Façades

[Proto Man]

Mireya and Proto Man burst through the doorway that led from the stairwell to the platform at the top of the city walls. The sky was black, but the lack of a moon told them that dawn would be approaching sooner rather than later.

In front of them, a group of soldiers were already dead, their bodies partially mutilated by the squadron of skeletons standing like gargoyles at the edge of the wall. The pair of primes had spotted the dead creatures on previous days. They were the ‘skeletal guard’ that served as an increasingly integral part of the Darkshire garrison/militia. Only instead of defending the city, they had murdered the morning shift and now stood watch near a trio of wobbling ladders.

“Take them down!” Mireya shouted as she rushed forward with her spear. The half-night elf dropped beneath the swing of a heavy axe and thrust her weapon forward, punching up into the skeleton’s skull. The impact tore the undead creature’s head away from its vertebra, and its body went limp and fell backwards off the wall. A heavy blast of energy knocked away the closest skeleton as it tried to slash open her back with its sword.

Moving forward, Mireya grabbed hold of the top of the ladder, but before she could throw her weight behind knocking it back, a curved blade slashed at her face. The half-night elf recoiled sharply and tried to kick at the ladder. She was tackled to the ground by an unarmed skeleton as the drow started to reach the top of their ladders and step onto the platform.

Back near the door, Proto Man continued to release bursts of energy, and from behind him, the other members of the garrison started to flood out onto the platform. The robot quickly had to slow down his rate of fire as the cramped area started to become crowded with bodies, both human and non-human. As more drow scrambled onto the battlements, the members of Tower Six’s garrison rushed to prevent them. In the process, the entire platform became a mass of bodies and swords that made it impossible for Proto Man to maneuver in view of anything important.

...Tarter sauce.

Mireya grunted as she climbed up onto the battlement and hopped to avoid a scimitar aimed at her shins. Once she was back on her feet, she thrust her spear into the skull of the attacking drow. The dark elf went limp as her spear punched through into the back of its brain, and with a grunt, Mireya directed its corpse over the wall and to the ground below. The body toppled over, knocking a pair of drow off one of the ladders as it plunged down.

Hopping across the parapet to her right, Mireya jabbed down and smashed through the shin of one of the remaining skeletons. The reanimated corpse thrashed back at her, but the length of her weapon prevented it from finding its mark before the bone snapped. Falling forward, the skeleton clawed at everything around it before it was pulled to the ground and trampled by the slowly moving wall of men and women in platemail.

As dramatic as the assault by the drow felt, it was over before it truly had a chance to commence. With the skeletons having been shattered, and the garrison rushing in the wake of the preteen prime and his half-night elf ally, the dark elves had been unable to get the foothold they needed to spill out into the walls of the town and wreak havoc upon its militia. Within a few minutes of arriving at the top of the tower, the surviving members of its garrison had pushed to the ladders and sent them falling backwards, sending many more of the dark-skinned warriors to their deaths.

“What the hell were those?” One of the men shouted from the edge of the battlements. His eyes found Mireya, who was still surveying the pile of corpses and broken ladders that rest at the base of the town’s wall. She spotted roughly two dozen surviving drow slinking off away from the city. IIt was moments like this when she wish she had her bow, because she had no idea how to use the strange handheld bows that the skeletal garrison troops carried.

A look over her shoulder showed that about a quarter of their barracks lie dead on the stone. The site of so many dead soldiers made her fear what could have happened if they had been any slower to arrive atop of the tower.

“Please excuse me,” Proto Man grunted as he tried to politely shove his way through the crowd toward the other end. It took him more than a few forceful redirections of armored men, but he finally made it to the other side and glanced up to see his half-elven companion staring down at him. “How many drow?”

The woman scowled. “Twenty four survivors, but it looks like we took down about that many, along with all of these… malfunctioning skeletons? This is the bigger surprise,” she said as she pointed a spear at one of the inert skeletons lying on the stone. “Aren’t they supposed to be programmed or whatever to protect this place? They seemed to be doing the opposite of their job.”

“Something must have taken control of them,” one of the men from the barracks offered as a possible response to their current quandary.

“Or,” Abigail muttered, causing everyone to glance over at the blonde woman. “Maybe the person who controls them decided to change the side he’s fighting for?” That response triggered a sea of protests from everyone gathered atop the tower with the exception of Proto Man and Mireya, who shared a quick glance before the half-night elf picked up a shield and banged it with a sword to calm down the crowd.

“Whatever the cause is, I think we all need to report this immediately. It’s possible that our enemies are planning more attacks before the sun rises, and we need to make sure that each and every tower garrison is prepared in the event of more drow.”

“Here here!” Most of the crowd shouted as they started to file back into the walls in a surprisingly orderly fashion. It seemed like the carnage of the battle and the sight of so many of their dead friends had sobered most of them enough to not argue with orders from a peer.