Blackstone (Book 2)

by Honor Raconteur

  Of course Rune would understand what he was looking at, as he had helped plan it. Wolf grinned at him, the expression dark and without humor. “Indeed it will be.”

  “I’ve been popping in and out of the city, so I haven’t seen much of what ya’ve done, but do ya think that we’re ready to fight them off?” Rune seemed nervous asking this question.

  Wolf just snorted. “They don’t stand a chance of taking us.”

  Siobhan watched the last of the non-combatants leave with Grae and heaved a bone-weary sigh. Mercy, was she ever so glad that that chore was done. Early this morning, when she had been faced with a sea of people, it didn’t seem like they would ever be able to shift everyone over to Winziane, even with five Pathmakers working nonstop!

  How she’d gotten stuck organizing the whole evacuation was what she’d like to know. Sure, Darrens had requested that she help with it, which only made sense as she was the guildmaster to two Pathmakers. But how had she become the head cook of the whole kitchen? Before she could turn her head, everyone was coming to her and asking questions, most of which she hadn’t a clue how to answer. Desperate, she’d drafted Sylvie and Cha Ji An to help her.

  The only way they’d found that worked was dividing Converse into sections and just clearing out one section at a time. Convincing people to not pack everything hadn’t been an easy job either, and she must have repeated herself a thousand times over. Only personal belongings, nothing larger than a pack and whatever weapons you had. Mothers especially wanted to argue this point, as it took a lot to take care of children, and it was Cha Ji An who calmly assured them that supplies and clothing were waiting for them in Winziane. It was not necessary to take everything.

  More like, it was impossible to take everything. Siobhan had escorted many a caravan in her time and knew how to adjust to transport one via path. If, that was, she had ample time to prepare and plan ahead. Amidst this chaos, she couldn’t begin to sort it out well enough for people to pack wagons for transportation. It was hard enough just to find enough wagons to load up people!

  But now they were gone. The streets seemed very empty and forlorn without them. In fact, it was eerily quiet. This was the first time in two days that Siobhan could hear herself think. She slowly turned on the balls of her feet, rotating to look around her. The buildings were still intact, although there was debris randomly strewn in the streets from the hurried leave-taking of the people, and at first glance nothing seemed wrong. So why did it feel like she was in a haunted city? It even smelled abandoned, somehow.

  The wind whistled off of the sea and sang its way through the empty streets in an eerie whine before ruffling her hair, whipping it about her face for a moment before passing on. An errant chill raced up her spine at the sensation even though she wasn’t the slightest bit cold.

  “Siobhan.”

  She turned and tried to force a smile. “Denney. Are we sure everyone is out?”

  “I just got the last report in. They’re all gone.” Denney puffed out a breath, looking as tired as Siobhan felt. Normally, the girl took care to look presentable at least (especially so after developing a crush on Rune) but right now her hair was thrown up in a messy knot at the back of her head and it looked like she dressed in the dark; with one hand behind her back. “Now what?”

  Now what, indeed. Siobhan’s guild had been scattered all over the city with different tasks assigned to them. Wolf, Tran, Markl, and Fei were specifically over preparing the defense of the walls. Beirly was with the blacksmiths forging weapons and specialty items of war that Hyun Woo wanted—like caltrops. Conli of course was setting up a clinic in preparation for the battle ahead. She, Sylvie, and Denney had been working with Grae and Rune until they could clear Converse of its citizens. But now that that was done, what should they do?

  Making a snap decision, she told Denney, “Go find Sylvie. See if the two of you can help Conli. He’ll probably need every helping hand he can get.” And those two were used to helping him. They’d know instinctively how he wanted things done. “I’m going to Darrens, see if he needs help with anything else.”

  Nodding, Denney acknowledged this before moving off at a tired half-trot.

  Taking in a deep breath, Siobhan tried to tap into an inner energy well, somewhere, only to find herself running dry. How long had it been since she’d eaten? Last night? The last thing she remembered putting in her mouth was some sweet bread Wolf had shoved at her. It was—she turned her head upwards and squinted at the sun—two o’clock in the afternoon now? Mercy, no wonder she was running low on energy.

  Change of plans. Food first, then Darrens.

  In this city that prepared for war, finding a place that had ready-made food available was some trick. Siobhan stumbled across a street vendor that had apparently chosen to stay and make a killing selling food to starving people. She paid an outrageous price for a leg of some sort of roasted fowl and two pieces of flat bread. It all seemed worth it when she took her first bite of the meat. The man might be a thief in disguise, but he knew how to cook.

  She walked and ate, juggling the bread and meat as she bobbed and weaved her way around the people. Most of the city might be deserted now, but the sections close to the walls and the inn that housed Darrens were filled to the brink. It took considerable skill to not drop anything.

  Finished with the meat, she gave the bone to a dog that she passed on the street, swallowed the last of the bread, and then braved the inn door.

  It was like wading into a sea of people. With the tide going against her. One man even pushed against her so hard that she was knocked out of the doorway, staggering out back into the street.

  Huffing a breath, she blew a strand of hair out of her eyes. “Seriously?” Setting her jaw in a determined line, she put her hands together like a diver would before jumping into water and used her hands to shove people aside, forcibly carving a path forward. This worked all the way until the middle of the room when she abruptly realized that she had no idea where Darrens was in this crowded room. Her frustration rose another notch. Raising her face to the ceiling, she yelled as loudly as she could, “DARRENS!”

  “Back right corner!” he responded, deep voice easily overshadowing everyone else.

  Back right corner, sure thing…wait, which direction was she facing? Disoriented for a moment, she did a slow spin until she figured out where the front door was. Finding her bearings, she struck off in the general direction of his voice. Halfway there, a pair of gnarled hands reached through two men and grabbed her shoulder before hauling her abruptly closer.

  Bouncing off a rock-hard chest, she blinked and looked up. Hyun Woo met her eyes with a benign and amused smile on his face. “Need help, Siobhan-jia?” he asked kindly.

  “Bless you,” she responded in heartfelt gratitude.

  “Come, I will escort you.” So saying, he put an arm around her shoulders and acted as trail blazer and protector, shielding her from the worst of it, until she came to the table that Darrens had commandeered.

  Siobhan put both hands over her stomach and gave Hyun Woo a proper bow of thanks, which he waved away, still smiling. Then she turned to Darrens. Her guildmaster had looked better. If he’d managed even an hour’s sleep the night before, it didn’t show. His dark circles were prominent enough to show across the room. Sweat dewed his temples and forehead, and the clothes he had on showed signs of being worn for the past two days at least. Siobhan would swear that he had aged two decades since she’d seen him last.

  He greeted her with, “Give me good news.”

  “The civilians are all evacuated,” she reported promptly. “Grae is taking the last of them out now.”

  Darrens sank into his hands, rubbing at his face with both palms, and letting out the longest sigh she’d ever heard from him. “Thank all mercy for that. Anything else?”

  “I’ve sent anyone in my guild with free hands to help at Conli’s clinic. But I’m now available to help if you need me.”

  His face lit up in a brief
but genuine smile. “I always need you, Siobhan. In fact, I’m convinced that I’d be lost without you, if you ever decide to take your guild to a different city. You won’t believe how much I regret not taking your advice more seriously before. Even if I couldn’t imagine a war, I should have still listened. You’ve never given me bad counsel.”

  This was the most direct apology she had ever heard from Darrens. Taken slightly aback, Siobhan fumbled for a moment, not sure how to respond. Finally she just ducked her head and gave him a sorry smile. “I would have been glad to have been wrong.”

  “I know,” he said in a troubled, sad tone. “I know.” Taking a deep breath, he sat back and regarded her more frankly. “At this moment, however, I’m not sure what I can ask you to do. The majority of the tasks have been delegated.”

  Hyun Woo cleared his throat and offered, “Perhaps we can ask Siobhan-jia to lend her formidable leadership skills to the blacksmiths?”

  For a split second, Darrens clearly didn’t know what the other man meant. Then it hit him and his eyes lit up. “Of course! Siobhan, we do have something of a situation. The blacksmiths are apparently enthralled with making caltrops. That’s all they want to focus on. But we need more arrows and spearheads. Can you go speak with them, and with the men in charge of the walls, and get a good idea of how much is needed? Coordinate between the two of them. I sent someone already, but he didn’t get the message across.”

  Since it was four of her men in charge of the walls, and Beirly in charge of the smithies, this order made perfect sense to her. “I will. I’ll head to the walls first.”

  From outside the inn, an alarm sounded, like metal banging against metal. Then a cry, and another, until someone from the doorway shouted, “THEY’RE HERE!”

  That cold chill she’d felt earlier shot up her spine again. Siobhan swallowed hard, seeing her unease reflected in Darren’s eyes.

  Only Hyun Woo didn’t share this emotion. Instead, a fierce smile overtook his face. “Finally, they are here.”

  Fei, perched up on top of the watchtower, let out a cry: “WOLF! THEY’RE COMING!”

  Everyone had been waiting for this moment for a full two days, so none of them could claim to be surprised. Wolf slung the shield from his back around and onto his left arm with a practiced move before taking his iron right hand and banging it loudly against the metal, using the shield like an alarm. It made quite the racket, the sound echoing and carrying for a fair distance.

  His people, well drilled as they were, recognized the sound instantly and scrambled up to their positions on the wall. Wolf had to duck closer to the outer edge and suck in his gut to let them have enough room to pass him, and even then he was jostled around a bit.

  Within minutes, they were ready, weapons in hand, eyes peeled intently toward the eastern horizon.

  Fei’s eyesight was once again proven to be as sharp as a hawk’s as it took several minutes more before Wolf could finally see the army approaching. Narrowing his eyes, he strained to pick out individuals, trying to get a headcount. Then he shook his head in disgust. A useless gesture, his eyes weren’t good enough for that. Giving up, he raised his voice and called to Fei, “How many?”

  Staying on his perch, Fei didn’t look away from the army’s approach as he called back, “Not sure! About three thousand!”

  Oh? The reports they’d gotten estimated five thousand had hit Goldschmidt. Did they lose that many men in felling the city? Or had they left a number of people behind? It might be a mix of both. Goldschmidt was the first city to put up any real fight. Stott and Channel Pass had been hit without any warning and so hadn’t given any real resistance.

  That made their job easier, certainly, in defending Converse. Whatever the reason, Wolf wasn’t about to complain.

  Looking to the left and right, he took in the general expressions and attitude of the people with him. Some of them looked determined, some of them nervous, but underlying it all was a tremor of fear. These people had never seen a body of men that large before—not a caravan in the world came even close to this number. Seeing three thousand men marching for them, as bloodthirsty as starving wolves, would make even the stoutest heart shiver. Even Wolf, as seasoned as he was with fighting, found the army’s approach unnerving.

  Sending a man into a fight who was afraid was the worst thing a commander could do. Wolf knew this from experience. It was part of the reason why he was missing a hand. He absolutely could not let this air of trepidation suffocate them.

  Taking in a breath, he prayed for guidance from any god that might be listening, then he tried to phrase in his own head what to say. He hashed through several sentences, wishing absently for either Fei or Markl (they were better at things like this), but eventually came up with something that he felt would help. With another deep breath, he opened his mouth and said as loudly as he could, “MEN OF ROBARGE!”

  The whole line atop the wall jerked, their heads snapping around in surprise to stare at him. Clearly, they hadn’t thought he would say anything to them.

  “I CALL YOU THAT BECAUSE NO MATTER YOUR GUILD, NO MATTER YOUR CITY, YOU ARE OF ROBARGE!” He had to take another deep breath to have the lungpower necessary to keep speaking. “THE ARMY COMING AT US ARE MINDLESS BEASTS. THEIR WILL IS WEAK. THEY THINK TO PUSH PAST YOU AS EASILY AS THEY HAVE BEFORE, PLUNDER AND MURDER, AND CARRY OFF WHAT THEY WISH. BUT THEY HAVE NO POWER HERE!”

  Wolf gauged the reaction of his words and found that he was only half-hitting the mark. So he repeated it, with even more emphasis on the words. “THEY HAVE NO POWER! THEY DON’T KNOW HOW TO FIGHT. YOU DO. THEY HAVE NO STRATEGY OR TACTICS. YOU DO. THEY HAVE NO LOYALTY TO EACH OTHER. YOU DO. YOU ARE EACH OTHER’S ALLIES. DEFEND EACH OTHER, FIGHT FOR EACH OTHER, AND DO NOT LET THEM PASS!”

  A roar went up from the walls, men and women of every age clanging their weapons against shields, or against the stone wall, making a raucous sound that was nearly deafening. It was like a wave of sound, a war cry that spoke only of determination and courage, with not one trace of fear to be found.

  The army that had been marching with such speed before faltered, their approach visibly hesitating as pockets of men stopped dead in their tracks, intimidated by what they saw and heard.

  The men that stood with Wolf saw this reaction and they let loose another war cry that could rival the first in volume. It unnerved their enemy so that only half still wanted to advance, and the other half clearly had second thoughts about this whole venture.

  Wolf had just been trying to rouse the morale of his own troops so that they had the courage to face the enemy. He hadn’t anticipated that by doing so he’d scare his enemy. A wolfish smile split his face in two. He wasn’t about to complain about that either.

  The war cry from the southern side of the city was loud enough to carry around to the other walls, and from a distance, he could hear them also shouting a war cry that would curdle a man’s blood. It was an open challenge to those that marched against them—come and take us, if you can.

  From above, Fei leaned forward, almost precariously balanced on the very edge of the roof, his hand up to shield his eyes from the afternoon sun. Whatever he saw surprised him, as his head jerked back and he leaned even further, straining to see better. Wolf watched this behavior in bemusement and the beginnings of alarm. Just what had the man seen to make him react so?

  Turning in place, Fei waved a hand to catch Wolf’s attention, then cupped his mouth before yelling to him. Wolf only heard the tone, but couldn’t decipher the words through all of the shouting going on around him. Helplessly he shook his head, pointing toward his ear to show he couldn’t hear anything.

  Frustrated, Fei gave up on this and instead climbed down, as limber as a monkey. Within two hops and a leap, he had gained the main level of the wall. Wolf pushed through his people, meeting Fei halfway. “What?” he asked, still having to raise his voice to make sure that Fei could hear him.

  “They’re not properly armed!” Fei said in disbelief.

 
; Wolf blinked at him. Surely he hadn’t heard the man right. “Not properly armed?” The men he had faced in Goldschmidt had been.

  “Most of them don’t have real weapons. They’re carrying hammers, or hoes, or butcher knives. The few that are armed have weapons so old or oversized that it makes me think they’re stolen.”

  This seemed insane to Wolf, at first. Who went into battle without a proper weapon to his name? But it made complete sense when he thought about it. Good weapons were expensive to make and a financial burden to replace if lost or stolen. The whole reason why Orin had put together this rag-tag army in the first place was because of a practically destitute economy. Where would they find the means to arm five thousand people? And even with them looting the other three cities that they’d taken, the first thing that a man did when under attack would be to take up his sword, or whatever other weapon he used. So there would be little chance of gaining weapons through looting.

  Wolf must have been (un?)lucky enough to meet up with the men that were armed while fighting in Goldschmidt. Or perhaps they sent the people with true weapons as a vanguard into the city and let everyone else come in after them.

  He blew out a lungful of air in a steady stream. “Well, that makes the job of fending them off easier. How long till they reach the walls?”

  “I give it minutes.”

  “Then let’s get back in place.” Wolf switched the shield to his right arm, absently locking his thumb in to hold the hand around the handle. That set, he pulled his sword free and gripped it rhythmically in an old habit. As he did this, Fei moved back to the watchtower, picking up bow and a quiver of arrows as he moved.

  Eyeing the army’s approach, Wolf waited on taut nerves, and slowly raised his sword above his head. “Archers ready!” he boomed out.

  The three hundred men under his command instantly notched arrows and pulled them back, ready to fire into the air.

  Giving it another few seconds for more men to come within range, Wolf bided his time before giving the command, “LOOSE!”