Wolf of the Tesseract

Chapter1

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...The Prime...

"There!" Zabe shouted to his men. "They're coming in at our side!"

Explosions ripped through the western wall of the fortress—not at the main gate where they'd expected it! Shrapnel and debris scattered through the army's unprepared flank. The royal military had amassed at the castle's front gate, expecting an attack at the least durable barrier, but the enemy came in at the side walls instead and threw the plans into disarray.

Zabe barked orders to his troops atop the parapet and they swung the massive laser battery to target the encroaching enemy; they swarmed to the breach in the wall. These walls were supposedly impenetrable, and yet the warlock's troops had managed to rip them open with some new alchemy the vyrm forces brought from another dimension; the reptilian, humanoid race traveled from a forsaken dimension far beyond the Prime and brought their poison with them to besiege the Prime's capital.

Enemy forces poured through the yawning hole in the bastion wall, trampling over the wounded; they violently dispatched those still resilient enough to resist. Zabe whirled in a panic to assess the situation from his post high on the wall. The armor clad enemies crashed in waves against the royal forces as they streamed through the broken side-wall of the royal keep. His instincts tore at him, his first impulse was to drop from above and rush to aide his overwhelmed comrades. His eyes darted to his father, Zahaben, master at arms and personal security chief to the royal family; Zahaben led the Guardian Corps: those charged with protecting the heirs of the Architect King and all the royal secrets. Stuck at the main entrance where they'd expected the brunt of the assault to occur, his father struggled to get the elite forces to the newly drawn battlefront.

Zabe rejected his instincts and turned back to the laser turret. It pummeled the forces surging beyond the wall, flinging hot energy bursts which tore through the enemy; a fiery blast crippled a crude trebuchet in the distance. Scorched wreckage erupted near impact craters, ripping seams through the endless array of marauding vyrm. A black banner of their nega-god, Sh'logath, wavered and fell as debris cut down the standard bearers. The vyrm hissed defiantly as he collapsed.

Another detonation rocked the fortress foundations. Dust flew up, caking Zabe's sweaty face as he struggled to keep his balance. He hesitantly stole attention from his post again and turned to the main gate. The royal forces had repositioned to defend against the ruptured wall of the castle flank.

With dire groaning following a minor eruption, the immense front entry shifted on its hinges. An alchemical bomb eked destructive reagents in massive spidery webs of corrosion. The doorway crumbled in a heap of chunks burned by acerbic fire.

Zabe coughed as the acrid dust invaded his lungs even at this distance. His eyes searched eagerly for his father amongst the dust-borne silhouettes. Those seconds proved too long and the raging battle demanded his full attention. He whirled back and gave the order for his troops to unload their full complement of munitions on the mass pressing in upon the bastions.

"But sir! They're too close to us!"

"Rain hell upon them! I know the risks, Wulftone," Zabe spat the order at his cousin, even as their entire rampart shook from another explosion. Such heavy damage to the battlefield at so little range might weaken the integrity of a wall that still afforded some protection to the castle. "All towers, full barrage!" He growled the order into his communications array. "Empty your reserves and then fall back! The perimeter is already lost to that snake. Protect the interior!"

Even as he spoke, Zabe's eyes locked on the enemy commanders at the edge of the battlefield; he put a scope to his eye to double check. Their leader, the inter-dimensional warlock, Nitthogr, and he were no strangers. The figure in the distinct crimson cloak could be none but the sorcerer; the tall and muscular vyrm to his side would likely be his chief general, Regorik. At this distance, even with the scope, it was impossible to tell, but he could swear that his enemy grinned at him from beneath his scaly, red hood.