Azzan twisted around, his jovial expression changing into a mask of hatred and determination in seconds. He glanced between the two of us and Rhano, seeing the handful of other fighters appearing from other doorways as they heard the announcement. The level of horror, fear and shock at the words was evident on all our faces but within moments there was a flurry of activity.

  Bellowing orders on the top of his lungs, he strode through the hall as Viconia, myself and every guildsman present began hurriedly arming and armouring ourselves. My hauberk was shrugged over my shoulders and arms, shaking it into place with the jingling of metal as its comforting weight made itself felt. Pulling straps tight as quickly as I could I pulled the breastplate onto my chest, linking the armoured faulds covering my thighs to the breastplate and locking the pauldrons into their places. Vambraces, boots, greaves and every piece of armour that I owned was quickly attached to my body and as the growing din of screams, howls and thunder grew in intensity. Within minutes I found myself surrounded by two dozen similarly armed mercenaries and sellswords.

  Viconia, like me was dressed in every scrap of armour that she owned and standing before the towering form of Azzan as he hefted his enormous Warhammer in both hands. While I was more heavily armoured than what I had been since the fight against the Minotaurs, Azzan made me feel underdressed. A full suit of plate armour ensured that every inch of his body was covered with metal, and under that were layers of chainmail and padded leather. Easily weighing more than forty kilograms it was the sort of armour that Knights could've undertaken jousts in but he moved with little hindrance, looking over us all with a face framed by thick padded leather and encased in an open visored armet.

  "Right then. Let's do this."

  Turning on his heel he marched out the door, the Warhammer clasped in his hands and almost the full force of the Anvil Guild following. Viconia and I found ourselves following closely in his footsteps, most of the other members of the guild hanging back somewhat as we exited the chapterhouse's front doors and found ourselves in the midst of a nightmare.

  Wracked with red and yellow savagery, the sky was tortured and roiling with ethereal clouds and crackling energies. Freshy ripped into our world, the upper sections of the roaring oblivion portal could be seen peeking over the walls and towers of the city's main gatehouse. High above us, the streaks of clouds were being pushed and shredded by the ever-expanding shockwave of the portal's explosive birth, leaving the churning energies of oblivion to darken the sky with unnatural twilight like the focused shadow of an eclipse.

  Screams echoed from the sprinting rush of panicking humanity, as hundreds fled from the unnatural maw of the portal beyond the walls and the death that it signified. In a trampling stampede of panic and terror, men, women and children pushed, shoved and beat at each other in an effort to flee deeper into the city to whatever safety they perceived throughout the press the cries of pain of those unlucky to fall beneath the stamping feet were lost to the maelstrom of noise. Every bell within the city tolled relentlessly, and the mournful howls of dogs added to the inescapable din with their cries of horror and instinctive awareness of what was coming. Birds of every kind and flocks of seagulls cawed, flapping in clouds of wings and feathers as they too fled to the south and the open ocean, choosing the emptiness of the sea to the unnatural rent in reality.

  The sight of so many heavily armoured and armed men and mer didn't rate a mention to those fleeing from the walls and the city's great gate. Instead our group appeared to be little more than a rock lodged in a stream. Those in front like Viconia, Azzan and myself were jostled and bumped by dozens of terrified civilians as we shouldered our way through the press. Roared orders from Azzan to clear a path and drowish epithets didn't make the slightest impact to the hordes, but it wasn't long before they began to thin and we found ourselves in the shadow of the primary gatehouse.

  A huddle of clearly terrified and nervous city guard were there, armed with polearms, swords, maces and crossbows and clearly wishing to be anywhere else. From the walls barked orders struggled to be heard over the sounds of screams from those unlucky enough to be caught outside, and hairs rose all over my body as the guttural roars and shrieks of daedra could be clearly discerned.

  The gatehouse had been slammed closed shortly after the terrible portal had breached Mundus, both gates grinding closed and the portcullises locking into place. Already those few guards on the walls were running back and forth, most wielding various hand cranking crossbows that they were aiming and firing over the parapet at the unseen foes. Enormous thumps of siege engines firing were felt rather than heard as the handful of engines situated with clear angles of attack hurled their missiles at the foe. Rocks from trebuchets, ballista bolts the size of saplings and oil filled pots were sent through the air, but from our position near the gate it was impossible to discern what effect they had.

  Together, our group of guildsmen joined up with the huddling cohort of mailed guardsmen, the sensation of fear being all too readily identifiable. While numerous and outnumbering the guild easily eighty to one, not all of the guard were on duty at the same time. The off duty members of the city guard would be scattered throughout the city, and it would take time before they could prepare and organise themselves. Even if the thousands-strong guard and the castle men-at-arms were fully deployed and ready for the sudden and surprise daedric assault, there were a rare few amongst their number that would have any form of combat experience. These were not the highly trained, professional soldiers of the Imperial Legion, but a collection of craftsmen and ordinary citizens banding together with the blessing of the Countess to help patrol their streets, arrest thieves and fight fires. The most combat or fighting most of them would have seen would be breaking up drunken brawls in the city taverns and the occasional bandit who was dumb enough to try to rob someone. They may have been well equipped from the castle stockpiles but their chainmailed surcoats were worn by increasingly scared men and women, and weapons held in sweaty, loosening grips of those suddenly faced with their own mortality.

  The commander of this cohort was barely old enough to shave, a face heavily scarred with acne and eyes wide and white with fear. As the lesser son of a local noble he would've been pressed into the service of the guard rather than entering the Legion where death was a much higher prospect. Now, he seemed to have been fated to lead the defence of an entire city against the baying hordes of Oblivion. The appearance of the entirety of the Fighters guild had bolstered his and his guards' fighting spirits but it was still exceedingly close to the breaking point.

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  "Commander." Azzan said simply, striding over to the young man who was visibly trembling. The plate armoured form of the leader of the Fighters guild dwarfed him with his bulk and the teenager wilted in his presence.

  "Thank the gods you have come!" he stammered, the leaf shaped gladius in his hand shaking as he tried to sheath it unsuccessfully and nearly gashing his hand open in the process. "There seems to be so many outside the walls and it's only a matter of time before they get in!"

  With the enormous lead filled head of the Warhammer over a shoulder Azzan raised his spare hand. "Woah, calm down. Everything's going to be fine. The guild and I are here to help and we're not going to let even one of these arse sucking fiends get past us."

  "How can you be so sure?"

  Again Azzan grinned fiercely in the opened helm. "We have the Heroes of Kvatch with us."

  The young guard commander followed the direction where Azzan had thrown a plated thumb, and soon Viconia and I found ourselves the centre of a sea of stupefied expressions from the huddled guards. Snatched whispers of shock and awe reached my ears over the cacophony of screams, bells and roars of the unnatural and once again I felt incredibly awkward at the recognition.

  "The Nine be praised." The commander stammered, stepping forward and shaking our hands in a display of reverence that was only made stranger by the situation we were in.

  "How many men do you have?" I asked him simply, and he looked me in the eyes while bobbing his head relentlessly.

  "I'm not sure. Maybe a hundred?"

  "Any of them experienced in formations?" his head shook, causing a small amount of his coif to slip down in front of his eyes and I swore under my breath.

  Briefly glancing over to Azzan he simply shrugged and smiled grimly. Both of us were becoming more and more concerned with the situation, especially how both of us could now clearly hear the screeching of metal emanating from the outer section of the gatehouse.

  "Well then." I stared at Azzan for a moment and raised an eyebrow.

  "I'll leave this to you I think." The smile on his face was returning to the savage expression of bloodlust. "I'll lead the guild but I think you and Viconia might be better suited for the rest."

  "Great. Thanks a lot." My reply forced a harsh bark of amusement from the Redguard Fighter but I knew that Viconia's and my reputations would count for far more than his rank and position.

  Turning around I gazed across the collection of guards scattered before the gates, feeling a greater fear than I had ever experienced before at the sudden weight of responsibility. While somewhat used to command in the Legion, my rank of Praefect had ensured that I had never commanded more than squad of foresters. Suddenly faced with leading over ten times that number of ill-trained, inexperienced guards against the hordes of Oblivion did little for my confidence.

  "Soldiers of Anvil!" I roared, feeling every set of eyes turn and lock onto me with feverish intensity.

  Gesturing to myself and Viconia standing by my side with a grimace on her high boned features, I stood straight backed and tall. With a shiver of nostalgia, I suddenly found myself feeling as though I stood on the snowy training field of Fort Ironhand, looking over the latest batch of fresh-faced recruits.

  "I am Kaius Desin, and this is Viconia DeVir! You would have heard of us and know that we have faced this darkness before! This foe, this terrible enemy can be beaten! It can be defeated! We are proof of that, but we will need your help!"

  I had the attention of all the guards, fighters, members of the local Mages guild and even a small number of civilians who had come to help where all others had run. They were all beginning to cluster together in a small force that looked pitifully weak to my eyes, but represented possibly the only thing standing between Anvil and its utter destruction.

  "Together we need to stand against this daedric foe! You and those beside you are all that stands between Anvil becoming another Kvatch! Think of your families, your friends, your neighbours! They are relying on you to stand and fight! To hold the line and ensure that not one of these horrors gets by you!"

  With a scrape of metal on leather I drew Sunchild and held it high enough that all those before me could see its shining edge. "While I still breathe the city will not fall! Let these bastards come! We will teach them and their foul master that mortals will not lay down and die!"

  The mood was swelling slightly, confidence finding precarious holds on each fearful heart and allowing them to steel themselves somewhat against the coming storm of metal and death. I began barking orders, ordering the shuffling masses of citizens and soldiery into something resembling a rough formation. Those equipped with shields locked themselves into the first rank, the pointed kite shields bearing the Anvil County heraldry meshing together with those belonging to Fighters guild in their own riot of shapes, colours and designs. Swords, military picks, maces, truncheons, cleavers, flails and hammers made up the first rank while the second bristled in an array of pikes, halberds and billhooks in their vicious means of cleaving and piercing. Fewer in number, a handful of mages intermingled with those equipped with bows and crossbows, standing behind the dangerously thin ranks of guards and fighters as they too prepared to do their part in the coming battle.

  Viconia sidled up alongside me, close enough to reach out and touch but standing deathly still with Dragonbane unsheathed and ready. "I hope you realise that as soon as the battle looks lost I'm getting out of here." She muttered, quietly enough that only I could hear.

  My face was impassive like a stone mask. "Trust me, if this goes to shit I'm going to be right beside you."

  Becoming loud enough to be heard by mortal ears, the sounds within the gatehouse were growing in volume and were able to be discerned by everyone surrounding the towering doors. I could hear the crack-thump of crossbows and the heavier slaps of siege arbalests from within the gatehouse intermingling with the hissing of oil being dumped through the murderholes. Too soon to have been boiled to flesh scalding temperatures, the oil was being used in a more direct purpose. The building level of heat could be felt through the thick oaken doors as the oil was set alight on whatever was attempting to breach the gates.

  "Just how sturdy are those doors?" I muttered to Azzan, who like Viconia and I stood a handful of paces in front of the trembling ranks of terrified guards.

  Another ground shaking impact rocked the gates, shaking years of dirt and rust from the metal supports holding them all together. Azzan shared a glance with us before slapping his visor down, leaving his voice muted and strangely metallic. "Sixty centimetres of solid oak reinforced with steel?"

  I cursed, rolling my shoulders as the pounding increased in tempo and ferocity against the last barrier between us and the baying hordes. "That's what I thought."