Trail of the Gods: The Morcyth Saga Book Four (33 page)

Jiron tackles the one with his knives and
quickly retrieves them. A quick slash across the man’s throat and
he’s taken out of action. Rolling, he moves away from the soldiers
just as another crashes to the ground, a gaping hole where his
chest used to be.

The leader throws down his torch as he and
the other remaining soldier flee down the street into the darkness.
Just before they leave the area illuminated by the torches on the
ground, another slug flies out, taking out the soldier. The leader
disappears into the darkness, the sound of his running feet and
shouts echoing as he flees for his life.

James appears out of the darkness and asks,
“You okay?”

“Fine,” replies Jiron. “You? I was worried
when you fell.”

“Just had the wind knocked out of me was
all,” he assures him. “We better get out of here.”

From further into town, a horn begins
blowing. Other horns from all around them sound in reply. “That
tears it!” exclaims Jiron. Turning, he leads them back to the
collapsed building.

Lights can be seen moving along streets in
the distance as soldiers make their way toward their location.
Horns continue to sound, making it seem as if the entire city is
mobilizing to hunt for them.

Arriving at the structure, Jiron steps out
upon the beam and begins to make his way across to the next when it
gives out with a groan and collapses. James reaches out and catches
hold of him just as the entire structure gives way and
collapses.

James falls to his knees as Jiron’s weight
pulls him to the ground. Jiron falls hard against the wall of
basement just beneath James and grabs hold of the edge. Pulling
hard, James hauls him quickly back to the street.

“Thanks,” Jiron says as he gets to his
feet.

“Don’t mention it, let’s just get out of
here.”

The total collapse of the structure has
blocked off their escape route. If they had time maybe they could
dig their way through it, but not with soldiers on the way.

“Come on!” Jiron yells as he begins running
away, sure that any pursuit will begin in this area. They’ve got to
get out of here fast. Racing off down the street, they don’t get
far before they see a mob of soldiers enter the street three blocks
away from them. The soldiers turn and begin making their way toward
them.

Coming to a quick stop, Jiron grabs James
and pushes him down an adjacent alley before the oncoming soldiers
have a chance to spot them. Moving quickly they race for the other
end of the alley.

As they draw near the end of the alley, it’s
suddenly lit from the light of torches held in the hands of more
approaching soldiers. Pressing themselves against the side of the
alley, they wait until the squad passes and then enter the street
behind the marching soldiers, running the way the soldiers had just
come from.

More lights appear ahead of them. “In here!”
Jiron looks back to see James at an open doorway, motioning for him
to follow. Running back, he moves through the doorway right after
James and shuts the door.

They move quickly through to the back of the
house, the light from the torches moving out on the street giving
them ample light with which to see by. Before Jiron opens the
backdoor, James grabs his arm and stops him.

“What?” he asks, turning around to face
him.

“We need to figure out just where we’re
going to go,” he insists.

“There’s only going to be so many ways out
of Saragon,” Jiron says. “And you can bet they’ll have them all
covered with as many men as they can spare.”

“So how are we to get out?” he asks.

“Hopefully we can find a gate that’s not too
well manned and force our way through,” he explains. “With all the
commotion going on, we’ll not be able to sneak our way out.”

“No, you’re probably right,” he agrees. “We
should head for the part of the city where they’ve set up camp. I
doubt if they’ll think we would head in that direction.”

“As good as any way, I suppose,” replies
Jiron. “Have you felt anything that might indicate a mage in the
city?”

Shaking his head, James says, “No, not
yet.”

“That’s good,” he affirms.

Moving to the back door, he opens it a crack
and finds the alley outside to be dark. Slipping out with James
right behind, they head toward the Empire’s camp within the
city.

Light from the search parties and soldiers
hollering out to one another can be seen and heard on neighboring
streets. The bulk of the searchers seem to be heading back toward
where they were first spotted. Horns continue to sound throughout
the city.

Jiron takes them down another side alley
which ends at a major thoroughfare. Peering around the corner, he
sees search parties down both sides of the street. “Not this way,”
he says to James. Turning to go back the way they had come, they
see light approaching the end of the alley.

Stopping and pressing themselves to the side
of a neighboring building, they watch as the light continues to
approach the alley. Suddenly, the soldiers appear at the end of the
alley and turn into it, coming straight for them. “Run!” exclaims
Jiron as he bolts back down toward the thoroughfare with James
right behind him.

At the sight of them running, the men behind
give chase as one of them sounds a horn, alerting the city that
they’ve been found.

Bursting out onto the thoroughfare, Jiron
sees men running toward them from both directions. Not even
pausing, he crosses over to the alley on the other side and
continues to flee.

Crumph!

The end of the alley bordering the
thoroughfare suddenly explodes as the buildings facing it begin
collapsing, effectively blocking the alley and preventing their
pursuers from following. As they exit the far side of the alley, a
billow of dust belches forth from the collapsing of the buildings
behind them.

The street the alley opens on is wide and
currently unoccupied. “Head to the wall!” James cries to Jiron.

Taking but a moment to check which way lies
the shortest distance to the wall, he turns to the right. There
ahead of them, the wall looms high over the tops of the buildings.
They can hear the screaming and shouting of soldiers from behind
them, as they pour into the street from a junction further back.
Glancing behind them, Jiron guesses there must be a hundred or more
soldiers back there.

Ahead of them in the street is a large
square with a fountain that had seen better days. At one time it
used to have four tiers where water would rain down from one to the
other. Now, it lies all but broken, only a small section of what
used to be the top two tiers remains.

As they come toward the square, four
soldiers enter from a side street and charge. A slug takes one out
before they even have a chance to close the distance. Jiron moves
to intercept as a second slug takes out another.

The first to engage Jiron strikes out with
his sword. Jiron deflects it to the side as he follows through with
a thrust using his other knife, taking the soldier in the chest.
Kicking the dying man off his knife, the soldier flails into his
partner, throwing him off balance.

Jiron moves in quickly and takes the
remaining soldier out. As the last dead body hits the ground…

Crumph!

…the street behind them explodes upward.
Looking back, he sees a dust cloud in the torch light as bodies
rain back down to the street. Pursuit momentarily halted from that
avenue, they turn and continue toward the wall.

“How are you doing?” he asks James, worried
that the magic may be making him weak.

“So far I’m doing alright,” he tells
him.

“Good, I’d hate to have to carry you out of
here!” he says with a grin.

“I wouldn’t care for that either,” he
replies.

They race further on, horns still sounding
behind them, but are eerily quiet before them. James figures most
of the pursuit has been directed back behind them before he started
doing magic and letting them know their whereabouts.

The wall now looms large before them. The
street they are on comes to the base of the wall and they are
forced to either turn left or right. Both ways look the same, so
they turn to the left and race along the wall, hoping to find a way
out.

Out of the dark ahead of them, they begin to
see light as they approach the gates. Coming to a stop, they see
arrayed before them, over a hundred men as well as a dozen or more
crossbowmen. Five other crossbowmen man the walls above the
gate.

“Man, what are we going to do?” Jiron asks
him.

“I don’t know,” he admits. “The magic I
would need to use to clear that away would leave me unconscious if
not outright kill me.”

They make to turn around when from behind
them, the force that had been stopped by the exploding street now
boils into view behind them. When the soldiers see them standing
there, a cry goes up and horns begin to sound as they charge.

The force at the gate, now aware of their
presence, forms into ranks as they make a wall of iron across the
street. The crossbowmen ready their crossbows.

Crumph!

The ground behind them erupts, throwing the
leading edge of the charging men in the air in the hopes of slowing
them down. It does, but only momentarily.

James readies a spell for the group by the
gates when their lines begin to buckle and he sees the crossbowmen
on the walls turn and appear to be firing at their own forces.
Whatever the reason, he changes his tactics and begins peppering
the crossbowmen on the walls with slugs and they begin to fall.

“Look!” cries Jiron as he points to the
force in front of the gates.

James turns his attention to them and sees
them fighting with men in slave rags.
The slaves!

“Come on!” Jiron says as he races to the
gates and the fighting going on there.

James runs behind him as he sees a group of
twenty slaves bearing nothing but makeshift clubs and scavenged
weapons, race toward the gatehouse. The crossbowmen on the ground
see them and a flight of bolts cuts down half before they make
it.

The ten or so left reach the gatehouse where
they overpower the two guards there and are soon inside. Two of the
slaves lay dead at the gatehouse door.

James glances down the street behind him and
sees the force there that had been stopped by the erupting of the
street now making their way around the blasted area and continuing
the pursuit.

Hundreds of slaves pour into the ranks of
the defenders by the gates. The group of crossbowmen, who had so
recently mowed down the men on their way to the gatehouse, are now
chopped to pieces or bludgeoned to death by men bent on
revenge.

Suddenly, the gate opens up just as the last
remaining soldier before the gate falls. A cry erupts and is
quickly dampened by a man, an old man. Shouting out orders, he
forms them into a line to meet the oncoming soldiers.

James looks his way and for a moment their
eyes lock. He gives James a grin and a nod before resuming the
marshalling of his forces.

“James! We’ve got to go now!” yells Jiron,
trying to be heard over the noise of horns and men shouting.

“But they’ll be killed!” counters James.

“They know that!” replies Jiron. “They’re
not doing it for their freedom. They’re doing it for revenge on
those who destroyed their town and killed its people.” Grabbing him
by the shoulder, he propels him toward the widening gates. “And one
is doing it so you can get out of here! Don’t let them have died in
vain.”

Before passing through the gate, he glances
back just as the two forces meet. The slaves are no match for the
soldiers, but have the numbers in their favor. He sees the old man
out in front of his men, sword held high and time seems to slow as
he engages with the nearest soldier.

He runs the soldier through and pulls out
his sword to ward off the blow of the next, but isn’t fast enough.
James watches as the soldier’s blade strikes off the old man’s left
arm. Before he has a chance to strike the old man again, the old
man runs him through the chest where his sword becomes lodged. Then
he passes out of sight as another slave comes to take his place in
line.

A slave comes up to them and says, “Get out
now! We can’t hold them off for long!”

“What was the old man’s name?” James asks
the slave as he’s being pulled through the gates by Jiron.

“Derrion,” the slave replies as he and
others push to close the gates.

With a resounding thud, the gates close and
they can hear the locking mechanism secure the gates.

“Now let’s run!” Jiron cries out.

They turn to run and come to a stop when
they see twenty horsemen arrayed before them. Without even a pause,
James releases the power.

Crumph!

The center of the line of horsemen erupts
upward from the force of the explosion. The horses not caught in
the blast rear up, some unseating their riders. Jiron races forward
to meet them before they have a chance to recover. James follows as
slug after slug flies through the air, taking out more of the
remaining horsemen.

Jiron closes with one of the unhorsed
soldiers and blocks his attack with both knives while kicking out
and connecting with the man’s knee. Bones snap as the man cries out
in pain. Leaving him there to writhe on the ground, Jiron moves
toward two horses milling around without riders.

Crumph!

Another explosion erupts, throwing more men
and horses into the air.

Jiron almost reaches the horses before
another unhorsed rider closes with him and strikes out with his
sword. Catching it on crossed knives, Jiron pushes outward and
throws the man backward off balance. Moving in quickly, he strikes
out and scores two quick thrusts, one which punctures a lung. As
the man falls, Jiron runs past and reaches the horses.