Sir Ako returned and told the men to get some sleep. “Tomorrow night, perhaps.”
Sandun awoke to find Ashala sleeping beside him. She must have come in after he’d fallen asleep. There was a strange, booming noise and then the faint sounds of yelling. He hurriedly put on his leather armor over his clothing and went outside to investigate. It was midmorning, high clouds above and below, smoke and dust in the air.
He asked one man running down the street what was happening, but the man just kept running. At the closest tower there were great jars of oil hanging above makeshift fire grates. The commander in charge told Sandun that the enemy were shooting huge arrows at the upper gate and the walls around it. “Sometimes they shoot at other towers as well. But they can’t shoot this far, and many of the bolts just hit the earth!”
Sandun climbed up to the wall to survey the scene. The great ships of the Vasvar fleet each carried a ballista—what was essentially a huge crossbow. It was too far for him to see how exactly they were loaded, but every minute or so, a massive piece of wood, like a small tree trunk, would leap from one of the galleys and fly toward the upper walls of Tokolas. As he watched, one hit a wall and disintegrated into a shower of kindling and dust. The noise it made was somewhat like a great tree hitting the earth badly and shattering, only faster and louder. The wall he was standing on trembled, even though he was half a mile from the impact. Another flying tree trunk came up from the river, but this one fell short and smashed into an old shack that had been built precariously on the steep hill some way from the main road.
I wonder how long they can keep up this bombardment? Sandun thought to himself. I wish I’d brought more farseers. I should have guessed they would be highly desired. The enemy soldiers had not approached the walls yet, but they could be seen, lower down the slopes. They looked just like the Tokolas soldiers, with the same type of armor and weapons. How do I tell them apart?
Sandun asked the commander how he could identify the Vasvar soldiers. The man smiled and pointed to his left arm: a strip of dark-red cloth was tied around his upper arm. “They wear green. We are wearing red.”
Back at the embassy, the Keltens were eating. Sandun suddenly felt ravenous and ate with them while he described what he’d seen. “I want to see this myself,” said Sir Ako. About half the men went with him while the others stayed behind.
An hour later, he was back. “Impressive design. The galleys have remarkable stability on the river for making such shots. I would have taken those great ballistas off the boats and put them on shore—more accurate that way. Kelten warships use much smaller ballistas, no doubt because the ocean is usually too rough to make long shots with any hope of success.” He paused. “Also, I noticed the lighthouse tower looks undamaged.”
Sandun felt a tightness in his chest, but he did his best to pretend he felt nothing.
“Don’t worry, Master Sandun. It’s a crazy plan, and it will work brilliantly.”
“Are you always so confident before a battle?” Sandun asked him earnestly.
“Always. As the Great Commander said, victory lies not in numbers but in men’s hearts and minds. Devoted men and a good plan—that’s all you need to conquer the world.”
All that day, the bombardment continued. By evening, the gate area was reportedly a wreck, even though hundreds of strong men and stonemasons worked to shore up the wall with beams of wood and hasty brickwork.
Before dinner, Ashala took Sandun to their room and kissed him. “I know I should not care, but I do. Come back. I…I don’t know what I will do if you don’t come back.”
Sandun hugged her and tried to reassure her, but his words rang hollow in his mind. “It will be all right. Don’t worry. I’ll come back.”
After dinner, as the sun set, Sir Ako led them all in prayer. Olef, with little Niksol in her arms, came down to join them. Lady Tuomi sat at the end of the room and watched, her dark eyes intent on Sir Ako, as though she were fixing his image in her mind.
The long-anticipated messenger came an hour later. Everyone collected their gear and assembled in the courtyard. Sir Ako, in full armor, checked everyone to be sure. Valo Peli and Lathe came up from the cellar, bringing their special weapons, which were then loaded onto the steadiest of the Piksie rams. Then they headed up the streets to the by-now-familiar side entrance to the palace. Guards looked at Sir Ako, all dressed in his armor, and said, “Fire Sword,” with some awe, and let them in. Sir Ako chuckled deep in his throat. “Not the first time I’ve been made famous for someone else’s deeds.” Sandun was too busy with his own thoughts to ask him what he meant.
They were escorted to the war room, which was strangely empty. Lord Vaina stood by himself, staring down at a large map. Aside from a few boys acting as messengers, only the captain of the guards and two other soldiers were with him.
“I am glad to see you. Everything is ready. The enemy ships are still in range. Do you have everything?”
Valo Peli said yes and listed the things he had brought.
“Then let’s go.”
Sandun expected to follow a messenger boy or one of the guards, but instead Lord Vaina himself headed out of the room and jogged down the steps. As he did, he tossed aside his elaborate robe and revealed a suit of plain and rather worn leather armor; some reddish paint could still be seen on the back of the arms.
“Are you coming with us, Lord Vaina?” asked Sandun.
“I am. Which is why I have sent nearly everyone away. This is my plan, my city, and I’m going to see it through. And if it turns out to be a shark on the line, we can always throw away the rod and row to shore.”
They made their way to the center of the palace complex. At least a hundred of the palace guards were waiting there. The guards were not the great giants Sandun had seen before. These were a different group, and they greeted the Lord of Kunhalvar with an ease that come from long familiarity.
“Coming with us? Fish Guts, now we must worry about keeping you safe. I won’t face Lady Osmo’s wrath if you get hurt.”
“Are you going to fight this time? Or just stand back and yell orders like always?”
One man, older than the others and shorter, had a bristling beard that stuck out stiffly from his face. He loudly said, “Just watch out for canoes!” and most of the men laughed, sharing some private joke.
Lord Vaina went up to the older man and poked him in the chest. “Old Bristle Face, if you get skewered by a Vasvar arrow, only fish will weep.”
“Not so! The tea house girls on Silk Street will be crying their pretty little eyes out since the only real man in town will no longer be around to make them happy.”
This provoked a chorus of jeers from the other men.
The two krasuth now appeared, escorted by one of the messenger boys. They had made no apparent effort to get ready for battle, save that they both carried long staffs. The tall one came up to Lord Vaina and bowed. “You summoned us, my lord.”
“You are going to help with the attack and protect me.”
“As your lordship commands.”
Sandun watched as the krasuth swept his gaze over the assembled warriors; the man’s face was almost masklike, concealing all thoughts behind his fixed expression. Sandun thought that the man was somehow being forced into this, but he didn’t know how or why.
An old man with a handful of keys now opened a door to a nondescript building nearby. Inside was just one room with stacks of aromatic wood all along the walls. Large bags, some of which held roof tiles, filled most of the interior of the warehouse. Toward the back of one wall, a space had been recently cleared, and there was a trapdoor in the floor. The old man unlocked and opened it, revealing steps descending into darkness. Valo Peli distributed his explosives among the Kelten soldiers, who stored them in rucksacks they wore over their armor.
“This part is only a short way down,” the old man said out loud to the people
around him. Although he had long white hair, he was spry enough going down the steps. Some thirty feet down there was a tunnel lined with rock. It looked long unused. Many of the soldiers carried lanterns. Lord Vaina wore one of the glowing orbs from Kelten around his neck, as did his guard captain.
Soon they came to more stairs, leading down in a gentle spiral. Lord Vaina, who was walking just behind Sandun, said, “We are circling around the deep well that stands in the center of the palace. Most of our drinking water gets delivered from a stream outside of the city. This well water is used for cleaning and in case of siege.”
The stairs went down and down. They were narrow, just wide enough for one man, and old. In places, the steps were quite slippery where moss or slime had grown, fed by some seeping water from the earth. The air became close, and the smell from the burning lamps carried by the guards ahead of him made Sandun cough. Everyone was silent as they wound their way down deep into the earth.
Finally, the stairs ended, and the men ahead slowly moved off the stairs and walked down a narrow tunnel and then stopped. The old man with the keys, who had been behind Lord Vaina, pushed forward, apologizing as he went past each man. Sandun couldn’t see what he was doing at the end of the tunnel—too many people blocked the way.
He asked Lord Vaina, “Have you been down here before?”
Lord Vaina replied quietly, “Just once. A year after we took the city. This is one of the secret escape routes. The palace needs a water supply. But what is not known is that the water actually comes from the Mur.” After a pause, he bellowed, “What’s taking so long? Don’t you know there is a war going on?”
“Sorry, my lord, sorry. The door is older than I am.”
Lord Vaina whispered to Sandun, “This was built sometime during the Water Kingdom. It’s likely two hundred years old now. Amazing that it is still intact.”
With a grating noise, part of the stone wall at the end of passage opened out, and dank, cool air rushed into the passage. The torchlights flickered as the new air passed by like a wind. The soldiers rapidly exited, and soon Sandun found himself walking inside a low tunnel with a curved roof of stone close above his head. Cut into the floor and running the whole length of the tunnel was a stream of water. In the dim light, it seemed motionless, but he heard the faint sound of water falling behind him, presumably into the large cistern where water was stored at the bottom of the well. On either side of the small stream, there were two paths of stone. It was damp inside the tunnel, and there was moss in many places on the walls and on the flagstones beside the water.
Now the old key master led the way, followed by the palace guards, then the Keltens, and then Lord Vaina and the krasuth with a few more guards at the rear. The tunnel was long and straight.
“Strangely,” Lord Vaina said, “through some feat of engineering, the tunnel does not flood when the river floods, or so the old key master tells me. I have no idea how that was done.”
In the tunnel there was no sound but that of the warriors as they strode along on both stone paths. It seemed like an hour had passed, and Sandun was feeling both sweaty and chilled at the same time. Finally, the end of the tunnel was revealed at the edge of sight, and Lord Vaina called a halt.
“Leave the lanterns here. From this point on, the only light will be from the Kelten orbs. I want no smell of burning oil drifting up through invisible cracks and alerting the enemy to our presence. We are nearly under the lighthouse. There is a short flight of stairs that leads to another stone door. The key master will open the door; it should be easier than the last one. It opens to the basement of the lighthouse. With heaven’s blessing, the basement will be empty, and we can assemble inside. If not, then the first man through will have a fight. Guard Captain Ferant has requested the honor of going first. Does anyone object?”
Lord Vaina paused. The guard captain loosened his sword in its sheath and glared at everyone around him. No one said anything.
“After we have secured the basement, we take the first floor and bar the door. Your job is that of a boat itself—hold back the water! No Vasvar soldier must enter the lighthouse. Not one. If there is a danger of losing the door, you must send word to me. I will be at the top of the tower with the Keltens. If you send word that the door will fall, then I will have to decide whether to retreat back the way we came or die here with you, but you must give me that choice!”
“You’ll not die here, Lord of Kunhalvar,” said the short man with the beard. “I’ll drag you down the stairs myself if it comes to that.”
“I am not afraid,” said Lord Vaina. “The Vasvar army has fallen into my trap. Even now, General Erdis is attacking from the west, and General Kun is attacking from the east along with the cavalry from the eastern army. We will destroy Two-Sword Tuno’s army and sink his ships, and our city will never be attacked again.”
His guardsmen nodded and shook their fists in the air.
The key master, holding a glowing orb in one hand high over his head, went down the tunnel and then through an opening and up a newly revealed flight of stairs. Lord Vaina stood halfway up the stairs while the rest filed past him.
Despite Lord Vaina’s promise, the door at the top proved equally hard to open. The old man struggled and cursed under his breath as he worried at the locking mechanism like a terrier with a large rat. Finally, it opened with a loud thunk.
Captain Ferant pushed through the door and was met with several spears, one of which he could not avoid. Mortally wounded, he killed two of the Vasvar soldiers before throwing himself on the third spearman, knocking him to the floor. In a minute or two, the room was cleared of living enemies, but Captain Ferant bled to death before anyone could help him.
The Tokolas guards wasted no time mourning for their commander but rushed up the stairs. On the ground floor, the fighting was vicious and in very close quarters. The palace guards proved to be deadly masters of hand-to-hand combat. The first floor was cleared in minutes with the Vasvar soldiers all butchered and the doorway to the outside locked and blocked.
While most of the guards ransacked the rooms and the cellar for things to buttress the doorway, a few of the guards led by “Old Bristle Face” headed upstairs toward the top of the tower. Sir Ako followed, leading the Kelten warriors, not rushing but rapidly. One man was found sleeping on the third level in a small alcove; he was captured and tied up for questioning. With Sir Ako now leading the way, they reached the top of the tower. Here there were three men. One appeared to be an officer of some rank. His two guards were totally surprised, and while they fumbled for their weapons, Sir Ako killed each of them with swift sword strokes.
The officer of the Vasvar army went to his knees and made no effort to fight. He asked, “How did you get here?” Old Bristle Face blindfolded him and then took him down the stairs for questioning.
The Keltens had made it to the top of the tower. Now it was their turn.
Kagne Areka looked out from the top of the lighthouse tower. The air was full of the noise of fighting. Kagne was not a trained soldier; he was, he told himself, a jack-of-all-trades. Before this year-long journey to Serica, his major jobs had been as a trader and herbmaster. Although he had killed at least ten men in his life, he liked to think of himself as a peaceful man who only killed when he or his clansmen were threatened. He took pride in the fact that he had resolved several disputes that could have erupted into near warfare between powerful rival clans.
But the fighting going on now…this was on a different scale from anything he had seen before. Ten thousand men in a single army? There weren’t ten thousand men in all of northern Erimasran, counting the oldest graybeard to the youngest new man with his faint mustache. Kagne felt like a very small antelope in a huge herd, running through a sea of dust, and he didn’t like it one little bit.
He rapidly oriented himself. The city walls of Tokolas were set upon a great ridge to the south, about a mile away. Directly to
the north and reaching almost to the foot of the tower was the Mur. It was impossible to see the far shore of the river, even from the top of the tower. The Mur was like a vast, shimmering curtain, stretching both east and west into the night. Black shapes of boats could occasionally be seen on the water.
Looking at the sky, he guessed it was around midnight; the moon was rising, still close to the eastern shore. Kagne looked down upon the Tokolas harbor, which was filled with boats, just as Lord of Kunhalvar had predicted. The great ships of the Vasvar fleet had sailed into the harbor under the cover of night, and now they occasionally shot huge arrows at the walls of the city. When a giant ballista on a nearby ship fired, the missile made a roaring noise as it shot out into the sky and then vanished.
As Sir Ako pointed out targets, the Kelten scouts strung their great bows and looked down below.
“We hit the closest ship first and then work our way out,” said Sir Ako. Their targets were the huge ships that now crowded the harbor.
Kagne thought the boats were a bit like sheep penned in at night—and now, the wolves were inside the fence.
Lord Vaina arrived at the tower top, accompanied by two guards, and then the two strange krasuth climbed up the stairs to join the men already there.
Kagne did not like either of the krasuth, and he did not know why they had come on this suicide mission. Looking at them now, he got the distinct impression they had even less desire to be here than he did.
Valo Peli and Lathe were laying out “fire arrows” on the stones beside the central iron grate of the lighthouse. In normal times, the grate held aloft a great fire that served to mark the entrance to the Tokolas harbor. Now the grate held nothing but cold ashes and bits of charred logs. Each archer picked up one of the arrows and waited while Valo Peli or Lathe lit the fuse, and then the archer rushed over to the edge of the tower and launched his fiery arrow at the targeted ship.
Kagne picked up a burning arrow and bounded over to the east wall. As he pulled the arrow back, it sent sparks and flame directly at his face. He knew he had to shoot the arrow rapidly, but he could not concentrate with the fire spitting into his eyes. He made his best guess as to the target and loosed his arrow, but the shot went wide of the mark, disappearing uselessly into the black water near the boat.
The Burning Tower Page 33
