack.

TheGisken laughed and turned around to face the soldier he’d been torturing asOlrick recovered from the blow.

“Wherethe hell do you think you’re going?” he asked as he kicked him onto his back.The soldier yelped.

Olrickmanaged to resist running at him, again. No, he would need a differentsolution.

Takinga deep breath, he began to creep up behind him silently. It was the kind oftask that he’d been trained to do as a Watchman, one that the people of Caithadidn’t know they did: they were spies, saboteurs and assassins when the jobcalled for it, just like the Rooks were.

“P-please,just let me go-“ the Gisken ended the soldier’s sentence by placing his footagainst his throat. The soldier began to squirm underneath it, but he couldn’tget free. It was like watching Milo about to die all over again.

Exceptthis time, Olrick wasn’t going to hide in the shadows and watch it happen.

“Andwhy should-“ the Gisken’s last sentence was punctuated by the point of Olrick’ssword going through his chest.

“Believeme, we Watchmen aren’t craven,” Olrick growled. Damn it, he was sick and tiredof hearing that! If people had any idea of the kind of hell that he’d gonethrough to become a Watchman, they’d have a very different opinion about them.“We’re just like the Rooks, really; we just get to stay in our own country todo our jobs.”

Olrickyanked his sword out of the Gisken’s back. With one final gasp, he fell to theground, a single Gisken corpse among so many Caithian ones.

Heturned his attention to the injured soldier, who was staring up at him witheyes as wide as saucers. Gods, he was young; he couldn’t have been much morethan fourteen years old, if he was even that.

“Canyou stand?” The Caithian soldier seemed shocked that Olrick was talking to him.He simply stared up at him for a few seconds, then tried to get back up. He layback down and shook his head, his face twisted in pain.

“N-no.”Olrick bent down and gently picked him up, putting him over his shoulder. Thesoldier groaned, but he didn’t say anything.

WhenOlrick turned around to get back off the wall, he saw that there was a secondGisken coming toward him. Even though he didn’t seem like he was very trained(at least, not as much as the last one), he Olrick didn’t think he’d be able tofend him off with an injured boy on his back.

Hegot ready to fight, praying to the gods that this wasn’t going to be his lastfight.

However,just as the Gisken reached Olrick, his legs gave out beneath him and he fell tothe ground in a crumpled heap. Behind him, he could see Eza standing there,holding a staff red with blood on both ends in her hands.

Olrickfound himself relaxing when he saw her. He’d been wondering where she was.

Ezanodded at the soldier over his shoulder. “Who is that?”

“Oneof the Giskens was toying with him,” Olrick said. “Where’s the field hospital?That Gisken really roughed him up.” Eza cursed and began to look around thewall.

Beforeshe could respond, they began to hear a call over the sounds of battle: thegarrison commander, who was standing just a few feet away from them, wascalling for a retreat.

Eza’sface darkened when she heard that. Both she and Olrick knew what would happenif they lost the city wall: the Giskens will have taken the city, even if thebattle wouldn’t officially be over, yet.

“We’renot retreating!” she barked. The garrison commander gave her a weird look, buthe didn’t say anything. “If we lose this wall, this city is as good as gone!”

“Butif we don’t, we’ll lose the army,” he finally said. “We have to save as many ofour men as we can.” Before she could tell him anything else, the garrisoncommander ran down the wall to tell the rest of his men his orders.

Eza cursed, thenlooked back at Olrick. “It looks like we need to get off this wall; I’d rathernot be here when the Giskens take it.”