by Anthony Ryan
From the right came the sound of two horn blasts, the signal for an imminent breach. “Keep holding here!” she told Antesh and sprinted for the nearest walkway.
Two battalions of Free Swords were attacking at different points along the north-facing ring, one was being held but the other had managed to force a toehold on the other side, a small but growing cluster of shields constantly assailed from above by a rain of arrows and other missiles. The defenders here were mostly townsfolk stiffened with a few archers and guardsmen, their lack of expertise remedied in some part by their ferocity. She saw a large, elderly man in the leather smock of a carpenter charge at the Volarian cluster with an axe in hand, several young apprentices close behind. On the surrounding rooftops people hurled rocks and bottles at the enemy along with a torrent of abuse.
“Die, you heretic fuckers!” a young woman screamed, lifting a large piece of masonry over her head and hurling it at the Volarians. It landed in the middle of their shields, leaving a hole. Reva saw her chance, sprinted to the edge of the roof and leapt. She landed on the Free Sword who tried to lift his shield to plug the gap, breaking her fall and forcing him to the cobbles. The sword plunged through his open mouth and into his brain. She leapt again as the short swords came for her, spinning and twisting, the sword a flicker of silver, finding eyes and throats with terrible precision. Seeing her intervention, the townsfolk redoubled their efforts, the old carpenter laying about with his axe and voicing a roar as his apprentices hacked away with hatchets and hammers. Others came running from the surrounding houses, armed with knives and cleavers. Some had no weapons at all, running and leaping onto the Free Swords, hurling punches and gouging eyes.
The Volarian cluster soon broke apart under the assault, some trying to scramble back over the wall only to pitch over with arrows in their backs. Others fought to the end, one man managing to hold the townsfolk back as he stood over a fallen comrade, his sword moving with the expert economy and effect of a veteran as he forced the townsfolk to hold off. He snarled at them, shouting curses in his own language as they steeled themselves for the final rush, then stiffened at the sight of Reva.
“You’re very brave,” she observed, attacking without a pause. It was over quickly, the brave veteran coughing his last as her sword found the inch-wide gap below his breastplate.
“May I?” Reva asked the carpenter, gesturing for his axe. He handed it over in wordless awe.
“This man,” she told them, standing astride the veteran’s corpse and reaching down to remove his helmet. “Is probably a hero to our enemies. They need to know what happens to heroes in this city.”
She could hear the shouted orders on the other side of the wall, sergeants and officers marshalling their men for another try. The voices stilled to silence after she cast the veteran’s head over the wall.
“You fought well,” she told the townsfolk with a smile, keeping the annoyance from her voice as they all knelt before her. “Gather these weapons and stand ready. This is far from over.”
◆ ◆ ◆
They held the outer ring until nightfall. The breakthrough came in the east-facing wall, a slave-soldier battalion suffering fearful casualties to bring down a section of wall with a battering ram, Kuritai rushing through to consolidate the success. Lord Arentes had ordered three horn blasts sounded and the pre-rehearsed withdrawal commenced. Archers covered the retreat from the rooftops, loosing five arrows then retreating twenty paces to pause and loose five more. In the streets below people hauled carts and furniture to bar the path of the onrushing Volarians for a few precious seconds before running to the next ring.
Reva took her bow and stood on the tallest rooftop behind the second ring, watching the last of the defenders running across the fifty yards of flattened city that formed the killing ground. Fortunately the Volarians’ blood was up; this was the fruit of their labours after all, slaughter and rape the inevitable reward for those who take a city. So they came streaming into the killing ground, swords raised, blood-crazed and shieldless.
Later, Antesh called it the finest hour in Cumbraelin archery and it had certainly been a spectacular sight. So many arrows crowded the air it was difficult to see the effect, like peering through smoke to glimpse the fire beyond. Reva loosed six arrows in as many seconds, Arken straining to match her as he stood at her side, grimacing in pain with every draw of his longbow. The storm continued for a full minute, not a single Volarian soldier making it to the second ring. Antesh called a halt and the air cleared, revealing a carpet of bodies covering the killing ground, none closer than a dozen yards to the wall. The survivors could be seen hovering in the shelter of the streets beyond, a few men stumbling about in the open with arrows protruding from their limbs, Varitai from their oddly calm expressions.
Reva finished them herself, one arrow each, an ugly growl rising from the defenders when the last fell, soon building to a prolonged roar of hate-filled defiance.
◆ ◆ ◆
There was no respite that night, the Volarians trying fire in place of massed assaults, throwing oil pots over the ring followed by fire arrows. Once again the stones of the city came to their aid and most of the fires were swiftly quelled. But whilst stone couldn’t burn, people could and Brother Harin soon had dozens of burnt souls crowding the cathedral. She had given it over to him as a healing house, the pews transformed into beds, becoming ever more full by the hour. Only one of the bishops had had the temerity to object, a wizened old cleric who held on to his staff with gnarled and trembling hands, scowling at her as he quoted the Ninth Book: “‘Only peace and love can reside in a house blessed by the Father’s sight.’”
“‘Turn not your gaze from those in need,’” she countered, calling on the Second Book. “‘For the Father never will.’ Get out of the way, old man.”
The burnt people were a pitiable sight, hair singed away, flesh turned black and red, given to terrible screams that only abated with large doses of redflower. “Another day like this and it’ll all be gone,” Veliss advised. She wore a plain dress covered in bloodstains and sundry dirt, sleeves rolled up and hair tied back, soot and sweat mingling on her face. Reva wanted very badly to kiss her, here and now in full view of the scowling old bishop and the Father, if in fact He ever cared to spare a glance for this place, which she doubted.
“Careful love,” Veliss said quietly, reading her gaze. “Turns out they’ll tolerate a lot, more than ever I thought they would. But not us.”
“I don’t care,” Reva said, reaching for her hand.
“Just win the battle, Reva.” Veliss’s thumb traced over her hand for a moment before she released it. “Then we’ll decide what we care most about.”
◆ ◆ ◆
The second ring held through the night but by morning a fire had taken hold in a building near the south-facing wall. It was a storehouse for the weavers guild, packed with linens. The fire was too fierce to be contained, the heat soon proving unbearable to the defenders and Reva ordered a withdrawal to the next ring. It was more costly this time, the Volarians quicker to take advantage of the confusion, swarming over the wall whilst their own archers engaged the men on the rooftops, many falling into the struggling mass of bodies choking the streets below. Pockets of defenders were cut off, holding out in fortified houses and exacting a fearful toll on those sent to root them out.
Reva watched from a rooftop as Varitai tried repeatedly to storm a chapel a few streets away, squads attempting to scale the walls or force their way through the windows, their bodies soon flung out again. Eventually they surrounded the building and assailed it with a hundred or more oil pots before an officer threw a torch. The flames took hold quickly and the defenders came streaming from the chapel, not in panic but fury, throwing themselves at the Varitai with no trace of fear. Reva straightened in surprise at the sight of the man leading the defenders, portly and dressed in a priest’s robes, hacking at the Volarians with a thin-bladed
sword. The priest from the square. He died of course, along with the others, hacked down and butchered in the street, but not before they had felled at least twice their number.
Reva was turning away when something impacted on the roof-tiles with a wet smack. It rolled along the roof to rest at her feet, slack leathery features and empty eyes staring up at her. She looked around as more impacts sounded, the heads raining down around her. She heard a woman screaming in the street below, perhaps in recognition of one of the disembodied missiles.
She went to the manor where Arentes and Antesh were conferring over a map. “Do we have any prisoners?”
◆ ◆ ◆
There were a little over two dozen men herded into a corner of the manor grounds under close guard, most wounded and all mute with the expectation of death. They were all Free Swords—Kuritai and Varitai didn’t surrender and none of the defenders felt inclined to care for any too wounded to keep fighting. “All officers or sergeants,” Antesh explained. “Thought they might have something to tell us.”
“We’re in here, they’re out there,” Reva replied. “That’s all we need to know.” She turned to the House Guard sergeant in charge of the prisoners. “Any problem with this? If so, I’ll see to it myself.”
The sergeant gave a stern shake of the head and hefted his pole-axe. “Spread them around a bit,” Reva told him. “Throw them over where the Free Swords are thickest.”
She forced herself to stay and watch, finding it curious that so few of them begged or tried to run. They had to know there was no refuge for them here, that surrender had only delayed the inevitable. Most were too cowed and fearful to do any more than stumble weeping to the block, eyes closed or vomiting in terror as the axe fell, but one man was straight-backed and defiant, staring at Reva with hard eyes as he was forced to his knees. “Elverah,” he said.
Reva gave a slight nod in response.
“No better,” he said in thickly accented Realm Tongue. “No better than us.”
“No,” she replied. “I’m much worse.”
◆ ◆ ◆
Somehow she had managed to sleep, waking on a rooftop near the square with Arken sitting on the edge. He had found a blanket to cover her though the chilled night air still left her shivering. “Might have bought us some respite,” he said. “The thing with the prisoners. There hasn’t been an attack for nigh on two hours.” There was no reproach or judgement in his voice, just tired acceptance.
“They’ll be back,” she replied, standing and working the stiffness from her limbs. “Lord Arentes had good things to say about the help you gave the Realm Guard yesterday. Seems they want to adopt you.”
“Not a decent archer amongst them,” he said with a shrug. “Easy to stand out.”
She pulled the blanket tighter over her shoulders, surveying the half-ruined city before her, the fires burning in the streets taken by the Volarians, watching them scurry from doorway to doorway having learned not to linger in sight of the defenders’ archers. Below her, people huddled together in the cramped streets behind the third ring, sitting around cook fires or just slumped in exhaustion. There was little talk, just the occasional infant’s cry or a sergeant’s shouted rebuke to a weary guard.
“I lied, Arken,” she said.
“What about?”
“Al Sorna. There was no vision, no gift of the Father’s Sight. For all I know he’s still in the Reaches. Perhaps he never had any intention of coming to our aid. Why would he? This land is filled with those who curse his name.”
She heard him rise and soon felt his arms close around her, strong and warm. “Is that what you think?”
I came back to this land to find a sister, instead I found two. “No,” she breathed, stifling a groan at the sight of a column of Varitai mustering in the streets opposite the south-facing wall. “No. He’s coming.”
◆ ◆ ◆
It began again in the small hours of the morning and continued all day, the Volarians attacking in strength at four separate points, each fresh assault preceded by a rain of engine-launched gifts. Not just captive defenders now, women and youths amongst the severed heads smacking into the cobbles as they steeled themselves for the next rush. Inevitably some broke at the sight, a townsman running from his company and vaulting over the wall when a girl’s head landed amidst their ranks, screaming with a meat cleaver in hand as he charged the Free Swords approaching the wall, soon disappearing under a mass of stabbing short swords.
Reva rushed to wherever the need was greatest, killing with bow or sword to restore the position. Sometimes just the sight of her was enough, people gathering courage and rejoining the fight as she appeared on the rooftops or leapt into their midst. But as the noon sun rose she knew the time had come and ordered the three blasts sounded.
She was running with Arken across a walkway towards the fourth ring when she saw Lord Arentes in the street below, fighting together with a small band of surrounded guardsmen, Varitai assailing them on all sides. “Steady now!” the old commander intoned as they slowly inched their way towards the safety of the third ring. “One step back.”
Reva unslung her bow and took down three Varitai in quick succession, but it wasn’t enough. A tight formation of Free Swords came charging in, crashing into the guardsman and shattering their ranks. She saw Arentes parry a sword thrust and deliver an overhand slash to his opponent, cutting him down but leaving his sword embedded in his shoulder. Reva re-slung the bow and leapt from the walkway, landing in the swirling battle with sword drawn, cutting down a Volarian lunging at Arentes. Another came for her but was crushed under Arken’s boots as he dropped from the walkway, hacking wildly with his axe.
“The wall my lord!” she told Arentes and they ran, scrambling over with the help of many defenders as the archers above drove the Volarians back.
She looked up to see Arken cresting the wall, a large silhouette against a clear blue sky, tumbling to a heap on the street before her. “Arken?”
His face was pressed into the cobbles, the flesh bunched, eyes dim and unseeing. A Volarian short sword protruded from his back.
◆ ◆ ◆
The third ring held for no more than an hour, despite the killing she did around Arken’s corpse as the Free Swords came over the wall. All sense of time lost in the fury of it, no weariness could touch her. They came and she killed them until hands grabbed her and dragged her away. Her senses returned then, a red slick covering her sword arm from blade to shoulder, eyes fixed on Arken’s body lying amidst the Volarian dead, lost to sight as they rounded a corner and she was borne over the fifth ring.
“My lady?” Antesh stared into her face, hand rough on her shoulder. “Please, my lady.”
She blinked at him and got slowly to her feet. “How many left?”
“Half at most. We lost too many when the last ring fell.”
Arken . . . “Yes, we lost too many.”
She looked down at the sword in her hand, finding half the blade sheared off. She couldn’t remember breaking it. She tossed it to the cobbles and found a trough, sinking her head into the water to get the blood out of her hair. “We can’t hold here,” she told Antesh, raising her head from the water. “Fall back to the last ring. The killing ground is wider.”
◆ ◆ ◆
Reva went to the manor as Antesh and Arentes organised the final defence. The sword was where she had left it, propped beside the fireplace in her uncle’s memory. She hefted it, finding it lighter than she remembered. The edge keen and bright, all trace of the Reader’s blood cleaned away. “You’re not what I came for,” she told the sword. “But you’ll do.”
The sixth and final ring was constructed around the cathedral square, every foot of it sheltering at least one defender. Those too old, injured or young to fight were crammed into the cathedral. The remaining guardsmen were arrayed in the square itself, ready to counter any breakthrough. The
y were weary, she could tell, but all stood straight as she approached, her grandfather’s sword resting on her shoulder.
“I thought it was time,” she said. “That I thanked you for your service. You are hereby dismissed with full honours and may depart at your leave.”
The laugh was surprisingly loud, if short-lived thanks to Lord Arentes’s glower of disapproval. “It can be said,” Reva went on, “that my family has not always deserved such great service. Nor in truth, have I. For I am not blessed, you see. I . . . am a liar . . .” She paused as a drop of rain fell onto her hand, strange, as the sky had been so clear for so long. She looked up to find the sky darkening, clouds forming with uncanny speed. Soon the rain was falling, driven by a hard wind, the fires on the other side of the ring dying under the deluge.
“My lady!” Antesh called from the walkway above, standing and pointing towards the south. “Something’s happening!”
CHAPTER NINE
Vaelin
Cara swayed a little as the clouds began to move in the sky, thin wisps of cotton coalescing into dark spidery tendrils, forming into a slowly spinning spiral a mile wide.
“Are you all right?” Vaelin asked, reaching out to steady her as she stumbled.
“Just a little light-headed, my lord,” she replied with a forced smile. “Haven’t done this for such a long time.” She took a breath and raised her gaze to the sky once more, a fresh breeze stirring the grass on the hilltop. The spiral twisted in the sky, darkening with every passing second, the tendrils thickening into roiling mountains of grey and black. Cara gritted her teeth and gave a pained grunt, the swirling mass of cloud starting to drift towards the smoke-shrouded city some six miles away, its course heralded by a rumble of thunder and lit by the occasional flash of lightning.
Cara sank to her knees, face pale and eyes dim with exhaustion. Lorkan and Marken rushed to her side, the young gifted casting a resentful glare at Vaelin which he chose to ignore. Weaver stood a little way off, his usually placid features now drawn in confusion as he paced back and forth, his ever-growing rope grasped tight in both hands. As far as Vaelin knew he hadn’t used his gift throughout the entirety of the march, though he was often seen carrying wounded from the field in the aftermath of battle. The song sounded a clear a note of frustration as Vaelin watched Weaver turn his gaze from Cara, wincing in discomfort before straightening into a determined stance. He waits for something, Vaelin realised. Or someone.
