Fredrich V

We are going in. My companions are still reluctant but we are going in. If there is a God, I pray that we are guided until the end.

For I am scared.

***

Fredrich sat on a rock, eyes looking at nothing- unblinking, still, placid. And yet explosions rang around.

"Fred!" Someone yanked his torn mail by the chest. The bastard waggled him, dazing him further. A slap followed. His cheek soured.

Fredrich finally regarded the bastard. Gren. The Vanadian's face was a field of dried blood and dust. A long gash lined his forehead and concluded on his right temple.

"What?" Fredich asked.

Gren looked past him. "Trest help me. His shin is shattered. He can't walk."

Trest. Fredrich turned a head. Trest was also wounded. Worse, in fact. The bulky Hadean's armor was ripped in many pieces, the links were sundered. He limped as he walked and used a fractured spear as cane. Trest slung Fredrich's arm around his neck and lifted.

The pain was severe. His leg throbbed like a second heart, pulsing and clenching. Fredrich uttered a long grunt.

A horn sounded. It was melodious this time, like a low neigh from a dying horse. It was the signal nobody wanted to hear- or even expected. The wall was lost. Not just their portion but all of the Terpet Wall. The other forts must have also suffered the same assaults. The signal just now was a call to abandon the wall.

They moved. The rain of incendiary projectiles eased now. Some still fell near them though. The dust still clung in the air, clouding everything in brown.

Every small bump sent painful torments from his broken leg. Fredrich coiled his arms tightly around Trest's neck. Gren was holding a battered shield. The three of them huddled as they retreated back to the fort.

A beast lunged toward them. Gren held his shield. Trest stabbed his spear. The beast ate the spear's tip, puncturing through its gnarly mouth. Trest yanked and whacked another beast to the right. The thing whimpered, retreating with coiling tail.

Trest jogged faster while Gren joined the strides. The cries and the clang of steel was loud yet the deaths were unseen behind the curtain of dust. A beast the size of a dog emerged leaping. Gren slammed the side of his shield on the thing's jaw, crunching a breaking sound. Once again the beast retreated.

"Thank you" Fredrich said, a mumble.

The two didn't say anything. Trest forced one of Fredrich's hand open and put a knife on it.

"Don't slit my throat with it." Trest said before crouching all of a sudden. A flaming ball went past their head and exploded several steps ahead. The gust threw them away. Fredrich's body slammed on the ground as he lost his grip.

He coughed and squinted, eyes quick to open. The two were nowhere. Once again he was alone with the hard ground on his back.

A growl sounded not far. It was low but the rage on its tone was terrible. Fredrich held the knife dearly on his hand as he tilted to meet a beast the size of wolf. It bared it teeth, head lowered and prepared. It's dark fur had bloody stains. It's teeth had bits of flesh tangled. Those red eyes looked at him with a murderous intent.

It ran, sprinting. The legs were fast. Too fast.

Fredrich stabbed forward. The blade bit through the beast's chest. But the thing didn't abate. In fact its rage grew deeper, more terrible. It clawed, slicing Fredrich's arm. The pain jolted him into dropping the knife.

He rolled, the beast's claw falling inches from his nose. He rolled again- nauseated, fearful, in pain. He pushed two hands down against the ground and tried standing on his feet.

Fredrich screamed. The pain burned through his entire body. He fell. The beast sprang. The claws buried deep into his arms, the mouth was snapping at his head. The beast's thick saliva dripped on his chest.

The crunch was satisfying when Trest bashed a rock on the beast's head. It limped, staggered and fell. Trest slammed again, this time hitting the space between the eyes. The beast's skull caved, the injury getting deeper with each of Trest's hits. Gren arrived soon after. The Vanadian slammed his shield on the beast. The thing kicked the ground until it finally stilled into a bloody corpse.

Trest rose, face bloody and panting. He dropped the rock and pulled Fredrich again into his back. Gren followed.

A few dozen steps brought them to the gate. The bars were busted, crooked beyond repair. Two soldiers sat leaning on the surviving bars. One had his face chewed. The other had lost an arm.

They went inside. The carnage here was worse. Every step brought a new corpse in sight. Most were not theirs but Levantines dead in their meager armor. The rang of steel against steel also indicated that their enemies were not only the Ninevans but also fellow humans.

The dust was tamer here, making the fighting more visible. The walls were lost, a huge breach presented where the Melters crumbled it earlier. A few packets of soldiers defended to their last but the Levantines were rushing likes ants. Some of the artillery crews still calculated trajectories, loosing projectiles to no avail.

The fort grounds were no better either. The tents were burning, some already charred. Fierce melee erupted from all sides. Men, beasts and Ninevans fought in close quarters. The lucky ones were retreating out of the fort.

Trest trudged, more sluggish now. Fredrich noticed a deep wound on the Hadean's shoulder forming a bite mark. Once he was irked just by the sight of this man. His blood would boil and his face would frown. But now Trest and Gren were his saviors. Without them he would be another dead man outside the wall.

Another large explosion boomed behind where the Vanadian Fire barrels were stocked. Flame rose from the wall itself, the fire slithering across a huge chunk of the wall. Men jumped, finding a fall better than a burn. Those who stayed were engulfed. They burned alive- shouting, screaming, begging for an end to the torment. The catapults caught fire. Loaded projectiles, burst unflung.

A portion of the wall crashed not long after. Dust and fire mingled. Warcries stirred from the other side. Levantines, thousands of them, came crawling up the rubbles and descended upon them.

The fighting broke. If some men still held hope of defending earlier, all of that hope blurred now. The Levantines numbered into several thousand and all fresh.

Trest trudged faster, grimace on his face. The thick Hadean almost fell a few times but the Gren would always support his stand. Fredrich felt himself as useless, slumped on Trest's back like some cargo.

He wished that strength he felt earlier would return. What had happened to that? Everything that happened then were so sudden but he could remember a surge warming his being. He crushed that Sentinel's throat. He was strong then.

But he was weak now. Useless as always. Fearful. Bleak. His leg was shattered. Blood was dripping all over him. And thousands of Levantines were rushing to kill them.

It got crowded in the gate. The routing soldiers were funneled. Trest and Gren pushed.

The enemies worked behind, stabbing and mauling as if the fort was a slaughterhouse. Blood pooled from the backlines.

Trest broke through and so did Gren. They crossed the drawbridge in a hurry. Those who escaped had formed a line several hundred paces from the moat. They beckoned to the ones still retreating.

"Damp soil" Trest suddenly said after crossing the moat.

Fredrich looked down. The grass was tall here unlike the barren land on the other side of the wall.

Grass. Damp. The panicked beckons of their comrades. Realization sparked on Fredrich.

"Faster. Run!" Fredrich shouted. Trest and Gren just nodded and obeyed. Their comrades pulled them after reaching the line.

Several more separated groups of soldiers reached the line after them. A hundred or so were still trapped on the other side of the drawbridge.

They were doomed. Fredrich realized the plan after Trest noted the damp soil. No, he knew it all along. It was the best safeguard to prevent the enemies from chasing.

And soon he was proven right. It began as a flicker from the east. The grass a hundred paces to their front burst into flames. The fire extended from one horizon to another, making a wall of flame which separated them from the wall.

Vanadian Fire. Terrible, terrible Vanadian Fire.

Fredrich sat on the grass, aching all over. But his eyes were drawn on the remaining people on the other side. A few moments of dally and he, Trest and Gren would have never made it. Those who did not make it were begging for mercy both to their comrades and to the enemies. Neither provided. Once Fredrich trained with them, ate with them and defended the wall with them. Now they were dying and nobody could do anything to help. It was sealed. The wall of flame sealed both the survivors' escape and the trapped men's demise.

It was for the best, he knew. And he expected that such a thing was bound to happen. But the pitiful looks on their trapped comrades were just too much. They begged, as any man would beg when facing death. But there was nothing anyone could do. Either brave running into the flame or meet their enemies' wrath. A few did sprint into the flame. They screamed as they ran, only falling dead not even reaching the middle.

"We have lost?" Gren asked.

Fredrich nodded. He looked around. The pitiful defenders of the Terpet Wall lined for miles but their number was halved. They had indeed lost. The wall had fallen.