Heir to the Raven (The Pierced Veil, #1)

by J. Wesley Bush

  He shifted attention to the Queen Bethany. They were now in a race to destroy the dam before the enemy could bring in reserves, or worse, turn the dweorg stone-throwers against them. Once they reached the dam, Bethany’s crew would set their pots of Sargoshi flame atop it, while the Stag distracted the enemy. Bethany would then back water and spark the inferno with fire arrows. Once the dam gave way, they could all savor the wails of drowning Belgorshans.

  “Ahead full, men. Pull handsomely!” Hewland called. Sir Ivo was yelling similar encouragement to the crew of the Bethany. Oarsmen cheered and the coxswain gave them a breakneck row pace. The two galleys sliced through the water like trout and the dam loomed ever closer. It was a glorious moment.

  Suddenly, warning shouts came from Bethany. A moment later its prow reared up with a horrible creaking sound, followed by the crack of splintering planks. Men fell to the deck or into the water. As the waves calmed, Selwyn could see the galley had foundered on a sunken boat whose thick mast had sheared a gash along the galley’s port side. She was fast taking on water. “Hewland — bring us alongside the Queen Bethany. We’ll have to take her place!”

  CHAPTER 52

  D one with carrying ladders, Mirko Bowback and the others filtered back through the mass of troops waiting to throw themselves at the wall. Each member of the tithe grasped the tunic of the man in front of him to keep from being lost in the press. The peasants he passed stared numbly at the ground, resigned to their fates. They wore nothing but homespun cloth to protect against arrows, and swords, and whatever else the Jandari devised.

  Anger burned in his chest. Soon his tithe would join the queue to be sacrificed on the walls. Part of him hoped for a quick victory, so fewer of his people would perish, but another, stronger part, wanted the Jandari to win. He would rather die than see Leax rewarded with victory. The man had a bottomless stomach and would keep grasping and devouring so long as he had the strength.

  They arrived at their grounded spears. No one seemed to be in a hurry to return to the fight, except Rotamir, who kept shouting at them in Oberyn and striking those closest by. All so he could win coin and glory.

  “I’m going to kill Rotamir today.” Mirko wasn’t sure whether he had made the vow to himself, the faie, or the High King, but it was made.

  “I’ll help you.” Mirko flinched as a hand rested on his shoulder, but relaxed as he realized it was Cousin Stepan. “When the time comes, I’ll help you kill him. For the sake of my father.”

  A ring of agony encircled Mirko’s throat as a whip wrapped around his neck and its lead-filled quirt struck him in the throat apple. He struggled to breathe, throat spasming painfully. The peasant serjeant wrenched the whip handle downward, dragging Mirko to his knees. “Get your weapons!”

  “Yes, serjeant!” Stepan took up a spear and handed Mirko another.

  The serjeant released him and Mirko stood, gasping for breath. Rotamir’s century hurried into a rough formation, the lord and Oberyn serjeant in the lead, and the peasant serjeant behind to beat anyone who straggled. “Forward!” Rotamir set off at a run and the rest followed. Mirko struggled to keep up, remembering the sting of the whip. It was hard to see anything with so many taller people around.

  Without warning, his century came to a crashing halt. Mirko stumbled into the man in front of him. Over the heads of the crowd, he could see a lord on horseback blocking their path. Rotamir and the noble shouted at each other. It went on for quite a long time, until the noble turned and rode away. The peasant serjeant hollered over the surrounding noise, “We are going to gather the wounded! Tithes stay together. Carry lords, knights, squires, and serjeants to the infirmary. Also, rescue any wounded mercenaries, no matter the rank.”

  “Why are we saving all the mercenaries?” Dusek the Butcherboy asked. The men looked to Vasik questioningly.

  “Contracts. Leax owes an indemnity to the free sword captains for each man they lose. Keeps an employer from just using up the hireling soldiers while sparing his own.”

  Mirko’s tithe pushed through the crowd once more. Arrows continued to drop from the sky. An Imperial-green chariot nearly ran them over, the priest at the reins cursing them for blocking the way. Several of these roamed the battlefield, one priest driving the horses, the other recording deeds, both heroic and cowardly, so Leax could give his men their just desserts.

  At the base of the wall, mounds of broken men had piled nearly waist-high around the ladders, most of them peasants. Timble and Stepan worked together, half-heartedly shifting through the dead and wounded to find the ones deemed worthy of saving. A cry of fear was the only warning as an armored figure tumbled from the top of the ladder and thumped wetly into the pile of bodies.

  “I don’t see any wounds,” Stepan said, turning him over. It was a Belgorshan knight, his face wracked with pain. “It must just be the fall that’s ailing him.”

  The knight wore an open-faced helm. It would be so easy to cover his mouth and nose and smother the bastard. Mirko slid his hand up the steel breastplate and began to cover the knight’s face.

  “Mirko, no. Someone will see.”

  Stepan was right. This was not the time. He nodded, and they carried the knight away from the wall. On the way, they passed Magpie robbing the dead and Yosip carrying a mercenary serjeant over his shoulder.

  By the time they reached the infirmary, it was all they could do to drag the heavy knight the remainder of the way. Row upon row of sobbing, bleeding men lay in the grass. Butchers in leather aprons and a few imperial priests were arms deep in blood, sawing and stitching. Mostly it was just camp followers who tended the wounded: washer-women, tailors, even a few immoral women.

  He and Stepan waited for the rest of the tithe and then returned to the wall. The dead pile was higher now. A hand clutched at Mirko’s wrist. It belonged to a peasant boy half-buried among the dead, innards spilling out through a slash in his fawn-colored tunic. “Help me, good uncle. God, please help me.”

  “We can’t, Mirko. You know that.” Stepan rested a hand on his shoulder.

  The lad’s back was twisted at an unnatural angle from the fall. He would only suffer alone until death came, deemed unworthy of saving. Mirko reached into his waist pouch and took out the corded rope that had murdered Wicke. Pulling the boy onto his lap, he wrapped it gently around his throat and then wrenched it tight. “Sleep, lad. Just go to sleep.” The boy struggled feebly for a short while and then went limp. “You will be avenged.”

  “What about my father? When will he be avenged?” Stepan asked savagely, taking a curving sword from the mud. “Rotamir is right over there.”

  “Wait for our moment, Cousin. It will come — and when it does, I swear that he will die.”

  They searched through the pile once more, eventually finding a mercenary soldier still clinging to life. Each grabbed a shoulder and they dragged him from the field. As they returned to the infirmary, Mirko noticed a disturbance on the river. Two large boats were near the dam, and one was exchanging arrows with the Belgorshans on the riverbank. He said a prayer for them, whoever they were.

  CHAPTER 53

  U p on the castle wall, Timble poked at a jowly peasant with his dagger, going for the eyes until the poor fellow lost his nerve, then his grip, and fell from the ladder. The hot sand was long gone and a fresh batch was cooking, but it would take a while, so he’d resorted to peasant poking instead.

  Horns sounded from below and the enemy troops retreated down the ladders for perhaps the eighth or ninth time. It was hard to keep track. He slumped against the battlements and caught his breath. Most of the others did the same, though the break wouldn’t last. Leax had rank upon rank of fresh troops waiting at the bottom.

  Timble had no sense of time anymore but felt as if he’d been fighting forever. It put him in a philosophical mood. He turned to the villager next to him. “Defending this wall is like one of those queer village games you’d see at festivals, don’t you think? You know, like two teams wrestling and testing the
ir strength over a hilltop or a creek?”

  The villager just stared at him and shrugged. Blood dribbled down his forehead and off the tip of his nose. He didn’t bother to wipe it away.

  “I suppose you’re right,” Timble said reflectively. “Not quite the same. In this one, you don’t just get dunked in the creek for losing. Peasants carve out your liver.”

  The ladders started bouncing again as a new group began the ascent. Sighing, Timble reloaded the hand crossbow tethered to his belt and took his place on the line.

  “Look alive,” Sir Drakan ordered. “Leax is sending us his best!”

  Timble peeked down over the side. Instead of mostly peasants this time, he saw men-at-arms. The logic was plain. Having exhausted the defenders, Leax was now committing the real soldiers. Timble loosed a crossbow bolt, but it deflected off a gauntlet. He reloaded. Four bolts remained. One of the men below wore an open-faced helm, and Timble kept the hand crossbow trained on him until he looked up. The knight fell screaming with six inches of wood in his cheek, but another just took his place.

  Down the wall, Timble saw the first enemy knight clear the battlements, a big fellow with a spring green surcoat. Leax would reward him well for the feat. Others quickly poured over the side to join him. “Breach!” Timble yelled, leaving his post to grab Sir Drakan. “They’re breaking through!”

  By then, the Belgorshan men-at-arms had formed a small cordon and were doggedly pushing back the defenders on both sides, though the Jandari contested every step. Second Cook grappled with at least three of them, until losing his footing and dragging the enemy trio off the walkway and down to the courtyard below. Timble said a quick prayer for the dim, lovable bastard. Sir Drakan seemed indecisive. “I don’t see Sir Chegatay! Where are our reserves?”

  Timble grasped hold of the scullion boy. “We’ll find him and bring help.”

  Sir Drakan nodded absently. “Good, good,” he mumbled and then hurried off toward the enemy breakthrough.

  “C’mon,” Timble said, hauling the boy through the melee to the stairs. “You run around the left side of the keep, and I’ll go to the right. Find Chegatay and tell him to send help!”

  He descended the stairs at a sprint and rounded the back of the keep. Sir Chegatay and Alethea were at the infirmary, the lady helping Clark Istvan treat a wounded villager. The reserves stood at the ready nearby, townsmen bearing crossbows and decent steel. “Your Grace,” Timble heard Chegatay plead, “I beg you to take shelter in your chambers.”

  “For the last time, Chegatay, leave off. This is my castle, and I’ll be damned if I let Leax take it from me without a fight.”

  “Sir Chegatay!” Timble said. “Enemy knights are breaking through on the west wall.”

  Lady Alethea dismissed the castellan with a wave. “Go. Take the reserves.”

  They passed Second Cook along the way, heading toward the infirmary and nursing a broken arm. His survival was the first happy thing Timble had seen all day.

  As they arrived back at the wall, Timble saw that a full third of its length was now under enemy control. He expected the Jandari reserves to charge up the stairs, and was planning to follow at a safe, but respectable distance, but instead Chegatay ordered them to assemble in two ranks in the courtyard. “Fire by volley. Load. Take aim. Loose!” At a range of forty feet and with the Belgorshans standing on an open walkway, it was hard to miss. The heavy bolts played murder on the enemy. Chegatay repeated the pattern again and again.

  Soon the bodies began to pile up on the narrow walkway, making it hard for more Belgorshans to replace them. They wavered and the Jandari on the wall gave a shout and pressed forward. The enemy men-at-arms broke, and soon those retreating down the ladders were struggling with those still trying to scale them.

  Once it was safe, Timble returned to his spot on the wall. He and the others pushed enemy dead unceremoniously off the walkway to the courtyard below and then carried down the Jandari wounded. They were much fewer in number, but irreplaceable. The next breakthrough on the wall would likely succeed.

  “The water is moving!” Timble looked back to see a wounded guardsman in the courtyard pointing at his bowl. After a few minutes, the flagstones began to shift and then gave way, tumbling into darkness. Timble felt the pit of his stomach drop as well. The breach team stood ready as the first dweorgs began to climb out from the hole, driving at the defenders with shortened awl-pikes, their eyes glowing with a fiendish light.

  Hiding in the undercroft was looking like a good idea.

  CHAPTER 54

  S elwyn sheltered behind the gunnels of the Amber Stag as it turned and backed, maneuvering next to the Queen Bethany, careful not to foul itself on the sunken boat impaling the other galley. On shore, Belgorshan reinforcements began arriving in strength and pelted both galleys with arrows, bolts, and even a few javelin-darts. Leax must have found some bloody Aralgameshu mercenaries. Selwyn knew it was only a matter of time before the dweorgs trained their stone throwers on the boats as well. Peeking over the side, Selwyn noticed enemy troops boarding the barges and keelboats moored at the docks.

  The Jandari needed to get moving, even at the cost of taking losses. Transferring the crates of Sargoshi flame would have been easy, if only they could drop the hooked boarding ramp, but if Bethany started capsizing it could take them down as well. Instead, he and his men tossed dock lines to Bethany, lashing the two craft together. One serjeant went down with a javelin-dart in the crease between helmet and hauberk.

  Now that the boats were lashed, he thought frantically of what to do next. The men would be terribly exposed as they offloaded the crates. Nothing on the deck could serve as portable cover. Selwyn turned to Reyhan. “Take charge of the Sargoshi flame. I’ll get you some protection.”

  “No, that’s not how this works.”

  “Do it —the men need to see me sharing the risks.”

  Reyhan leaped over the railings and marshaled the crew of Bethany, while Selwyn called together his knights. They had the best armor by far, most in full plate. “Get in line, men! We’re forming a shield wall.” It was probably the first in Jandari history, he thought as they aligned on deck. Jandari knights were too anarchic to ever stand dumbly in ranks like an Easterner. The knights gathered shoulder to shoulder, raising shields high to protect those behind from incoming missiles.

  Come they did, a constant hail of arrows. Each thunk against his shield or armor caused Selwyn’s heart to skip. Distance robbed the missiles of some force, but they struck hard enough that one would eventually punch through.

  Out on the water, enemy boats had covered half the distance to the Amber Stag. It would actually be a relief when they arrived, for hopefully the archers would hesitate to kill their own men.

  Glancing back, Selwyn noticed that the first crate had reached the Stag, and Reyhan was sliding it into place behind the shield wall. A cry from the right drew his attention. Sir Kadri was kneeling, breaking the shaft of a crossbow bolt that had punctured his armored foot. “Are you all right?”

  “More than less, Your Grace.” Sir Kadri stood and wiggled his foot, dripping blood into the sand. “At least it didn’t nail me to the deck!”

  Selwyn and his men endured the bombardment as crates came over one at a time, seeming to move at a slug’s pace. A serjeant vaulted between the ships carrying a longbow and fire arrows wrapped in oilcloth. They were needed to light the dam.

  Down the line, someone went down, though Selwyn couldn’t see whom. He did catch sight of Nineacre. Waves of enemy troops encircled it, and a crest of enemies fought hard at the top of the wall. “Reyhan! Hurry — won’t do any good to drop the dam if the castle is already fallen!”

  “That’s sage advice,” Reyhan called back, hefting a crate over the gunnel. “I see why they put you in charge!”

  The enemy continued to rake them with arrows. His shield bristled with so many shafts it was notably heavier. Five more knights went down, though three struggled back to their feet and held the line
. Nothing mattered except the Sargoshi flame.

  Finally, the first pair of enemy boats arrived. He saw several more just behind them. Lord Hewland broke from the shield wall and ran to the hatch. “Boat your oars! Pull the oars in now, lads!” Selwyn heard the splash as the men pulled oars from the water and hauled them into the galley. A few were too slow, a heavy keelboat coming alongside and shattering them with its weight.

  “Quick thinking, Hewland. We would have been dead in the water.”

  Hewland had no time to answer as enemy troops began scaling the hull. “Advance! Drive them into the water,” Selwyn commanded. The shield wall charged to the far side just as the first mercenaries cleared the gunnels. They wore shabby, gray tabards marked with a blue wing, not a company Selwyn recognized. Their armor was battered and ill-kept. He brought the falchion down viciously on a helmet, and the transmuted blade sunk deeply into the inferior steel. The man fell onto the keelboat’s deck and didn’t rise again. Soon boats were assailing from all sides, some even going after the sinking Bethany. “Lord Hewland — defend the aft side, I’ll take the front!”

  Even with only half the boat to defend, it was nearly impossible to maintain order. The most he could do when a threat arose was grab the nearest Jandari and point him to it. Belgorshan nobles must have promised the mercenaries quite a prize, for they were fearless in climbing up the slippery hull of the galley into the waiting Jandari swords. From what he knew, only money inspired that kind of zeal in free companies.

  The fight teetered back and forth as a band of Belgorshans would gain a foothold, only to be driven back. The sand on the deck became saturated with blood. Men grappled desperately, trying to keep their footing as they stumbled over the dead and dying. Countless others lost their grip scaling the galley and tumbled back into the river, heavy armor dragging them down without a trace.