The Light from Without by Joe Jackson

Author:Joe Jackson [Jackson, Joe]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Fantasy
Publisher: Aethon Books
Published: 2020-09-21T22:00:00+00:00

16

Starfall

It was getting harder and harder to throw his weight behind his shield slams, the battle taking a lot out of the half-guardian hunter. His kind were considered among the top physical specimens on all of Citaria, but a battle that dragged on for most of a day took a lot out of even someone like him. Yet Corbanis fought on, trying to plug whatever gaps he could, desperate to give his sick and weakened soldiers a moment to catch their breath here and there. Now and then, he managed to knock the wits out of enough enemy soldiers to buy himself a moment, too.

The battle seemed to be going as well as could be expected by the time the sun decided it was bored with the affairs of mortals. Despite the state of Lestanaek’s army, they had still held the advantage of numbers, particularly with their complement of harmauths, sylvan beasts, minotaurs, and nearly a dozen erestram who’d avoided or shaken off the effects of the plague. They were suffering greater losses than they normally would have, but they’d hadn’t broken, and certainly hadn’t been crushed.

Another of those pesky dual-wielding elestram came at him, and Corbanis squared up to keep his proficiency with shield slams from being too obvious. He began to fight conservatively, his metal guard out in front while he parried and poked with the Edge of the Victor. The elestram battered his shield with its right blade, sometimes bringing both to bear, but Corbanis’ redoubt stayed strong. Following an obvious feint by his opponent, he let his enemy think he was in the wrong stance before his shield hit the elestram in the face, backed up by nearly four hundred pounds of half-guardian.

He could’ve skewered the man and been done with it, but Corbanis stayed true to his tactics. He drove the stunned elestram warrior back and into some of its comrades. The momentary chaos was enough to let Corbanis’ line-mates put a couple of enemies to the sword before they got back into formation. With no easy avenue to a killing or disorienting strike, Corbanis did the same, holding the line for as long as he could.

Magnificent, he thought, proud of the way these soldiers held ranks and refused to fall into disorganized melee. Considering how few of these men and women had been soldiers before this war, they had shaped up admirably in a relatively short time.

Another press came at the line, holding its own formation to close for melee. “Down in front!” came the growl from behind Corbanis, and he ducked behind his shield as Gil launched over him in a stunning lunge.

She hit an elestram square in the chest, bowling him over and scattering his line-mates in the momentary shock. Those great clawed hands slashed side to side, ripping apart metal armor and the flesh beneath it, sending blood and then bits of deeper tissue in all directions. And then the werewolf was running on all fours again, falling back to the line and the safety of the shield-bearers.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.