The Warrior's Tale (The Far Kingdoms, Book 2)

by Allan Cole, Chris Bunch

  Gamelan was wrong about how many Guardswomen were to die that day, because we pressed the Lycanthians hard, knowing if we stopped for food, for water, for even a breath, they’d have time to counterattack. We gave them no succor and battered them back and back through their city. I’d read war in a city is the worst of all, that an attacker can lose control of his entire force and have it butchered to the last warrior before he realizes what has happened.

  That is most certainly correct. Of all the fighting I did before, and even afterward, on land or shore, I cannot remember any time as dreadful as those gore-soaked days when we drove the Lycanthians through their home city to the sea.

  If the fighting had been bloody before, now it became awful. Soldiers and demons poured out of those strange tall buildings, slashing through their own panic-stricken populace to get at us. More than soldiers died in this swirling madness. I saw Lycanthian women, not in armor, using flails and butcher knives lashed to poles as well as swords and javelins from downed warriors, fighting in the front ranks, and saw them killed. I saw old men, other women and children, unarmed, screaming in fear, trying to run, trying to hide, trying to surrender. I saw them cut down by battle maddened soldiers — even by my own Guardswomen. My officers and sergeants shouted against this blood lust and in moments it was gone.

  The fighting went on all that night and the next day and suddenly, we were in front of another great wall.

  This was the sea-castle of the Archons. And it halted us in our tracks.

  Again, the siege was mounted and again almost a year passed. The sea castle’s walls withstood assault after assault. Our blood and theirs stained the black, smoking stone. The gates were buckled and blasted, but still held firm. At any moment they could swing open and unleash a surprise attack by warriors made mad by the Archons’ spells. Inside those walls we could hear the screams of the wounded and the pitiful moans of the starving.

  Outside, our army suffered as well. War had denuded the countryside for many miles. Our supply ships were simply not enough to support our land forces and we had, through common humanity, to try to feed those poor Lycanthian civilians who’d not been able to flee into the sea castle in time; civilians the Archons refused to admit to the castle in the one brief truce we were able to call. Our soldiers were exhausted and plagued by hunger and disease, overflowing the hospital tents with their numbers. Sleep was no release: the air was so festerous with the stink of magic that nightmares constantly stalked our dreams.

  But it was the will of the Archons, not the defenders of those walls, that’d ground our advance to a halt. The two wizard kings of Lycanth were fighting for their lives with a fury. Our Evocators, though bolstered mightily by spells my brother had brought back from the Far Kingdoms, were blocked by the Archons’ counter spells at every turn.

  I said the blood bath of the assault through Lycanth was the worst fighting I’ve ever known. I wish I had another set of words to describe what a siege is like, because, in some ways, it is more terrible. There is constant boredom, but you must never let yourself relax. One momentary pause in the open and a sharp-eyed archer sends a shaft through your guts. You must never speak too loudly, nor shout, or else the enemy might use that sound to catapult a boulder onto your position. You must keep your ears sharp, or a raiding party might slit your weasand before you see the glint of his steel. You must never leave your shit unburied, or flies will walk first on that, then on your food and the curse of diarrhea or worse shall be passed. You must try to keep yourself clean, because if you are wounded and dirt from your filthy rags enters the wound, it will fester — although how you’re to be so sanitary living in a hole pick-axed through the city’s cobbled streets, no one can say. You must try to be cheerful, because a woman who constantly complains will weaken herself and those around her. You must . . .

  . . . and so forth. I could go on, but I was reminded by my beady-eyed collaborator this is not a manual intended to instruct soldiers.

  As the siege continued, matters became worse between General Jinnah and myself and therefore the Guard. We were denied what little glory was to be gained being the first to attempt an assault, or even on what we call a "futile hope," which is a small party seizing an sudden opportunity — a small-scale version of the Scouts’ attack on the wall, which now seemed to have happened so long ago it might’ve been an exploit told our grandmothers.

  We were sent into every action, the more bloody the more likely the Maranon Guards would be at the forefront. We were slowly whittled away to less than two hundred and it seemed as if no more replacements would ever arrive. At times it seemed Jinnah wished the Guard to die to the last woman. This I refused to let myself believe, attributing it to the heart sickness any leader feels, seeing her best die and others replace them and die as well — and to what end?

  I said nothing of my thoughts to anyone, not even Corais or Polillo.

  There were tales Jinnah was enriching himself at the army and Orissa’s expense that he had special teams assigned to comb through the city’s apartments for gold and riches and secretly take them to his estates outside Orissa. No one had actually seen these looters-by-command, so I spoke harshly to anyone incautious enough to repeat the rumors in my presence. But when I was in conference with the general, I couldn’t help but study him closely for some sign of avarice. All I saw on his face, however, was despair that the siege could not be maintained much longer. There was also real fear in his eyes when he heard tales from our spies the Archons had nearly mastered a death spell that would be the end of Orissa.

  Finally, the day of reckoning arrived; although like all such days I have experienced, there were none of the Signs and Symbols I hear are supposed to accompany these events.

  General Jinnah gathered us for yet another dawn attack on those impenetrable walls. There was a weary desperation about the whole thing. The sergeants shouted and lashed the men into formation. Bellowed orders followed and the soldiers cursed their officers and their fates as they were driven into battle lines. Half-starved oxen dragged heavy war machines through the muck. There were rams and wheeled towers and great catapults. Men with scaling ladders were rushed to the jumping-off points, where they nervously eyed the walls.

  Meanwhile, our enemy prepared as well. Pots of hot oil and molten lead steamed and smoked on the ramparts; rubble was perched to tumble; crossbowmen cranked their bows taut; archers chose their straightest shafts and pikemen made a deadly, sharp-edged forest along the breastworks. We were a motley army of twenty thousand. Only a few thousand were professional soldiers now, including my two hundred. The rest were shopkeepers, butchers, laborers and former slaves. As for the enemy, we did not know how many opposed us — perhaps ten thousand; perhaps more.

  As the horns sounded and soldiers on both sides tiredly pounded their shields and croaked jeers at the enemy in what had become a routine prelude to battle, I led ten women away from the field, on a special mission given us by Jinnah — although he swore Gamelan had as much to do with it as he did, which I doubted.

  The diversion we were about to launch bordered on the suicidal. This was why I led the mission that day, with a hand-picked force that included my two top legates. I was determined to bring them all back alive or, if my hopes were dashed, at least I would have the thin comfort that I’d not given the duty to someone I might think less capable or experienced. Besides, no soldier is fit for command if she will not herself go where she proposes to send her charges.

  All of us had blackened our faces and any exposed skin with burnt cork and a spell of non-reflection had been cast on our blades. We wore no armor, since its weight might slow us enough to become easy targets. We wore only dark short tunics, caps and tight-fitting breeches.

  We darted from cover to cover, moving easily, by hand-signals, feeling as if we were all one flesh. Our first goal, which we reached without being observed from that curtain-wall that loomed closer and closer, was the ruin of an outer guard-tower that neither side could hold for long. We crou
ched beside its high wall and Polillo stirruped her hands. I thrust my foot into that brace and she catapulted me upward, to where timbering protruded from the wall that’d floored the upper story.

  I caught a broken beam in both hands, pulled myself onto its narrowness and flattened — trying not to send debris showering down on my companions. A sharp rock dug into my breast as I turned on my side and unhitched the long rope slung over one shoulder. I double-hitched it around the beam, dropped its end back down and a moment later Corais swarmed up.

  She had no trouble finding a steady perch; and while I belayed the rope for the others, she steadied them in the last few feet of their climb. The only sound we made during all this was the creak of our leather harness, the scrape of our boots, and occasional dull thud of a rag-wrapped weapon.

  The last woman up was Polillo. I strained against her bulk — she was easily twice the weight of any two of us — and a few agonizing seconds later she was on the shelf of rotting wood. She unslung the heavy leather bag that was her charge and dumped it on the stones. She grinned.

  "Now, for a little sip of Lycanthian blood," she said. She patted the beaked ax at her side. "Precious is hungry, poor thing."

  "We are supposed to create a diversion, Legate," I reminded her. "Killing Lycanthians rates way down the ladder of our duties."

  Polillo sulked, those lovely full lips of hers making a childish pout.

  Corais gave her a slap on the back to boost her suddenly sour mood. "I’ll catch one for you," she promised. "So you can break his little neck." She made a snapping gesture with her two hands and clicked her small sharp teeth to approximate the sound of broken bone.

  Polillo started to boom laughter, then caught herself, with a guilty glance at the castle walls now very high and close beside. "Oh, Corais, what would I do without your cheer?"

  "If that cheers you, my sweet, I’ll catch two of them and really put the shine in your eyes."

  I paid no attention to this pre-battle jawing, but peered carefully first at the sea castle’s main wall — I could see no signs that we’d been spotted — then back at the battlefield from whence we’d come. Our Evocators had mounted a small platform near the center of our lines. On it I could see half a dozen of them, busy chanting and casting spells, with great and meaningful gestures. In their center was Gamelan. Suddenly he flung up his hands. His shout, magically amplified, thundered across the field.

  From behind the castle walls I heard an equally loud roar from the brazenly-magnified throats of the Archons. The air crackled with the roar and then shattered. Then came a chorus of howls so piercing we all ducked our heads, eyes forced shut and ears clamped to avoid the pain.

  As we realized we were behaving as foolishly as any raw recruit seeing the first flight of arrows arching toward the battle-line, knowing each is aimed directly at her heart, and recovered, the spectral part of the battle commenced. The morning sky was night and magical fires raged overhead and demon legions howled and clashed. On the ground, all too human men lurched forward.

  This was our cue — we slid through a narrow port, and now we were inside the ruin. I tossed our rope into what’d been the guard-tower’s central room and slid down. There was no far wall standing that’d keep us from being seen by an alert soldier atop the castle’s curtain wall. I shivered. This was closer than I’d ever been to this dreadful haunt.

  Here Amalric had been imprisoned, he and Janos Greycloak, first in an apartment high in the castle’s battlements in an attempt to break them with magic; then deep underground in its dripping dungeons.

  I collected myself — my purpose, the purpose for us all, was to destroy this evil, from its huge, nitrous stones to the Archons who ruled from within. Mooning about, feeling evil emanations as if I were a market wife scared out of her girdle by a fortuneteller’s cant, accomplished nothing.

  The ruined guard-tower had blocked our way to a narrow lava ledge that began a few dozen yards away and ran around the perimeter of the castle wall. The shelf was no more than a spear-length at its narrowest and twice that at its widest, or so my observations had suggested in the two days I’d spent reconnoitering the mission from afar.

  Do not think this shelf was in any way a weak point our army could exploit. To one side, as I’ve said, was the castle wall, going straight up with not a place to spike or lash an assault ladder to be seen. On the other, it fell away, a vertical glass-like cliff two hundred feet or more to the harbor and bottle-up ships rotting at anchor below.

  I motioned and Corais and three others slipped away onto the ledge itself. I heard a muffled cry and the remaining six of us had our weapons bared — there must’ve been a sentry or even a roving patrol. Polillo dropped the sack and reached for her ax. I held her back with an angry frown — Corais would chance a shout if she needed us.

  Polillo muttered as we heard the clash of weapons and I knew her hot blood was rising. There was silence. A few breaths later Corais rushed into view and beckoned us forward. Polillo growled with jealousy seeing her bloody sword. Corais made a small smile, then shrugged, what could she do? Duty and all. I hissed at them — quit the by-play. Pay attention. Then we hitched up our harness and ran out onto the shelf, around the castle.

  We crept almost half-way around the castle before reaching the spot I’d picked for the diversion. Here the shelf widened briefly, room enough for perhaps half a company to assemble on and then be crushed from above — since there’d be no way a full assault could be mounted from this position, nor any troops reinforced once the defenders on the walls realized their presence.

  But the shelf’s width was not the reason I’d picked this place for the diversion: I thought I’d seen and a minor vision-enhancing spell had confirmed the sight that gates had once been cut into the curtain-wall here, at a corner tower. I’d wondered for what purpose at the time and considered the thought once more. I thought I saw, just at the cliff-edge, a splintered stone foundation where a derrick might’ve been set a long time ago.

  Possibly this would have been a secret entry to deliver items to the Archons, hoisting them straight up the cliff and hurrying them into hiding. I shuddered, not able to conceive anything so awful that the Archons would fear discovery by their completely subjugated people.

  After I’d seen these gates and told Polillo and Corais of their existence, fire had sparked in their eyes. Perhaps we could somehow break those gates down? Perhaps we could lead a party into the castle itself? I cut off such speculation. I knew the Archons and their military commanders were hardly fools and such a weak spot in their defenses, even one as hard to reach as these, would’ve been sealed long before.

  Now, close to these gates, I saw I’d been right. They were cemented firmly shut, and the dense color of the mortar showed they’d been sealed for years. If it were possible to break down these gates, it’d take an enormous ram to do it — and how could such a device be transported to this cliff-edge? But the gates had inspired a bit of modification to Gamelan’s diversion.

  Below us was the harbor mouth and I saw the catenary arch of the colossal chain that blocked it. Each of the chain’s links was the size of a river yawl. The chain was green with age, dripped seaweed and slime. I had spent hours staring at that chain as I planned this mission, wondering if we could work our way along the shelf to where it ended against the castle walls, held by a huge staple.

  But I’d suspected the shelf petered out before reaching the chain and now my impression was confirmed. Even if we had been able to reach it, what good would that have done? However the chain was raised and lowered — I knew as much by magic as by levers, pulleys and human engineering — that was done from the tower on the promontory across, a tower as fiercely defended as the sea castle itself.

  I brought myself back to the business at hand and felt ashamed. I was behaving as bloody-minded as any young subaltern, always with an eye out for that single stroke, that single charge that’d not only win a war but cover its architect with glory. Our duty today was more pro
saic, since at most it would be an assist to the main attack now being mounted far behind us.

  Cold fingers eeled up my spine. I had the eerie feeling of being observed by unfriendly eyes. I let my own eyes scour the battlements above and saw nothing. But that feeling is something I’ve learned to prize highly, so I next scanned the walls themselves, looking for a window or even an arrow slit from which someone might observe us. But there was nothing.

  For a moment I wondered if this corner tower was where Amalric had been imprisoned — he’d said he had a clear view of the harbor and the chain from the window of his prison-apartment. No. These walls were blank; except for the barred gate, there was no feature to mar those smooth stones. Amalric’s cell must’ve been at a different point. Still, the feeling of being watched persisted.

  I heard something then. It was a voice, but yet not a voice, and I thought it whispered a warning, although I couldn’t make out any words, nor the speaker’s sex. It was vaguely familiar, and I shivered, wondering in a mad moment if it might be Halab, my long-dead brother. Amalric had said Halab’s ghost had come to his aid on the expeditions to the Far Kingdoms. Although I’ve found Amalric to mostly be a man of sense, at that time I personally believed that his imagination had been stoked by that rascal Janos Greycloak.

  Either that, or they made an especially heady wine in the Far Kingdoms.

  I steeled myself and gave the signal. Polillo threw the sack over her shoulder and leaped forward. I ran behind her across the open ground. The big woman moved easily, toting a weight that would’ve foundered two strong men.

  We stopped on the ledge’s widest point and my legate upended the sack. Out tumbled three massive crystal spheres, along with an odd mounting apparatus designed by our wizards in their weapons shops. It consisted of a three foot cylinder — knobbed on one end — and a wheeled tripod base. The cylinder telescoped to twice its length, as did the legs.