Daphne fought back her fear. She relaxed her muscles, and used her battle-vision to evaluate the entire scene within the room in an instant. Over by the front wall, troopers were holding back Sanang warriors, who were hacking their way through any weakness in the timbers. Already several holes had been opened up, and bodies littered the floor. Sanang were coming in through the gaps, and it looked as though the Holdings force would soon be overwhelmed. Of more immediate concern were the Sanang warriors standing around the large, ragged hole in the floor above the outside of the gate. Her battlers were engaging this group, and seemed to have caught them as they were preparing to secure a rope ladder to help the warriors below ascend.
She breathed, and turned her attention to the man rushing her, his sword raised. She sidestepped the slashing blade at the last instant, and brought her sword up to slice across the warrior’s chest, a trick that had always worked at the academy. Except somehow the Sanang parried her attack, his blade grinding and sparking its edge upwards against hers, his superior strength pushing her over, as he strained his enormous shoulders and shoved.
Fast and strong, she thought, as she fell backwards into a roll, coming to her feet and spinning to her right in a single movement, the tip of her sword arcing out and cutting deep into the throat of the warrior before her.
He staggered to a halt, putting a hand to his neck. Crimson blood pumped out between his bruised knuckles, and he glared at her in angry disbelief.
And that was it, the first person she had ever killed, except he wasn’t dead yet. She couldn’t tear her eyes away, staring at him gurgling up bloody saliva as he mouthed what she presumed to be deadly curses and insults. His sword was still pointed at her, and his eyes screamed violence. He spat at her but missed, sending red flecks across the timber floor, before finally slumping to his knees, making a guttural snorting sound that sounded like harsh laughter, his weapon clattering to the floorboards.
‘Captain!’ she heard Jaimes shout.
She pulled her gaze away from the dying Sanang, and saw her aide limping towards her, a wound above his left knee. As he approached he swung his sword and beheaded the kneeling Sanang warrior from behind, grunting with the effort.
‘You’re hurt,’ she said, realising that she had lingered.
He shrugged. ‘Your first Sanang?’
‘My first anyone.’
He nodded.
‘You clear the rest of them?’ she asked.
‘Yes. We got them all.’ He pointed at the sprawled Sanang bodies by the holes in the floor. ‘But we lost Bodin and Laury, and Harrian took a wound to the gut she won’t be coming back from.’
‘What?’ she gasped.
She ran over to Harrian, who lay leaning against a pile of crates. She held her hands against her opened stomach, keeping her insides from dropping out. Her dark face had greyed, and her eyes were half closed.
Daphne knelt, and gently placed a palm over one of Harrian’s hands.
‘They were too quick, Captain,’ the sergeant gasped, risen blood edging from her lips. ‘Sorry.’
‘You fought well,’ Daphne said, but it was too late. The sergeant’s head slumped to the side.
She turned to her two remaining battlers. They looked as stunned as she felt. She gestured to the front wall, where the Holdings soldiers were being pushed back from the gaps the Sanang had hacked from the timbers.
‘Get over there,’ she ordered. ‘Help them.’
They saluted, and trotted over to the far wall, defeat heavy in their eyes.
Daphne made her way to the edge of the large hole in the floor and looked down. It was dark below, but she could discern the roiling mass of Sanang as they continued to press at the gate, shoving it, hacking at it with axes, and scaling its height, only to be pushed back into the mob.
She caught Jaimes’ eye, and glanced over at the crates, several of which were stamped as containing lamp oil. He nodded, and they set to work.
Within minutes they had a dozen large, sealed clay jars of the clear, viscous liquid ready at the lip of the hole. Daphne held a lamp in her hand.
‘This could bring the whole gatehouse down, you know,’ Jaimes frowned, sitting on one of the empty crates, resting his injured leg, and tying off the wound with a piece of ripped shirt.
‘If we’re lucky,’ she muttered, heaving the jars over the edge, through the hole and smashing onto the scrum beneath them. There were yells of outraged surprise from below, and the Sanang’s attention was directed upwards. As she hurled the lamp towards them she caught a brief sight of dozens of upturned faces staring at her, before throwing herself backwards away from the edge.
There was a great whomping sound, and light and a blistering heat blasted upwards from the gate passage as the lamp oil ignited. Screams rose with the stench of burning leather, hair and flesh. The flames died down quickly, and Daphne crawled back and peered over the hole’s edge. In the grimy light of a dozen small pockets of burning oil, she saw bodies piled up before the gate, blackened corpses, scorched and smoking. Her gorge rose and before she could stop herself she had vomited her dinner through the hole, splashing the sour contents of her stomach onto the bodies and burnt earth beneath her.
Dizziness threatened to overwhelm her. She closed her eyes, but the scene below was etched into her mind. What had she done? She had gone from killing one Sanang to a score of them in a few minutes. Guilt and disgust sapped her concentration, and she felt her battle-vision start to slip away from her.
Strong hands pulled her up by the shoulders.
‘Not yet, Captain,’ Jaimes said. ‘More to do.’ He held her by the arms as she steadied herself. Focus, breathe, come on.
She took an offered drink from his water canteen, then dowsed her face and slapped herself on both cheeks, shaking her head like a wet dog. After a moment she opened her eyes again.
Another burst, she could do another burst.
‘Thank you, Jaimes.’
She turned to the front of the large hall, where the addition of the two battlers seemed to have succeeded in halting the Sanang’s advance. As she was about to assist the troopers there, she heard a piercing whistle blast three times, from the direction of the interior of the fort.
Jaimes glanced out through a slot in the rear wall, which overlooked the main road leading up to the command tent.
‘Runner coming,’ he said.
‘I’d best go meet them,’ she said. ‘Come after, but go easy on the leg.’
He nodded, and she sprinted for the door. She leapt down the stairs to the ground floor, and rushed back outside, to the open area behind the gate. The five troopers stationed there were taking a break, the fire having dissuaded any more attacks for the moment. She stopped as the runner skidded to a halt in front of her, panting, terror in her eyes.
‘Take a breath, trooper,’ Daphne said.
‘Sanang,’ she gasped, ‘attacking the west tower, Captain, at least two hundred. Lieutenant Mink’s position is being overwhelmed, and he urgently requests reinforcements.’
‘Tell him to hold on, trooper,’ Daphne said. ‘I’ll send him whatever I can spare.’
The runner stared up at the conflict raging along the entire length of the wall in front of them. Sanang warriors had gained a few sections of parapet, and were slowly pushing the Holdings forces back, despite the presence of the remaining battlers. The runner’s face fell, and she hesitated for a second before turning, and sprinting back the way she had come.
As soon as she had gone, Daphne’s mask slipped, and a surge of despair and helplessness washed over her.
They were all going to die, and it was her fault.
Chapter 4
Bloody-Minded
River Tritos, Sanang – 15th Day, First Third Summer 503
By the time Sergeant Jaimes had struggled down to the ground floor Daphne had regained some of her composure.
‘Bad news?’ he asked when he saw the look on her face.
‘West tower’s under attack
. Another two hundred.’
‘Shit,’ he said. ‘Sorry for the language, Captain.’
‘I think we’re a little beyond that, sergeant,’ she said. ‘Tell me honestly, is there any hope for us?’
‘Mink’s got a whole squadron up there, three dozen troopers,’ Jaimes said, shrugging. ‘He might push them back.’
She snorted, put her hands on her hips, and bowed her head.
‘You can’t stop now,’ he said. ‘You drop that battle-vision, you’ll be out cold for days. We need you.’
She laughed.
He took a step closer, catching her gaze and holding it.
‘Don’t give up, Captain.’
‘I feel so helpless, Jaimes.’
‘Then do something. We might all be dead by morning, but right now we’re alive. Let’s make sure that when we meet the Creator we can at least look him in the eye. If it’s truly our time, then we’ll die fighting as Holdings cavalry, the Queen’s Own, under the gaze of the one who made us.’
She nodded.
‘You’re right,’ she said, focusing her strength, channelling the vision’s energies through her exhausted body. ‘Let’s find some Sanang to kill.’
There was a tremendous pounding upon the gate, and it bulged inwards, shaking and creaking. The five guards leapt to their feet, hoisting their pikes aloft. The noise ceased, and the air grew still again.
‘I think they might be coming to us, Captain,’ Jaimes said. ‘Wait.’ He pointed over in the direction of the south tower. ‘Chane.’
She turned her head, and saw the lieutenant, trailed by a dozen troopers.
‘Captain!’ she cried. ‘The south tower has fallen. The enemy breached the upper floors. We need Mink’s squadron and the battlers.’
Daphne shook her head. ‘That’s not going to be possible, I’m afraid.’
Chane came to a halt, as if all energy had been sapped from her. ‘Fuck.’
Before Daphne could reply, there was another almighty crash against the gates, the upper timbers of which splintered and cracked. The five guards stood staring at the doors, motionless.
Daphne ran towards them. ‘Troopers,’ she cried. ‘Brace the gates! Find anything, beams, barrels. Quickly!’ She turned to Chane as they scattered. ‘Lieutenant, your assistance, please.’
Chane jogged over, hanging her head, while her dozen troopers followed.
‘You six with the crossbows,’ Daphne said to a group of them. ‘Over there, climb up onto the barracks wall behind us. As soon as you get a glimpse of the enemy, start shooting and don’t stop.’
They nodded and ran off.
‘And you six,’ she pointed to the rest. ‘Get yourselves a pike each and form a line here.’ She gestured with her arm to a position four yards in front of the gate.
As they shuffled off to the armoury racks by the wall, Daphne turned to Chane.
‘Lieutenant?’
Chane spat on the ground, her eyes red. ‘I lost the tower, Captain.’
‘The Sanang are going to be bursting through those doors any moment,’ Daphne said. ‘I need you by my side.’
Chane looked up, her expression clouded.
Another great thud battered against the gates. More cracks appeared, and the cross timbers buckled, but held.
The five troopers reappeared. It looked like they had ransacked the nearby barracks as they were carrying several of the long beams that were used to support the rows of bunk beds. They propped the beams into position against the damaged doors, digging shallow pits in the earth to brace them. Two of the troopers were hammering in nails to secure the tops of the beams when the largest impact yet struck the very centre of the doors. The two troopers were hurled back from the force of the blow and the middle pair of timbers exploded towards them in splintered fragments. The tip of a fire-hardened ram appeared in the gap, easily over a foot in diameter. It withdrew, leaving a dark space behind, through which no Sanang were visible.
‘Get ready!’ Daphne commanded. ‘Two lines! Shields out, pikes up!’
Her troopers obeyed. The two who had fallen hauled themselves to their feet and picked up their pikes to join the front line. Daphne placed herself in the middle of the back row, Jaimes to her left, Chane to her right. There were seven of them in each line, enough to fill the passageway from one side to the other, their shields overlapping. She unsheathed her longsword, and held it high. Its weight felt good in her hand.
‘For the Holdings!’ she shouted. ‘For the queen!’
There was another crash, and the right hand door of the gate was battered inwards, swinging on its iron hinges and crashing into the wall of the passage. The braces on the left side had done their job, and that door remained in place. The ram withdrew, and there was a great shout from outside. The first Sanang were seen coming at a run through the open doorway, swords, clubs and spears brandished.
‘Crossbows, now!’ Daphne shouted.
From their elevated position on the barracks wall, the six loosed their bolts into the advancing Sanang, felling one, and slowing another two.
‘Pikes out!’ she yelled.
Her two rows of troopers lowered their lances and braced themselves. The first Sanang were sprinting toward them, trying to avoid the flying crossbow bolts, and three impaled themselves on the barbed steel blades of the wall of pikes held against them, unable to stop in time.
The Sanang behind had not paused, and more were rushing through with every second. One of them slipped between the long pikes, but Daphne anticipated him, and thrust her sword into his chest, her strength and his momentum forcing the blade out through his back.
She pulled the sword out, letting him fall to the earth. Her soldiers’ pikes were jabbing and cutting ferociously, and bolts were striking Sanang flesh with regularity as they bunched together in the narrow entranceway. She saw Chane hack down a warrior to her right, her blade blurring through the air. Still the Sanang pushed and pushed, the press of those in the tunnel behind shoving the others forwards onto the pikes and swords of the Holdings cavalry. Soon the passageway was thick with the piled corpses of Sanang, and the sheer bulk of them became a hindrance to the attackers, blocking them on the other side of the gate. The assault slowed, then ceased.
Two of her troopers were down injured, but none had been slain.
Daphne glanced over to Chane.
The lieutenant pulled a hipflask from her jacket. She unstoppered it and drank. She wiped her lips and held it out to Daphne.
‘I haven’t had a drink since the academy,’ she said, taking the hipflask.
‘Captain,’ Chane replied, ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if you’d never drunk in your life before. You are, after all, someone who follows the rules.’
Daphne remembered her student days, when the official Holdings proscription on the consumption of alcohol was flouted on campus with regular and enthusiastic abandon.
She took a generous swig. It was dark rum, cheap by the taste, and it burned her throat.
‘Hey, Captain,’ Jaimes butted in as he limped over, the wound on his leg bleeding heavily again. ‘Save a drop for me, if that’s alright with you, Lieutenant?’
‘You look like you need it, sergeant,’ Chane said.
Daphne handed him the hipflask.
Jaimes nodded his gratitude and drank deep, using a pike as a crutch.
‘Back to work,’ Daphne called out. She pointed to the Sanang corpses lying closest to them. ‘Front line, throw these bodies onto the pile by the door, block it up with their dead.’
The troopers sighed and grumbled, but started lugging the bodies over to the broken doorway.
‘You lot, make sure the left door is firmly braced,’ she ordered the second line.
Daphne started to hear the sounds of a commotion coming from the road to the east tower, and Holdings soldiers ran into the square from that direction, in groups of twos and threes.
As they passed the gatehouse, Daphne shouted. ‘Troopers, form up!’
A few t
urned to look, and some paused, while others kept running. Several seemed to have lost their weapons, and panic danced on their faces.
‘They’re coming, Captain!’ cried one.
‘Chane,’ she said, ‘with me. Jaimes, you command the gate.’
The two walked into the mass of Holdings troopers. The soldiers had stopped running, and about two dozen had now assembled in the square in front of the gatehouse.
‘What are you seeing, trooper?’ she called up to a crossbowman on the barracks wall, wishing she had the strength to draw on her line-vision.
‘Nothing yet, Captain,’ he yelled back.
‘You,’ she said, grabbing hold of a sergeant’s blood-smeared leathers. ‘Tell me what’s happening.’
‘Captain,’ he stammered, trying to get to attention. His face was grimy and sweat stained, and his nose bloody. ‘We lost the east tower, and the north-east wall. There was just too many of them.’
‘Where are the battlers I assigned you, and where is Lieutenant Wilkom?’ Behind her, she could hear Chane firing angry commands at the others, ordering them to re-arm themselves and get into lines.
‘I last saw two of the battlers on that end of the wall,’ the sergeant said, pointing over to the section of parapet to the left of the gatehouse, but it was shrouded in darkness. Sounds of fighting could still be heard, but from where it was impossible to tell. At night in the forest, without torches or lamps, the darkness was utter and complete.
‘And Wilkom?’ Daphne said.
‘Dead, Captain.’
Chane approached. ‘Did I hear right?’
‘Yes,’ Daphne replied. She turned to the sergeant. ‘Your remaining squads are now under Lieutenant Chane’s command.’
‘Yes, Captain.’
‘Lieutenant,’ Daphne said, ‘presumably the Sanang now hold at least three of our towers.’
Chane nodded.
‘Then what in the name of the Creator are they waiting for?’
‘I don’t know, captain,’ Chane said. ‘The first wave that attacked us tonight, that’s what I’m used to, that’s how I’ve seen the Sanang fight before. All guts, no brains. The other lot, though, they were different.’ She shook her head.
The Magelands Origins Page 5
