Then Hanaleisa was there. She leaped up and ahead, rising between the skeleton closing on her and the one battling Temberle. Hanaleisa kicked out to the sides, both feet flying wide. With a jolting rattle of bones, the two skeletons flew apart.
Hanaleisa landed lightly, rising up on the ball of her left foot and spinning a powerful circle-kick into the gut of the next approaching zombie.
Her foot went right through it, and when she tried to retract, she discovered herself hooked on the monster’s spine. She pulled back again, having little choice, and found herself even more entangled as the zombie, not quite destroyed by the mighty blow, reached and clawed at her.
Temberle’s sword stabbed in hard from the side, taking the monster in the face and skewering it.
Hanaleisa stumbled back, still locked with the corpse. “Protect me!” she yelled to her brother, but she bit the words back sharply as she noted Temberle’s arm covered in blood, and with more streaming from the wound. As he clenched his sword to swing again, his forearm muscles tightening, blood sprayed into the air.
Hanaleisa knew he couldn’t go on for long. None of them could. Exhausted and horrified, and with their backs almost against the wall of the wharf’s storehouse, they needed a break from the relentless assault, needed something to give them time to regroup and bandage themselves—or Temberle would surely bleed to death.
Finally pulling free and leaping to both feet, Hanaleisa glanced around for Pikel, or for an escape route, or for anything that might give her hope. All she saw was yet another defender being pulled down by the undead horde, and a sea of monsters all around them.
In the distance, just a few blocks away, more fires leaped to angry life as Carradoon burned.
With a sigh of regret, a grunt of determination, and a sniffle to hold back her tears, the young woman went back into the fray ferociously, pounding the monster nearest her and the one battling Temberle with blow after blow. She leaped and spun, kicked and punched, and her brother tried to match her.
But his swings were slowing as his blood continued to drain.
The end was coming fast.
“They’re too heavy!” a young girl complained, straining to lift a keg with little success. Suddenly, though, it grew lighter and rose up through the trapdoor as easily as if it were empty. Indeed, when she saw that no one was pushing from below, the girl did glance underneath at the bottom of the keg, thinking its whiskey must have all drained out.
On the roof nearby, Rorick kept his focus, commanding an invisible servant to hold fast to the keg and help the little one. It wasn’t much of a spell, but Rorick wasn’t yet much of a wizard, and in times of unpredictable and often backfiring magic, he dared not attempt more difficult tricks.
He found satisfaction in his efforts, though, reminding himself that leaders needed to be clever and thoughtful, not just strong of arm or Art. His father had never been the greatest of fighters, and it wasn’t until near the end of the troubles that had come to Edificant Library that Cadderly had truly come into his own Deneir-granted power. Still, Rorick wished he’d trained more the way his sister and brother had. Leaning heavily on a walking stick, his ankle swollen and pus oozing from the dirty wound, he was reminded with every pained step that he really wasn’t much of a warrior.
I’m not much of a wizard, either, he thought, and he winced as his unseen servant dissipated. The girl, overbalanced with the keg, tumbled down. The side of the container broke open and whiskey spilled over the corner of the storehouse roof.
“What now, then?” a sailor asked, and it took Rorick a moment to realize that the man, far older and more seasoned than he, was speaking to him, was looking to him for direction.
“Be a leader,” Rorick mumbled under his breath, and he pointed toward the front of the storehouse, to the edge of the low roof, where below the battle was on in full.
“Doo-dad!” came a familiar cry from far to Hanaleisa’s right, much beyond Temberle. She started to glance that way, but saw movement up above and fell back, startled.
Out over the heads of the defenders came the whiskey kegs—by the dozen! They sailed out and crashed down, some atop zombies and other wretched creatures, others smashing hard on the cobblestones.
“What in the—?” more than one surprised defender cried out, Temberle included.
“Doo-dad!” came the emphatic answer.
All the defenders looked that way to see Pikel charging at them. His right arm was stretched out to the side, shillelagh pointed at the horde. The club threw sparks, and at first the bright light alone kept the undead back from Pikel, clearing the way as he continued his run. But more importantly, those sparks sizzled out to the spilled alcohol, and nothing burned brighter than Carradden whiskey.
The dwarf ran on, the enchanted cudgel spitting its flares, and flames roared up in response.
Despite her pain, despite her fear for her brothers, Hanaleisa couldn’t help but giggle as the dwarf passed, his stumpy arm flapping like the wing of a wounded duck. He was not running, Hanaleisa saw—he was skipping.
An image of a five-year-old Rorick skipping around her mother’s garden outside Spirit Soaring, sparkler in hand, flashed in Hanaleisa’s mind, and a sudden contentment washed over her, as if she was certain that Uncle Pikel would make everything all right.She shook the notion away quickly, though, and finished off a nearby monster that was caught on their side of the fire wall. Then she ran to Temberle, who was already calling out to organize the retreat. Hanaleisa reached into her pouch and pulled forth some clean cloth, quickly tying off Temberle’s torn arm.
And not a moment too soon. Her brother nodded appreciatively, then swooned. Hanaleisa caught him and called for help, directing a woman to retrieve Temberle’s greatsword, for she knew—they all knew—he would surely need it again, and very soon.
Into the storehouse they went, a line of weary and battered defenders—battered emotionally as much as physically, perhaps even more so, for they knew to a man and woman that their beloved Carradoon was unlikely to survive the surprise onslaught.
“You saved us all,” Hanaleisa said to Rorick a short while later, when they were all together once more.
“Uncle Pikel did the dangerous work,” Rorick said, nodding his chin toward the dwarf.
“Doo-dad, hee hee hee,” said the dwarf. He presented his shillelagh and added, “Boom!” with a shake of his hairy head.
“We’re not saved yet,” Temberle said from a small window overlooking the carnage on the street. Conscious again, but still weakened, the young man’s voice sounded grim indeed. “Those fires won’t last for long.”
It was true, but the whiskey-fueled conflagration had turned the battle and saved their cause. The stupid undead knew no fear and had kept coming on, their rotting clothes and skin adding fuel to the flames as they crumpled and burned atop their fellows.
But a few stragglers were getting through, scratching at the storehouse walls, battering the planks, and the fires outside were burning low.
One zombie walked right through the fires and came out ablaze. Still it advanced, right to the storehouse door, and managed to pound its fists a few times before succumbing to the flames. And as bad luck would have it, those flames licked at the wood. They wouldn’t have been of consequence, except from the roof above, one of the kegs had overturned, spilling its volatile contents across the roof and down the side.
Several people screamed as the corner of the storehouse flared up. Some went to try to battle the flames, but to no avail. Worse, the keg throwers hadn’t emptied about a third of the whiskey stocks from the storehouse. Whiskey was one of Carradoon’s largest exports—boats sailed out with kegs of the stuff almost every tenday.