Beds and couches leaned against the massive front doors of the Magistrate’s house, bracing it against the impact of the attackers’ battering ram. Each thud from outside splintered more of the fine-grained dark wood of the door. Qaansoole and Sabit—short sword and stout spear in hand—took their place with the other champions in the foyer of the great house.
“Watch for the weak point of the door,” Sabit shouted. “When they come through, fill the opening with the bodies of their dead.”
Smash followed crash followed thunk followed clunk, the battering ram doing its inexorable work. The door’s left side cracked along its grain, sunlight streaming through into the dim foyer. One more blow and the left half of the door shattered, wooden splinters whizzing through the air.
A left-handed mercenary charged through the crack and promptly died under the champions’ blows. Two swordsmen followed, then four men with spears. Illi, the massive champion, knocked the men aside with his hammer shaped like a great fish. More men clambered over the broken bodies.
Mercenaries attached metal hooks to the remaining door and pulled it down from the outside. A wave of fighters surged through the opening, driving the champions back. Qaansoole’s sword struck swift and true, but there was always another man to replace the fallen. Sabit’s spear dripped red with the blood of her foes. But the weight of numbers weighed heavy against the defenders.
A mercenary with a shaved head and long moustaches blocked Illi’s hammer with his long, thin staff, channeling the momentum to strike Illi’s knee. The massive champion crashed to the ground. Qaansoole charged the bald man, bronze blade high and red in her grasp. He elegantly deflected her attack, landed a knee in her gut, and sent her sprawling into a shadowed alcove.
Whistling, the bald mercenary summoned four of his men to his side, bearing the ropes and nets of the slave-catcher’s trade. In close formation, the five strode toward the heart of the chaotic battle. There, three swordsmen were striving against their foe. One by one the swordsmen fell before their enemy, until none stood between the bald mercenary and his quarry: Sabit.
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Wayfarings of Sabit: Tumult is copyright (c) 2017 by Michael S. Miller. All rights reserved. New chapters post every weekday. You can support this and other stories on Patreon: https://patreon.com/michaelsmiller or http://ipressgames.com/fiction/