Aisha kissed the younger man on the forehead with great affection. “Be strong Errollyn. Know that however lonely you may feel, you are never truly alone. I love you as a brother.”
“Then let me free.”
“I can't,” she said simply.
“Then our friendship has limits.”
Aisha's eyes filled with tears. She opened her mouth to reply, closed it, then stared at the dark hullside, and piles of surrounding cargo.
“Here,” she said, finally unwrapping her bundle and revealing a plate of fresh fruit and cheese. “Open wide. Try not to spill any, this is excellent quality.”
The Pazira shields made a line so hard and tall that the fight had become more like wrestling than swordwork.
“Push!” Captain Faldini yelled, in unison with a heaving grunt from the front line. Men leaned into their shields like sailors into a howling gale, boots scrabbling on the debris-strewn cobbles for balance. On the flanks, men held shields over their heads, trying to give protection from the archers firing down from the mansion wall. The front gate had collapsed when the first thrust had thrown hooks over it and run the ropes down to the draught horses downslope…archers had tried to sever the ropes with crossbow fire, but the ropes were too thick. Oilfire had been wasted trying to burn the ropes, but it went out too quickly, and ropes did not burn without encouragement. Now the mansion's defenders were out of oilfire, and without half a wall and half a gate. Cityfolk built defences for city threats, and forgot how powerful four enormous country plough-pullers yoked together could be. The top of the wall lay smashed across the road, one gate hanging askew. Beyond this mansion (whose ever it was, Faldini neither knew nor cared) lay the mouth to Sharptooth, and glory for Pazira.
Sword and spear thrusts found the edges of the shields, men pushed sideon, keeping their bodies as narrow as possible to that threat. The rank behind pushed in turn upon the front rank's backs, and thrust with spears and swords over the top of the shield wall.
The man directly before Faldini fell to a crossbow bolt from the wall. Faldini leapt over him into the second rank, and put his shoulder into the back of the man ahead's breastplate, wielded his spear high for space, and waited for one of those on the shield wall's other side to raise his head. None did, but one of their second rank tried a spear thrust that deflected off the shields. Faldini noted where it had come from, leapt and thrust his own spear…it made firm contact, grating on metal, and seemed to stick. Someone screamed, one more scream above the animal grunts and groans of men, the clash of steel and the howls of the wounded.
“You city-bred, perfumed sister-fuckers have never seen a real war!” Faldini roared. “Die screaming, you arselickers!” Something crashed off his helm. They pushed some more and the line crept forward another arm's length, then another. The broken gate hung barely fifteen paces more down the road, and their enemies were now struggling for footing on smashed rock from the wall.
A man behind him took a bolt through the neck and fell…Faldini glared up in time to see the bowman crouch back down behind his battlement. “Georgi!” he yelled, still pushing, searching around him in the crush…and he saw the lad, aiming his crossbow up past the defensive shields. He fired, and a man atop the wall took a bolt through the face. “Good lad! Soldier, grab Georgi for me!”
He was moving backward now, his back to the shieldman, pushing hard while looking behind. Hands grabbed the young crossbowman and shoved him through the armoured crush.
“Give me that, I'll help you…” Faldini shouldered his spear, grabbed the crossbow's winch handles and began winding fast. Georgi fumbled in his pouch for a new bolt…a shot from the wall struck a man's breastplate. A spear thrust jabbed past Faldini's shoulder and hit Georgi in the chest…Faldini grabbed it and pulled sharply down. On the other end, the spear's owner tried to pull back down, reaching upward, and with a yell, a Pazira spearman took that chance to kill him. Georgi had only been knocked back into the man behind, and was now bending trying to recover his fallen bolt…“Get another one!” Faldini hauled up the crossbow and handed it to the lad. Georgi grabbed it, fitted a new bolt, his freckled face anxious beneath the rim of his steel helm. “Aim on my shoulder, I'll point him to you!”
Faldini turned, felt the clank as Georgi rested the crossbow on his shoulder…a surge of pushing and suddenly everyone was going sideways, Georgi struggling for balance. Then the crossbowman raised his head once more above the parapet, a new bolt fitted. “That's the swine!” Faldini roared, pointing straight. “Kill him!”
The crossbow thumped against Faldini's shoulder, and the man atop the wall fell reeling, a bolt beneath his jaw. Faldini howled triumph. Suddenly the shield wall surged forward several places, several defenders falling on the loose footing. The shieldmen ran over the top of them, and the second rank killed them where they lay. An uneven gap opened to Faldini's left between two shields and Faldini switched his spear to the backhand, took a sighting and thrust hard at the first target he saw. It deflected off a city man's smaller shield, but rocked him backward. Faldini dropped his spear and charged through the gap, pulling his short sword and driving it through an unsuspecting man's neck. He reversed right, dropping low to slice through the back of another shieldsman's leg. The man he'd tried to spear attacked, Faldini grappled him bodily, and they both lost balance on the sliding stones. Suddenly free of opponents, his own shieldsmen were surging forward, trampling their captain to make ground over the stones.
Faldini saw his first shieldsmen were already pushing through the broken gate. Some took shelter in the arch to try to open the second gate door and double the space. Others pressed into the mansion to establish their position, while shieldmen stood at their backs, warding crossbow fire from above. Only now, Pazira's second rank of crossbows had gained enough space to set up their own rank down the street behind a shield wall, and were peppering any defending crossbowman who raised his head.
Faldini scrambled over broken stone and shattered mortar. Then he was in through the gate, adding his own shoulder as the second gate began to swing, six men pushing with all their strength as more piled through behind. Ahead, he saw, it was all over-Pazira soldiers were pouring across the courtyard, into the mansion, up stairs and ladders up to the defensive wall where crossbowmen threw down their weapons and begged for mercy. Glass broke, pots crashed and, somewhere distant, the inevitable screams and cries of women-servants or ladies of the house, it made no difference to Faldini. They were between him and Sharptooth, and would yield, one way or the other.
On the rooftop of a neighbouring mansion, he could see crossbow-armed guards crouched and watching…damn fool cityfolk, he thought as he leaned on a wall removed his helm and wiped sweat from his brow. If they all stood together to defend the weak points, they'd make an impossible wall…but which patachi would order his own house abandoned to help defend a neighbour's? No, here they each defended their own house, and thus divided themselves into small groups that were excellently defended from other small groups, but not from the rampaging Army of Pazira. Worse, these were city-bred merchant scum without a trace of breeding, and no concept of honour or dignity-barely one house in five was actually fighting; most were just watching their neighbours getting slaughtered, and feeling glad it wasn't them. Petrodor had harboured fractious rivalries for so long they'd come to believe it a virtue. Now they discovered otherwise.
There were local men running into the courtyard now, hands over their heads, some bleeding from wounds, all terrified and expecting to die. Then women, mostly servants, then several ladies in gowns and fancy hair. Faldini refastened his helm.
“Captain! Captain!” He turned, and found Sergeant Drosi scrambling up the pile of masonry past the twisted gate. “Captain, one of the houses opened its gates and attacked! They had a white sheet over the wall, but they opened their gates anyway and hit our flank…”
“Which house!”
“The…the big one with the pillars!”
“They've all got fucking pi
llars man!”
“Come and see, Captain, the duke was leading the defence!”
“The duke?” Faldini spun and yelled at the nearest officer, “Prepare the next assault! I want the horses brought up, shield walls formed, and every man to have a drink and some food-we're going to need it!”
“Yes, sir!” came the reply, and Faldini was already off and running as best he could over the masonry and bodies. The duke had been a passable warrior in his day, but that day was long past. Oh, he understood strategy well enough, but there had never been a warrior's fire in his belly. It had been on Faldini's own insistence that the duke had not been leading the main force through the streets. He was a man of advancing years, Faldini had said, and his men would understand if he moved with the main body, not at the head.
The Duchess Varona had agreed vehemently. It was perhaps the only time in Faldini's memory that he and the duchess had agreed on anything.
He ran in pursuit of Sergeant Drosi, his weary legs struggling for pace on the cobbles. He passed Pazira soldiers running forward, some more tending wounded fallen in the recent assault, and dodged around a team bringing up the draught horses.
The road bent downhill and he could see the commotion-a big mansion on the inner bend, now visible, flames licking from its upper windows and men rushing across its courtyard. Faldini and the sergeant rushed into the rear guard-a chaos of wounded and dying, men dragging fallen comrades, and leaving others not in Pazira colours to bleed and scream where they lay.
Inside the wall, a Pazira crossbowman told his captain what had happened. “No warning,” he said, still searching the upper balconies and the rooftop for targets, “just a squeal of gates and a roar of men…they lay into the back of us, we lost maybe twenty before we could reform and get the shields up.” He wiped at a bloody nose. “We were moving downslope when the duke arrived with the middle reserve…he didn't even bother with the men attacking us, he went straight through the gates and in there.” A nod toward the mansion.
“Good man,” Faldini growled approvingly. Not a failure at strategy at all, his duke. These city soldiers would defend their properties first and foremost. Attacking their mansion would force them to pursue, straight back through the gates they'd come out of, and expose their backs to their enemy. “That was the end of them, then?”
“Only a handful got away, out of maybe a hundred. The duke's finishing the house.”
The crash and yells of battle resounded from somewhere within, but were dimmed by the gathering roar of the fire. Men on the garden were beginning to shout, waving at others to get clear before it all collapsed. Servants and ladies ran into the yard, clutching a few children. A small, yapping dog ran frantically about the patio, barking at soldiers, barking at flaming embers, barking at the world. A few Pazira soldiers appeared at ground-level windows and doors, but they appeared to be waiting, shouting within for comrades to follow, and quickly.
“Where the hells are they?” Faldini muttered as the flames leapt higher. Windows exploded with a shattering crash and debris fell to the ground.
Finally, Faldini spotted Pazira soldiers emerging. Several supported wounded, while others merely cleared the way. Then came a cluster, like a procession, holding a limp body on their shoulders. The fallen man's helm was missing, and thick, untidy grey hair spilled onto the shoulders of his men.
“Oh mercy no!” the crossbowman beside Faldini exclaimed. “Oh please gods!” The cry crossed the courtyard in a rush, soldiers ceasing whatever they were doing to stare and exclaim, and make holy signs to the deities.
The men of Pazira laid their duke on the patio, his head lolling, his eyes gazing sightlessly at the fire-strewn sky. Faldini walked forward, helm under his arm, staring down in disbelief. The duke's breastplate was covered with blood from a cut through the throat…though the cut itself was invisible beneath wads of soaked cloth his desperate men had applied as they sought to defy the facts of war and flesh and sharp steel.
Some men fell to their knees and sobbed. A lieutenant called for order and dignity, but his voice was quaking. Faldini wondered if there would have been such a reaction for him, had it been his own body lying there amidst the falling, burning rain. For the first time in his life, the certain knowledge of the answer troubled him.
“I did tell you they loved you more than me,” he murmured. More loudly, he said, “Can anybody tell me the name of the family who owns this property?”
“Telrani,” came a reply, from a grim and wizened old corporal. “This be the house of Family Telrani.”
“From this moment,” Faldini announced, “there shall be no more Family Telrani in Petrodor! Where you find a Telrani, kill him! Where you find a relative of a Telrani, kill him also! Burn their property, kill their women, I want them erased ! Sergeant Drosi!”
“Captain.”
“Kill these people.” He pointed to the huddled lords and ladies in the courtyard, watching their mansion burn. “Leave only the servants and children.”
“Yes, Captain.” Sergeant Drosi pulled his blade and went to see that done.
Children. Faldini spat. That much I grant to you, he thought silently in the direction of his fallen duke. Only you wouldn't have even killed the women, would you? Torovan was about family, first and always. Family stood together, and family died together. Old, eccentric, wealthy dreamers like Alexanda Rochel might have managed to forget that fact, but the lowborn likes of Faldini knew better. He'd see about the children another day. But not here, with his duke's body still warm.
Errollyn awoke with a pain-dazed jolt as his hands fell free. Blood rushed back into his arms, and pain crackled as though he'd driven his arm into a fire. He hissed, flexing his hands, and noticed then that the chains had been separated midlength, as though by a sword. And now the ropes about his middle were coming undone.
“Who's there?” he asked hoarsely.
“Who do you think?” came the familiar retort. “Who else would be crazy enough?” It sounded as though her teeth were chattering. Errollyn did not know whether to laugh or swear.
“Sasha, you're mad. How did you get on board?”
“When we've time enough for tales, I'll tell you. Now how in all the hells am I going to get these chains off your ankles?”
Errollyn let himself fall sideways onto one arm, and gasped with relief to lie on the decking, his back no longer cramping, his shoulders suddenly free. His feet, however, remained manacled to the base of the mast.
“Perhaps a key would be civilised?” he suggested.
“Aye, but I'd have to take that off someone, wouldn't I?” Sasha retorted, prowling about the mast, a shivering shadow in the darkness. “They're not likely to be obliging.” She squatted by the chains. “I broke my first sword on chain like this, only it didn't fracture properly until the middle of a great bloody battle.”
“I know, I was there.” Sasha looked at him. Errollyn struggled to sit up, caught her arm and kissed her on the lips. “You're cold.” The arm of her jacket was sodden beneath his hand. “You swam out?”
“Mari's boat. He swore he knew a way, which end of the ships casts a shadow from the deck light. Ship thieves sneak aboard all the time, whenever a ship is shorthanded or otherwise preoccupied.” Errollyn nodded as it dawned on him. After the casualties the talmaad had suffered, and with the running battle in the harbour, the ship crew would be both preoccupied and shorthanded. “Mari seemed to know quite a lot about it. His misspent youth, I think.”
“The battle's stopped?” Errollyn listened hard, but he couldn't hear the ballista firing.
“Some of Steiner's ships were chasing, it seems everyone's suddenly declaring themselves the rightful possessor of the Shereldin Star, and that means attacking serrin. Damn nuisance, mostly…three of them got burnt out and sunk, they can't exchange fire like this ship's got.” She laid her sword across the ankle manacles, measuring the blow. “I can sever the chain, but you won't be able to walk, and I sure as shit can't carry you.”
; “Look, Sasha, you're freezing…you'll cut my foot off in that state. Only one person's been down here all night, and she wasn't supposed to come-get your jacket off and warm up a bit.”
“No time, damn it, Mari's waiting…”
“Sasha, I can barely move my arms.” It was true. If he tried to wield a sword he'd most likely drop it. “Jacket.” He pulled at her jacket and was mildly surprised when she yielded. “Here, sit,” he said as the jacket came off. Sasha sat with her back to him, knees curled up, as Errollyn rubbed her as vigorously as his weak, throbbing hands could manage. “Why come for me?” he asked.
“Didn't trust Rhillian to treat you well,” Sasha replied through chattering teeth. “Looks like I was right, huh?” Her shirt was also sodden, and her skin cold beneath. Errollyn got his hands under the shirt and rubbed hard.
“I put a knife in one of them,” Errollyn explained sourly. “They didn't take it well.”
“Most people don't,” Sasha reasoned. “Is he…?”
“No. If I'm in any history books, it won't be for that.”
“You haven't done anything wrong, Errollyn,” Sasha said more forcefully, and the trembling of her jaw seemed to lessen. “You can't let people get away with gross injustice, even when they're otherwise decent. It's the principle.”
“It's your principle.”
“And not yours?”
Errollyn spared a moment to wrap his arms about her and press his cheek against her wet hair. She slumped against him, as though that embrace were enough reason to let every other concern and tension vanish for a short while. Errollyn felt his heart soar. “I'm glad you came, crazy fool,” he murmured in her ear.
“I had to come,” she replied, a touch desperately. “You're the only one who really understands me.” The words might have come from his own lips to her, Errollyn reflected. To hear her say it back to him…well, they had to get out of this alive, he thought. Because he wanted to take this amazing, energetic, wild, exasperating, beautiful, crazy person to bed and make love to her for about a year.
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