He might be right. Kallia saw side doorways, some blockaded by rubble, others opening into dark holes. They entered what looked like a courtyard, partially excavated, with wooden beams propping up the ceiling.
They traveled by torch light for several minutes before emerging through a door into a small house. A man sat on the floor, weaving a rug. When they stepped into the room, he sprang to his feet, leaving his loom. It was Fenerath, the guildmaster. Somehow they’d climbed in elevation until they’d come against the back wall of a house.
“Hurry,” he said. Fenerath opened a chest on the floor, retrieving a nondescript brown robe that he tossed to Kallia.
She looked down at her robes of fine silk embroidered with geometric designs and knew she would be recognized immediately if she wore these clothes. The men turned their backs to give her privacy while she changed. But she still felt unclean from what had happened the night she had married the dark wizard. It reminded her too much of when Mol Khah had torn her old clothes from her body. So instead, she simply pulled the robe Fenerath gave her over her other clothing. They went outside.
The sound of battle filled the air. They stood in the midst of the Weavers Quarter, three hundred yards from the wall on the north side of the city. Men fought on top of the city wall with swords and maces. The Veyrians in black and crimson had the upper hand, better armed and equipped and commanding the better strategic position. Men from the watchman guild streamed up the stairways to the wall, but many were armed only with truncheons or short swords. And Cragyn’s men didn’t panic, but gathered into tight clumps that drove back the watchmen.
Four men battled a giant on the other side of the street. The watchmen were armed with pikes, but the giant swung a cudgel and kept the men at bay. He knocked one to the ground, then finished the man with a single, crushing blow. Three more men joined the fight, but another giant came running down the street.
The road on which they stood led directly to the palace, sitting atop the hill, where it could overlook the city. Several small battles raged in front of the palace gates. The garrison inside had already discovered the revolt and grappled with the watchmen, trying to force them out of the way so they could get into the streets. Scores of watchmen rushed to plug the gates, but more Veyrians joined the battle every moment; unless the watchmen secured the walls soon and brought reinforcements, the enemy garrison would break from the palace and the battle would end in defeat.
A roar sounded in the distance. She recognized the sound immediately. Cragyn’s Hammer. So they hadn’t taken the siege weapon; it battered at the walls.
All around, she saw evidence that her plan failed. There were hundreds of watchmen, even people from the city who’d gathered old weapons and kitchen knifes to overthrow the hated enemy. But they had no leader, and in the face of Veyre’s overwhelming superiority in discipline and arms, the revolt was doomed. She saw the looks of horror on Fenerath and Saldibar’s faces mirrored on the walls and the streets, on the faces of the people holding Mol Khah’s men inside the palace.
She knew what she must do. The time had come to stop hiding, to stop letting others sacrifice their lives while she kept herself safe. She stripped off the brown cloak that Fenerath told her to wear. Gathering her strength, Kallia ran toward the men at the palace gates. Behind her, Saldibar cried for her to stop.
Guardsmen looked up from their fighting as she approached. Murmurs of recognition passed through the combatants on both sides. Kallia grabbed the scimitar of a fallen man and pushed her way into the men at the palace gates.
Saldibar caught up with her, and took her by the arm. “You can’t do that. You’ll be killed.”
When she answered, it was as loud as she could speak. “I am going to live or die with Balsalom. Now move out of my way. Hold the gap!” she cried to the men ahead of her. “Don’t let them through.”
Shouts passed through the group. News of her presence passed to the walls, to the battles in the streets. Resolve stiffened all around her. Saldibar looked at her with a mixture of surprise and admiration.
She meant her words, pressing toward the front of the battle. But the guardsmen moved to block her from the fighting. She shouted for them to let her past, but they refused to obey.
Kallia had no illusions what would happen if she reached the fighting. She had been trained in swordsmanship, and had learned enough to know that she would be quickly overwhelmed by a larger, better-trained opponent. And should she reach the fighting, she would be attacked immediately.
Mol Khah stood on the other side of the gates, snarling instructions to his men in the palace courtyard. The gates hadn’t been built with more than cursory defensive strategies. The road sloped steeply over flagstones, treacherous footing for horses mounting a charge.
Cragyn’s pasha cleared his men out of the way to bring something from the back. Mammoths. The beasts trumpeted in near panic at the din and the fire at their back, goaded toward the palace gates. In the darkness, it was impossible to see how many. Kallia didn’t have enough men to hold the gap against those beasts, and both sides knew it.
But at last, the battle on the city walls turned. Balsalomians took control of towers, and from here, hundreds more guardsmen poured onto the walls. Better arms and armor fell into their hands with every fallen Veyrian. Soon, sheer numbers overwhelmed the enemy. Victory secured, the guardsmen came down from the city walls to bolster Kallia’s force, fighting through the skirmishes continuing throughout the city streets.
Mol Khah moved enough men out of the way to march his mammoths. He had eight or ten that she could see, heads and trunks covered with armor, tusks capped with iron crowns. Mammoth drivers shouted and drove their beasts forward with handheld iron goads. The beasts lumbered toward the gates.
The Balsalomians blanched, and a ripple passed through the men in front. If they gave, the battle would be lost. Hundreds of well-trained Veyrians would fan through the city in phalanxes and cavalry units to crush all opposition.
But it was a critical time for Mol Khah’s forces, as well. The fire she’d set had served more purpose than a mere ruse. It still burned on the edge of the gardens, boiling smoke into the air. The enemy had turned his attention away from the fire and to breaking out of the palace before it was too late. Which meant, however, that if he didn’t break out, the fire might be too large to contain and burn the entire palace to the ground.
“Hold them!” Kallia cried. “Hold them!”
The cry passed through the men. “Hold them!”
Spears lowered, Balsalomians stood in the way. The mammoths trumpeted and charged toward the gap. The beasts were upon them.
12
Mammoths scattered Kallia’s men like the wind scatters leaves. Breaking from the darkness, they swept guardsmen out of the way with iron-tipped tusks, trampled screaming foes beneath their feet. Men attacked with spears and swords, but these were gnats against the beast’s thick hides. Mol Khah’s men stormed into the gap left by the mammoth’s charge.
“Hold them!” she cried again.
Her words stiffened the men in the mammoth’s path. The lead beast met a solid wall of spears. It drove into them, enraged by the stinging attacks all around it and swinging its head. Crushing the men in front, the mammoth stumbled to its knees, a spear plunging into its right eye. Still fighting through the gates, the other mammoths slowed at this new obstacle. One of the mammoths further back trumpeted in rage and stormed past the others, and Kallia saw that the Veyrians on its back had been speared and knocked free, leaving the beast riderless. It tore through the ranks, widening the wedge.
“Kallia!” one guardsman shouted, raising his sword overhead. “For the khalifa!”
He charged at the mammoth, then plunged his sword into the creature’s underbelly. The mammoth lurched to one side, sweeping the man away with his trunk and crushing him underfoot. Emboldened by his display of courage, other men swarmed over the mammoth. It bellowed in fear and confused pain and fell.
Anothe
r mammoth broke through the ranks, but its rider slumped to one side, dead. The other mammoths fell where they stood, taking many with them. Mol Khah’s men poured into the wedge cleared by the mammoths, attacking furiously to further open the breach.
But Kallia’s men had held the line until reinforcements arrived. The watchmen had freed those remnants of Balsalom’s army not yet led to Veyre in chains. These newcomers bolstered Kallia’s forces with courage and discipline, and many of them were well armed, with weapons seized from the prison garrison. Although weakened with hunger, they fought with a ferocity that stunned the Veyrians and watchmen alike.
Kallia’s forces drove the enemy back inside the palace courtyard. She thought for one, amazing moment, that they might win the battle outright.
“The gates!” Mol Khah shouted.
The enemy surged in a final, desperate assault, driving Kallia’s forces outside the courtyard. The gates swung shut, and those few Balsalomians still inside withdrew to avoid being trapped. A few minor skirmishes continued on the streets, and fires burned in the Slaves Quarter, but they had won. The city was theirs. Kallia’s men let out a great cry.
Victory had come at a terrible price. Hundreds lay dead on the streets and the city walls. Others had died throughout the city, including many noncombatants, slaughtered in their homes. But had the battle stretched into the night, Mol Khah would have destroyed half the city, she was sure of it.
Saldibar found her outside the palace gates. He looked ready to scold her, but she grabbed the older man in an embrace and laughed. “We did it!”
Saldibar’s robes were soaked with blood. He held a scimitar in hand, nicked and stained. He nodded grimly. “For now, yes, but we still need to take the palace.”
Cragyn’s Hammer fired again to the west. Kallia said, “And the siege engine. How many men guard that thing?”
“Maybe three hundred. They are well armed and have fortified their camp in the Tombs of the Kings.”
Kallia eyed the rising sun, “We’ll take the Hammer first, then the palace. If they destroy the city walls, we’ll never hold Balsalom when the dark wizard returns. Gather the pashas and the captains of the guardsmen.”
* * *
By nightfall, Balsalom raised some four thousand men. Kallia guessed they had four days before Balsalom was attacked again, so she sent men to comb the city, hoping to put together twenty thousand more. These would be untrained and used only as a last defense should the city walls fall. Kallia had only to remind them what had happened when Syrmarria fell at the end of the Tothian Wars. She knew the story from her tutor and the old books in the library.
Syrmarria had stood for a thousand years on the east end of Aristonia. Its wealth was legendary. It was said that the khalif of Syrmarria bathed in asses’ milk every morning, and never drank twice from the same golden goblet. While the bulk of Toth’s army savaged Eriscoba west of the mountains, Syrmarria withstood a siege, protected by a wizard named Memnet the Great. After four months of siege, the enemy broke into the city by subterfuge, threw open the gates and let Toth’s army pour into the city. For eight days, the enemy sacked Syrmarria, murdering, raping, plundering, and finally burning it to the ground.
She spread this story wherever she went, hoping to stiffen resolve against a similar fate.
The enemy’s bombard pounded the city walls the next day. The walls stood the first several bombardments, but weakened by late afternoon. If they couldn’t silence the weapon, it would open a breach by the time Cragyn returned and if that happened, the dark wizard’s forces would overwhelm the city.
Kallia met with Saldibar, guild representatives, the three surviving pashas of her army, and four captains of the guardsmen. There was a surprise waiting for her when she reached Fenerath’s Hall, the guildmaster’s manor.
She recognized the tall man immediately. “Whelan.”
He smiled and she sensed something behind that smile: pain, worry, fear, but also relief. “We heard you’d died.”
Kallia smiled. “I’m still very much alive, although the dark wizard will soon wish he’d killed me when he had the chance. So, have you returned as my friend, or as a spy?”
Whelan looked pained. “I never spied against you, my queen. Only against the dark wizard. We needed to know how much he’d infiltrated the city.”
“Of course.” She drew him forward and kissed him on both cheeks. “Welcome back to Balsalom.”
Whelan introduced his companion, a boy named Darik. He looked slightly familiar, although she couldn’t remember where she’d seen him before. The boy was awed by her presence, and blushed furiously when she kissed his cheeks. They took their seats around Fenerath’s dining table, while the man served them wine. Fenerath and the boy exchanged startled looks of recognition, and she thought she saw a flash of rage in Darik’s eyes, but neither of them said anything.
Kallia said, “Saldibar told me you were in the city the night of the fire in the Slaves Quarter. I’m glad he could bring you back in our time of need.”
“I never wanted to leave, but other duties called. We traveled with a wizard from the Order, who has gone to warn King Daniel.”
“And will the Free Kingdoms send aid?” she asked. “Or will they leave us to suffer the dark wizard’s wrath?”
“We’ll send help, but first we must drive Cragyn from the mountains. He has taken Montcrag already. He is marching on the Teeth.”
“Ah yes, of course.” Kallia rose to her feet, taking another sip of wine before leaving the goblet on the table. She sensed Whelan’s discomfort, but didn’t dare release him from his obligation. Balsalom couldn’t afford to wait for King Daniel to fight other battles.
She continued, “So what happens come spring, when our rebellion fails for lack of support and King Daniel’s only eastern ally collapses? Will he send his apologies to the slaves laboring in Veyre’s mines?”
“My queen,” Whelan said, rising also to his feet. “I swear I will raise whatever support I can. But while the dark wizard marches west, we must first protect the Citadel.” He shook his head, clearly torn by conflicting obligations. “But if he returns, we will raise the largest army Eriscoba has seen in generations and crush the enemy between our forces.”
Kallia sighed. He had changed nothing, avoided committing the Free Kingdoms until they were safe. She didn’t know whether or not he had the power to make such commitments in any event. No, that was wrong. It was how he carried himself, and how he spoke about the intentions of the Free Kingdoms that told her that he was someone important to King Daniel. And he had influence with the Brotherhood of the Thorne, that much Saldibar and Ethan had confirmed.
Kallia made her way to his side and put her hand on his arm. She caught startled glances from the others that she would be so familiar with the barbarian. She remembered the look of devotion in Whelan’s eyes that time in her father’s bed chambers, a look she had interpreted as love. Certainly, she couldn’t read that in his eyes now. And why should he love her? She was the weakened khalifa of a city about to fall, and if he were looking for a beautiful woman, he could find hundreds of others who would interest him more. And he knew that she had wed the dark wizard and been defiled by his hand.
“Whelan,” she said, dropping all pretense from her voice. “If you say you cannot do any more, I will believe you. Thank you for returning.”
A boom sounded to the east, reminding them of their purpose. She turned to the grand vizier. “Saldibar, how quickly have they reloaded the Hammer?”
“It has fired every two hours, my queen.”
“By the time it is readied again, we will be upon it. That will be dawn. Until then, we will ask for a parlay from the palace garrison. We’ll promise free passage to the Tothian Way if they surrender.”
“Will they do it?” one of the captains asked.
“Perhaps. They have little choice, with the fire still burning.”
Fenerath smashed his hand to his fist. “And if they surrender, we show no mercy. We ki
ll them all.” Others around the table murmured angry consent.
“No,” Kallia said. “If they surrender, we give them safe passage to the Way, just as we promise.”
Fenerath protested, “But khalifa—may you live forever—think of the Balsalomians impaled outside the gates. And thousands more sent east to slavery. Men in this room lost brothers last night in battle. What mercy does the enemy deserve?” Again, angry assertions of support rippled through the room.
“They deserve no mercy, but we will give it to them anyway. That’s what makes us different than our enemy. When cities across the khalifates see that we made an oath and kept it, they will know that we don’t fight the dark wizard merely to establish Balsalom atop the Iron Throne.”
“Perhaps,” Fenerath said. “Or perhaps they will think us weak.”
“How is it weak?” she asked. “Is it weak if we prove we can cast off the dark wizard’s army? Is it weak if we crush the enemy’s greatest pasha and send him slinking from Balsalom in disgrace?”
Fenerath rubbed his chin, and she could see that she’d swayed him at last. Others nodded and she knew she had them, too. “And now, Whelan, my pashas, we need a plan to capture Cragyn’s Hammer.”
Together, they worked out a strategy. Whelan had friends hiding amidst the Tombs, he said. When he told them who, the room tingled with excitement. Griffins had not been seen in Balsalom for decades; griffin riders were powerful allies. Already, her faith in Whelan proved itself.
They roused Mol Khah to a parlay. Rain drizzled from the night sky, aiding the enemy’s efforts to put out the fire. At last, Cragyn’s general appeared on the tower overlooking the gates. Kallia stood in the midst of her bodyguards, who would throw themselves in the path of attack. Hundreds of other Balsalomians surrounded the palace.
“Come to end this foolish revolt?” Mol Khah shouted down at her. “Very well, I accept your surrender.”
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