Lost Bloodline 2 - Chapter 10

Chapter 10

While Koda had fought multiple times in the past week, in a multitude of different locations, this was the first time he’d really committed to a straight up battle. Every other time they’d had a chance to either prepare in advance, ambush, or surround their enemy. The closest that he’d come to a straight up fight had been when he first arrived on this world and helped Sienna to drive the raiders from town.

This was far different from what he’d experienced in the past. Equal parts chaotic, and strangely organized in how it all happened.

Calandra hit the back ranks of the Crooked just as they were beginning to turn. She slid to a stop only a foot or two back and turned all of her momentum into a spinning, sideways chop at about knee height to the Crooked. The broad blade of her Dane-axe clove through joints with a will, hewing through three different Crooked’s legs before her momentum was spent. But the dwarven woman was not finished yet.

She yanked back on the long handle of her axe, hooking the beard of the blade over a foot and pulling another Crooked off balance before twisting her weapon free and bringing it up overhead to slam down on the now-prone monster with a crunch.

The Crooked who had evaded the small woman’s furious strike whirled, weapons raised to strike her down, but the other three attacked at that moment.

Arthene came in from the right, her club pounding down like a carpenter driving nails as she introduced Crooked skulls to pelvises. Sienna had the left, her spear joined by a pair of earthen spikes driving back three more of the Crooked.

Koda went over top of the dwarf’s head again.

Landing on top of the screaming wounded, Koda slashed out to either side, his claws opening up faces, throats, chests, and guts. Slashes with the claws were followed by closed fist punches, elbows, and kicks that sent Crooked flying with each blow. He knew that his lovers had his flanks, and Calandra would dart out to assist either of them as needed, then cut back into the lead ahead of Koda in order to give him a moment to collect himself.

Screams mixed with blood, roars with spittle, all flying through the air as the battle was joined. The weight of the several hundred townspeople wielding stolen weapons crashed into the Crooked a moment later, just as their back ranks turned to try to address the threat at their flank.

Koda saw the hunched form of one of the Crooked champions pushing through the crowd, dragging the corpse of a human man by his leg. Leaning down, Koda snatched up one of the bent spears of the Crooked and launched it toward the champion.

The beast used its fleshy club to deflect the spear, the bent shaft somehow still flying true despite the fact its shape should have seen it veering wildly off course. But that was exactly what Koda wanted to happen.

Sienna acted without a moment of hesitation, seeing Koda’s throw and following the weapon to his target. When the champion was focused on deflecting the spear, she gestured with her own weapon and a spike of dirt hammered upwards from the ground, taking the hulking creature through the crotch before emerging from its back in a spray of blood.

The Crooked that were near their champion thrashed and tried to run in response to the beast's death, which allowed the townspeople to reap a bloody harvest while they clove through the forces.

Koda saw out of the corner of his eye one of the townsfolk born down by a trio of Crooked with hatchets, the gnarled creatures hammering their weapons home to hack the man to pieces before his fellows could save him. On his other side, a trio of muscular young women in outfits reminiscent of a barmaid used pitchforks to hook a Crooked warrior with a sword and then launch him up and into his allies, bearing the lot to the ground.

“Koda!” Sienna’s voice drew his attention forward, and he growled in frustration. Calandra had gotten away from them, the shorter woman hacking a dwarf-sized path for herself as she went and clearly having expected them to keep up. His pausing to deal with the approaching champion had allowed the dwarf to get away.

“After her!” he ordered. “Hunters! Pick your shots and don’t take chances! Keep yourselves and our allies alive!” Koda barked the second half over his shoulder, getting a muffled shout of agreement from his band.

Sienna and Arthene had already started forward, using their longer weapons to clear a path for him. Arthene’s blows sent Crooked flying while the wild-haired woman laughed in glee. Sienna kept to a silent focus, her spear flashing through a series of jabs and thrusts that would isolate one of the Crooked before ending them.

Koda ran right up the center, slashing at thighs, arms, necks, and faces to wound or off-balance the Crooked so his mates could take them out.

He found Calandra surrounded by Crooked with bent spears and longswords, an arrow sticking out of the mail on her left shoulder while she swept her Dane-axe in a circle to fend off the weapons of her enemies while spitting curses.

Rather than leap into the fray this time and end up stuck in the circle with her, Koda plowed into the closest Crooked at an angle.

The creature was not expecting this kind of attack, and its wasted limbs provided no resistance to Koda’s goddess-enhanced strength as he wrapped an arm around the man’s head and stepped through to put his back to the creature’s chest, knocking its weapon away with his hip.

A sharp yank and roll of his shoulders forward sent the creature flying up and over Koda, shrieking in surprise and fear as it took flight. A flight that was, admittedly, short as its fellows reacted automatically to something screaming flying in their direction and raised their spears. The Crooked crashed into them, impaling itself on the iron tips before the weight of the creature snapped the hafts off and sent the lot of them sprawling.

“Cal, you gotta stay with us!” Koda snapped, elbowing another Crooked in the throat and snatching its sword away.

“Don’t fall behind then!” laughed the dwarven woman, snapping out with her axe to take an arm off at the elbow before she rammed the thick metal head into the Crooked’s face, sending broken teeth in all directions.

“He’s right, little one. You risk yourself and your allies,” grunted Arthene, wading into the circle next and sweeping away three of the Crooked with her bone club.

“Fineeee,” sighed Calandra, throwing her head back with a sigh and turning to hack downwards at the still-groaning and alive Crooked that Koda had thrown.

“Are you okay, Cal? Your arm…” Sienna barked from the other side, concern clear in her voice.

“Just a graze. Barely a nick actually, caught the edge of the chain,” Calandra shot back, reaching up to snap the trailing shaft off. “We are making progress here. This lot seems like they lost most of their focus.”

“Koda killed a champion,” Sienna answered, stepping around to put her back to Arthene’s so she could inspect the arrow in Calandra’s shoulder. Before he could argue that it had been Sienna who killed it, the wolf woman continued. “You are right, not even bleeding. Don’t risk yourself again though. Something tells me we are going to need your help explaining why we are here when this is done.”

“Keep pushing for the town hall,” Calandra said, gesturing towards the large, ornate building with its low wall. “I can see more of the citizens and the guard holding up there.”

“You heard her, girls.” Koda snatched another weapon from a dead Crooked, this time a short-handled axe, and threw it into the group ahead of him. “Push!”

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The rest of the fight took another twenty minutes before they finally broke the Crooked’s siege. The force that was attacking the town hall had to have been easily three or four times the number of the townsfolk, but they were stuck between two very-focused groups of foes. Together, the town guard with their superior armor and the citizens with their desire to reclaim their land quickly reaped a bloody toll.

It didn’t hurt that Koda’s fighters had learned the ever important key of taking out the champions whenever one was spotted. Koda saw two go down to arrows, knowing that had to be his archers from the direction the shafts came from. Arthene accounted for another two herself, one whose skull she shattered with her bone club and the other by throwing the massive, ugly broadsword that she’d taken from her first kill.

Of the four champions slain, three of the four triggered the flight response in the Crooked, sending the regular soldiers scattering back and away from them, making the running Crooked easy pickings. The fourth set off the frenzy response, but Koda led his group of four into their midst, and they made quick work of the enraged Crooked.

The turning point finally came when a horn sounded from the far side of the Crooked group. It was badly tuned, but he caught three distinct notes, though they honestly both sounded like someone had belched into the horn rather than blown. The Crooked who had been trying to flee scattered even faster, now joined by their fellows who had been ignoring them.

“They are retreating!” Koda heard someone shout, and a cheer went up from the embattled forces.

“After them!” Koda heard Calandra shout. “Drive them from our town!”

“Belay that order!” an older man’s voice barked from the head of the crowd, nearer to the entrance to the town hall building. “All guardsmen are to fall in on me, back into the hall!”

“Gods all damn it!” snarled Calandra as the momentum of the pursuit began to falter, the townsfolk hesitating when it occurred to them that they’d be leaving the protection of the town guard behind if they kept after them. “What is Tomlin thinking?!”

Before Koda could stop her to ask, the dwarven woman wheeled and stomped through the piled dead and ruined market stalls to the town hall. He could see ahead of them a group of others dressed in the uniforms and armor of the town guard were holding back a group of townsfolk who were trying to get past them to the safety of the hall.

“You can’t all go through, there isn’t room!” Koda heard one of the guards saying as they approached.

“Bloody likely! I bet there is plenty of room. The Council just doesn’t want us mucking up their floors!” snapped an older woman with the long, pointed ears of an elf. Her hair was tied back in a tight plait, and she had a bloody meat cleaver in one hand, the evidence of her joining the fight speckled over her homespun dress.

“Regardless, you can’t pass. Find shelter in one of the other buildings around the square!” barked the guardsman.

“Why can’t we come through and just take shelter in the yard?” demanded another man, this one a dwarf like Calandra, but wearing the rough clothes of a day laborer and wielding a misshapen hammer that was obviously claimed from a fallen Crooked.

“Orders, now disperse!” snapped another guardsman, this one older and clearly in charge from the badge on the front of his helmet. “If you don’t disperse, we will be forced to move you!”

“Tomlin! What the—” Calandra began to shout as her group got closer to the growing mob of citizens that were trying to force their way past the guards.

She was cut off, however, by Koda as the black-haired champion was fed up seeing the men and women who should have been protecting these folks bully them.

“What is all of this?!” Koda roared, his voice booming out over the collected rabble like a tolling bell. The citizens, those that had been with his group, recognized his voice and quieted, turning with wide eyes at the anger in their savior’s tone. Koda had spoken evenly with them the entire time leading up to this fight, but each and every one of them felt a tremble of fear at the primal fury in his voice.

“Why did you order your men not to pursue?!” Koda demanded. “This is your town! This is your chance to run down your foes and drive them from this place once and for all!”

“That’s not my problem!” blustered Tomlin, the older guard adjusting his ornate helmet. “I am under orders to protect the town hall and the council!”

“Tomlin! Are you serious?!” Calandra barked, her voice cutting like a whip-crack through the silence that Koda had left. “You are the head of the town guard, so you should be guarding the TOWN! Not the bloody council! They have guards already!”

“Be that as it may, Guardswoman Dempsey,” the man tried to bluster, turning a disapproving eye on Calandra. “Where is your charge? Councilman Yanus was in your care!”

“Koda,” Arthene’s voice broke through the boiling anger in the champion’s mind. He turned to his lover with a questioning look and the big woman locked eyes with him. “I’m going to go after the Crooked. We need to thin their numbers as much as possible, and chase them as far from town as we can. That’ll give this lot a chance to sort themselves out, and maybe pull their heads out of their asses. Someone in that group signaled a retreat, so not all of their champions are dead.”

“You can’t go alone, Arthene,” Koda said, doing his best to not snarl at his mate.

“I’m faster alone at the moment. And without an entourage, I can move even faster. Someone needs to press them out of town,” Arthene said with a meaningful raise of her eyebrows. Koda wanted to protest again, but then her suggestion clicked in his mind.

On her own, Arthene was faster than the rest of the hunters and even more so of the other villagers. On her own, Arthene could handle herself just fine, especially since she knew she needed to come back to him. On her own, Arthene could tap into her savage nature and utilize her bear form, which was nearly indestructible for a regular Crooked.

“You be safe,” Koda ordered, his anger having cooled once his mind churned through the implications. He couldn’t keep her long if she was to do as she suggested.

“I will. If you need me to return sooner, you can summon me by calling out with your gauntlet. It is as much my totem as it is my Lady’s, as I am your mate and you have fed me power from it,” Arthene bent to press a kiss to Koda’s lips and nuzzle his cheek, ignoring the blood that speckled both of their faces. “Keep yourself safe as well, my mate. Look after our sweet Sienna and keep the little one from getting into trouble. I like her fire.”

Arthene didn’t wait for him to respond, instead turning to break into a loping run down the lane that the Crooked had taken. Koda watched her go, and in a matter of seconds, Arthene vanished from sight.

“I don’t like this,” Sienna muttered from next to him, stepping closer to lean into Koda’s side.

“Neither do I, but I trust Arthene to know what she can handle,” Koda responded, reaching back to lightly pat Sienna’s thigh with the palm of his gauntlet, being careful not to cut her with his razor-sharp claws.

“I don’t care what the council orders, Tomlin! We need to secure the town now! Those fires will claim whole districts, and I know that there have to be more bands of the Crooked roaming through town, capturing anyone they can!”

The growing argument from Calandra and her superior had drawn even more attention as the townsfolk rallied around Calandra, aided subtly by Koda’s fighters as well. There were less than a hundred of the Guard in front of the town hall, and they were easily outnumbered five or six to one at this point between the survivors Koda’s team had escorted and those who had been embattled leading up to this.

From the mutters Koda had heard, there had been groups of townsfolk camping in the High Market, and those who had stalls had refused to leave them. When the Crooked had crashed into the market, the fight had broken out and driven them back to the town hall, where the townsfolk had fought for their lives, only joined by the Guard at the last moment.

“We cannot leave the town hall unguarded!” insisted Tomlin. “We have no idea if those creatures will come back while we are halfway across town.

“They won’t,” Koda cut in with a growl, stepping up behind Calandra. The dwarf woman twitched but did not turn her glare away from her commander. “My mate is hounding them even now, doing the job that you should be doing in driving threats from your town. If your council wants to hold on to Amberpost, then they need to give the orders to secure the town once more. Otherwise, those who gave their lives to drive off this force today, and those who died keeping the enemy out, did so in vain.”

Koda’s words stirred a growl of agreement from the assembled townsfolk. Tomlin glared at him now, his sallow face turning an ugly shade of puce under his helmet as he tried to kill Koda with his eyes. Tomlin was about to speak when a pair of shutters on the third floor of the town hall opened up and a bearded older man with a pronounced paunch leaned out.

“Tomlin! Take half the guard and work with the citizens to secure the town. The stranger is right. If we cannot reclaim our town, then it gives poor honor to those who sacrificed to protect it.”

Koda could tell that the order was meant to sound empathetic, but with the thready tone of the man’s voice and the fact he immediately pulled back and slammed the window shut again without waiting for confirmation, it came off as weak. An opinion that was clearly shared by others, given the derisive snorts from the citizens nearby and his own fighters.

“Fine!” snapped Tomlin. “Guardswoman Dempsey, you head west with your… allies and see what you can do to clear the town. I’ll take a group and head east.”

“The same direction we already came and cleared? Try at least a little harder to not look like a coward, Tomlin,” Calandra growled before whirling about. She nearly plowed directly into Koda and had to catch herself with one gauntleted hand on his thigh.

“Easy there, Cal,” Koda said, steadying her before she fell.

“Sorry about that,” Calandra sighed, accepting his steadying hand before stepping around him and Sienna. The fact that the flirty and lewd attitude had dropped away from the stout woman was evidence enough to Koda that she was still furious. “Remind me to thank your giantess, would you? She at least had the stones to keep up the chase. Is she going to be okay on her own?”

“Arthene? Oh, she’ll be fine.” Koda waved off her question with a smile. “She wouldn’t have gone if she wasn’t sure of herself. I trust her. Let’s see about securing your town, okay? Clan, to me!” The last part Koda shouted out above the hubbub of the citizens as many kept trying to argue with the guardsmen to be let through.

The group that came with Koda quickly moved in around him and the two women, already moving at a steady march across the market.

“What’s next, Aegisclaw?” Netta asked, the normally playful hawk beastfolk sounding tired.

“Anyone hurt?”

“No.” This time it was Hannah who answered. “No one is hurt, surprisingly enough. None of them even got close. The Lady is clearly watching over us. I would have expected to lose someone at this point, or at least a serious injury. Considering how many of the townsfolk died…”

“She looks after her children,” Koda answered, doing his best to ignore the second part of Hannah’s statement. He didn’t need to look, as he could feel the eyes of the dead all around him. The Crooked had fallen in droves, but had taken a grim toll in their deaths as well.