He laid about him left and right, barely looking at the men he killed. If they wore furs or had shaved heads, it was enough. Ghostcutter lifted and fell, swung out and took lives on the backswing. He dodged under blows that would have cut through his armor like rotten silk, rolled away whenever they knocked him to the ground and leapt back to his feet. Wounds didn’t matter. The fatigue of the long march south didn’t matter. Anger-if nothing else-could sustain him. Rage.
Cythera. Cythera, he kept thinking. Just her name. Her face swam before his eyes, that beloved face now distorted by betrayal. He had trusted her. He had trusted in her pledge, her faith, her constancy. Cythera, he thought as he stabbed a man in the kidneys. Her name formed on his lips and he slashed through the tendons of a barbarian’s neck. Cythera.
Malden. Malden, whom he had put in charge of Cythera’s protection. Malden, whom he had asked-pleaded with-to preserve her chastity. What had he been thinking? The man was a thief! Malden never saw anything that belonged to someone else, save that he wanted to steal it. Croy slashed open the belly of a reaver and was washed in hot blood. Of course Malden had stolen the one prize in all of Skrae worth having! “Malden!” he screamed.
Three men came at him, all at once, with axes and maces. They howled like wolves as they piled on to him, but Croy stabbed one through the stomach and bashed in the face of another with his pommel on the return swing. The third raised his mace to crush Croy’s skull, but before the blow could connect a knight on horseback came galloping through and cut the barbarian’s throat nearly to the spine.
In the breaking light of dawn, Croy looked up and saw Sir Hew come trotting back around to salute him. He forced himself to focus, to hear what his brother Ancient Blade had to say. “It’s going hard for the Free Men, but they’re holding their lines,” Hew said. “The Skilfingers are a wonder. Worth ten times what we paid. And still no berserkers have engaged us-do you think Morget’s holding them in reserve?”
Croy gasped for breath and wiped Ghostcutter on the fur of a fallen barbarian. He knew he should say something-give some order, perhaps, or ask for a more detailed report. He only resented the interruption, however. Free of enemies for a moment, his brain started to work again.
Images of Cythera cluttered his thoughts. Cythera, with Malden writhing atop her, strewn across a whore’s bed It was almost a welcome distraction when the wall of Ness collapsed.
The Burgrave came racing past them, his lance pointed up in the air. “Not my damned city, you don’t!” he cried, and behind him a hundred Free Men with bill hooks cried out as they rallied behind their leader.
Sir Hew stared toward Ness. “Sappers, would be my guess,” he said, sounding shocked. “If they can get inside the city-”
“We’ll have to besiege Ness ourselves,” Croy replied, nodding. That would be next to impossible, with winter growing colder and the snow piling deeper every day. They couldn’t feed the Skilfinger mercenaries for another week, not and besiege the city at the same time.
“Give me an order,” Hew demanded.
Croy shook his head. “Press the attack. Hurt them as much as we can before they get inside.” He thought he knew now why Morget had held his berserkers in reserve. Once those battle-mad warriors were inside the wall, no force inside the Free City could hold against them. They would slaughter the citizens of Ness indiscriminately, hacking and slashing until the streets were slick with blood.
Once that slaughter began, there would not be a single thing he-or the Burgrave, or Hew, or anyone else-could do to stop it.
Chapter One Hundred Fifteen
When Ryewall collapsed, Malden was thrown from his feet. He was luckier than some of his archers, who were tossed off the wall altogether. Dust filled the sky and stones bounced off nearby rooftops, smashing chimney pots or shattering on the cobbles with great thuds. When the dust started to clear and Malden was able to stand again, he looked across a great gap in the wall, wide enough to march an army through.
Which was exactly what Morget had in mind. “For Mother Death!” the chieftain called, and six thousand gruff voices answered with a cheer that made Malden’s teeth rattle in his head. Below him the berserkers bit their shields and screamed and started running toward the gap, their axes flashing all around them, ready to kill without discernment. They made no attempt at formation as they came through the wall, stumbling over each other in their rage, their red-stained faces burning with blood.
Once they were inside, once they passed the wall, there would be no stopping the orgy of death they wreaked. Malden shouted for his archers to slaughter them, but the whores and thieves around him seemed too stunned to lift their bows.
Luckily, the dwarves kept their heads.
“She’s charged!” Balint called, and raced away from Slag’s engine, as if terrified that it was going to erupt in fire at any second.
The berserkers scrambled over the pile of rubble that was the sole remnant of Ryewall. They leapt and cried like birds of prey as they came.
With perfect calmness, Slag reached into his fire with a pair of tongs. He brought out a piece of wire glowing red hot. He fixed this to the serpent head of his brass staff.
He seemed completely unaware that a horde of deadly berserkers was bearing down on him, only seconds away.
Malden could only watch in terror as that human flood came boiling toward his friend. Had Cythera sacrificed so much, had Slag lost his arm, had all of his own desperate hopes and Cutbill’s schemes and the fears of an entire city come down to this? To a dwarf playing with a piece of hot wire?
Malden could just make out a tiny hole bored into the closed end of the bronze tube. He watched, not knowing what to think, as Slag carefully inserted his wire into the hole-and then dropped his staff and ran as fast as his short legs could possibly carry him.
“Go, go, go!” Morget shouted. It sounded like he was right below Malden’s feet.
Then there was a sound that Malden had never heard before. A sudden, horrible noise, louder than a lightning strike, which ran through his body and threatened to crack his bones.
The noise alone was enough to strike a man dead.
But the noise was only a side effect of what Slag had wrought upon the world. Immense gouts of smoke and sparks burst from the mouth of the engine. The force it unleashed drove the engine backward, sent it flying into the front of a house directly across from the ruins of Ryewall. It smashed through plaster and beams and set the whole building ablaze.
In the gap, the berserkers froze in place as they were buffeted by the explosion. They seemed transfixed as a thousand whizzing noises shot past them, a million trails of sparks and fire. Iron tacks, horse brasses, broken and twisted pieces of door latches, soup spoons and farthing coins, andirons, candle snuffers, leather punches, signet rings and steel spurs-any metal scrap that Slag could find at the last moment, dozens of pounds of the stuff, countless pieces-came flying out of the mouth of the tube so fast and with so much force that they cut through flesh, shredded tissue, shattered bone into fragments. Lines of blood appeared on every berserker face and hand. Severed limbs tumbled through the air, as time itself slowed to a crawl. Whole bodies were taken to pieces as thoroughly-if not as neatly-as if they’d been worked on by a master butcher. Hair caught flame. Shields went spinning away like wagon wheels. Iron axes fell from broken, bloodied hands.
Those few berserkers who survived the blast stopped in their tracks. Their mouths hung open, their eyes wide, but no longer with the fury of battle. For the first time in the history of the eastern clans, someone had discovered a way to break the berserker trance.
Not howling, not foaming at the mouth any longer, but crying for mercy, the berserkers turned and ran as fast as they might for the safety of their own camp. Not a single one of them made it through the wall.
Chapter One Hundred Sixteen
“What in the Lady’s name was that?” Hew asked.
Croy had no answer. He’d heard that noise, like the sky had split open, se
en the gout of baleful fire that lanced straight out from the breach in the wall. What could create such a tongue of deadly flame, he could not imagine.
What he did know was that it changed everything.
A melee battle like this was always a scene of chaos, of commanders shouting to know what was going on, of soldiers running back and forth, operating under orders that had been countermanded though they did not know it, of whole formations wheeling the wrong way because it was impossible, in the thick of things, to get a proper view on the proceedings. A good commander learned to take the temperature of a battle, to rely not on hard facts but on intuition, and respond accordingly. Croy had developed almost a sixth sense for such things.
A moment before, he was convinced that Skrae had already lost, that the Army of Free Men was about to break and rout. That he was helpless and should retreat himself, if honor would have allowed it.
Now there was a different smell in the air. A smell at once hopeful and terrifying. It seemed that he still had a chance.
Some great miracle of magic and fire had burst from the walls of Ness, some work of sorcery, perhaps, or witchcraft or… or divine favor or… it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he must, absolutely must, take advantage of the change before things settled and went back to how they’d been. “Press, and don’t let up,” he commanded. “Get our footmen over to the left-it’s mostly thralls over there. Thralls who will surrender quickly, and open a wedge. We can split the horde in half, let the Free Men take one part and-”
“Was that sorcery, do you think? A demon set loose?” Hew asked softly.
Croy trudged over to him across the frozen ground and smacked the knight’s greave with the flat of his blade. The impact seemed to shock Hew back to his senses.
“Press the fucking attack,” Croy said.
It was not a word he used often. It had the desired effect. Hew rode forward to relay the command. Croy stomped after him. The steel armor he wore weighed him down, made his movements sluggish. He longed to be out of it. He longed to go running into the fight, to lose himself in swordwork.
Yet suddenly the barbarians were all moving away from him. Running toward the city. Did they run to get inside the walls? Yet it looked like they were being pushed toward one of the intact sections of wall, not toward the gap they’d made. Whatever infernal force had been set loose in that gap had cast terror into the hearts of the barbarians. They were not alone in their fear. Even the Skilfinger knights seemed loath to get close to the fires that still burned near the city. Croy waved Ghostcutter at them. “Push them up against the wall so they have nowhere to retreat! Press the attack!”
He heard his command repeated in the Skilfinger tongue. His translators were still alive, then. Good.
“Onward!” he shouted, and a ragged cheer went up all around him. He ran as fast as he could toward the main force of barbarians, heedless of how many casualties he took, heedless of his own safety.
He arrived just in time to find Morget coming toward him, leading a host of reavers. The giant barbarian had an axe in one hand and Dawnbringer in the other, and he showed no sign of fear at all.
Very good, Croy thought. Here, at last, was an enemy who wouldn’t run away.
Yet before he could reach Morget, Sir Hew came riding past again, Chillbrand swinging low to touch as many barbarians as it could reach. Hew made no attempt to cut them, he just tapped his magic blade against their exposed skin wherever it presented itself. Their faces turned blue and they dropped their weapons to hug themselves for warmth as the Ancient Blade’s magic stole all the heat from their bodies. Chillbrand flashed down to touch Morget, but the chieftain was too fast for Hew. He ducked low and rolled between the legs of Hew’s steed, disemboweling the beast before he rolled out the other side.
Hew was an old and seasoned warrior. He’d lost plenty of horses in his time, and knew how not to be thrown. Half sliding, half jumping, he landed on the frozen ground on one knee, his shield already coming up as Morget advanced on him.
“You’re not the one,” Morget growled.
Sir Hew started to rise, even as Morget hammered at his shield with Dawnbringer. The Ancient Blade burst with light again, again, again.
Hew pushed forward with the shield, trying to knock Morget down. He might as well have tried to bull his way through a hill. Morget’s axe came down and split the side of Hew’s vambrace wide open. There was blood on the blade when it came back up, and Hew’s shield arm fell limp at his side. Croy raced forward to help his old friend, but he could only watch in horror as Morget twisted around at the waist, all the strength of a rushing river in his axe arm.
Hew raised Chillbrand to ward off the blow. Axe and sword met with a horrible clang that made Croy’s teeth hurt, even from a half dozen yards away.
The axe cut through Chillbrand’s frost-rimed iron, barely slowing down as it shattered the Ancient Blade.
Morget boomed out a gruesome laugh. “Another one!”
While Morget exulted, Croy had closed the distance between them. “Try this one,” he screamed, and drove Ghostcutter deep into the barbarian’s side.
Chapter One Hundred Seventeen
Slag crowed and danced and shouted up to Malden where he stood on the wall, “Lad! Lad! Did you fucking see that?”
“I did,” Malden called back. He turned to the far side of the wall and peered down. The barbarians had surged away from the gap in the wall. Terror gripped them-many had even dropped their weapons. Yet behind them were thousands more, confused, perhaps even frightened by all the noise and smoke, but who had seen nothing of what Slag’s weapon could do. Still they pressed on toward Ness. Still they continued the attack.
He looked all around for Morget, because he knew that once the huge barbarian had time to realize what had happened, he would instantly begin rallying his troops for another attack. Even fire and destruction would not stop that man.
This wasn’t over. This was just beginning.
Cold fright gripped Malden’s bowels and he worried he might soil himself. They’d driven back the first wave, that was true. Slag had made that happen. Yet now there was an enormous gaping hole in the wall. Malden had no way to fight an effective battle without the wall to protect them.
Ness had a hope in the opposing army-though not much of one. Who was it out there, fighting the barbarians from the rear? Was it the Burgrave and his Army of Free Men? There was no way that rabble could defeat Morget once he regrouped. They might be making some small dent in the rearguard but could never hope to overcome the main force of easterners.
Malden rubbed at his face. It was bitterly cold up on the wall, where the wind stung every bit of exposed flesh, but still his face was wet. Greasy, sick-smelling sweat rolled down inside the collar of his tunic and pooled in the small of his back. He had to do something. Something!
He hurried down the wall and ran over to where Slag stood, still holding his snake-headed staff.
“Come to congratulate me?” the dwarf asked.
Balint was inspecting the broken wall, picking up chunks of masonry and debris and then casting them away again. Malden grabbed her arm and pulled her over to where Slag stood. “You two are the finest engineers this world has ever known, surely. And you deserve a grand reward already. But I must ask you to continue your labors. Get your weapon ready to be used once more. Once the barbarians have a chance to find their scattered wits, we’ll need to strike them again. And again.”
The two dwarves looked up at him with open mouths and wide eyes.
“I know I ask much of you, but-”
Malden stopped. He knew what they were going to say. So badly did he not want to hear it that he held up a hand to keep them from speaking.
He looked up at the weapon, the giant brass tube that Slag had made. It had rolled back into a house across the street, shattering the facade and half burying itself in fallen timbers and bricks.
It had also shattered itself. Long cracks ran up and down its length, and its
mouth was splayed wide, the bright metal curled backward on itself like a flower of brass. Smoke dribbled from that opening still.
It was clear to anyone, even one of so little learning as Malden, that it would never work again. It had done what it could, but in the process it had destroyed itself.
“That… was it,” Malden said. “Wasn’t it? There was only one volley in it.”
“I did warn you, lad,” Slag said in a very small voice.
Malden closed his eyes. Was this the end? “Then we must all hope,” he said, “that Tarness is as great a general as he thinks he is.”
Chapter One Hundred Eighteen
Morget shouted in pain and for a moment froze in place, unable to continue his attack. It gave Hew time to scuttle away on his back like a crab, and that gave Croy room to dance around and face Morget directly. He knew better than to think his blow had killed the barbarian, though he was certain he’d pierced vital organs.
It had not been a particularly virtuous attack. He’d struck out blindly to save Hew-but even Morget deserved a better death than a sneak attack to his unprotected side. Croy stepped back, flicking blood away from Ghostcutter’s blade, while the giant barbarian bent around his wound and watched his blood drip on the ground.
There was a way these things should be done. When two great swordsmen met in single combat, it was called a conversation, because the swords ringing against each other could sound like they were arguing in something approaching human speech. But also because any such fight should properly begin with words.
Each side must state his case-explain, in detail, why he had the right to win the contest. Why fate should favor him. It was an old ritual, but it served one perfectly functional purpose as well. The banter before the exchange of blows could drive one man or the other to anger or fear or resignation to death. Many conversations ended before swords even met or blood was drawn. Croy was a master of every aspect of the swordsman’s art and he knew how to taunt and accuse just as well as he knew how to parry and feint and lunge.
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