“I won’t let Amadi face the Whitish alone,” Kurjan said. He stood tall and proud.
“Neither of you have to face the Whitish soldiers,” Katrien said. “Remain behind with me. This is a small conflict, not the true fight to come. Save yourselves for the moment when it truly matters.”
“Why else have we come all this way?” the girl asked stubbornly. “We came here to fight for you. To help you win back Lostport. We didn’t come back to cower inside while all the fun happened down in the village.”
Faolan turned to speak to Mylo and missed the rest of that exchange. Clearly Katrien had been overridden, though, because both Kurjan and Amadi joined Faolan’s group as they bustled out the doors and onto the ruined front lawn. Katrien followed them to the door, accompanied by her Varrilan friend Tenori, whom Faolan had convinced to remain behind as her bodyguard. The man had not required much persuasion.
The two Darden warriors led their motley procession down the stairs, with Nort and Barrik taking up the rear. Faolan could see the damage long before they reached Lostport—the houses were obscured beneath a wide plume of smoke, through which flames occasionally leapt.
At the base of the stairs, Faolan’s company drew closer together for protection and surveyed the scene. For the moment, no Whitish soldiers were in sight; a cluster of nervous-looking villagers huddled at the base of the hill, mostly children and a few women keeping them from running off, while the rest of the town appeared deserted. It looked as though the sturdier log homes belonging to Lostport’s wealthiest residents had escaped unscathed, since the flames could not penetrate the dense wood. But the flimsy cottages shared by most villagers had caught fire easily, the flames leaping higher than the nearby trees. The air was thick and oily with smoke, and Faolan had to suppress the urge to cover his mouth with a handkerchief.
“Forward now, carefully,” he said. Maintaining their protective huddle, Faolan and his company moved forward until they reached the cobbled streets of town. Most of the shops were burning; the general store was nothing but a smoldering ruin, and brilliant flames leapt from every window of the finest tavern. Even the ships were alight. Spitefully, Faolan hoped the ship bearing supplies for Port Emerald had been torched as well.
As they neared the end of town, Faolan suddenly caught sight of the Whitish soldiers. They had rounded up most of the townsfolk who had thought to arm themselves, men and women bearing shovels and blacksmith’s irons and hatchets, and they appeared to be picking the villagers off one by one. Most of the Whitish soldiers had bows nocked at the Lostporters, while the villagers had nothing but their rudimentary weapons to defend themselves with.
When the owner of the Seal’s Roost stepped forward and opened his mouth, presumably to call out to Faolan, one of the soldiers put an arrow through his gut. The man fell to his knees, gurgling and choking. He gripped the arrow’s shaft and tried to pull it free, but the barbed end brought up a mess of blood and flesh, and he collapsed onto his side, howling.
“I command you to desist!” Faolan bellowed. “I am the king of Lostport, and I will see you put to death if this continues.”
The Whitish soldiers turned to Faolan, some looking nervous, others sneering. There had to be more than two hundred, pitted against nearly a thousand villagers. The others must have fled into the forest.
“You’re no king,” one of the soldiers said, turning his bow on Faolan now. “You’re no more than a dirt-blooded pretender. You answer to High King Luistan, lord of the nine Kinship Thrones, and he will see you hung for your insolence.”
“He did not authorize this,” Faolan said, stepping past his companions to face the soldier directly. “If you continue to terrorize my countrymen and burn this village, you will have no help from Whitland. You are very alone, just two hundred men stranded on the ends of the earth, and no one will hear you cry out for mercy.”
“That doesn’t matter,” the soldier said. “King Luistan did not dictate the means, but he did instruct us to take hold of Lostport. This kingdom has been deviant for far too long. He wants you back under Whitish rule, so he can discipline the murderers and thieves you’re harboring.”
“King Luistan has grown overconfident if he thinks his rule extends to Lostport,” Faolan said.
“Oh, but it does,” the soldier said. “We have ten thousand men at Port Emerald ready to strengthen our numbers. What are the odds, King Faolan? Ten thousand armed soldiers against a few frightened villagers? Should we kill the children first to put an end to the decay of this place?”
“And they are trapped in Port Emerald,” Faolan said. “The rivers will not recede for many days. You will be dead by the time your fellows return.”
“Unless we kill you first.” The soldier looked over his shoulder at the solid wall of Whitlanders who flanked him. “Should we dispose of the townsfolk first, or start with the king and his beloved household?”
“Kill the king!” a man shouted from the center of the crowd.
A roar of agreement rose from the soldiers.
“Archers!” their leader shouted, aiming his own bow straight at Faolan’s chest. “Ready?”
At the rustle of bows, Faolan’s household dispersed. The Darden warriors charged forward, swords unsheathed, clearly aiming to press their advantage before the soldiers fired. Mylo and his kitchen hands fled into the trees, while the rest of Faolan’s household and Katrien’s young companions stood their ground.
“Release!” the soldier bellowed.
The warriors barreled into the knot of Whitish soldiers, disemboweling two men just as the arrows flew. The soldiers cleared a path around them, fleeing the warriors’ powerful sword-strokes. Two hundred arrows sailed through the air.
Faolan and his companions dropped to the ground, avoiding the arrows, but his tailor was not so lucky. He took an arrow in the chest and staggered backward, collapsing against a tree.
“Now!” Mylo shouted from the trees. He and his kitchen hands dashed into the melee, unnoticed by the soldiers, and thrust knife after knife into the Whitish men’s exposed throats and stomachs. They disappeared into the fray before long, though Faolan thought he saw one of the young kitchen hands cut down from behind.
As Faolan and his fellows regained their feet and charged forward, the Lostporters took courage from the offensive and regrouped for a charge at the rear of the Whitish line.
After that, Faolan could no longer keep track of what went on around him. He was conscious of Nort and Barrik remaining beside him, deflecting most blows before they came close, but when he had a chance to look up from the mess of fighting about him, he could not find any of his household. He thanked every god he could remember that Katrien had stayed safely behind.
Holding his blade in readiness, Faolan advanced through the knot of fighting, striking and parrying whenever a sword came uncomfortably close. He was by no means a skilled swordsman, yet with the help of his guards, he could keep the Whitish at bay. Mud flew all around him, and the air was thick with smoke and the sound of men shouting. There were women among the villagers as well, fighting with just as much untrained ferocity as the men.
Though Faolan could not keep track of who fought on which side, he sensed before long that his side was quickly losing strength. He and his guards were forced back, step by step, until they were standing on the cobbled street once more with ash raining around them. Wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, Faolan turned to see the wreckage behind him. The tavern fire had mostly burned itself out; half of the roof was gone, and the other half continued to smoke ominously.
As Faolan paused to take stock of his surroundings, a shout rang over the soldiers. “Regroup!”
It was one of the Darden warriors, parrying blows from three soldiers at once. He was being forced down the pier, his leg stained with blood.
“To me!” Faolan shouted. The flames rising from a storage shed were leaping forth uncomfortably close to Faolan’s left shoulder, so he edged toward the pier, Nort and Barrik
clearing the way before him. The muddy road was strewn with bodies, mostly villagers. If they did not change their tactics soon, the Whitish would overwhelm them entirely.
“We can hold the pier,” Nort said in Faolan’s ear. “We should retreat and narrow the men’s attack.”
“Right.” Faolan raised his voice. “Retreat!”
As the Darden warrior flung the last soldier from the pier, Faolan jogged over to the docks and waited, flanked by his strongest fighters, while the disheartened villagers fled the fight. Miraculously, Mylo’s youngest kitchen hand had escaped the fight unscathed, though the other two failed to appear from the battlefield. When at last Faolan’s household and the villagers had joined ranks on the pier, the fiercest fighters assembled at the front, forming a line three men deep that separated the Lostporters from the Whitish. Several villagers behind Faolan passed forward a set of makeshift shields—wooden boards and crates and the like—which the Darden warriors stacked before them to form a barrier against the Whitish arrows.
The Whitish men took advantage of the respite to gather their forces and tend to their wounded. A pair of men coordinated the removal of injured soldiers from the battlefield into the fully-intact sanctuary of the Seal’s Roost. The rest of the soldiers advanced on the pier, their leader kicking at the bodies of fallen Lostporters as he passed them by.
“You think you’re clever, do you?” the leader taunted, stepping so close to the pier that his boots left muddy prints on the wooden boards. At the snap of his fingers, a pair of men with flaming torches came down the cobbled street of Lostport and advanced on the pier. “Archers!”
Again the men raised their bows.
“Volley!”
From behind the leader, arrows began to rain down on Faolan’s company. One of the Darden warriors toppled from the pier, four arrows protruding from his unprotected stomach and legs, and the rest of the Lostporters were forced to retreat still farther down the pier.
This gave the torch-bearers a chance to approach and hold their torches to the sagging boards of the pier. After being soaked for days, Faolan dared to hope it might resist lighting entirely. But eventually the wood caught afire, a smoldering circle appearing in the first board and slowly widening. Before long flames were ringing the hole, forcing the fire along the pier.
How long did they have? Though the fire was slow to spread, the pier began to creak and groan as its hold on the shore weakened. The pilings were not sturdy enough to hold the pier in place without being anchored to solid land.
“Stand still!” Harrow yelled.
The nervous shuffling behind Faolan ceased as five hundred Lostporters held their breath, praying the supports would hold.
With a creak and a snap, the fire ate its way through the last boards that held the pier to the shore. There was now a smoldering gap between the road and the dock.
“Now we’ll just wait for the fire to do its job,” the Whitish leader said with a nasty smile.
His men sent up a cheer.
Faolan could feel the pier shifting beneath his feet. It would not hold. It could not.
One of the pilings gave an almighty crack and buckled beneath the weight of the pier. Two young men—boys, in truth—slipped from the pier and fell, howling, into the water.
Then the entire pier was swaying to the side. The villagers screamed, and many began jumping from the dock to escape the collapsing boards. Two boards near the end of the pier cracked in two, flinging a man onto the bracing below the pier; he screamed as the pier continued to fall. All at once, his screams ended.
Suddenly the pier buckled, hurling its entire load into the churning ocean below. Faolan plunged beneath the surf, his chainmail vest dragging him down.
He fumbled at his coat with icy fingers, unable to find the buttons in the murky water. Panic caught in his throat.
At last he struggled free of the coat and slipped the chainmail vest over his head. He was beginning to grow dizzy as his feet settled onto the muddy ocean floor. Released from the weight, he kicked off with as much force as he could manage and shot for the surface.
When he broke the surface, he was thrown into a scene of chaos. Lostporters fought to stay afloat, churning the water up more than the waves did. Kicking to keep his face above the water, Faolan turned in a circle to take in the turmoil. The Whitish soldiers had lined the shore, standing at ease, just waiting for the Lostporters to drown. If that failed, they could pick Faolan’s people off one by one as they struggled to shore.
With a faint surge of pride, Faolan saw that his people were faring better than he could have hoped. They were a nation of sea-folk, men and women who had learned to swim before they could walk. They were stronger than they seemed.
But their strength was flagging. One elderly man slipped between the waves and did not re-emerge. Nearby, Amadi was flailing to keep her head up, gasping for air as though she was half-drowned already.
“What will it take for you to let us come safely to shore?” Faolan gasped.
“You can plead as much as you want, but nothing you can offer us will suffice,” the leader said. “Swim to shore and die on our swords, or stay in the sea and drown. It is your choice.”
Faolan struggled to stay afloat as the next wave broke over his head. His legs were numb, his chest burning from the exertion.
Three more men slipped beneath the water, leaving behind eerie pockets of stillness.
In the distance, the fires burned on, leeching smoke into the air as though the rains had never come.
Chapter 27
Most of the day passed without a word from Lostport. Katrien was growing more and more frightened as the sun sank lower in the sky. What could hold Faolan in the village for so long except death or capture?
Finally Katrien could stand it no longer. She rose from her seat by the kitchen fire, which the housekeeper had deemed the safest place in the manor, and fetched her cloak from the back of a chair.
“Tenori, will you join me or remain behind? I must see what has become of Lostport.”
“I’m coming.”
They emerged from the house to find the setting sun just beginning to streak the fringes of dark cloud with violet. Down the stairs they flew, Katrien unable to tear her eyes from the billowing smoke that was all she could see of Lostport. No flames escaped the dark cloud, but it seemed the entire village had been reduced to ash.
At the foot of the stairs, she caught sight of a few lone houses that had escaped damage. The streets were empty and silent. Where had everyone gone?
As they approached the start of the cobbled main road, Katrien heard footsteps behind her. She whirled, fearing attack.
From the forest stepped a young, sandy-haired man. Behind him came a silent flood of people—Varrilans and Dardens and Kohls.
Her followers were here.
“Thank the Nine,” Katrien gasped.
Tenori grabbed her hand, a fierce smile breaking across his face.
“We haven’t made it here unscathed,” said a Darden warrior-woman, stepping up beside the young man. “This is all that remains of our ranks. We were caught in the storm halfway down the river, and our boats were smashed against the rocks.”
“The river-folk came with us,” said a woman in a badly-torn dress, joining the warrior. “They lashed the remaining boats to the trees until we had climbed ashore. Without them, all of us would have perished.”
“Once this violence has blown past, we will give them a proper send-off,” Katrien said. “Now, though, you have come without a moment to spare. The Whitish soldiers have mounted an attack on Lostport, and I cannot see a single villager around. I fear they have been burned alive.”
“We smelled the smoke from a league away,” the sandy-haired man said. “Is your manor unharmed?”
Katrien nodded. “But Faolan has gone into the village. I have not seen him since morning.”
“Then let’s go.”
The sandy-haired man and the warrior broke into a run down the main st
reet of Lostport. Katrien and Tenori followed, keeping to the side until the fighters had passed. Soon they were surrounded by the very young and the very old, people who had come to Lostport because they had no other choice, not because they meant to go to war.
Still Katrien saw no one.
It was not until they neared the end of town that she discerned the Whitish soldiers. They had formed a solid line just below the rise leading to the beach, most with bows nocked and arrows pointing into the waves.
In an instant, Katrien realized what they stood guard over.
The entire population of Lostport was thrashing about in the ocean, fighting to stay above the waves. It did not look like many people; some must have drowned already.
Katrien’s followers slowed as they neared the Whitish soldiers, treading more carefully now, their footsteps quiet on the cobblestones. They drew weapons as they came close, swords and daggers and axes flashing in the last light of day.
For an instant, her followers paused just behind the Whitish line. Then, with a sudden brutality that stunned her, the warriors plunged their steel into the Whitlanders’ backs. Hundreds of Whitish soldiers crumpled all at once, and those who survived the first onslaught whirled to face their attackers, only to be cut down just as swiftly. Shouts rose above the crowd, but they were quickly silenced.
In mere moments, the entire Whitish army was gone.
Katrien and the rest of her followers dashed forward as her fighters raced to the water to pull the Lostporters to shore. Her heart leapt as she spotted Faolan, stripped of his coat and chainmail and treading water more easily than most of the villagers. And there was Amadi, clinging to the shoulders of a local man who had the grizzled look of a sailor.
Kurjan was nowhere in sight. Nor was Laina.
When the sailor crawled onto the stony beach and deposited Amadi on dry land, Katrien ran forward and gathered the girl into her arms. Amadi was crying silently, her face red from cold and fear. Though it pained her to know this, Katrien saw that Amadi was more of a daughter to her than Laina would ever be.
The Fall of Lostport Page 42
