Forest Kingdom Trilogy 1 - Blue Moon Rising

comfort to him.
    His guardsmen jostled their way back through the crowd, and took up their positions around him again.
    They shifted restlessly from foot to foot, hefting their swords impatiently, their eyes fixed on the great oak doors. Rupert felt a strange calm seeping through him, now that the moment had finally come. One way or another, this could well be the last time he'd have to face the darkness. Julia called out to him, and he looked back to see her slowly manoeuvring her horse through the crowd towards him. Her troop of fighting women formed a guard of honour around her. They looked hard and competent, and ready for battle. Rupert wondered wistfully if he appeared anything like as intimidating to them. He bowed politely to the women, and exchanged a grin with Julia as she steered her horse in beside him.
    'Looks like we're finally off,' said Julia.
    'Looks like it,' said Rupert.
    'Ready for the fray?'
    'Ready as I'll ever be. How's the Warlock?'
    'Doing his best to appear confident, but it's an uphill struggle. The Astrologer's rounded up half a hundred minor sorcerers and witches, but none of them are worth much. The Warlock's got them working together to support his spells, but there's no telling how successful that'll be.'
    'Julia, do you think my plan's going to work?'
    She laughed. 'Not a chance. But we've got to do something, haven't we?'
    Rupert sighed. 'It would be nice if somebody believed in my plan.'
    'Would you rather we lied to you?'
    'Frankly, yes.'
    'Stand ready, the army!' roared the Champion, and a sudden quiet fell across the courtyard, broken only by the stamping and snorting of the impatient horses. Rupert eased his buckler into a more comfortable position, and gripped his sword firmly. All around him, the combined breathing of more than five hundred men and women seemed strangely loud and distinct in the hush, rising and falling like an endless tide.
    Swords and maces and lances gleamed blood-red in the flickering torchlight. The fear and the tension that had filled the courtyard was gone, replaced by a fierce determination that ran through all the army, binding them together like a single giant heartbeat. A simple determination; to make the demons pay dearly for what they'd done to the Forest Land. King John held up his sword.
    'Open the gates!'
    The heavy steel bolts slammed back into their sockets, the huge oak doors swung open, and the last army of the Forest Land surged forward to meet its destiny.
    The horses' pounding hooves echoed thunderously back from the Keep's walls, and then they were out and charging across the lowered drawbridge. The torchlight fell away behind them, and the army plunged forward into the endless night. The leprous moon floated overhead, blue and full and malevolent. Demons rose in their thousands from the concealing shadows of the Darkwood, twisted and malformed and horribly eager. Not one monstrous shape was much like any other, but the same hunger filled their glowing eyes, and they moved in obedience to a single dark purpose. The mark of foulness was upon them all, the mark of the Demon Prince. Sickly blue moonlight gleamed dully on the fangs and claws of the creatures of the night as they walked and crawled and slithered up out of gaping cracks in the earth.
    And then the army slammed into the waiting demons, and the slaughter began.
    Swords rose and fell against the seething darkness, and demon blood flew on the stinking air, but the first force of the charge was quickly soaked up by the sheer numbers of the demon horde. The lancers pressed stubbornly onward, followed by some of the guards, but the vast bulk of the army soon found itself trapped only a few hundred yards from the ice-covered moat. Horses reared and screamed as the demons swarmed around them, and often it was only the press of bodies that saved the animals from hamstringing or worse. The army milled confusedly at the edge of the Darkwood, already broken apart into a dozen embattled groups, fighting desperately to hold their ground against the never-ending tide of demons that came pouring out of the darkness. The air was full of shouts and screams and war cries, and the harsh tearing sound of steel biting into flesh, but the demons attacked in silence, never making a sound, even when they died. In the unreal light of the Blue Moon, the demons seemed like monstrous ghosts, or nightmares come alive and solid. And bravely though the army fought, more than half of them were pulled down and