Adept (The Essence Gate War, Book 1) - By Michael Arnquist Page 0,117

vast ripple of vegetation before a forceful wind soon resolved into something much more sinister: an advancing tide of dark, twisted creatures clawing their way over and past each other in their eagerness to reach the city and its people.

Huge, bulky things drew themselves up from the very ground and shambled forward amid the smaller forms, scattering them with spiteful blows when they got underfoot. Long, sinuous shapes carved through the mass, preying indiscriminately on the smaller spiked creatures even as the entire heaving mass crashed toward Keldrin’s Landing.

City guards gathered at the eastern gate, their faces and knuckles white as they clutched shaking swords, spears and halberds. The heavy gate doors stood closed and barred. These days, after the sun fell, they parted only to permit the occasional caravan or group of travelers bold enough––or foolish enough––to brave the landscape at night. In recent days, rumors had spread with greater and greater frequency from the guards patrolling the city wall. There were tales of strange things sighted beyond, sometimes approaching the wall to scrabble at its surface and shriek in outrage, or to gaze upward at the guards in hateful silence. There were also rumors of wall-walk guards and gate watchmen vanishing or being slain in gruesome fashion, but most people dismissed all these stories as fear-mongering, at least in the comforting warmth of the morning light.

Even if a portion of the tales were true, others reasoned, the perimeter of Keldrin’s Landing had been built to withstand a siege. What was there to fear?

There was no denying the approaching horde or its numbers, however, and now even the towering gate doors looked vulnerable. City guards with longbows raced to the wall-walk, sending volley after volley into the charging mass as it drew near, but they were unprepared for such a sudden onslaught and their initial numbers were few.

The horde struck the eastern wall with shrieking fury, clawing for purchase against the sheer wall and hammering into the gate. The great gates shuddered under the weight, and the captain of the guard, a square-jawed man named Borric, started at the sound. He knew the gates would have splintered under that first assault had the force been organized enough to concentrate on that point alone rather than spreading across the entire wall in haphazard fashion.

He raised his sword above his head and bellowed, drawing the eyes of his dumbfounded men to him. Borric shouted orders, shoving and cuffing the frozen men nearest him to get them moving. In a widening circle from his center, the guards sprang into action. Men carried forth huge timbers at a run, bracing the creaking gate doors. Barrels of oil arrived by cart and were swiftly unloaded beneath the gateway portico. Additional archers raced up the stairs to the crest of the wall, while those inside the courtyard below formed defensive squares that could move quickly as a unit in case the wall was breached at any point.

Atop the wall, longbows and crossbows thrummed in a frantic, disjointed symphony. Huge, heavy forms battered at the base of the wall, while the smaller spiked creatures swarmed over and around them to climb the wall like spiders. Blazing yellow eyes glared up at the guards as the creatures sank long, tapered talons into the stone and wormed their way upward. Their grip seemed precarious on the smooth stone, however, and a direct hit with arrow or bolt usually proved sufficient to dislodge one, even if it did not kill it outright. But the archers were few while the spiked creatures were many, and the attackers came onward with chilling determination.

In the courtyard, the gates shuddered under a steady rain of titanic blows. Captain Borric shook his head in disbelief. Stout hardwood doors as thick as a man’s arm was long, bound by iron, and still they threatened to fracture. He ordered his men back from the gate’s outer arch and directed them to lower the portcullis recessed in the inner arch. A massive curtain of iron bars, it may not hold when the doors had not, but it was another line of defense against which the attackers would have to hurl themselves.

As the portcullis rumbled down, a great splinter of the wood door shot into the courtyard, leaving a gaping hole through which the starry night sky beyond could be seen. A face out of nightmare filled the gap, leering through at the men behind a long muzzle that bristled with crooked fangs. The guards gasped and fell