by Simon Brown
With luck, he was telling himself, we will hold long enough for reinforcements to arrive from the southern provinces. It would take two or three days for the fleet to reach Storia and Lurisia, and then a day to load up with infantry and another two or three days to return. About six days all up. With a lot of luck, yes, he could hold. After all, he was in command of the Royal Guards, the best soldiers on the continent—
The air was suddenly filled with the sound of several thousand bowstrings being loosed at the same time. He jerked his head to the right and saw a dark cloud lifting from the enemy regiments, reach high into the blue sky, stay suspended there for an instant, and then plunge back to earth, straight towards him and his guards. He, like all the others on the wall, watched hypnotised, but something in Arad shook loose and he shouted: 'Down!', and brought his shield up over his head as he squatted against the parapets. He could not help squeezing shut his eyes. Arrows clattered against his shield, on the stonework. He peeped out from underneath his shield. He saw two guards down, one dead with an arrow in the neck, the other wriggling on the parapet with an arrow in his stomach.
'Hold that man!' he cried, but too late. The guard was squirming so violently he tipped over the edge. His scream was cut off by the ground below.
Cursing, Arad risked standing up and looking over the parapet, just in time to see another volley loosed. 'Down!' he cried again, and this time all on the wall hunkered down beneath their shields.
He wondered how long this would go on for. The Chetts would have to run out of arrows eventually, but the effect on the morale of his guards would be dreadful.
'They are all hiding like turtles,' Gudon said happily to Lynan, pointing to the wall.
'Good,' Lynan said. He put a hand on Ager's crooked back and Gudon's good one. 'Now, my friends.'
The two men grinned. They dismounted, an action copied by every Red Hand and every warrior in the Ocean Clan, waited for the third volley and then rushed forward twenty paces. They stopped, and when the fourth volley was loosed covered another twenty paces. In this way, the sound of their approach covered by the storm of arrows, they made it to the base of the wall undetected. Another volley and their ladders went up.
That was the signal for the archers to lower their bows, and for the assault proper to begin.
'It's stopped!' one of the guards called out, the relief clear in his voice.
Arad was not so sure. He waited a while longer before risking standing up again. He looked over the parapet and found himself face to face with a Chett. He screamed involuntarily and whacked down on the face with his spear shaft. The Chett countered it with a short sword and then was over and on the walkway. Arad had time to retreat a step and lower his spear before another Chett appeared. He lunged at the first, impaling him, then desperately tugged at his sword. The second Chett was now over the wall and advancing, but another guard had seen the danger and thrown a javelin. The Chett gasped and fell forward, the javelin wobbling in his spine.
'Up!' Arad yelled. 'Up! The enemy is on the wall! The enemy is on the wall!'
The guards still hiding under their shields stood as one just as a tide of Chetts washed over the parapets. Arad flung himself at the closest, knowing something desperate would have to be done or the guards would not be able to hold the wall for the next hour let alone six days. He slashed down with his sword, slicing through a Chett shoulder, tugged the blade free, cut to his right and felt his whole arm jar as the sword missed its soft target and bit into stone. A short sword scraped off his breastplate. He lashed out with his shield, felt it connect with something more yielding than the wall, then jabbed underneath the rim with the sword point. There was a squeal, and a dark figure disappeared off the edge.
Arad knew he was just reacting, and forced himself to think calmly even as part of his brain took over the function of defending himself. He quickly scanned the walkway. The Chetts outnumbered the guards, but the guards were better protected and better armed, and he told himself it was alright after all—his side could deal with this assault. Then he noticed that the greatest concentration of Chetts was near the wall's only gate, the same gate he remembered Sendarus and the Kingdom's first army marching through last spring on its way to save Hume from Haxus. If the enemy got control of that and let in the main force of Chetts, nothing would save Kendra. He descended to the ground by the nearest stairway and ran as fast as he could in his armour to the three companies kept in reserve. They were watching the battle on the wall, desperate to join in, but knowing that if they moved now and were needed somewhere else later on they could lose the city. The company captains received the constable's arrival with huge sighs of relief.
Arad ordered two companies to go directly to the gate and hold it at all costs. The other he led up the walkway he had come down and threw them against the enemy. The fighting was fierce, and the guards used every weapon at their disposal: spears, swords, the edges of their shield, their mailed fists and their booted feet. The Chetts resisted fiercely, but the Royal Guards were better protected and took greater risks than their foe. Step by step the Chetts were being sandwiched between Arad's force and the two companies that had now reinforced the gate.
We're going to do it, Arad told himself. We're going to hold the wall.
Ager realised the Chetts were going to be thrown off the wall soon. Unless the gate was opened and reinforcements let through, they would have to start all over again, and this time at a much greater cost. He managed to fight his way to the gate, arriving at the same time as a company of Royal Guards. The tide was definitely turning against the Chetts now, and Ager looked around desperately for some way to regain the initiative. He noticed the guards on the walkway above the gate were being led by a short, wide-shouldered man who never lost a fight. He caught a glimpse of the man's face.
Sergeant Arad, he recognised with a shock. A good man. A very good soldier.
Ager managed to retreat from the battle in front of the gate itself and climb back up the walkway. He used all his skill with a short sword to force his way over the gate to the other side. Guards kept on trying to slice and skewer and slash him, but he dealt with each attack coolly, dispassionately, not looking at their faces because he knew some of them had been his friends. There was a sudden break in the fighting, and Ager found himself directly facing Arad himself.
'Sergeant!' he called out.
Arad looked at the crookback with surprise, and then with something like disdain. 'Not Sergeant, Ager Parmer, but Constable!'
'Better you than Dejanus, who I'll bet won the office for murdering Berayma!'
'Don't twist history to justify your betrayal of Grenda Lear!' Arad shouted back. He raised his long sword and advanced on Ager.
Ager waited until Arad was close enough to take a swipe at him and leaped forward, putting himself well inside Arad's reach. He lunged with his short sword, but found it blocked with the guard's shield.
'I remember your tricks with the short sword,' Arad said, and drove down with the pommel of his own weapon. Ager dodged aside, but caught the blow on his right shoulder. He roared in pain. Arad quickly drew his sword arm back to stab Ager, but the crookback leaped forward again and at the same time threw his short sword from his right hand to his left and thrust at the guard's midriff. Arad retreated a step, slashed down with the shield. Ager sidestepped, slipped and fell onto his knees; Arad's sword whistled above his head. He slashed at the guard's legs, his blade biting deep into the right calf muscle.
Arad shouted, fell back again, but his right leg gave way and he fell forward. Ager lifted his short sword and drove it up with all his strength. It sank to the hilt into Arad's stomach. The guard gasped, toppled sideways. Ager pulled out his sword and placed it against Arad's throat. 'I'm sorry, Sergeant,' he said, and pulled the blade across. Blood sprayed across Ager's face as Arad's breath hissed out of the wound.
'The constable is dead!' Ager shouted. 'The constable is dead!'
The Royal Guards did not know who had shout
ed the words, but the effect was immediate. Each guard felt his heart grow heavy and his courage diminish. None retreated, none turned their back to the enemy, but it was enough. Ager charged into them, his sword seeming to take a life with every thrust, and behind him his Chetts redoubled their efforts. The guards started to fall back.
Areava, Galen and Charion were halfway to the wall when they heard fighting break out. They ran the rest of the way, reaching the battle out of breath and with pools of sweat settling in their boots and gloves. All three quickly assessed the situation and realised how desperate it was. Areava drew her sword, shouted 'To me! To me! Kendrans to me!' and charged towards the knot of warriors struggling around the bar to the bronze gate. Galen and Charion drew their weapons, shouted their war cries, and flanked the queen as she drove into a knot of Chetts trying to get their hand on the bar to slip it out of its bracket. She hewed right and left, not waiting to finish off those she wounded and maimed but pushing on to free the gate of every enemy. She could hear the muffled sounds of swearing and screaming warriors all around her and above her on the walkway. The guards, realising the queen herself was now among them, regained their courage and morale and started fighting back as if they were suddenly possessed by demons. The Chetts could not hold out against them, and started losing ground.
Areava finally reached the bar. She had to stop to regain her breath and loosen her muscles, especially in her sword arm which felt as heavy as lead. Galen and Charion, still flanking her, had no such trouble and the queen looked at them in envy. A guard saw she had stopped and hurried to her, bowing deeply. 'Your Majesty, are you alright? You are not wounded?'
Areava surprised herself by laughing. 'No. Just tired. I'm not used to personally smiting my enemies.'
The guard flashed a smile in return. 'It is joyous work!' he cried, and left to rejoin it.
'That's the spirit,' she said, more to herself than anyone else. She shook her right arm one more time, slightly changed the grip on her sword and stood away from the gate so she could see up to the walkway. Heavy fighting was still going on up there, and it seemed to her that the Royal Guards were getting the worst of it. Then she saw Ager.
'Captain Parmer,' she said, and watched in admiration as the crookback moved almost magically to dismay his enemies.
'I remember him from Daavis,' Charion said.
'I remember him from long before then,' Galen added with distaste. 'Let us finish this here and now.'
Lynan and Korigan watched the progress of the Red Hands and the Ocean Clan on the walls. Their hearts rose and fell with the sway of battle, and Lynan found it almost impossible to bear.
'They must open the gate soon,' he said.
'They will,' Korigan said, her voice unreasonably calm.
'Look! More guards! That little one leading them is a demon!'
'He fights very well.' She considered asking for her best archers to shoot at him, but the distance was just a little too far, and the chance of hitting one of their own just a little too great.
Lynan heard tramping behind him and turned to see that a regiment of Chandran infantry had arrived, tired from their long descent from the ridge.
'Infantry?' he thought aloud. He wheeled his horse around and approached one of their officers. 'It's a hard climb down,' he said.
The officer nodded, not really sure what to say to this formidable looking man.
'Good training, however,' Lynan continued.
'Training, your Majesty?'
'For climbing up,' Lynan said. 'Tell your men to get ready.' He pointed to the wall. 'They're going up there. Leave your spears behind. Just swords.'
The officer saluted. 'Yes, your Majesty.'
A short while later the regiment was ready, dressed in a long line. As Lynan dismounted Korigan said, 'What do you think you're doing?'
'I'm going to lead an assault on the walls of Kendra.'
'You're wounded.'
'I'm king,' he replied. 'My place is up there with my warriors.'
'Your place is here, with your army. Ager and Gudon know what they are doing.'
'No doubt. So do I.'
'Then I'm coming with you,' she said and dismounted to be by his side.
He frowned in thought. 'Good idea, but I think you should bring your own warriors.'
'There are no other infantry here.'
'No, but there are several thousand archers. If we get them on top of the wall, imagine what they could do to the enemy on the other side. We might not need to open the gate then.'
Korigan did not even reply, but hurried off to order two banners of horse archers to dismount and line up behind the Chandran infantry. When Korigan was by his side again, Lynan started walking forward, and three thousand warriors followed him. Halfway to the wall he started to trot, ignoring the pain in his side, and by the time he reached one of the ladders he had enough momentum to leap past the first five rungs. He did not wait to see how close behind the others were, but quickly climbed to the wall, leaped over, drew his sword and ran along the walkway to the gate.
Gudon finally reached Ager, something he had been trying to do ever since he and his Red Hands had climbed the wall. The resistance from the guards had been fierce, and it seemed to Gudon that he was losing two warriors for every guard that went down, but when the cry went up that their constable had fallen the odds had shifted in favour of the Chetts. At last Gudon and the Red Hands broke through the last knot of resistance on the eastern part of the walkway; he ordered half of them down the nearest stairway to secure the gate itself and then led the other half to reinforce Ager. When he finally managed to find a place in the line next to his friend he said, 'You're a hard man to find.'
'It's my size,' Ager said, and grunted as he used the flat of his sword to knock out a guard, then used his feet to kick him over the side. 'It makes me hard to find in a crowd.'
'Truth,' Gudon said. 'Duck.'
Ager ducked and Gudon stabbed a guard in the face; as the man fell back, Ager stood erect and stabbed him in the stomach.
The fighting seemed to become more intense then and neither had any breath to talk. When their sword arms were too sore and tired to move any more they fell back and let others take their place. They found a spot against the parapet to rest for a moment. They flexed their fingers to rid them of cramp. There was a commotion below and they leaned over to see what was happening, but the walkway stopped them seeing anything.
Then Ager heard a too-familiar voice, one from his not-too-distant past. 'To me! To me! Kendrans to me!'
'Fuck,' he swore under his breath.
Gudon looked at him with concern. 'What is wrong, my friend?'
'Areava! She's here!'
He tried to lean over further and Gudon had to pull him back.
'We've run out of time,' Ager told him. 'We have to win up here—now!'
He drew his sword, pushed his way back to the front of the battle on the walkway, Gudon by his side, and redoubled his efforts. The Royal Guards fell back or were killed where they stood. For a moment Ager thought they just might do it, just might clear the walkway completely before she could make a difference. Then he heard the victory cries of the guards below and knew they had just lost their chance of capturing the gate. A short while later he watched her coming up the stairway, flanked by two other fighters, both of whom he recognised. She did not rush but moved with the calm determination he remembered she always used. Just like her mother, he said to himself, and the thought made him uncomfortable. The surviving guards rallied around Areava, and more guards were coming up the walkway from down below now that the gate had been secured. Ager readied himself for the onslaught, exchanged a quick glance with Gudon and could see he was thinking the same thing: neither of them was going to get out of this alive.
Then something happened that changed his mind.
Lynan came.
Areava could not believe her eyes. Instead of retreating before obviously superior numbers, Ager and his determined friend charged them, th
e remaining Chetts crowding close behind. Royal Guards rushed to stand in front of her, but the enemy assault was so desperate that most of them were cut down. More guards pushed their way forward, and in the end their numbers started to tell. The fighting became such a close affair that swords no longer had room to swing, and soldiers had to stab to strike their opponents. Then some of the Royal Guards behind the front line used the spears to jab at the faces of the Chetts. The enemy took a step back, then another, and Areava' knew she had them.
Suddenly the air was rent by the most horrific war cry, more animal than human in its ferocity. Areava could not help twisting around to see what had caused it but there were ten or more guards in her way. She pushed her way through them and saw, running towards her, her brother. The face was different, terribly scarred, but it was Lynan. She snarled like a great bear and charged forward herself before anyone could stop her.
Their swords struck and the sound rang across the battlefield. The expert training they had received all their lives from childhood automatically took over their actions. For those who watched it was like a dance, formalised, ornate, but also a dazzling display of violence. The swords moved in a blur, thrust and parry, slash and counterslash, slid along each other in a metallic hiss, whirred and clanged. White sparks flew off their swords, and blue sparks flew off the Keys of Power around their necks.
For a long while no one dared intervene. Galen and Charion were the first to come to their senses and rushed to help Areava; but Korigan reached Lynan's side and with her a handful of Chandran infantry, fresh and eager to prove their mettle. Over the gate, Ager and Gudon renewed their attack on the Royal Guards. Now the battle swung back in the invaders' favour. Wherever there was a clear space on the walkway, a Chett archer would take position and start shooting arrows into the guards below who were still trying to reach the battle on the walkway. This close the archers did not miss, and the guards fell by the dozen, pierced two or three times by short black arrows.
