Lost Bloodline 2 - Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Calandra led them down the next side street at a trot. Koda kept closest to the much shorter woman, which in turn kept Arthene and Sienna close to her as well. This gave them a strong arrowhead formation with the armored dwarf in the front. The rest of the group followed behind them, with Koda’s warriors intermingling with the city folk. He could hear them talking behind him, the voices of his companions easily distinguishable despite the background noise of yelling, the occasional scream, and crackle of fires.

“It’ll be fine. I’ve seen Aegisclaw turn worse odds.”

“Keep yourself under control. If you lose your head in a fight, then it’ll get you killed.”

“You see the giant of a woman up there? If she tells you to do something, listen to her. She’s got more combat experience than any of us.”

“We will deal with the fires later. For now, we need to save the other citizens.”

“Sienna, that’s the one with the spear, is special. If you see the ground doing something strange, it’s likely her at work. Don’t be afraid of it.”

Koda shot Sienna a smirk at the last one he heard to spot her blushing furiously, her ears pinned back in annoyance. Clearly, she’d heard it too, but didn’t appreciate being talked up so much. He didn’t have to look to Arthene to know the big woman was grinning fiercely. Even if she didn’t hear the words of the others, there was a fight in the making, which would have her smiling, regardless.

Coming around another corner, Koda spotted a group of Crooked physically dragging a screaming woman out of a house, the trio cackling maniacally while they did so. He didn’t wait for any of the others to act, instead crouching and springing directly over top of Calandra, covering a good eight feet of distance before he landed and sprung forward again.

Still feels so ridiculous to be pouncing around like a cat, Koda thought wryly. But I cannot argue with the effectiveness of this either, though. Must be something to do with the powers Thera has invested in me as her champion.

His last spring carried him at a charge over top of the trio, and Koda twisted in midair to drive his shoulder into the chest of one while he slashed with his clawed right hand over the throat of another.

Letting his momentum carry him into a roll over top of the one he’d slammed into, Koda kneed that one in the face as he went by to ensure that it went down too.

Landing on his shoulder, Koda continued his roll and came to his feet, whirling about to confront the third and final of the Crooked, only to see it already collapsing to the ground with Sienna’s broad-bladed spear sticking several inches through its chest.

“Mary!” The shout came up from one of the villagers in the group, a thin blonde man in laborer’s clothes, who raced over to the downed woman.

Leaving the man to tend to her, Koda set about ensuring the Crooked were dead, yanking Sienna’s spear free with a casual tug and tossing it back to her as the redheaded wolf woman got within range. Sienna caught the spear with a smirk and a nod as Calandra came to a stop next to the kneeling man and the prone woman.

“We can’t stop here. We need to keep moving to find others. Did you see where the larger group was going, Mary?” the dwarf woman asked, her gauntleted hands creaking on the haft of her Dane-axe.

“Up Cobbler’s Lane towards the High Market,” Mary mumbled, clinging to the blonde man like he was an anchor. “I saw several groups peel off as well, checking the back streets, but most were heading into the center of town. They’d grab anyone they spotted along the way and dragged them with. Cal, what is going on? I thought the guard had the city sealed.”

Koda tuned out the conversation while Calandra talked the anxious young woman through where to go to hide. Instead, he scanned their surroundings, looking for any signs of others that might be hiding. Giving that up after a minute, realizing that if they had been bad enough at hiding that he would see them, the Crooked would have spotted them already. He just called out.

“To anyone who is hiding from the Crooked: we have already cleared the road back towards the town’s border of threats. Come out if you want to join us in fighting to save the town, or fall back that way to hide. I don’t care.”

Turning back to Calandra and the two, Koda saw the dwarf woman was ready to move, so gestured for her to lead the way again.

In the next ten minutes, Koda and his group found three more clots of Crooked along the central road Calandra had them on. All three had been collecting in places where either guildhalls were based or groups of craftsmen shared that part of town. It made sense to Koda, as the crafts-folk needed to stay near their shops to work.

He was just thankful that the number of fires going was small enough that they could simply snuff them out by having Sienna open the ground up beneath the house or stable to swallow the burning timbers. Koda knew that if they got out of control, the fires could consume the whole town. But thankfully, most seemed accidental. Which made sense, as the Crooked wanted captives, not to just destroy everything in town.

Each group that Koda’s team took down further swelled their numbers as they collected more of the townsfolk from capture at every turn, some even leaving hiding to join them.

What had been a small force of around fifty people swelled to over two hundred, and only a bare handful retreated to the caravansary to hide, most of those being the injured, elderly, children, or women with babies. Even the meek were taking up weapons now that it looked like they had a fighting chance.

“Cal,” Koda huffed as they got moving after the third one, having liberated a group of carpenters, their apprentices, and families from the last camp. The dwarven woman rolled her head to glance back at him questioningly, and Koda met her eyes firmly before he spoke. “Why haven’t we seen any of the city guards?”

“They’d be fighting, obviously. Not hiding from sight to keep the Crooked from finding them.” The reply from the dwarven woman was sharp, and Koda shook his head in denial of her statement.

“Not what I meant, Cal. You’d think that the guard would have tried to stop the invasion, but we’ve crossed most of the town and I haven’t seen a single sign of resistance here. Not one dead person or sign of a scuffle other than those citizens that didn’t go quietly. Where is the rest of the rest of the guard? If they were guarding the different roads into town, you’d think they’d have fallen back to try to stop this so they weren’t hit from behind, right?”

Cal’s face went white behind the guard of her helmet, and she snapped her head around to look forward. She didn’t speak at first, just increasing her pace as she ran. Koda could tell his words had hit home, but he wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing or not.

He shot a glance at Arthene, getting a helpless shrug from his bear beastfolk lover. Sienna had nothing more to offer him, though he could tell she was thinking along the same lines that he was right now with the questions that had been asked.

A distant crash of fighting came from ahead and Calandra growled audibly, the clank of her armored footfalls against the cobblestones growing louder and louder by the second as she picked up the pace.

“The town hall is ahead of us. It sounds like they are making a stand there,” Calandra called over her shoulder. “Come on, you lot! We have a town to save!”

Calandra’s voice carried over the rumble of footsteps and gusting of heavy breathing. The citizens in the group let out a roar of agreement, clearly having worked themselves up in the last few engagements, especially since they’d been mostly successful.

Koda knew that, if Calandra’s assumption that the sounds of fighting ahead was the push from the rest of the citizens and the guard to reclaim the town, then that would be where the bulk of the Crooked were. And where he’d find the champions or warleaders of the group. This was going to be where they lost the most people.

He didn’t need to look back to know that his warriors were with him. The dozen fighters that had come with him from their distant village, the people that were like family to him. Each and every one of them carried the bloodlines of Thera’s people as beastfolk, while these people here in Amberpost were from many different races. He didn’t think less of them, or even consider the villagers expendable. But Koda knew that it would hit him far harder to lose one of his people than anyone here.

Except maybe Calandra. The thought wound through his mind without warning, and Koda blinked in surprise. Where did that come from? I mean… it’s not incorrect. I’d be upset to lose her, but that’s because she’s the only one out here that I’ve seen who had a spine before the mob mentality gave them one, right?

Before he could spend too long thinking about it, the road they were on curved enough that they could see it opening into a larger, central space that sat in front of an elaborate and massive building that was surrounded by a low wall. The open area was clearly this ‘High Market’ that Mary had mentioned, though the market had been trashed just like the Low Market had been.

Stalls were shredded and wares thrown all over the place in the scrum. Men and women fought with the monstrous Crooked while champions crushed anyone who got within reach in a swirling battle at the heart of the town.

“There they are! Forward! For Amberpost!” Calandra roared, her small frame doing nothing to lower the power of her shout and the echoing volume of her voice. Another shout echoed from the group of townsfolk as they increased their speed.

“This is a mistake,” grunted Arthene from Koda’s right. He spared the big woman a questioning glance, and she was rolling her right shoulder, club loose in her hand. He didn’t have to ask her to get the woman to elaborate further. “We shouldn’t be giving them warnings. Just hit them from behind as fast as possible.”

“It’s not a warning,” Sienna replied from his other side. “It’ll bolster the morale of the defenders.”

“Focus, ladies,” Koda interrupted. “Worry about that later. Now we have a fight to deal with.”

“Don’t threaten me with a good time, my mate,” husked Arthene, her yellow eyes glowing faintly in the dim light of the moon and the small fires that still burned.

Koda locked eyes with Arthene and shook his head, conveying with his gaze that he wanted her to remain in her humanoid form. Arthene pouted, but nodded in understanding.

Only a moment later, the small group emerged from the side street and drove into the market, joining the battle already at hand while the howling horde of villagers followed their charge into the Crooked’s flank.