Legend of The Young Master

Chapter 156: Fort Gate Opens

The whole town was falling. It was the only place to make a stand.

When Zhai Jiang paused to breathe, the town was afire from south to north, and a sea of demonics surged through the streets. He knew the difference between the Duskreavers—Yingmo—and the swamplings. As a noble warrior of duke, he had been given a proper education about these creatures. He'd studied pictures. He'd trained for this, but it was like a nightmare.

He was running again with the half dozen of his crossbowmen who stuck with him. The rest ran off into the town despite his admonitions. One fell at their feet, ripped to pieces by swamplings and consumed by something worse.

He could see the river and the fort, but the next section of the wall was crowded with enemies. The streets below were even worse.

But at the edge of the firelight, he could see a company of warriors with spears still holding one street, a crowd of panicked refugees behind them pressing against the fort gates.

Unbeckoned, a thought whispered into Zhai Jiang's head:

Time to payback to righteous path for all the training he was given.

"Let me go first," he said to his crossbowmen. "I will charge. You follow me and kill anything that gets past me. Understand?"

For a brief moment, he longed for wine and the comforting presence of a woman by his side.

The moment passed and He raised his sword.

"Attack!" he shouted, and charged.

There were perhaps sixty swamplings on the wall. It was too dark to count, and he wasn't particularly interested.

He smashed into them, catching them by surprise. The first one died instantly, but after that, nothing went right. His sword got stuck in a swampling; his blow had caught the creature in an armpit, and it fell on the side..

He was instantly surrounded.

With a practiced flick, he unsheathed a dagger—because a bastard cousin of the Duke does not survive long at the Duke's court without mastering the use of a dagger, whether in armor or not. Then the swamplings piled on him, and he was nearly buried standing.

His right arm began stabbing almost of its own accord.

A tremendous blow knocked him forward, and he stumbled a few steps, crushing pieces of swampling beneath his feet—suddenly panicked that he might fall off the wall. Panic-fueled Qi powered his limbs; he spun around and felt his Qi armor-clad back slam into the low wall. Suddenly his arms were free, and the creature trying to strangle him became his top priority.

He stabbed the creature non stop finally creature gave in, and he was clear.

His right arm was slick with green-brown blood. He stood defensively— enveloped his entire body in Qi like an iron wall, his dagger poised for an attack.

A swampling threw a spear at him.

He blocked it with his left hand and stumbled forward into them. His breaths were heavy, but his mind was clear. He rammed the point of his heavy dagger into the first one, right through its head, and yanked it out. His Qi-covered fist snapped out in a punch, smashing the noseless face of another.

The next two swamplings were doubled over, shot with bolts. He stepped past them, his dagger switching hands with the dexterity his teachers would have admired. He retrieved his fallen sword and held it in his right hand as he advanced.

The swamplings began to retreat. He charged at them.

They had their own pride. One creature sacrificed itself to trip him, and died on his dagger as he fell. He rolled on a shoulder, and then suddenly there was nothing under his feet—

He hit a tiled roof, slid, hit a stone lintel with his shoulder, flipped, and...

Landed on the street, on his feet. He still had both his sword and dagger and took a moment to thank the heavens for that.

Above him, on the wall, the swamplings were staring at him. "Follow me!" he shouted to his men. He hadn't intended to come down to the street—but from here, he could see Duskreavers advancing along the wall from behind his archers.

Two made the jump. The rest froze and died where they stood.

The three of them ran for the fort, which was lit up as if it were a royal palace ready for a grand event. The town was ablaze, and the streets were carpeted with the bodies of dead citizens along with their servants and slaves.

It was a massacre.

Zhai Jiang ran as fast as he could. His two surviving archers were at his heels, and they killed the only two enemies they encountered. Then they were in the open street in front of the fort's main gate.

The spearmen were still holding the street. The gate was still shut, and the three of them were on the wrong side of the fighting.

He finally halted. He no longer cared that he might die; he had to breathe. He stood there until his breathing slowed—he was not going to be easy prey for any swampling or duskreaver that might be chasing him.

"My Lord!" shouted the panicked crossbowmen. He ignored them.

It seemed like eternity, but he finally lifted his head after vomiting on the cobbles. Even as a Qi warrior, what he saw was too much for his stomach to handle. There was a half-eaten young boy at his feet, his body discarded after his legs had been gnawed to the bone.

Across the square, the spearmen were barely holding their own. There were fifteen of them, perhaps fewer, struggling against a hundred duskreavers and swamplings. The demonic creatures weren't particularly enthusiastic—they preferred to loot and eat rather than fight—but they kept pressing forward.

Zhai Jiang pointed across the small square. "I'm going into that," he said to the crossbowmen. "I intend to cut my way through to the spearmen. Die here or die with me—it's all the same to me." He looked at the two frightened boys. "What are your names?" he asked.

"Ju," said the thin one.

"Mu," said the better-equipped one, clad in leather armor.

"Fine, then. Let's do this," Zhai Jiang said.

He knew he didn't want to do it—and he knew that if he didn't make himself go then, he would die right there, probably still trying to catch his breath.

"Bless us, heavens; sages of righteousness, stand with me and these two young men," he said. Then, to the boys, "Walk right behind me. When I say 'loose,' kill the creatures closest to me." He began to walk around the edge of the square.

Off to the right, a pack of duskreavers were fighting over bales of furs. He ignored them.

A demonic creature loped into an alley, chasing a screaming, naked man, and he ignored that as well. He kept walking, conserving his strength, the stones around him smeared with blood.

He didn't look back. He just kept going, under a tree hanging over a house wall, and then along a stone bench where, in happier days, drunks had no doubt passed out.

When he was ten paces from the back of the enemy mob, he shrugged. He wanted to pray to the heavens, but the only image that came to mind was that of a beautiful noblewoman from the dukedom.

"Loose," he commanded.

Two bolts snapped into the mass of demonic flesh, and he followed them in, his sword and dagger flashing.

The lowest caste of swamplings had no real defense, only their soft leather carapaces, and he sliced them open, slammed them to the ground, and crushed them with his fists—one, two, three, four, five.

He couldn't breathe. He couldn't see. He had nothing left to give—

—but he struck blindly, and suddenly something caught his dagger hand and threw him to the ground.

He rolled to his feet—as a duskreaver, one of the deadly ones, slammed a spear into his armor. He staggered backwards and suddenly found himself among men—

Men!

He was among the spearmen. The realization pumped power into his limbs, and he rose again, his sword rising and falling in swift arcs.

He could see the thin crossbowman, Ju, still standing. The boy had flattened some of the creatures with his crossbow bolts, and now wielded his sword.

The creatures, panicked by this small attack from their rear, flinched away from them both.

Zhai Jiang gathered himself for another effort. He tottered forward and swung—once, twice, three times. With those swings, two swamplings went down. The big duskreaver flinched, turned, and retreated.

The two demonic beings feeding on the older boy fell to Ju's sword, and then abruptly, the square cleared.

Behind them, two hundred shocked survivors huddled together.

The men on the fort walls finally opened the gate—or perhaps were ordered to, now that it was safer—and people flooded through, utterly panicked. More died, trampled by others, than at the hands of the demons—the crush of women, panicked beyond the capacity for rational thought, resembled the frantic flight of herd animals.

The spearmen backed up after them, step by step. Step. By. Step.

In the shadowed streets beyond the square, a pair of Yingmo rallied their own panicked forces, including duskreaver archers—good ones. Using the light from the burning town, the duskreavers began to loose long shots across the square. Their bows were light but deadly, the sight of demonic dark beasts using bows another surprise for Zhai Jiang.

He couldn't cover them all. He was almost immune to their hits, thanks to his Qi armor, but the shafts still hurt when they struck him, and he was already beyond normal pain, beyond normal fatigue. He looked to the right and left and realized he had reached the gate. The guards were trying to close it; he was trying to back in.

But the crush of injured men and trampled corpses underfoot was preventing it from closing as the enemy charged. He managed to get his sword arm up in time; he defended himself against a Yingmo demon's heavy weapon, and then old Master Yinhua was there.