Chapter 35: The Breach
The sky showed no light when Aestrith woke him up.
She spoke a single word. That was enough. He moved at once, already committing to response before he had full information.
He had the coat on before she made it back into the corridor. While pulling on the second boot, he caught the sound through the east window. It was heavier than the percussion from the northeastern face.
Multiple impact points, overlapping. Beneath that, a grinding transmitted up through the floor, reaching him through his feet before his hearing finished sorting it.
They moved through the citadel quickly.
Outside, the militia was already along the road. Godric had mobilized them before most of the city had even woken. They moved at a pace that covered ground efficiently, with no panic.
The sound intensified as they approached the northeastern face. The grinding deepened, and the vibration now came through the street stones, up from his feet into his legs. It was irregular, heavy.
A woman shut her second-floor shutter as they passed. A man in a doorway looked at the militia, then at the wall, then withdrew inside without speaking.
Beorn moved ahead of the guards up the wall steps.
What he saw at the top interrupted his forward motion for a moment longer than he would have preferred. He adjusted, forcing himself to categorize the scene.
Greybacks packed the northeastern wall from the seam at the bend to the corner. There were dozens of them.
Their mineralized ridges rose and fell in uneven rows under the grey pre-dawn light. The pale plates along their backs contrasted sharply against the darker bulk of their bodies, making their density easy to observe.
"Gods. That’s- how many is that."
"Don’t count ’em. Just shoot ’em."
Every monster at the wall pressed forward at once, skull and hindquarters pushed for force. Those behind added pressure, and the ones behind those did the same.
The result was cumulative.
The nearest monsters were already bleeding from old and new wounds alike. The smell reached him a moment later, a deep mix of iron and musk.
"Nobody told me there’d be this fucking many."
Six crown soldiers remained on the walkway. There should have been more.
All six still held position, but they had stopped firing. One near the east end held his spear braced, eyes fixed downward, not acting.
Another had stepped back from the wall without realizing it.
Meanwhile, the militia squads came up behind Beorn and spread along the walkway, filling in gaps.
Another officer that was already at the wall at the east end, one of Coss’s private force, moved toward Godric.
"This is our post-"
"Move," Godric said, without raising his voice.
The officer looked at the mass below, reconsidered, and stepped aside.
The militia crossbows came up. The first volley went down.
The bolts struck the mineralized ridges along the monsters’ spines. There were sharp cracks from impact, followed by duller notes as bolts deflected and spun away.
The Greybacks didn’t bother to react to it. The volley hadn’t been capable to pierce their natural armor.
"It bounced right off."
A militia next to Beorn watched a bolt deflect and land far beyond the wall. He muttered something that had no clear meaning in distress.
"Aim for the neck, the neck- stop wasting bolts on the back!"
"Reload," the nearest squad leader said.
The second volley targeted the neck gaps.
The lead crossbowman had trained for this. The gap at the base of the skull where plating had not fully formed, roughly the size of a spread hand.
He hit it. The bolt drove in.
The Greyback emitted a deep grinding, guttural roar, then its front legs failed. Its rear kept pushing. The momentum pushed its skull into the wall with force, transmitting a shock through the masonry.
It slid down, leaving a thick, dark trail of blood. Nearly black in the low light.
"There! There, that’s how you do it!"
"Aim at the neck, pass it down- tell the left end, the neck!"
The stench became stronger.
The nearby monsters did not react. They kept pressing.
The second squad leader shifted fire left. Three Greybacks were pushing against a section of degraded mortar.
A bolt struck one at the shoulder, a softer joint between plates.
It stumbled on one foreleg, but the other kept driving. Their mass pushed it sideways into the next monster. That one reacted, turning and pushing back. For a few seconds, they pushed against each other instead of the wall.
One crown soldier made a noise and moved for the wall steps.
Then a second followed.
"Where are they going?"
"Don’t look at them. Eyes down. Keep firing."
Four remained, not that it made a difference.
The militia line maintained rotation without instruction. There was fear in their eyes, their fingers trembled ever so slightly, but it was contained by the hours of drill ingrained into their bones and muscles.
Beorn watched their spacing, considering if he should intervene, and deciding against it.
Further down, a squad leader had already adjusted targeting after observing the neck weakness. The results showed, as two Greybacks were down in that section, blood pooling.
More were approaching from beyond the cleared ground.
Beorn saw them as the light improved. The group at the wall was only the leading vanguard of a herd.
He located Godric. "Runners. I want an ammunition count on this wall in ten minutes."
Godric sent two men immediately.
Aestrith had not moved since their arrival. She had both hands on the stone at the wall edge, eyes on the mass below.
Whatever she was thinking, Beorn did not interrupt.
"The wall’s moving. Is the wall moving?"
"It’s not moving."
"It moved."
The officer from the private force approached him, eyes shifting between the northwest and the wall.
"The northwest is picking up. We should split the line to cover it."
Beorn stopped to consider it. If they did split up it would reduce the concentrated fire here and there.
"We maintain the line," he said. "If we split the volley we lose effectiveness on both fronts."
The officer checked the northwest again, then the wall, then nodded.
The pressure continued to propagate through the mass. Each monster drove into the one ahead, transmitting force forward without awareness.
It was blind, instinctual system, but effective.
Beorn focused on the degraded mortar section again. The Greybacks there had resumed their pressure.
Then a larger Greyback reached the wall.
It had forced its way from the rear of the mass, pushing others until it reached the front.
It was significantly larger than the other monsters. The ridge along its back extended further and wider. The plates were thicker. There were multiple old wounds across its body.
Its head rose above the walkway, tracking something not present among the men.
"What in the-"
It struck the wall. The impact traveled through the entire walkway.
A militia bolt hit the neck gap. Blood came immediately, heavy flow down its chest.
"Hit it! Why aren’t you hitting it!"
"I did hit it!"
It roared in pain but it did not slow down.
It lowered its head, found the crack where the wall had been weakening over the season.
Its foreleg forced into the crack.
Its hindquarters drove.
Then it jumped. It came over the parapet with a tearing impact, as if the wall itself were failing. Its bulk landed on the walkway, the stone cracking under its weight.
The bolt remained embedded. Blood struck the stone in a dark spray.
"Off the wall! Get off the wall!"
Its head swung. The mineral ridge of its skull tore a section of the wall edge free, sending fragments outward.
The two nearest militia adjusted position, bringing weapons up. It was a good response, but too late.
It moved first.
"It’s on us, it’s on the walkway—"
Its head swung again, then its shoulder drove into the nearest man before he could complete the motion.
The impact threw him into the stone behind him hard enough to drop him immediately.
His weapon went over the edge.
"MOVE!"
Godric’s voice cut across the walkway from the east end.
The nearest squad pivoted away from the wall face toward the new threat.
Aestrith’s hands came off the stone.