Legend of The Young Master

Chapter 157: Flame Pillars

Master Yinhua wielded a mace with a five-foot handle skillfully.

He stepped past Zhai Jiang, bouncing on the balls of his feet as if eager for the contest. His mace moved like a piston. The Demonic creatures flinched back from his strike; a swampling died instantly. Another demonic, Yingmo, took a blow to the torso, staggered, and then shrieked in pain as the mace shattered its foot bone.

It wasn't glorious work, but Zhai Jiang grabbed the corpse of a trampled woman and hurled it into the darkness.

The gate shifted.

He got his hands under a dead swampling's skull and threw the body at its comrades.

The gate moved another hand's breadth.

"Master Yinhua!" he shrieked. His voice was hoarse and cracked. The old warrior bounded, cut, and suddenly retreated. Zhai Jiang stumbled after him.

The gates slammed shut. Terrified warriors secured the timbers into the sockets, while creatures outside battered the gate's surface. One Duskreaver, braver or craftier than the rest, managed to swing a leg over before one of Master Yinhua's archers pinned it to the wooden hoardings with a clothyard shaft. The warriors on the wall held firm—the assault faltered and failed.

Master Yinhua fell to his knees. "Heavens be damned, I am too old for this," he gasped, staring at the courtyard full of refugees.

The dmonics kept attacking but the gate held. The wall held.

Zhai Jiang tottered to a pillar and tried to remove his heavy cloak, feeling suffocated.

Strange hands assisted, pulling the cloak from around his neck, letting the cold air touch him—a sweet, wonderful reprieve, tainted only by the harsh screams of those maddened by fear.

It was Ju, the crossbowman. "I've got it," he said. "Just stand still." He swiftly removed the cloak.

He also helped Zhai Jiang out of his armor. Exhausted, Zhai Jiang slumped to the ground, his back against the wall.

Master Yinhua appeared before him. "I need you on the fort walls," he demanded.

Zhai Jiang groaned, but the boy interjected, "Let him breathe! He saved everyone!"

Master Yinhua snorted. "They are not saved till the demonics are on other side of wall boy."

Master Yinhua looked at Zhai Jiang, " My lord? To the walls."

Zhai Jiang reached out a hand.

Master Yinhua caught it and pulled him to his feet.

Deep in the marshes on the following night, the enemy attacked the Xiang stronghold again, targeting the fort.

Zhai Jiang had transcended fatigue. He existed in a world that pulsed one heartbeat at a time, events flashing by illuminated by intermittent lightning.

Assaults battered the walls of the fort. Unlike the town's low stone barriers, the fort's walls were high and well-maintained, repelling the flood of demonic creatures. Only a few demonics who reached the top were swiftly dispatched.

But each attack drained a bit more of his resolve.

One flash of memory was a fight with a Duskreaver – dark, scaled skin: the creature, with tough, pitch-black scales, fought him with all its strength. He kept attacking the creature again and again. And when, by dint of desperate strength, Zhai Jiang knocked the creature to the stones, the creature's eyes begged for mercy, like a man's.

Zhai Jiang would remember that. Even as his dagger ended its life, he recognized that it, too, had humanity. When they they thought that had defended the fortress and creatures were scaling it up anymore.

...what followed was worse. Something came.

It was huge and foreboding, out in the horrifying, fire-lit ruins of the town. It slithered forward with a hideous, ghostly look and was as tall as the city walls or taller.

It resembled death itself yet was alive.

Now it raised its staff – the size of a large spear, or bigger – and a line of white-gray fire struck the fort wall. The stone absorbed it in a wash of white-gray fire for as long as the terrified men on the wall could have counted to ten.

Then there was a rending crack, and the wall was breached, about ten steps to the left of the gate. The whole wall shifted. Men fell – chunks of flint fell to crush the creatures below.

The ghostly being then raised its arms and seemed to call the stars down from the heavens, and as they began to plummet, Zhai Jiang fought not to fall on his face and hide. He had never seen such a thing. What kind of power was this that could summon large boulders from the sky? What kind of skill was this being using? It defied all logic.

The boulders appeared out of nowhere, screaming down from the clear sky, falling to earth with an eerie, unearthly way. One landed in the fields, killing a wave of swamplings. Another struck the center of the town, and a cloud of fire shot into the heavens. The whole fort shook, and a cloud of dust punched like a fist into the heavens.

The third boulder struck the fort wall mere feet from the great crack, and an enormous piece of masonry and stone fell outward with a crash.

Zhai Jiang ran for the breach and found himself alongside another armored man – Xu, a warrior of Master Yinhua, he thought, or Un, or Ma. He did not have the luxury of time to remember the warrior's exact name.

The breach was narrow – two men wide.

They filled it with their bodies, and the enemy surged toward them.

At some point, Xu fell.

He was stunned, and Zhai Jiang tried to cover him, but the enemy extended hundreds of hands and claws toward his feet. The claws sank into his flesh and dragged him to the edge of the wall, inch by inch. He screamed, unmanned with horror, and tried to rise. Swampling weapons cut him in the soft places not covered by armor, peeling his armor away.

They were eating him alive.

Zhai Jiang struck and struck again, powered by desperate fear, and he straddled the screaming man's body and cut and cut.

It wasn't enough. And then Xu grabbed at his ankles.

Zhai Jiang ripped himself free, leaped back into the uncertain footing of the breach, and Xu was gone, a pile of hellspawn feeding on him, his clothes and armor torn open –

Zhai Jiang made himself breathe.

Suddenly, Master Yinhua appeared with his mace. Hi mace moved like midwife's broom on a fresh spring morning, shattering first the Swamplings around them, and then Xu's skull who was being fed on by demonics.

.Zhai Jiang and Master Yinhua prepared themself for their turn. They tried not to think about their fate.

But before another horde of demonics could attack. A massive flash of light erupted to the east – accompanied by a distant whump of displaced air. A column of flame shot up, perhaps one li away, maybe four. Then another – an even larger column of light shone. The demonic creatures faltered, looking over their shoulders, and the fury of their assault rapidly waned. Seeing two columns of fire.

The massive, giant, ghostly being was the first to turn around . Seeing him leave, the demonics followed.

Zhai Jiang watched them retreat, slumped against the wall. After the demonics had left his attention turned to the dead scattered around. Many of the commoners and warriors looked like butchered animals, their bones stripped. The Swamplings had feasted on most of them.

The sun was rising, and the lower town resembled a town of nightmares. In the main square, Duskreavers had taken the time to carefully flay a man and hang him on a wooden pole while he was still alive.

Ju, the crossbowman, stepped into the breach. He took a long look, raised his weapon, and shot the man on the wooden pole. It was a good shot, given the range. The man's screaming, skinless head dropped, and he fell silent.

Master Yinhua was slumped against the other wall. Ju helped the old man adjust his armor. He smiled, and in that moment, he the old warrior who was not noble became a noble in Zhai Jiang's eyes.

Zhai Jiang had to smile back, despite everything. The loss of the last warrior, Xu, bothered him, as did the feeling of the man's hands on his ankles.

"I need you to ride to the king," Master Yinhua said. "Right now, while whatever miracle this respite may be lasts."

Zhai Jiang must have agreed, because an hour later he was on his best horse, unarmored, and ready to move southwest. It was a desperate gamble.

He was too tired to care.

Seeing the two pillars of light in an instant, Luding knew something had gone wrong. He'd drained himself by calling even the smallest boulders using his most secret siege technique. It was a showy, inaccurate, and inefficient method, but it had spectacular results when it worked, and he loved to cast it, the way a strong man loves to show his strength.

The Demonics were impressed, and that alone was worth the fatigue. Better yet, the town below the fortress was utterly destroyed, far easier than he had hoped.

"I have grown so strong," he thought. What he had planned as a mere diversion had become a triumph. They would hear of it and cower in fear.

Perhaps taking the fort is worth doing after all. Perhaps I will grow myself as a war duke.