The Lengthening Shadow
Chapter 30: The Battle

Malcolm and Aidan led their troops up the inside of the hill. Weasels, rats, and stoats galore were shoved off the stairways into the great main cave, where they met with their end in the fiery pits. An arrow twanged from above, and the shaft pierced Malcolm’s paw. “Hellgates,” he muttered before drawing a pistol and slaying the archer with a single shot. The pair’s force numbered thirty strong, against the six hundred on the upper levels. Malcolm knew the odds and liked them. More battle for him. A grendana boulder slammed against the wall in front of them and the mouse cursed again. “Aidan, we’ve got to damned well get out of here!”

“Good for you!”

Aidan swung the sword of Brushtipp and beheaded a marten as they leaped over the boulder and up more stairs into a small corridor. At least a hundred Thazancians were waiting, Iolargh at their head. The Destromancer swung his wand, unlocking gates in the walls. Ten large Wyrms crawled out and looked malevolently at the Fernwooders. Malcolm and Aidan dodged just in time as a spray of black fire shot from a Wyrm’s mouth and burned a large hole in the stone floor. Blasts of the flame rocked the hall, all of them just missing the small band. Faced with their current situation, they did something only Aidan and Malcolm would be dumb enough to do: they charged.

Iolargh had no time to react as the two blades of the mouse and squirrel crossed and chopped his head clean off. Vermin were flattened like grass; some by the Wyrms, and some by the Fernwooders. Aidan and Malcolm, at the same exact time, leaped onto the tails of a pair of Wyrms. They ran up the scaled backs and stuck their swords into the snakes’ skulls. Both huge forms fell dead simultaneously as Aidan and Malcolm slid down their necks and jumped off. After that, it was chaos. In three minutes, they had cleared the hall. Aidan grinned. “A hundred down, five hundred to go.”

Felixa and Rivenhand battled down the stairs onto a narrow ledge in the main cave. They were both bleeding from a dozen wounds, but Rivenhand laid his paw on a lever. “Squirrel, if I pull this, all your friends will die. You’ll just watch them…”

She was not even listening now. Felixa, she thought, is your life really worth all of theirs?

No. It is for my companions’ sake that I do what I am about to do.

Rivenhand was standing still, gloating over his victory, when she struck. Barreling forward, Felixa slammed into the fisher. She did not flinch when he buried a knife in her chest, instead stabbing him also. Locked together in a deadly embrace, they tumbled off the cliff, and so they ended. The pair spiralled down, down, down into the red maw of the abyss. The lever was crushed by a boulder flying after they fell, so ending the threat. Certaria was now freed from the infamous fisher.

Aidan and Malcolm fought back to back up the stairs onto the balconies. They slashed their way through and onto the wide grassy plain that made up the top of the hill. The mouse was having the time of his life. “Isn’t this great?”

“If it is, it’s good for you!” Aidan called back.

“Do you think we’ll win?”

“Maybe… or will we?”

“What’s your count of dead?”

The squirrel stopped and thought. “I lost track. That weasel down in the corridor was the last one I remember; forty-seven, I think he was.

“I’m at seventy-six!”

“Good for you!” Aidan replied as he ran a ferret through the back with gusto. “Hope you’re happy.”

“I am!”

It was black as tar in the night, brightened only by the glow of Thazancian torches and the occasional shimmering of Wyrmflame, for that was the name of the black fire. However, the torches came closer. The thirty Fernwooders kept holding them back. Malcolm slew a torchbearer, but as he fell dead he threw his torch into a tree. The dry leaves caught immediately and the wind spread the flames so that soon the whole glade was ablaze. Aidan was still cheerful. “At least we’ve got some light now.”

Samuel dodged behind a pillar, narrowly evading a glowing energy bolt that was spit from the jewel on the end of Spera’s wand. The mink was doing his best to hide anger. “You can’t hide forever, Samuel! Come on out and face me! Are you a man or a mouse?”

“I don’t know what a man is, but you can be damn well sure I’m a mouse!”

“You know nothing. Let me kill you quickly!”

Tarsch sprinted into Samuel. He shouted out at the fuming Destromancer. “I’m here too!”

“Why won’t you two come out and die?!”

Samuel decided it was speech time. “Because we stand for good. We will never yield to the wishes of one like you. As it says in the twelve-thousand year old manuscript by someone called Shake-Spear, ‘Why should I yield to that suggestion, whose horrid image doth unfix my hair?’”

“What in the world? Are you saying I have a horrid image?”

Samuel smiled. “If I am to not mince my words, yes.”

“Why you little…” The mink was so angry he could not replace words for his rage.

The mouse continued. “You’re an idiot. And I mean that, sincerely.”

The grass had set on fire now. Aidan and Malcolm were hard-pressed to keep their troops unscorched and alive under constant Thazancian arrow volleys. Suddenly, a mouse spotted a tree that wasn’t burning. “This way,” he called to the rest, “Follow me!”

They scrambled up into the branches and looked down. On three sides were the enemy, and the other was sheer cliffs and the sea. The mouse, Cielin, looked around. “I guess there isn’t anywhe...aarrgh!”

An arrow stuck into his back and he toppled off into the flames. Malcolm looked grimly down at the ocean. “Nowhere but Hellgates.”

A stoat officer, Wetblade, called up to them. “Do you surrender?”

Aidan responded by letting off a volley of rifle blasts that killed Wetblade instantly. “Never!”

Suddenly, he became aware of a cracking noise from under him. The tree, overburdened with the weight of the Fernwooders, was beginning to topple over into the fire. They all scrambled to the other end and the tree tipped that way. Finally, they all ran down the trunk as the forest giant fell over and squashed several enemies. Aidan and Malcolm attacked with a fury unmatched by the Thazancian defenses, killing most. Suddenly, several Wyrms swooped down and snatched up Fernwooders in their mouths. The squirrel and mouse decided that enough was enough. Within seconds, the trio of flying snakes was lying dead and the rest of the Thazancians had either burned to death or fallen off the cliffs.

Seeing that the situation on the balconies was taken care of, Aidan led his depleted force down into the Bluff again. The battle had not changed much. The forces were equally matched, but the Thazancian force vastly outnumbered Samuel’s, made worse by Alrack’s betrayal. They would be overrun and slain in time; the only solution was to kill Spera. It seemed an uphill battle, but the Company was all for it. The only thing left to do was take care of the remaining scorpions. They, on another of Spera’s signals, had exited the caves and rejoined the conflict. Aidan and Malcolm were waiting. Their swords cleaved more of the creatures than Vi’lle could count, pushing them back until the final vile arachnid was exterminated.

Aidan was separated from Malcolm in the battle. He was pushed into a side corridor… where he felt a dagger in his back. It was being lightly pressed in by Alrack. “Hello, squirrel.”

“Who are you?”

“Ah, so defiant. Just like your parents, I remember. They too were so stubbornly valiant that they died when they could have lived. Turn and look, Aidan Goldfur, at your parents’ killer!”

The squirrel spun and looked into a pair of cold aquamarine eyes. “Alrack Bloodfen. We meet at last, murderer.”

“Fight me.”

“Fine.”

Soon, a full-out swordfight was going on in that small room. Alrack leaped out of the way of Aidan’s sword and into the main cave. He tripped and dropped his dagger into the depths of the pit. Aidan walked towards him, ready to kill. Alrack smiled, gave him a wink, and dropped into the chasm. Aidan looked over the edge and slapped a paw to his head. Alrack had dropped onto a swinging catwalk operated by Goldtail and was getting away. He waved back at the prince. “So long, squirrel! May we meet again!”

Samuel and Tarsch lay flat as a blast shot over their heads and hit the wall behind them. Spera flew around shooting again and again, missing every time. The mink shouted a curse and shot at the pillar that they were hiding behind. It crashed to the floor as Samuel and the ferret ran and zig-zagged around the room to confuse Spera. Tarsch decided to bolt for the door. It slammed closed. Every exit from the chamber shut and locked. Tarsch tried to magic it open, but with no effect. “He must have magically locked them,” he whispered to Samuel.

The mink, at that moment, blasted a fireball at them. The wooden parts of the room caught at once. Spera grinned and advanced. “What have you done?” asked Tarsch.

“I’ve caught you now. There is no escape from the Bluff. You, Samuel Lenolin, and you, Tarsch Varlane, will die by my hand.”