by Tim Stead
One floor up he was nodded through by a second pair of guards and entered the Earl’s chambers. The Earl was standing at a table bent over a map.
“Sandaray. Good. Come here,” the old man said. When the colonel complied, the Earl pointed at the map. “Alwain has begun his march on Bas Erinor. But he’s taking the coast road.”
“That doesn’t mean we’re safe, My Lord,” the colonel ventured.
“No, but we have time.”
“Not necessarily.” Sandaray ran his finger along the coast road. “He’ll take his time. Alwain will want his infantry fresh when he gets to Bas Erinor, but if he takes the city he’ll turn north, and if we all band together we’ll have less than half his number, and there’s nothing here that can be defended. Perhaps Bel Arac, but that’s no Bas Erinor. Alwain will have the men to take it.”
“Better to meet him behind our walls than in the field,” Lord Toranda suggested.
“Better walls make better best,” Sandaray said.
“You think we should garrison Bel Arac?”
“Too small. You put five thousand into Bel Arac and men will be standing on other men’s shoulders.”
“Then where?”
Sandaray knew that his lord relied on him for military advice, and that Toranda was his only concern, but the colonel could see the bigger picture. Bas Erinor was the rock that could break Alwain, but it was woefully undermanned. A thousand men couldn’t hold the city. They’d be hard pressed to hold the high city, and might even be forced back to the castle itself. With enough men on the city walls Alwain would need three times their number to force a victory.
“Bas Erinor,” he said.
“It’s a week’s march, and we’d need to call the Witan to agree a strategy with the other lords. We don’t have the time.”
“Forget the Witan. Just march. Send messages to the other lords calling them to stand with General Arbak and the King.”
“Some might come,” Toranda said.
“I think they will. They must understand that a man inside Bas Erinor is worth three outside. You must make them understand. This is our only chance.”
Toranda looked wistfully at the map. “You are certain of this?”
“I have no doubt,” Sandaray said. “This war will be won or lost at Bas Erinor.”
“Our towns will be left undefended.” He had bent over the map again. “If Alwain sends a force north…”
“If we go to Bas Erinor he will not have the men to spare, My Lord.” But logic wasn’t going to be enough – not quite. Every man wanted to know that his family was safe while he was away fighting, but only lords had the means of ensuring it. “But perhaps you and a personal guard can take refuge at High Stone. It is small, but formidable. A hundred men could hold it against a thousand.”
“You think that Callan Henn will side with us?”
“He has written to say as much, though he can only spare a contingent of two hundred men to our cause. He has no more.”
“And the other lords, if they bring their guards, will flesh out the garrison,” Toranda said. He clearly liked the idea. High Stone commanded the king’s road north from Bas Erinor and no force travelling that way could afford to leave it in their rear unsecured. But in spite of the letter, written to Sandaray personally, the colonel had his reservations. He didn’t entirely trust Callan Henn. The man’s ancestry was impeccable, but he had spent a lot of time in Bas Erinor, some of it in the company of Alwain. This move would solve two problems at a blow. High Stone would be defanged – the bulk of its force marching south with Sandaray – and it would be garrisoned by the most loyal troops possible. The colonel didn’t want High Stone being a nasty surprise in his own rear.
“When will the men be ready to march?” Toranda asked.
“Tomorrow morning, My Lord” Sandaray said. “They are ready now, but a last night at home will do them good, and we wouldn’t cover much ground in what’s left of the day anyway.”
Toranda stroked his chin, a sign of indecision. Sandaray decided to push.
“You need to write letters to those lords who side with us, My Lord. I will send riders out as soon as they are ready.”
“Yes. Yes of course.”
“With your permission I will go and tell the regiment.”
Toranda stroked his chin again, clearly uncomfortable with the speed at which things were being decided. He looked down at the map.
“You’re sure about this?” he asked.
“I am not certain that we will win, My Lord. But I am certain that this is our best chance.”
The lord nodded. “Very well, tell the regiment to prepare. We leave at first light.”
“Yes, My Lord.”
Sandaray left, passing the guards outside the door, descending the stairs and coming once again to the gate. He stopped by the guards. One of them offered him a bottle. He shook his head.
“None of that,” he said. “We march in the morning.”
The guard put the cork back in the bottle.
“South?”
Sandaray shook his head. “You’ll see come morning,” he said.
“So it’s war then.”
“It’s war.”
8 Men at the Gate
Cain woke alone. For a moment he reached across for Sheyani and then remembered that she was down in the low city, staying at their inn, gauging the mood of the people. She was unmatched at the task, and capable of changing despair into hope with a puff of wind down her pipes. That’s what it was to be a Halith mage.
He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up. The window suggested that dawn was in progress, a peach coloured sky brightening to the east. He went to the window and looked out. He could see the low city, could even pick out the roof of his inn from here, and beyond the busy neighbourhoods the sea stretched to the horizon.
He walked out of his bed chamber into the main chamber of the Duke’s suite, and on into a smaller room set aside for bathing. He washed himself and rubbed his body dry with a soft towel. If anything, the Duke had lived better than even Pascha did in Col Boran. Everything here was of the finest quality. He understood that a scratch or a loose thread had condemned any piece of furniture or clothing, but Cain had stopped the practice. He didn’t mind a little wear in his life. It helped to show the passage of time.
He heard voices outside the door, and moved closer while he buttoned his shirt. The voices were instantly recognisable as Catto and Spans, his two new bodyguards. They were arguing.
“…just saying we deserve more,” Catto was complaining. “We saved the fucking Duke of Bas Erinor and we get nothing, not a single guinea. It’s a scandal.”
“Promotion. Double pay. Soft beds. You want more?” That was Spans.
“Nobody would notice if we helped ourselves is what I’m saying. There’s so much here just for the picking. We…”
There was a sound like a side of beef hitting a table.
“Ow! Don’t do that!”
“You talk about thieving I’ll do it again,” Spans said. It was the longest sentence Cain had ever heard the big man utter. Cain smiled and went back to dressing. He’d though Catto was a rogue, but it looked like Spans was going to keep him in check. That was good. They both had potential.
When he was dressed, he opened the outer door and looked out. They were standing either side, Catto sporting a bruise on his right cheek. Cain examined the injury.
“How did you come by that, Sergeant?” he asked.
“Tripped and fell,” Catto said without blinking.
“Clumsy. Not sure I want a clumsy bodyguard,” Cain said. “Make sure it doesn’t happen again.” He turned to Spans. “All well, Sergeant?”
“Sir.” Spans couldn’t even fit the word ‘yes’ into his reply.
“Good. I’ll be breakfasting with Caster today, so you can take half an hour for yourselves.”
“Sir.”
It was perhaps a little foolish to think that he was completely safe inside Bas Erin
or Castle, but Cain was confident enough. The incident in the low city had been unfortunate, and the arrow that had temporarily crippled him had been a lucky shot. It wasn’t likely to be repeated.
They followed him down to the receiving chamber nevertheless, and left him in sight of Caster, who was already helping himself to tea and Berashi bacon. Cain sat down opposite.
“I don’t like the rat-faced one,” Caster said.
Cain laughed. “Unprepossessing, I admit,” he said. “But he and Spans come as a pair, and the pair is good. Catto’s clever. Spans is honest. They’re like brothers.”
“They couldn’t be less alike,” Caster said.
“True.”
Cain helped himself, and they ate in silence for a while.
“Any news from the north?” Cain asked.
“Nothing. Alwain’s coming, though. Pascha sent me a dream. He’s broken camp and taking the coast road. It looks like he’s driving his men hard.”
A dream. Cain wondered what that was like. He didn’t mind that Pascha sent them to Caster rather than himself. She’d known Caster for centuries and she and Cain hadn’t had the best of starts.
“When will he be here?”
“Maybe ten days – perhaps two weeks. He’ll want to provision along the way. I didn’t see too many wagons. How are we shaping up?”
“I think the regiment is as ready as it can be. We had more volunteers – another two hundred lads tried to join yesterday, so we’ve started training them. We’re up to fourteen hundred, but a lot of them are raw.”
“It’s not enough,” Caster said. “Five thousand would do. Ten would be better. You can’t defeat a man when you’re hiding behind a wall. He can wait outside and starve us.”
Cain shook his head. “We won’t starve. Do you remember I told you about the Farheim Roads?”
“I do, but that was the best part of a century ago, and you used them to get through the Dragon’s Back.”
It had been a stroke of luck, really. They had been trying to get from Berash to Telas, and somewhere deep in the mountains they’d found a door, and behind the door a chamber with a dozen or so doorways. Each led to a portal somewhere in the kingdoms, an instant way of travelling hundreds of miles. It was ancient magic from the days of the god-mages, but it still worked. He and Sheyani had spent many months exploring the pathways over fifty years ago.
“There’s a portal here in the city,” Cain said.
Caster stopped eating.
“Really?”
“Down in the low city. It means we can bring in food from anywhere – as much as we like.”
“Where’s the nearest portal it connects to?”
“You’re thinking of a sally, taking Alwain by surprise, but it’s too far – at least two day’s ride north.”
“It’s still possible.”
“But dangerous. It would weaken the city for four days and put the sally force at risk. They could be pursued and caught, especially as the door’s too small for a horse.”
“There has to be a way to use them.”
“Probably,” Cain agreed. “I’ll give it some thought. But today I plan to walk the city walls, find any weak spots, examine the approaches.”
Caster wiped his plate with a last scrap of bread and stuffed it into his mouth. He stood up.
“Fine,” he said. “I’m going to practice.”
“You need to?”
Caster picked up his sword harness. It was identical to Narak’s. “Even the best knife needs sharpening.”
When Caster had left, Cain finished his own meal. A shuffling outside the door told him that Catto and Spans had returned, so he took a last mouthful of bitter tea and abandoned the table.
His bodyguards fell in behind him and they walked out of the castle, through the high gates and down the divine stair. Catto muttered something about horses being a useful means of transport, but Spans glared at him and he shut up. Cain ignored the exchange. He was too busy thinking.
Even with fourteen hundred men, defending the city was a tough proposition. The walls stretched for over two miles, and he couldn’t have all his men on duty at the same time. He’d need to rest most of them. At Fal Verdan he’d set them to watch in eight-hour spells, and sometimes as short as four. The Gates, from what he remembered, were the most likely focal point of attack. Walls had to be climbed by every man that crossed them, but if you broke open a gate the city was open.
Could he abandon the low city? Militarily it made sense. The City of the Gods, surrounded by cliffs, was much more defensible, but he’d lose his portal to the Farheim Roads, and his supplies would be finite. Alwain could simply hold off any attempt to relieve the siege and wait him out. No, he had to hold all of Bas Erinor. The tactics he’d used at Fal Verdan would be no help here. There was just too much wall. Every bit of it would have to be watched at all times. A man every hundred paces would do. That needed thirty, no, forty men. Probably better if they were squads to provide some initial resistance. Ten men to a squad. Four hundred men. That was already just about all the men he’d have at any one time. He wanted to put three larger forces in strategic spots around the city so they could respond to attacks and quickly reinforce the men on the wall. He also wanted fifty men on each gate. Two thousand men would be the minimum to mount an effective defence.
They arrived at the river gate. It was the smaller of the two city gates, and the easiest to defend, the only access being a bridge across the river which flowed along the western city wall. Cain climbed the steps up to the fighting platform and looked out. There was a good view of the approaching road, which vanished into forest a couple of bowshots away. The river meant that this part of the city was the least likely to be attacked. He could post fewer men on these walls.
He walked along the wall until he came to the place where the river curved away round the base of the butte on which the high city sat. The wall met the cliff here, and that might be a weak point, too. The cliff was more easily climbed than the wall, but it was a narrow weakness, and only one or two men at a time could attempt it. Half a dozen men would be enough to hold this point.
They returned along the wall to the river gate and beyond. Here the river flowed away from the walls, round the back of the regimental training ground and out to the sea beyond. There was a tower here at the point where the wall turned abruptly east. It allowed archers to dominate the approaches in two directions. Cain climbed the steps to the roof.
There were a dozen men already there, keeping watch, and among them was Dunsandel, the regiment’s colonel. He was talking, pointing out features that would hinder or help an approaching force, and didn’t see Cain immediately.
“I want that ditch staked,” he said. “It’s the only natural cover within bowshot.”
Cain wasn’t sure that he liked the colonel. Dunsandel had threatened the life of the king, and it mystified Cain that the man was still alive. But the Wolf had spared him, and Cain was still very much aware that his own rise had begun with Narak’s mercy. He could hardly hold it against another.
“Colonel.”
Dunsandel turned and saluted smartly. His officers did the same.
“My Lord.”
Cain walked over to the edge and looked down. The ground was clear.
“Do we have oil?” he asked.
“We do. But these are Avilians, My Lord. Do we want to burn our own people?”
“Do we want to stake them? Stab them? Shoot at them with arrows?” Dunsandel’s officers looked grim. “No, we don’t,” Cain said. “Do we have a choice?”
“There’s always a choice, My Lord.”
“The choice is Degoran or Alwain. I’m for the king,” Cain said. “You?”
“The king, of course.”
Cain raised an eyebrow. “Then oil it is,” he said. “And all the rest. We hold the city for the king.”
“We will do our best,” Dunsandel said.
He understood the reluctance to use oil. Dunsandel expected to lose, and
, if he was right, at some point he would be at the mercy of Alwain’s army. It might go better for him if he hadn’t set fire to a good number of their comrades. It wasn’t a pleasant way to die.
The tense atmosphere on the tower was shattered by a runner bursting up the stairs. The man looked from Cain to his colonel and back again. He chose Cain.
“My Lord, there are men approaching the main city gate.”
“Men? Armed? How many?”
“Armed and armoured, My Lord, horse and foot. Hundreds of them.”
“It can’t be Alwain,” Dunsandel said.
“We’ll see,” Cain replied. He gestured to the runner to go ahead of him and followed, Catto and Spans at his back. The colonel and his officers followed behind.
Cain didn’t run. It didn’t do men good to see their commander seemingly panicked. He walked briskly enough to convey a sense of urgency, but no more than that. By the time they reached the main gate he could see that a large force was drawn up tidily a few yards out of bowshot. They didn’t look like Avilians. Their armour and clothing were black and they displayed a banner showing two crossed swords on a red ground.
As he watched a small party separated from the rest, raised a white flag of truce and rode up to the gate. The man at their head stopped before the walls and removed his helmet. He looked up.
“We would speak with the Duke,” he said.
Cain studied the man. In his time he’d been a mercenary, and this man had all the marks. He looked tough and rode as though born to it. His armour was spotless, and he carried two blades. A bow was strapped to his saddle.
“I am the Duke,” Cain said.
The mercenary studied him in return.
“You are General Cain Arbak? You held the White Road and showed the hand of mercy?”
Cain knew. Only one group of people would say those words to him.
“I am Cain Arbak,” he replied. “You are the Wolfen.”
The soldier dismounted and knelt in the dust before the gate. Behind him every man did likewise. There was a stirring among the men on the wall.
