CHAPTER 786: CRUMBLING DOWN

Guardsman Nok huddled as close to the gate-house fire as he could, pulling his wool cloak closed with one hand while clutching a cup of warm, weak tea with the other.

Right now, more than anything, he wanted to return to his bunk in the barracks and wait for the sun to burn off the frigid fog that covered everything, even his rough beard, in a layer of frost. Or, if he couldn’t return to his bunk, at least a trip down to the kitchens for a fresh roll and a bit of whatever kind of stew Head Cook Otis had put together to warm the bellies of the men who were forced to man the walls at this unholy hour of the morning.

Still, it would be at least an hour before the balding cook made his way to the top of the walls with a bag full of rolls and a pot filled with breakfast stew, and...

-HAAAAARRUUUUUUMMMM-

A deep, resonant trumpet blast interrupted Nok’s dreams of breakfast and startled him so badly that he nearly tripped over the hem of his winter cloak.

"What the bloody..." Nok shouted as he rushed to one of the arrow slits in the gatehouse to look in the direction of the strange sound.

"NÛV! NÛV NΊÂK!"

The sound of the shouted cry echoed across the fields between the curtain wall and the forest like the battle cry of a hundred men, resounding off the stone walls and tearing away the fog of drowsiness that clouded Nok’s mind.

-HAAAAARRUUUUUUMMMM-

This time, the trumpet blast was louder, echoing from the trunks of ten giant demons as they charged out of the forest, emerging from the fog like creatures born from nightmares.

-THUMP- -THUMP- -THUMP- -THUMP-

The sounds of heavy feet falling in time as the giants charged shook the ground and for a moment, all Nok could do was stare numbly through the arrow slit as his mind struggled to imagine how massive these giant demons were. Ten feet tall? Fifteen? Twenty?

Rubbing his eyes, stared at the advancing demons, covered in layers of thick hides and furs with strange, flexible trunks, large ears that flapped in the wind and huge, curved ivory tusks that ended in wickedly sharp points tipped iron spikes and nails.

"Damn it, Nok! Sound the alarm," another guardsman shouted as he burst into the gatehouse. Seeing his companion staring numbly out the arrow slit, however, he stopped wasting his words on the idiot and grabbed the rope attached to the warning bell, ringing it as rapidly as he could.

"DEMONS!" the guardsman shouted. "GIANT DEMONS ATTACKING! DEMONS!"

"What, what are they carrying?" Nok asked, shaken loose from his horror enough to begin fumbling with the bow sitting next to the arrow slit, stringing it as quickly as he could and knocking over the bucket of arrows in his haste.

"Is that... is that a battering ram?" the other guardsman said when he arrived at the small gatehouse’s other arrow slit and began to string his own bow. "Oh Holy Lord, have mercy on our souls," he said as he made a gesture over his heart to ward off evil. "Portcullis!"

As soon as he shouted the word, Nok dropped his bow and retrieved one of the heavy wooden mallets in the gatehouse, hammering away at the wooden block that held the winch supporting the heavy iron portcullis in place.

-Thock- -Thock- -Thock-

Both men hammered furiously at the blocks until finally, both wooden wedges flew free, releasing the heavy wooden winch and the thick iron chains that supported the iron portcullis. The winch spun like a child’s toy under the weight, and the chains flapped dangerously when the iron-bound portcullis slammed to the ground, but both men heaved a momentary sigh of relief once it was in place.

"Aim for their... their knees," Nok said once he’d retrieved his bow and returned to the arrow slit, staring in horror at the giants who were rapidly closing the distance to the wall.

The heavy wooden shields the giants carried made it all but impossible to hit their heads or faces, and even their mammoth torsos were blocked by the oversized wooden shields. But they had to aim at something, and so the guardsman picked the knees as the only weak spot that might break their charge.

Arrows began to rain down from the walls as more and more men strung their bows. Some took up the instruction to aim for knees, others aimed at whatever they thought they could hit, if they aimed at all, and everyone fired as quickly as they could. It was as if the men on the wall were racing to empty their buckets of arrows before any of their neighbors could, firing again and again as fast as they could.

"Bliûs. Suy-âmsol qai!" the lead demon shouted, before the demons charging with him raised their trunks and pointed them at the walls as they ran.

-PRREEEEET!-

The sudden, high-pitched blast from their trunks wasn’t just a simple war cry. Powerful sorcery flowed from their bodies as they charged, blasting out along with the trumpet blast and unleashing a fierce gust of wind.

Suddenly, the arrows that were sailing through the air seemed to pause mid-flight before they danced upward, turning back toward the men who had fired them as the winds swept the arrows aside. None of them threatened the men atop the wall, and even the farthest flung arrow only clattered harmlessly against the stones of the curtain wall.

"What, what do we do?" Nok said numbly as he fired another arrow, only to watch it blow harmlessly away on the wind. "How? How are we supposed to fight that?"

"Sir Cathal!" came a shout from outside the gatehouse. "Sir Cathal has arrived!"

"Great," Nok said as he leaned forward to aim down at the giants who had almost reached the gate. "But what’s one knight supposed to do against a dozen giants?"

-CRUNCH- -CRUNCH-

The sound of the battering ram slamming into the portcullis felt like the sound of powerful jaws crunching through brittle bones, and the entire gatehouse shook with the force of each blow from the powerful ram.

-HAAAAARRUUUUUUMMMM-

The sound of the demon’s trumpeting with their twisted trunks filled the gatehouse and the bow he’d clutched like his life depended it dropped from Nok’s fingers when he realized that he’d already exhausted the bucket of arrows and achieved nothing more than sinking several into the demon’s wooden shields like push-pins on a cork board.

"We’re doomed," he said as he sank to his knees. Beneath him, looking through the murder holes in the floor, he could see giant wooden splinters flying from the portcullis as the iron-capped battering ram crumpled the first line of defense like a sheet of parchment.

There were spears along the wall, ready to thrust down through those very murder holes at anyone who breached the portcullis while they struggled against the heavy wooden gate, but what was the point? Would giants even notice the prick of a spear? Or would they just hold their shields against the ceiling as they flooded into the courtyard?

What was the point? Nok wondered before his eyes landed on the door leading to the battlements atop the curtain wall.

"We should run," he told his companion as he stumbled back to his feet, fumbling with the heavy wooden bar across the door. "The sally gate!" Nok shouted as a glimmer of hope bloomed in his heart. "We can make it to the sally gate! Come with me," he said, heaving the bar aside and flinging the door open. "Before those giants tear down the gatehouse with us in it."

There was still hope, Nok realized. They just had to get to the small gate in the side of the wall where they could make an escape. Then, while the demons were busy fighting the fools who stayed to fight, they could flee to the forest and escape this nightmare.

There was still hope...

Or so he thought. When the door opened, however, he realized that there would be no quick escape, no matter what the demons did.

"Relight the watch fires!" Sir Cathal shouted in a clear, authoritative tone as he organized more than a dozen men standing on the walls outside the gatehouse. Some still held their bows and fired down at the giants with the battering rams, while others rushed to fetch more arrows from the storehouse below. And from the manor, even more soldiers were rushing to the wall, some still buckling their gambesons on even as they ran.

"Bring torches, blankets, anything we can ignite and hurl down on them!" Sir Cathal shouted before rounding on Nok when he heard the sound of the gatehouse door opening. "You there," "Spill the coals from the gatehouse fire through the murder-holes! Fill the gateway with smoke and let their feet find the coals when they breach the gates!"

"Y-yes, your lordship," Nok said, saluting weakly with his fist to his chest before he turned to walk back into the gatehouse. The old knight, it seemed, wasn’t one to run away, and as long as he stood tall on the battlements, there would be no escape for any of them.