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Shields locked, the Royal Guard braced in unison as the crushing mass of monstrous flesh and crude steel surged towards them. It was a tide of endtimes, the disaster with a mind that had swept through the entirety of the kingdom. There was no room for prayers when the bells tolled and the scouts prophesied doom. There was no hope left for humanity, when the Demon King lived while Kaidisyum had fallen. Fires rose, and the hideous warsongs of the fiendish horde was carried skywards by the thermal drafts, as if to mock the sensibilities of the heavens themselves with their shrill cries and their thudding beats.

If they could not defend the capital, how could they defend a humble port town? If stone walls and ballista could not thwart the demonic threat, how could wooden palisades? If they could do anything, they ought to have done it already.

Since they did not do anything?

Ferrucio knew it was already over. He could hardly see through the slits of his soot-blackened helmet. His body had already felt like lead, the consequences of countless days spent repairing ships. His shield and sword were only a few steps removed from scrap. There was [i]nothing[/i] left for him to live for, really.

His aspiration was dead. His nemesis was dead. The secret he thought he'd bring to his grave was shared with the only other who deserved it. And at the end of things, he was able to speak with someone who may have been a half-brother.

It had been a long while since his head had felt so clear.

[b]"HOLD THE LINE!"[/b]

His shoulder jolted from the orc's chopping blow, but his fellow shieldsmen bolstered his own position. The spearman behind him thrust a pike right past his ear, skewering the monster through his eyeball, and Ferrucio followed through with a shove of his shield, sending the still-twitching corpse into the next. Wulvers pounced forth, snapping jaws and deadly claws, but he could hardly make out their form, and that predatory fear was reduced to nothing more than another impact, another near-impossible force. Air was punched out from his lungs; he drew in another smoke-filled breath as he cowered behind a warped shield and thrust blindly with his sword. Was it fur and flesh? Or just dirt? He couldn't confirm, and it didn't matter. The men behind him thrust once more, three spearheads digging into the lupine monster, and the Wulver fell back as Ferrucio advanced forth, a stomp on the monsters head as he maintained formation with the others. It was no advance, not really. Only the ebb and flow of the frontlines, the postmortem muscle contractions of a life already ended.

His tendons were fraying alongside his nerves. His muscles were tearing at the seams. Every collision worsened the fractures in his bones. Every kill was a miracle considering the circumstances. Hold the line. Hold the line. Hold the line!

Hold it, so that there would be no choice for the monsters, except to kill him before they could lay a hand on the Princess!

His lungs were raw.

In the throes of chaos, Ferrucio didn't even recognize his own voice.