The wall shook. Xenai kept coming through the gap, not caring that they were killing themselves in the lightning Shara had conjured just outside the hole. The bodies stacked up until they couldn’t slip through the bottleneck, but that didn’t stop them. They began crawling over their dead, jumping down and over the lightning. James backed up, creating a half circle with the other soldiers near him, surrounding where they landed. Before the Xenai could recover their feet from jumping, they stabbed and cut them apart, until the new pile of bodies became a slide that each Xenai slid down. They were coming too fast to take them all out, throwing themselves against the soldiers that surrounded them. The disadvantage of their daggers and small swords against the Pact shields and spears didn’t seem to bother them. They flung themselves in recklessly, stabbing anything they could find before they died.
We need to retreat!
“Fall back!” He yelled, not caring that no such order had come from an officer. No one listened. He heard the cracking and looked over at the wall while jabbing his sword into a charging Xenai. The wall had a large crack extending from a spot a dozen feet from the gap all the way to the gap itself. A giant thud hit and it shattered. Time seemed to stretch as he saw the giant chunks of rock flying inward at the group of men, followed by a hulking figure of a Xenai. The pile of Xenai bodies toppled into the space in the newly widened gap.
The rocks suddenly stopped midair, then launched themselves the opposite direction, colliding into the oversized Xenai. A few zipped around it, knocking the wave of normal Xenai behind it off their feet. He spun around and looked towards Shara’s tower, only to find it wasn’t there anymore. She was running toward his wall, arms pushed out in front of her. He caught a flash of movement behind her. The other Source-casters had all run to the east side. It was just her coming to help them.
He felt conflicting waves of both gratitude and terror.
They’re going to kill her!
He had taken his eyes off the battle for too long. As he started to turn back towards the wall, he felt a sharp, burning jab in his leg. He blinked down in shock to find the hilt of a dagger protruding out of the outer side of his leg. He gasped and fell with the dead Xenai, who still held onto the dagger.
Another Xenai saw the opening and launched itself at him. He raised his shield, stabbing it into the Xenai corpse in front of him. The attacker hit it, landing on the top part that curved back and launched itself again, sailing over his head into the line of soldiers behind him. He heard the sounds of it dying as another heavy body hit his shield, launching itself off of it.
Shit, I’m helping them!
He lowered the shield. A Xenai was midair, about to land on it before he moved it. He dodged, rolling over the knife still in his leg, and screamed. The Xenai crashed to the ground behind him. Another launched itself at him, not caring that he had put the shield down. It stopped in the air, hovering above him as if it had hit a wall. It let out a horrible scream, dropped its weapons, and started clutching at its shoulder. Suddenly, strands of red burst from it, slicing through its body, spraying blood around it as it burst into pieces. A small black crystal hovered where its shoulder had been, then it lurched forward over his head. He felt a small arm wrap itself around him and pull. He struggled to his feet as it pulled him back. He turned to find Shara next to him. She smiled and stepped around him, placing herself between the charging Xenai and him. She pulled out a dagger from one of her two belts that held sheaths and kneeled, one leg out to the side. She reached out, the black gem in her hand, as the black smoky forms of the Xenai horde charged through the opening.
The surrounding ranks of Pact soldiers rushed to her side. She shuddered as if hit with tremendous force and he saw the rush of Xenai stop in their tracks. They began to scream and so did Shara, as if what she was doing hurt her as much as it hurt them. Before her, the front line of Xenai rose off the ground and burst into pieces, splashes of blood and red lines flying out of them. The loops of red sliced through their bodies, hitting anything nearby. They tumbled to the ground in pieces.
Fucking hell—no wonder they want to kill her.
One Xenai remained in the front of the charge, now standing alone surrounded by body parts. It did not have the smoky appearance of the others, but rather looked like an Illara overgrown with the branches of a tree. It kept charging straight towards Shara.
He heard Shara mumble something, and she grabbed her head as she lost her footing and fell to her knees. He pushed himself to his feet and hobbled over to her, getting there as a few of the soldiers near her took care of the single Xenai left. James grabbed at her, “Come on! We have to go!”
She looked up at him, as if confused, “I—what?—so many voices.”
Another charge was forming up. James looked down at Shara, the fear welling up inside him. He had to get her away from here, but if she couldn’t move, he had no chance to carry her to safety. He looked back up at the Xenai and blinked back his surprise when Coilsen jumped in front of their charge. He held his arms out. He had no weapons. Shara snapped her head to look at him. James felt it, too. He couldn’t make out what he was sending, but it was clear he was trying to communicate to the Xenai via Intuition. His tall Illara form stood firm, and the Xenai charge slowed. They came to a stop just a foot away from Coilsen, looking down at him, then their heads turned in unison to look at Shara, still on the ground.
She pulled herself up, grasping onto James for support as she trembled and held out the black stone and closed her eyes.
The Xenai turned and ran.