The Cor Chronicles: Volume 02 - Fire and Steel by Martin V. Parece II Read Free Book Online

the worst of it as Cor’s helm slammed into his face, breaking his nose and splintering his teeth. Cor quickly scrambled to his feet, drew Soulmourn and ran the man through while he was still fighting for breath. A weak blow clanged off the back of Cor’s hauberk; the other guard had attacked him poorly from behind. He quickly glanced to his left to see one crossbowman screaming, arms flailing as he fell of the wall fully engulfed in flames. Another lay burning, still on the wall, while the other two frantically reloaded their weapons. Thyss charged up the steep stone steps, curved sword in hand. Thinking Cor’s attention diverted, the guard launched another attack with several high, broad, sword strokes. Cor easily ducked the first two, before parrying away the third. The poor man had no chance of regaining his balance before Soulmourn rent its way through his left arm near the shoulder and into the man’s midsection.
    Cor looked around and knew his situation was about to deteriorate quickly. Thyss had torn through the third crossbowman, and the fourth had closed in on her with twin daggers. He felt twinge of fear and wanted nothing more than to run to her aid when he saw the fletched end of a crossbow bolt jutting from her left thigh. But he could not afford to help her, for only a few hundred feet away the first Loszian soldiers were charging toward the group.
    Dropping Soulmourn, Cor gripped the spokes of the closest wheeled device. He heaved his weight into it one direction and found it completely unmoving. He shifted the other direction, and the massive wheel began to turn, spokes interlocking with a large gear set into the ground. He could hear a great clicking as the gear teeth interacted with metal, no doubt other gears beneath the ground, and there was a mild vibration as one black stone door began to swing open. He pushed the wheel until the door had opened perhaps three feet.
    “Keth, Geoff, get them through!” he yelled at the two older boys while sheathing Soulmourn, and nodding they began to herd the horses out the great door. “Thyss, we leave now!”
    The fourth crossbowman dispatched, Thyss lithely jumped from the top of the wall, landing in a roll. She screamed once in pain, clutching the crossbow bolt imbedded in her leg, as she made impact with the ground, but she forced herself to her feet and limped to her horse. Cor looked back at the oncoming soldiers, counting that he had mere moments before they were upon him. As the crowd of horses quickly filtered through the open gate, Cor saw the shape of a small girl lying face down in the dirt two dozen paces away.
    “Dahken Cor,” Thyss shouted, now on her horse, “leave her!”
    This girl was here now only because of him, and he ran to her unmoving shape without hesitation. Behind him, he could hear Thyss swearing eloquently in her native tongue. Scooping the girl up, he noticed a large knot forming on the side of her head. She must have fallen off her horse when they came to a stop. Something whizzed by Cor’s left ear, and as he turned to run to his horse, white hot pain lanced through his left hand. His palomino anxiously awaited him, her eyes wide as her tail swished back and forth.
    Just as he reached her, a wave of immense heat nearly knocked him off of his feet. Thyss sat on her horse, arms raised to the heavens, and a wall of orange flame over twenty feet tall and twice as wide separated them from the oncoming horde of soldiers. Crossbow bolts were shot into the flame, only to be incinerated. Cor slung the girl’s limp body over his left shoulder as he stepped into the saddle’s right stirrup. Soldiers with crossbows flanked the wall of flame by climbing the stone wall’s steep steps, but just as the first men reached the top of the wall for a clear line of fire, they fell, suddenly punctured by long Western arrows.
    Cor did not have time to wonder about this; he kicked his horse into action and shot through the open gate. The heat