Refuge: Kurt's Quest (7 page)

With another quick grab and swivel he had
another body on its way, then jumped up and back, spinning around on the way
until he landed on the top of the wagon.  He turned just in time to swat a
lance head away from Fenris, while taking another in a glancing blow from his breastplate. 
Fenri backed away while fitting an arrow, then releasing a point blank range at
one of the horsemen.  Kurt brought his blade overhead in one hand, then
immediately brought it down on the head of the nearest enemy knight.  The blade
crushed helmet and skull, and broke the man’s neck in an instant, and he fell
off of his horse, knocking another man from his own.

Three more lance heads thrust in, two bouncing
again from his breastplate.  One sought the gap between his pauldron and upper
arm armor on the inside of his again raised arm, pushing through the chain and
into the muscle below.  Kurt grunted in pain, forcing himself to concentrate on
keeping a grip on the sword that his hand wanted to release.  More lances
thrust in at the only target they could reach, and he backhanded them with his
other arm, then dropped back from the wagon to the ground.

The horsemen were milling about on the other side
of the wagon, having no way to get through.  A horn sounded, and the horsemen,
after a moment’s hesitation, turned their mounts around and trotted away.

“What the hell is going on?” yelled Fenris,
staring at the wagon, then over at Kurt.

Kurt was about to answer that he didn’t know,
when the wagon started to move.  “Shit.  They’ve gotten footmen to the wagon. 
They’re moving it.”

He took a step forward, getting ready to jump
back onto the wagon, when, with a clatter of wheels, it started to roll forward,
away from the alleyway entrance.

“Form up,” yelled the Duke from behind him. 
The men started moving into a shield wall, spears and lances pointed out,
archers and crossbowmen behind them.  Kurt tested his arm, still surprised at
how fast he healed.  The arm was fine, and he reached down to pick up a shield
that had been dropped by one of the dead among their soldiers.

“I’ll take the middle,” he told the Nords who
were in that position.  They moved aside and he stepped into the gap, hefting
the kite shield on his left arm, then moving his hand up to lower his visor. 
He would not need peripheral vision for this as much as protection from
arrows.  The wagon was jerked out of the way, and the Duke’s men let loose with
the arrows and bolts they had ready.  Half a dozen enemy went down, not enough,
as what looked like over a hundred came running into the alley, gripping
spears, swords and axes.

Kurt took the first spear point on his shield,
returning a sword strike that cut the spear in half.  A strike by his shield
pushed the man back, and a sword thrust took out the man to that one’s left. 
Another spear thrust in, and that man screamed out and fell straight down. 
Kurt glanced over to see Garios pulling back his ax, the edge covered in the
blood of the man whose knees he had just cut through.

After that it was a sea of snarling faces, one
pale one after another.  Kurt lost count of the men he killed.  He was aware of
men on his own side going down, and the ranks shrinking and reforming, until
there was only the one thin line which looked to break any moment.

No
, thought Kurt, pushing himself to the limit,
speeding up into a whirlwind of destruction.  His blade seemed to be
everywhere, his shield moving to where the sword was not.  Blood was
everywhere, and the pink matter of brains, as the magical sword cut through
armor like paper under the strength of his arm.  Several weapons struck his
helmet, leaving a ringing in his ears.  He was stung several times by cuts and
pokes, and the sweat was rolling off his face from his metabolism running in
hyper.  In the back of his mind was the warning from Levine, and he wondered
what would be missing from his memory after this battle.  But for there to be
an after this battle, he needed to snatch a victory from this defeat.

And then there were no more enemies near him,
at least living ones.  He panted from the heat overload, and his muscles ached
from the acid buildup.  But he had broken the enemy attack.

“Are you well, my friend?” asked Haraald, putting
a hand on Kurt’s big shoulder,

“Not so much,” he told the noble.  “I am in
danger of overheating, one of the weaknesses of my kind.”

“Then get behind us and rest, for the enemy is
regrouping.”

Kurt looked up to see what the Duke was talking
about.  The footmen were still milling about, many of them looking nervously at
the big man who had just shattered their attack.  Sergeants and knights were in
among them, rallying them, while other knights and men at arms began to form up
with them.  And beyond those on foot were the men on horse, lances pointing to
the sky.

“I hope your friend is successful at the gate,”
said the Duke.

[Jackie, can you hear me,] he sent over the
telepathic link.   And recoiled as a scream came back at him.

*     *     *

The black ball of energy soared straight at
Jackie.  She wasn’t sure what it was, or what its effect would be when it hit
her, but it had an evil look to it, and crackled with dark energy.  It looked
like something out of a science fiction movie, and she knew what happened when
things like that hit people.

And then it was on her, and she screamed with
panic as she felt the energy of the thing.  It had the feel of death, and she
knew that any normal person would be falling to the ground as a shriveled shell
of what they were.  She could feel a stinging as it moved through her, not at
all what she had been expecting.  And then it was through, crackling into the
air on a trajectory that took it away from anyone else.

Jackie was screaming in her mind, aware that
someone else was in there with her for a moment.  [I’m OK,] she sent to Kurt
with the speed of thought speech, ten times faster than verbalizations.  [Some
mage just sent something that scared the hell out of me.]

[We need you to get those other men in here,]
returned Kurt.  [We’re about to get overrun.]

She landed on the tower, immediately striking
the head off of a spear with
Fire
, then the head of the wielder with
Ice. 
A sword came at her, and she ducked down, still in motion from her jump,
then sprung into the air while both of her blades hit that soldier in the neck
from opposite sides.  His entire neck and lower face exploded from the
combination of heat and cold, and she spun in the air over the body.

The Mage threw a lightning bolt her way, which
passed through her with another slight tingle.  She ran a few steps toward him,
a blur with swords trailing red and blue light.  The Mage stared at her with
panic in his eyes, mouthing the words to another spell, one he must have
thought would save him.  That hope died as her blades both thrust through his
chest, and his thorax blew apart from superheat and supercold combining.

Jackie looked around the tower top, at the
eleven other soldiers who were eying her nervously, holding their weapons
tight. 
Might as well get this over with
, she thought.  She didn’t think
they would surrender, and she didn’t have time to try to talk them into
lowering their weapons.  So with a yell and a sprint she ran right at them, her
swords spinning in the air.

She was wounded a couple of times, slight
superficial cuts on her hands, one to her cheek.  Her chain was as good as any
made on this world, and the hits on it did nothing to penetrate, while her
gambeson beneath took up most of the impact.  There would still be bruises, but
nothing that wouldn’t heal in moments.

When she slowed down she controlled the tower
top, as there was no one there to contest it.  Looking over at the other top,
she saw that it was full of the Duke’s soldiers, almost thirty of them.  But
still not enough to take the city.  To get the rest in they needed to open the
gate.

[Can you take the next room down, Sir Gromli?]
she sent to the knight.

[We can only try,] returned the knight.  [It
will be difficult to get down that hatch in the face of opposition, especially
if they have a mage down there.]

[Hold tight for a moment,] she sent back as she
grabbed the catapult with both of her hands and started to pull it over the
hatch to her tower.  She grunted with the exertion, reveling in her strength. 
She had always been a strong woman, able to keep up with even the elite male
athletes at the Academy.  And now she was stronger than the strongest man on
her home world.  Still, the light catapult was only so in name, and she was
finding it hard to move.  With another grunt and the scrapping of wood on rock
she got it moving faster, until enough of it was over the hatch to prevent it
from opening.

Here goes nothing
, she thought, looking
down at the wall top between the towers, and the quartet of enemy that
controlled it.  There were doors on each side of the walkway leading into the
first level of the towers.  Jackie threw herself from the tower top through the
opening between crenellations, landing before a pair of the stunned enemy, who
barely had time to drop their bows and reach for swords before she had taken
their lives.  The other pair were able to get their swords out, not that it
prolonged their lives by much.

Jackie ran to the door that led to the room
below Gromli’s men, hitting it in full stride with her shoulder, and bouncing
off with a cry of pain. 
Shit.  That door’s just too damned strong.  Kurt or
Paul might be able to break it down, but I don’t have the mass.
 She looked
at the door, growled in anger for a moment, then shoved
Ice
through the
hard wood.  She held the sword in place, letting its super cold work into the
wood, turning it into a frozen thickness of oak.  Holding the blade in place,
she shoved
Fire
in next to it and willed the sword to flare into its
maximum heat.  The wood shattered, blasting mostly inward, though some fragments
flew out to hit her armored body.  There was now a gap in the door over a meter
high by half a meter wide, still not large enough to get through in the face of
opposition.

There it is
, she thought, looking at the bar that
held the door in place, now visible through the hole.  It was iron braced oak,
and looked too stout to succumb to mere blades.  But there was nothing mere
about
Fire
or
Ice
, and a swift stroke downward cut halfway
through the bar.  Drawing the blades out cut through part of the rest and the
edges sawed at the wood.  And a swift kick shattered what was left of the bar
and crashed the door inward.

A pair of bolts came flying out, one a clean
miss, the other hitting Jackie’s helm and bouncing into the air.  [Open the
hatch and get down here,] she sent to the men above as she moved into the room
with swords swinging.  She had caught one of the enemy in the shoulder, then
shoved her blade through another, when yet another bolt came flying in and hit
her.  But this one was different, with a glowing blue point, a magical
penetrator that punched through her armor and into her left lung.

Crap, but that hurts
, she thought as she
stifled a scream, then realized that she wasn’t capable of doing more than
gurgling as blood rushed out of her mouth in a gout.   She ignored the pain for
a moment, cutting down another enemy, while the hatch above rose to let in more
light, as well as three arrows, followed by two bolts and a spear, all hitting
a target in the crowded room.

Jackie batted aside another blade as she
returned
Ice
to its sheath.  She gripped the bolt with her left hand and
tore it out, this time screaming as it ripped back through her flesh.  Her
voice died in mid-scream as more blood poured from her mouth, but she had the
bolt out and dropped to the floor.  The Immortal backed into a wall, using
Fire
to parry, not able to attack at the moment.  The pain in her chest began to
subside, the blood stopped flowing up her throat, and she knew that the healing
was taking place.

More projectiles came from above, taking out
more of the enemy, until the first man dropped from above to join the fight. 
It took some minutes to fight the enemy back to the stairs leading down, where
some more of them were trying to battle their way up.

“You keep fighting your way down, Sir
Gromli,”she told the knight as he came down the ladder.

“What are you going to do?” he asked.

“Get that damned gate open,” she said, looking
back at the door that led to the wall between the towers.  “We don’t have time
to dick around here.”

“You’re not going to try and take it by
yourself?  That’s suicide.”

“I’ve done pretty well so far.  But if you want
to help me, get as many of your archers and spear throwers on the tower and the
walls as you can.  Your support from above would be appreciated.”

And with that she was heading back out the
door, to step up on the wall that blocked off the inner part of the walkway. 
“Geronimo,” she shouted, a call back to her old days in airborne training, and
jumped from the wall, the six meters below looking a whole lot farther than
before she took the step.  Men below where trying to crowd into the tower
Gromli and his men were fighting their way down.  Some looked up to see her,
and started running toward her landing zone.