In the Company of the Dead (The Sundered Oath Book 1)

by Ballintyne, Ciara

  “Ellaeva, I—”

  The sound of his name on her lips seared through her like wildfire across a drought-stricken plain, making her ache for the sound of it on his lips again.

  He drew back, his hand cupping her face. “This isn’t— I mean, your vows—”

  “The temple betrayed me. She betrayed me—” Ellaeva bit the words off. “Do not tell me what to do, Lyram Aharris. I am a woman grown.”

  She pulled his lips down to hers, kissing him harder. This time he responded, drawing her tight against him, his hand sliding tentatively across her belly.

  Under the heat of their passion, the aching cold lines of their entwined anguish melted away.

  The winding of horns woke Lyram, and he rolled from the bed, his bare skin pebbled with gooseflesh in the chill of the early morning.

  On the bed, Ellaeva sat bolt upright, her hair dishevelled and the blankets clutched hard to her naked breasts.

  “An attack.”

  “Yes.” His voice came out terse.

  She dropped the blankets and slid from the bed in a fluid motion. The dimmed light of a shuttered lantern reflected off the silver-and-gold tattoo that wound around her arm from shoulder to wrist.

  More scars marked her skin than he’d ever suspected, but he dropped his eyes to pull his own clothes on, the shirt still torn and damp with blood. Given the choice, this wasn’t how he’d have ended this interlude. “I need to find my armour. I’ll see you on the walls.”

  She nodded from inside her shirt and tugged it on. He seized her gambeson and handed it to her on his way out the door.

  “Thank you.”

  Clutching his clan blade, he hurried down to the chaos-filled courtyard, which was barely lit by the smouldering torches on the walls. Men ran through the dark of the early morning in every direction in various states of dress, all with naked blades or other weapons in hand. Many poured up the stairwells to the walls while others rushed to the guardrooms flanking the barbican. A light but persistent rain fell, making the cobbles slick underfoot. Lyram dodged around his soldiers and headed for the other side of the castle and his suite. A second battle without armour would be foolhardy, and he’d collected more than enough injuries already, each of which ached and pulled as he climbed the stairs.

  Halfway up the stairwell, Everard found him.

  “Sir! Where have you been? I’ve been looking for you everywhere!”

  He carried Lyram’s claymore in one hand, his brow pinched and glasses slipping down his nose.

  “Never mind.” He and Ellaeva had tweaked the nose of the goddess of death as they went into battle. The thought left him queasy—it was best no one but they knew what had occurred between them. Lyram seized the gambeson from Everard, who was staggering under the weight of all the armour, and headed down the stairs to the courtyard. Everard dropped the gear to the ground with obvious relief.

  Lyram dragged the gambeson on, and pulled the leather tabard over the top while Everard readied his mail. “Help me with this.”

  Everard lifted the mail over his upraised arms and dropped it in a rattle of iron. Lyram straightened the hauberk out with a stiff jerk, and then belted the baldric over the top while Everard began strapping on cuir bouilli, working his way up from Lyram’s feet.

  Galdron appeared in the mouth of the barbican and headed over. “Sir! Word from the gatehouse is that that Velenese bitch is bringing scaling ladders and even her two siege towers. They must be confident they’ve adequately filled the moat. They’re nearly at the walls now—they used the darkness to approach, and we didn’t see nor hear them until now.”

  Lyram cursed but held himself rigid as Everard buckled on his chest harness, spaulders and vambraces. Sayella, or Bradlin, had finally decided to play their hand. “Likely they muffled anything that might make noise and darkened anything that could reflect light.”

  Once his armour was on, Everard handed him the helm, then waited until he settled it on his head before passing over the huge claymore.

  At a run, Lyram followed Galdron to the battlements. The siege towers loomed out of the greying light of the approaching dawn, a bare hundred yards from the moat. It must have taken all night to push them this close unheard. Something else bulked closer to the ground amongst the ranks of soldiers—a portable bridge and a battering ram.

  Lyram swore again. “Archers!”

  At his shout, the men pouring up the stairs formed up and fell into ranks, those with bows moving to the front, arrows nocked. The enemy had approached within bowshot while under cover of darkness, and then made it even closer because Lyram had been off dallying with a priestess without having left clear orders in his absence.

  “Shoot!”

  Arrows arched out into the rainy shadows. Below, shields came up. A few soldiers fell to the whistling hail of shafts, their screams wafting up to the men waiting on the walls, but most marched on resolutely. The towers and the ram rolled on unaffected.

  “Fire! Bring me fire!” Lyram called, as the archers nocked, drew, and released again in a smooth rhythm.

  Soldiers were already rolling barrels of oil to the archers lining the battlements and levering the tops off them. Other soldiers began dipping the heads of prepared arrows into the open oil barrels and passing them down the line. After the next volley, the archers nocked the fire arrows, and several men hurried along, the torches in their hands flickering fitfully in the persistent drizzle.

  Lyram gripped the stones of the parapet. Damn this weather. Traeburhn would have covered the siege machines with wet leather hides, and this rain wouldn’t help the fire to take any better.

  Flaming arrows arced out, and more men fell, screaming as flames engulfed their flesh. A few arrows lodged in the ram, and then the flames flickered and went out.

  Lyram pounded his fist against the battlements. “Again!”

  The enemy soldiers congregated at the edge of the moat near the bridge pilings. Those at the front began splashing across, the water only rising ankle-deep as they found the debris dumped into the watercourse by the cats. One man teetered on the unseen footing and tumbled into the water with a yell. He flailed under the weight of his armour, and disappeared below the surface.

  The men who made it across to the narrow bank of earth surrounding the castle began throwing scaling ladders up against the walls. Lyram’s soldiers pushed the ladders clear wherever they landed, but in a few places the enemy were faster and swarmed up the rungs, their added weight making dislodging the ladders more difficult.

  The portable bridge thrust out into place, and more men ran across it with the ram.

  Boom!

  The sound of the ram slamming into the castle gates echoed loud around the battlements. Lyram grimaced. The outer gate had been repaired after the first assault, and the second gate too, but both were significantly weakened by damage. Neither would hold long, leaving only two other gates between the guardhouse and the enemy, and only the innermost gate defending the courtyard, with the portcullis unable to be lowered.

  Where is Ellaeva? He needed her in the barbican again.

  Boom!

  “Archers, concentrate on the ram and the men crossing the moat,” Lyram shouted.

  The defenders shifted focus at his command, showering arrows down on the vulnerable men too busy manoeuvring ladders into place to raise shields. More screams split the pre-dawn air, and corpses riddled with arrows tumbled into the moat. Behind the first wave of attackers, a large group of Gallowglaighs pushed the first of the siege towers out over their makeshift causeway across the moat. It rocked over the submerged surface, leaning dangerously in one place before its handlers shoved it forward towards the castle.

  Boom!

  His eyes raked the length of the battlements but failed to find Ellaeva. The bridge of the siege tower slammed down on the gate-tower stones bare yards away, and he leapt back. Howling mercenaries in black leather and iron surged across the timbers. One man took a bodkin arrow in his armoured chest and tumbled fr
om the platform, screaming as he plummeted to the moat a hundred feet below.

  Then the attackers fell upon them.

  Lyram closed with them, his claymore in hand, only peripherally aware of other men joining him. A leather-clad enemy soldier came at him. He smashed the man’s blade aside and hit him hard enough to the gut to split the leather armour asunder. Blood gushed forth. The man spun away from the impact, taking one of his fellows with him as he tumbled down the outside of the wall.

  Boom!

  This time the crunch of cracking timbers accompanied the pounding of the ram. Lyram swore and ducked beneath another man’s paired hatchets, coming up from beneath to slam his sword into an armpit. He kicked the mercenary away, and took another man in the back as he tried to press one of his personal guard over the edge of the parapet.

  Boom!

  Another crack. Smoke wafted across the battle, the acrid stink thick in his nostrils. What was burning? He blocked another attack, and shoved the man over the battlements. A roar of sound from the soldiers swallowed the man’s screams. A pillar of flame engulfed the other siege tower only twenty yards shy of the moat, burning so fiercely the drizzle didn’t slow it, and thick black smoke poured from its timbers and across the castle.

  Boom!

  Dragon’s balls! Lyram slashed a mercenary across the throat, only to be blocked by the man’s gorget. Howling curses at the top of his lungs, he drove the blade hard into the eye slot of the Gallowglaigh helm. With a gurgling yell, the man fell away and Lyram broke for the gate-tower stairs.

  Back from the battlements, behind the immediate chaos of the men repelling the besiegers, a deceptive calm reigned. He found Galdron at the stairs, a small contingent of men gathered to descend to the courtyard.

  “How many men in the courtyard?” Lyram wiped blood from the huge blade of his sword.

  “Not enough, sir.” Galdron’s moustaches quivered below his helm. “I don’t expect the gates to hold, and those sappers could break through any moment.”

  “We’ll have to do what we can.” He led the way into the darkness of the stairwell. Protected from the roar and scream of the battle outside, the boots of the men behind him clattered and echoed loudly on the steps.

  They emerged into a courtyard filled almost entirely with black smoke from the siege tower. A slight breeze pushed it across the moat and into the central castle, where the rain dampened the black smoke down into a dense fog. Lyram coughed, and headed towards the gates.

  Boom!

  The inner gates were open, still awaiting his further orders. He plunged free of the smoke and headed for his men, who stood facing the gates with their backs turned to him.

  Boom!

  He opened his mouth to shout the order, and the last of the gates burst inwards as the ram slammed into them. Enemy soldiers poured through the breach, forcing the defenders back.

  “To me!” Lyram plunged into the melee, a nightmare of screaming and flashing blades. The reek of blood and smoke stung his nostrils. Something too soft to be cobbles gave under his foot. Pushing on, he cut the next man down with a brutal slash.

  The faltering defence rallied in his wake. His soldiers pushed forward and closed ranks, forcing the mass of enemy soldiers back.

  “Push harder!” Lyram heaved a great lungful of smoky air and swung his weary arms. Another man went down. On his left, a defender disappeared beneath the crush. “Close the courtyard gates!”

  With a roar, his men pushed forward again, throwing the enemy back through the gates. Men ran to close the shattered portal inside the barbican. As they swung it closed, the enemy’s swords and axes still thrusting through the narrowing gap, Daneel raced up with two burning torches in her hands and tossed them through. Soldiers rushed forward with timbers to barricade the inner gate, while screams started on the other side and hands pounded against the wood. Lyram ran into the guardroom, shouting orders to the gatehouse atop the battlements to lock the courtyard gates in a slow count of one hundred, then ordered everyone clear. The soldiers raced back into the courtyard, Lyram hard on their heels. The inner gates crashed closed behind them, and the locks slammed home into the stone.

  Gasping, Lyram looked around the courtyard. Groups of castle soldiers were hunting down pockets of the enemy, engaging in short but furious battles to slay the Gallowglaighs. Someone screamed, a high-pitched sound that cut through the clang of steel on iron. A group of four castle guards ran to assist another squad, leaving Gallowglaigh corpses and rivers of blood behind them. Of Galdron there was no sign. On the walls, the battle still raged. A man screamed as he went over the parapet. Further down the ramparts he found Ellaeva, her black robes billowing like crow’s wings. She scattered a group of attackers by plunging into their midst heedlessly. She broke the onslaught alone, silver sword spraying blood with each stroke. Men in red armbands followed her, chanting her name. One man ran terror-stricken onto the sword of a defender behind him.

  Lyram joined the gate defenders rushing to the walls, charging an attacker so furiously he forced the man backwards into a merlon. A siege ladder rested against the wall behind the enemy soldier. Lyram charged the man again, knocking him over the wall, and the ladder with him. The screams of the falling wafted back up.

  Someone fired the second siege tower. Smoke stung his eyes. He swung his sword doggedly, taking down a man from behind. Around him, more siege ladders went up, and sometimes back down again, as he fought his way through to Ellaeva. Her face was alive with righteous anger. She cut down every man who came at her, her blessed blade shearing through flesh, armour and bone.

  “Aut agere aut mori!” he shouted to her across the noise of the battle.

  Her mouth pressed into a grim line, and she flicked him a left-handed salute before the press of battle pulled them apart.

  “Sir!”

  Galdron’s shout cut through the noise of the battle, and the urgency and fear ringing in his voice made Lyram spin. Below, enemy soldiers boiled out of the well room. The few soldiers in the courtyard engaged them, but they were already outnumbered and more surged out the door with every passing moment.

  The sappers had breached the catacombs.

  “Sir!” Galdron ran down the wall, still pointing wildly, and Lyram whirled again, following the line of his arm.

  Traeburhn, clad in full plate, had emerged from the gate-tower stairwell and was dashing towards him across the battlements, his claymore raised in both hands. Lyram wavered, then wrenched his sword up, but Traeburhn’s massive blade knocked the claymore from his hands. Lyram reached for the clan sword on his hip as Traeburhn lifted his claymore to strike again. The huge blade whistled through the air—and Galdron plunged between them. The blade crunched through Galdron’s mail shirt, the rings bursting asunder under the pressure of the blow, and into his body. Galdron’s eyes widened. His mouth moved but made no sound.

  Traeburhn kicked Galdron from his sword. The old captain collapsed to the bloody stones of the battlements, his fingers pressed uselessly against his chest.

  “I saw you,” Traeburhn said to Lyram, his eyes narrowed and glittering with anger. “Down there. Didn’t I already kill you?”

  “Must have missed,” Lyram said through clenched teeth.

  Galdron flailed on the ground, but blood pooled beneath him and spread across the ramparts. “Maybe you should send someone else to finish the job.”

  Traeburhn snarled and lunged. Lyram blocked him and shoved him back hard. A knot of anger tightened in his chest, for Zaheva, for Ellaeva, and now for Galdron. A red haze dropped over his vision, and strange power flooded his body and his muscles. Screaming, he swung the clan sword at the duke’s head.

  Traeburhn retreated, blocking the furious rain of blows with sudden desperation. Blood soaked the battlements, making the footing treacherous, and the air reeked of it.

  A soldier’s head popped up over the battlements, and Lyram hacked at him as he went past. The blow carried such strength the blade sliced through his iron gorget and
the neck effortlessly. Red hot shards of iron exploded outwards. Even through the buffering anger, shock touched him distantly, and he faltered.

  Traeburhn’s eyes widened as he backed away. “What sorcery is this?”

  What sorcery indeed?

  More blood rained down on the stones, and the headless corpse crumpled and dropped away. Lyram kicked the ladder with a strength beyond any mortal man, shattering the wood into splinters that showered down among the waiting troops.

  He advanced, refusing to let shock root him to the spot. “Why should sorcery surprise you after trafficking with Rahmyr? Your pet necromancer is dead, by the way.”

  He lunged on the final word, and Traeburhn skipped back, almost stumbling over his own boots.

  “She used you, and Drault.” His blade licked out, clanging off the curve of Traeburhn’s breastplate. “Manipulated you into killing my wife.”

  Another blow sent the tip of his blade squealing across the plate, leaving a deep gouge in the metal and sending Traeburhn reeling back. Red light ignited and flashed at the contact, and Traeburhn threw up his free hand to shield his eyes.

  “But I know what Drault did to her, when she was dying, lying in her blood and the snow, with the pain of an arrow in her back—what he did at his own behest. And I know when he was done, you slit her throat.” Moving faster than he believed possible, he brought the clan sword down on the duke’s collarbone, hard enough to dent the iron.

  Traeburhn’s knees buckled, and he caught himself with one gauntleted hand against the parapet.

  “And what did you get, for your three hundred crowns and my wife’s wedding ring? Not even a quick end to this siege.”

  From his kneeling position, Traeburhn threw himself forward, tackling Lyram around the knees and sending them both sprawling to the stones.

  Lyram’s broadsword spun from his hand. The unfamiliar strength surging through him flickered and died. He seized Traeburhn’s arm, forcing the elbow the wrong way until the fingers spasmed and released the hilt of his claymore. Traeburhn’s other hand drove a knife hard into his leg, just above his greave. Lyram convulsed at the sudden sharp stab of pain, releasing the duke’s hand, and Traeburhn struck him in the face with his gauntleted fist.