The Queen of Mages
Page 42
Four thunderclaps. Dardan’s head whipped up at the sound.
“M’lord?” Liam looked up from the map.
Dardan realized he had his sword half out of his scabbard, and slid it back in. “Come on.”
Out in the square, a hundred men stood assembled. Half of them were city constables or men who’d once served in the army, and the rest were conscripts: merchants, traders, carpenters, grocers. Men of Elland. What good they’d be against a thousand royal soldiers, Dardan didn’t know, but Elland could not be left defenseless.
The men buzzed with anticipation. Their commander, Captain Yorn of the city constables, saw Dardan emerge and called attention at once. Just then a rider came pounding up, a young man; gasping, he said, “The north wall… has fallen!”
“Then to the north wall, at once,” Dardan called out, and swallowed down the bile that had clawed up his throat. Amira. Aspect of Despair, let her be unharmed. Every available horse was being used to ferry messages around the city, so Dardan was reduced to running on foot with the men they’d gathered. At least he had armor; Count Razh had been happy to provide him with a set of light chain. It wouldn’t stand up against plate, but it would give him greater mobility.
They’d arranged two other companies, one positioned near the north gate and one nearer the south. If Edon’s men got into the city, it would be house-to-house fighting. Dardan had studied that, if one could call reading old accounts of coastal pirate raids “studying.” He’d also read about sailing ships, but only a fool would conclude that he was therefore qualified to captain one.
But he was a count, and so a count led the men through the empty streets of Elland. Everyone not engaged in the city’s defense had retreated into their homes, shops, malthouses, inns. The desolation collided with Dardan’s memory of Wintergift, the streets full of celebration and life. He plainly admitted to himself that he was terrified. He winced when he heard more thunderclaps, this time clearly coming from ahead of them, toward the city wall.
The men at his back would not see his fear, and if Liam saw it he said nothing. His valo had changed in their time apart, Dardan could tell. Some of his humor had vanished, though he remained as dutiful as ever. He wondered what Liam wasn’t telling him.
They soon came around a curve in the road and could see in the distance a sight that doubled his terror. A gash as wide as five men scarred the wall of Elland, as if a colossal sword had swung down from the heavens and cleaved through the wall to its foundation. Men in the mail of the royal army poured through the gap.
But they were disorganized, flush with the thrill of the breach. “Charge!” Dardan shouted, and his company raced forward, weapons high.
The first few royal soldiers saw them coming, and formed into something like a line, but there were not enough of them, and they broke before the charge. Dardan himself cut down two men with precise slashes and had just knocked over a third when a huge thunderclap sounded overhead, and for a moment everyone stumbled, disoriented, Ellander and royal soldier alike.
Dardan peered around. A man in common clothes perched on the rubble beneath the wall. He wore no soldier’s mail, only a leather vest. Dardan did not recognize him.
The man died with a smile of victory on his lips as a dagger sprouted in his neck. Dardan twisted to see Liam with his arm outstretched. “Mage,” Liam said, “and not one I knew.”
The soldiers and city defenders all around him had begun to recover from the mage’s attack. Dardan’s company had completely lost its formation; men of Elland were now mixed in among royal soldiers, and men on both sides fell before the blades of their opponents. Dardan swung wildly at a trio of enemy soldiers who had spread out to encircle him, looking for an opening. They never got it; one by one, they suddenly jerked and fell to the ground, dead.
Dardan looked up at a vision of blood and golden hair perched on the edge of the battlements. Amira, his wife, glared down with the wrath of a god.
The whole crowd gazed up when she howled wordlessly at them, a howl that did not end until every royal soldier on this side of the wall had dropped dead. In seconds, only Elland’s defenders still stood inside the walls.
For the moment, no one else came through the gap. Dardan crawled over the rubble of the wall to beneath Amira. “Jump!”
She clambered over the edge and dropped down into his arms. Blood covered half her face. In a panic, he tried to wipe it away, hoping that she had not taken a fatal wound.
On closer inspection, it was no more than a small but bloody gash in her cheek. It would keep for now. “What happened?”
“Broke through,” she said, half sobbing and half shouting.
Dardan looked up at the wall. No one else moved up there that he could see. “Who…”
“I don’t know. Everyone… I don’t know…” She scrubbed at the blood and tears on her face. “We can’t stop them now.”
Liam stepped over. “Captain Yorn is dead,” he informed Dardan tonelessly.
“You take over,” Dardan decided at once. “Men!” he shouted. “My valo is to lead you now. He has served in the army. Follow him as you would have your captain!”
Some of the men nodded dully. Others stared with horrified fascination at Amira. Liam started shouting to get their attention and get them formed up again.
Amira pulled away from Dardan’s grasp and started digging through the rubble. “What are you doing? We need to retreat!” Dardan said.
“I’m not leaving them here.”
Dardan gritted his teeth and climbed after his wife. “The enemy could come through at any moment—”
A movement in the gap made him reach for his sword, but he stopped when he saw who it was: Francine, her dress torn and half fallen off, some of her hair missing, and one arm dangling uselessly at her side. She bore a fierceness in her eyes that made Amira’s earlier fury look like mild annoyance.
The girl clambered over the stones toward them. “I fell over the wall when the blast hit, m’lady,” she said, her voice apologetic despite her dire appearance. “I had to fight my way back through. I think they’re pulling back now. I had to kill four or five before they took the hint.”
Dardan stared. “You killed five soldiers after falling twenty feet off a wall?”
“No, m’lord. Five mages.”
Amira’s jaw looked as if it had come unhinged. “You killed five mages by yourself?”
Francine blushed. “Well… to be fair, they were a little distracted…”
Amira’s laugh was incongruous amidst the carnage and wreckage. “You continue to amaze me. But we need to…” She grunted and began to dig again.
Dardan peered out through the gap. He glimpsed royal soldiers in a pack some distance off; perhaps Francine’s rampage really had made them rethink their strategy. At the very least, she had bought the Ellanders a few minutes.
Between the three of them and a handful of city defenders Amira dragooned, they found the corpses of five other mages. When they found Garen’s body lying broken amidst the stones, his legs a bloody ruin, Amira fell to her knees and wept. Francine burst into tears and flung her good arm around Amira.
Despair touched Dardan. Garen had been a wholly good person, and did not deserve what life had brought him. Dardan said prayers to the Aspects of Despair and Sacrifice, hoping to ward off the feeling. “We must go,” he said to Amira. “They will come soon.”
“We will come back for him,” she proclaimed. “For all of them.” She touched Garen’s hand one last time.
Liam had gotten the men formed up into a semblance of order. “M’lord, we haven’t much time.”
Dardan nodded. He felt a pit in his stomach and tried to ignore it. Where had they planned to fall back to if the wall were breached? His breath came fast and shallow and he doubled over for a moment, breathing hard.
Amira was suddenly at his side, grasping his arm and helping him up. Something about her grip pushed away the dread that had enveloped him. “There’s no stopping Edon and his mages from entering
the city now,” he said after a moment. “As much as they outnumber us, I think our only chance is to isolate the mages and pick them off one by one. We should draw back, then strike once they come through the breach.” His fear had transmuted into resolve. He had escaped death twice already today, and he would not dwell on when his luck might run out.
Amira nodded. She had begun to lean against him at some point. The bleeding from her cheek had slowed, and she absently wiped at it. They would have to deal with that before it putrefied. If they survived that long.
Dardan and Liam corralled all the surviving defenders and marched them a hundred yards away from the wall, around a corner and into a square where they could hide out of sight. A few men were positioned to watch the wall and report when Edon’s men started coming through again.
Perhaps sixty of the Ellanders were still in fighting condition. Of the mages who had been on that section of the wall before it exploded, only Amira and Francine had survived.
———
They waited a little while, but the scouts reported that Edon’s men were making no move to enter the city. Dardan wanted to know what had become of Count Razh and his mages, so he left Liam in charge of things and led half a dozen men off to the northeast. They found Elland’s count atop the wall, near the north gate. Razh saw him coming and waved at Dardan to come up the stairs.
The sun had climbed high. A clear azure sky kissed the crowns of the Stormrest Hills, clearly visible in the northwestern distance. Dardan could see that Edon’s army had concentrated itself at a spot a few hundred yards straight out from the breach in the wall. They were certainly planning to enter the city there, although they had not yet formed up into ranks. “Perhaps they’re breaking for luncheon,” Razh commented. “I suppose even our vile enemy needs to eat.”
Dardan could barely bring himself to grin. “Amira agrees that there’s no chance we’ll keep them out of the city now. I’ve set up something resembling an ambush near the breach they made. I would suggest pulling your group back as well, perhaps for a second ambush, but it’s hard to hide you mages from one another, what with that light.” Dardan gestured at Razh’s head.
Razh shrugged. “It’s possible to keep one’s head turned to avoid exposing the light, but… that’s tricky at best. We’ve so far found nothing that blocks the light. Not wood, not stone, not steel. Anyway, I think we’ll do more good up here, especially if we keep our distance from the breach. It might convince them to funnel through it instead of trying to make another hole, and then perhaps your ambush will do some good.”
“If the Caretaker wills it,” Dardan muttered.
Razh smiled. “I don’t think the Caretaker is especially fond of his flock killing one another. Take two more mages with you. Lady Amira will appreciate the support, I think. We’ll try to come find you once the enemy enters the city.”
Dardan sighed and made a prayer to the Aspect of Courage. He clapped Razh on the shoulder and went back down the wall, grabbing the first two mages he saw, which happened to be Jeffrey and Emma.
They returned to his ragged company. He had just told Amira about his conversation with Razh when a scout signaled back to them. Edon’s men were coming.
“The four of you should place yourselves on the other side of the street,” Dardan said. “If there’s mages with whoever comes in, they’ll probably see you hiding over there, and think the main body of men is with you too.”
“You want us all alone? As bait?” Jeffrey said, looking alarmed.
“Bait that’s fiercer than a hundred ordinary men. Take some archers, too. The bulk of our men will fall upon them from the rear. Move!”
Amira started to go, then turned back and stretched up to kiss Dardan quickly. “Do not die,” she ordered him.
“I will do my best.” And just then, for the first time in his life, he knew what abyss he would face if he lost Amira. Even the Aspect of Despair could not know the depth of that feeling.
He squeezed her close, letting go only when she squawked. “I am not unmarked today,” she protested, pushing back.
“Sorry. I only just now figured out what I’m fighting for.”
Despite the blood and ash and pain and anguish, her smile lit his soul. She squeezed his hand one more time and was gone, striding across the square with mages and archers at her heels.
———
Their warning came when several loud cracks sounded in succession, followed by the clatter of collapsing stone. Dardan peered around the edge of a malthouse to see the breach in the wall now thrice as wide. Edon’s push came fierce: royal soldiers flowed in a torrent through the gap, led and protected by mages. The enemy soldiers pooled before the wall and formed into ranks. After only moments they began to march toward the square.
The ambush descended into chaos almost from the start. Someone on Edon’s side had the sense to send small groups to scout ahead, and it was one of these that spotted Amira and her mages first. Dardan wasn’t certain, but he thought that one of the men with the group was a mage. The man wore no mail, only a leather vest over wool and a plain gray wool cloak. He wielded no sword, either.
Liam had gotten the defenders arranged in the nooks and crannies among the buildings around the square. The small enemy scout group was intent on Amira, and so was another such group coming around from the other side of the smithy they’d hidden behind. The archers with Amira let loose, taking out several royal soldiers, and Dardan guessed that Amira and her mages were dueling somehow with Edon’s mages, though of course he couldn’t see it.
Then some fool on Dardan’s side, one of the men hidden in a storefront, fired an arrow into the mage’s back. The mage screamed and slumped down over the body of one of his soldiers, but this alerted the rest, who immediately retreated down the street, shouting about an ambush.
“Forward!” Dardan shouted. He leapt out from his hiding place and sprinted across to Amira. The second group of enemy scouts, on the far side of his wife, had fared better, for they looked to have two mages, a man and a woman.
As he closed, Dardan saw that Emma lay dead on the ground. Not from mage-power, but rather a white-fletched arrow through her throat. At this close range, it seemed, Amira and her mages could not react quite fast enough to stop arrows.
But the same was true of the enemy, and another five archers came up behind Dardan and started firing at the enemy scouts. One of the mages, the man, took a shaft through the shoulder and fell, and then the air cracked as Jeffrey—Dardan guessed—got off an explosion with his own mage-power. The remaining half-dozen enemy soldiers were flung into the air, and the second mage, the woman, was torn to pieces. Her upper torso landed not five feet before Dardan, splashing blood across the stones and dying with a silent shriek on her lips. The horror of it barely registered on him.
By now Dardan’s men had all come out, forming ragged ranks as Liam exhorted them to get in order. He was trying to make them look a larger force than they were; Edon’s men, further down the road toward the wall, were preparing for a charge.
“We’ll never survive that,” Dardan said, racking his brain for a way out. There were five times as many men on the other side, and probably a comparable ratio of mages.
The first ranks of the main body of royal soldiers were no farther than two hundred yards away and closing quickly. Jeffrey peered around the corner of the smithy at them. “Black spirits! We’ll be overrun if they’ve even got just one or two mages to block our beads.”
“They’ve likely got more than that,” Amira said.
“And they’re in good order. Those are royal soldiers, not irregulars we drummed up…” Dardan shouted all of a sudden. “Jeffrey! Blow up the street to slow them down!”
A mad grin spread across the blond mage’s face. He leaned around the corner, and a moment later the paving stones fifty yards away cracked and exploded into the air. This repeated every few moments all along the width of the street, until it had been churned into knee-deep rubble. Dust swirled above it as E
don’s forces closed, and arrows started to fly in both directions, with little accuracy. Jeffrey hooted with satisfaction.
“Tell the men to fall back,” Dardan said to Liam. “With luck, we’ll keep one step ahead.”
“Count Razh is going to be annoyed you’re tearing up all his nice streets,” Liam remarked.
“He may present me with a bill for the damage if we survive. Move!”
Their ragged company, with Dardan and the mages at its tail, scrambled up the road. Voices hoarse from shouting urged Edon’s men after them, through the dust and rubble.
Again Dardan ordered Jeffrey to tear up the road, creating another haze of dust. Two hundred yards further on, they were about to do it again, when Amira grabbed Dardan’s arm.
“This is gaining us time, but little else. They still have their mages. Put archers on the roofs ahead! With the dust Jeffrey makes, they can wait until the best moment, and kill some of Edon’s mages.”
“That might lose them a few mages, at little cost to us, m’lord,” Liam put in.
“Our men will certainly die,” Dardan said. Liam only raised his eyebrows at his master. “But… we cannot win unless we take some pieces off the board. So be it.” He had Liam give the order, which the valo seemed more than happy to do. To send men to their deaths. Is that what it means to lead?
He sent up eight archers, four on either side of the road, and told them to spread out across the roofs so that even if one were hit by an explosion, the others would still be free to fire. Jeffrey tore up the street again, to make a screen of dust and hide the archers.
“How will we know if it worked?” Francine asked. They’d taken up station another two hundred yards on, watching the road where Edon’s men were now scrambling through the debris.
“We’ll watch for the silver, or for less of it, I suppose,” Amira said.
When the bulk of Edon’s men were past the rubble, Dardan had his few remaining archers fire at them, to focus their attention. A moment later, eight arrows descended almost as one from the rooftops to either side. Dardan thought he saw a few men fall. A moment later, the roof of one of the buildings exploded, and then another a moment later. More arrows came down from above, but not as many; and in a few more moments they stopped altogether.
“There must be some female mages in that group,” Amira said. “But I think our archers took out a few of the men.”
“Maybe, m’lady,” Liam said, “but they’re still coming.”
That surprise would not work again, and in any event they had only a half-dozen archers left. Dardan kept the remains of the company moving. Jeffrey complained of fatigue by the sixth time he tore up the road, though he was energized when at one point he blew up the wall of a brick-fronted building and showered Edon’s men with rubble, knocking several of them down. Still, Edon’s men were gaining on them. Stragglers from Dardan’s force were overrun and cut down. Their numbers dwindled, and yet Edon’s army seemed as strong as ever.
Once, Dardan’s force was almost blindsided by a column of royal infantry who came barrelling out of a side street—but inexplicably, they had only one mage with them. Amira, screaming like a banshee, ran toward him with Francine on her heels. Between them they killed the mage and cut down half a dozen soldiers before the rest turned and fled. But that stroke of luck did not repeat.
Dardan’s legs felt like jelly. They’d crossed half the city evading their pursuers, but where would it end? The mages said they still saw many silver flashes from the men following them. Dardan might not have Liam’s head for numbers, but he could count. They just didn’t have the resources to survive this.
He gritted his teeth and made himself take another step. Then a man of his shouted and pointed down an adjoining street. Dardan looked; a small group was coming toward them. A few armed men… but more who wore no armor, and finally Dardan recognized that mop of blond hair.
Count Razh Bahodir trotted to a stop and waved, breathing heavily. “We would have found you sooner… but a company of Edon’s men decided to chase us around. We lost them down near the docks.”
“The docks?” Amira said suddenly. “Did you—never mind. Where are we?”
“Not far from the castle. Look,” Razh said, pointing behind her at the battlements atop the keep, just visible poking over a trading-house.
Dardan took a moment to examine Razh’s party: half a dozen mages, some battered, some bloody; four or five archers; and Patric, Razh’s old valo. Not much in the way of reinforcements. “Is this everyone?”
“Everyone we could find. It’s likely there’s still a few of our mages out there somewhere.”
“We should go to the castle,” Amira said softly.
“What? Why?” Dardan glanced over his shoulder. Edon’s men were tiring as well, but still they were only a few hundred yards away. He gave Amira a push and signaled his men to move on.
“Edon wants me. He could bring the castle down around our heads, but he won’t. He’ll come for me.” Her voice was as tranquil as Dardan had ever heard it.
Razh shrugged. “It’s as good a plan as any. At least we’ll feel safer.”
“We’d do well to unlearn those old feelings, m’lord,” Liam muttered.
They cut down the next street and aimed for Tal Vieran. The gate, stupidly, stood open. No one had thought to seal it.
As his company streamed in through the gate, another shout of alarm went up, and Dardan looked. Who was it this time? A group, a large group, was coming up another street toward Tal Vieran’s gate. But this time, its allegiance was unmistakable: the purple and blue banner of Relindos marched in time with armored and mounted men, and there, in the van, rode Edon Relindos, resplendent in his golden armor.
Amira saw him too. Her jaw clicked shut and she shuddered.
Dardan wanted to put his arms around her, but there was no time. “Inside!”
Arrows flew from Edon’s group, and then the explosions came, on the fringes of Dardan’s company. Men went down on both sides, but more defenders fell than invaders.
They were down to ten mages and maybe twice that in mundane defenders, including Dardan and Liam. When they came to the front steps, Amira stopped and turned to face Edon.
“There’s at least a dozen mages out there, plus the king,” Razh said, surveying the royal forces arrayed beyond the outer gate.
“Better odds than we had before, m’lord,” Liam said.
The count grinned faintly. “Somehow I am not comforted.”
The other mundane defenders of Elland looked as ragged and worn as Dardan felt. He could hardly stand the idea of sacrificing any more of them to preserve his own life. The mages had a fire in their eyes that the regular men did not, but even they were nearing their limits.
Edon strode through the wide-open gate. He stopped, fists planted on hips, just inside the foreyard. A full dozen other mages spread themselves out behind him. Dardan recognized Lord Chyros among them, smug and smirking and looking just as presentable as when he’d come to treat the previous day, as if none of the fighting had touched him.
“You have cost me a great deal, Lady Amira,” Edon called out. “I am beginning to wonder if you are worth the effort.”
“Would that you’d stayed in Callaston and saved yourself the trouble,” she shouted back at him. The gash on her cheek had stopped bleeding, Dardan saw; she’d have her own scar there, to match Edon’s.
“Come to me now and put an end to this. You simply lack the strength to win. The realm will not be stronger with us divided.”
“The realm will be stronger if you are not in it.” She drew herself up imperiously, and all the blood and dirt no longer mattered. “Come and claim your prize, if you dare.” She spun on her heel and strode into the castle.
Dardan followed her, but kept an eye on Edon, who looked infuriated. In the vestibule, Dardan stopped his wife. “That was foolish.”
She shrugged his hand off her arm. “You keep saying we’re doomed. What does it matter?”
“Send the servants to the cellars, if they haven’t gone there already,” Razh said to Patric, who despite his age had kept pace with them the whole day. “And hide there yourself.”
“I shouldn’t leave you, m’lord,” the old valo protested.
“I should not like to explain to your wife why you died uselessly.” Razh gave a weak smile. “Go.” Patric huffed a sigh, nodded, and left.
“Have we some sort of plan, m’lords?” Liam asked.
Dardan glanced outside again. Some of the mages and Wardens stared back at him, but Edon still spoke urgently to the others. “They mean to come in after us. Our mages and theirs cannot easily hide from one another, but the Wardens can make use of the element of surprise. And so can we who are not mages.” The Ellanders who had been archers outside also had swords; Dardan had them discard the bows in favor of their blades. “Group up. One mage, two swords. Scatter through the castle. Set our swords to ambush their mages. Kill the mages first,” he emphasized to everyone. “Without them, the Wardens are nothing.”
“What about his maj—Edon?” Jeffrey asked. “Killing the king can’t be a good idea, no matter what.”
Dardan met his gaze. “Let the Aspects guide you.” Jeffrey nodded, confused, but Dardan had no other advice. He was certain that he himself would kill Edon, given the chance.
He took Amira’s hand. “I would not have this end with anyone else.”
Her eyes sparkled at him. “I am sorry. For all of it.”
He shook his head, and kissed her once quickly.
Amira addressed Jeffrey and Razh. They and Benton were the only male mages in the party; the rest were all women. “Turn the front steps to rubble. Perhaps Edon will twist his ankle climbing over it.”
Razh laughed, and clapped a hand on Jeffrey’s shoulder. “This is going to empty my coffers, I swear. On the count of three…”
Dardan could not see the beads, but someone in the foreyard shouted, “Look out!” If Edon’s mages tried to stop Amira’s, they must have failed, because the steps outside the door exploded into stony fragments, and then again once more a moment later.
“Group up and go!” Dardan shouted. He took Amira’s hand; Liam followed them into the main hall and up the grand stairs. Razh and two other swordsmen went the same way, then split off toward the bedchambers.
Dardan ended up leading Amira and Liam to Razh’s private office. He shut the door behind them.
“The male mages are going to have a tough time of it,” Amira said. “They risk bringing the castle down around them, even if they use as little power as they can.”
Liam scratched at his chin. “It looked as if Edon’s mages were mostly men. And ours are mostly women. Perhaps we have the advantage.”
“Do not count on it.” Dardan strode over to the wall beside the door. “If they come in here, Liam and I will wait by the door to strike whoever comes in.”
“They might guess it’s an ambush, if a mage sees me through the walls here,” Amira pointed out. “And then if they have a male mage, they might just blast the door open, which would kill the both of you.”
Dardan ground his teeth. This new strategizing drove him mad. “All right… perhaps we stay farther back? Or perhaps you stay near the door? If Edon really wants you alive, his mages can’t just try to attack any room they see that has a mage in it. They’ll have to identify you first.”
“Pray to Sacrifice that they’ve thought it through that far,” Liam said.
Amira tensed. “Someone’s coming.” Just then they heard the first of several thunderclaps, followed by indistinct shouting.
“Can you see where that’s happening?”
Amira’s head swiveled from side to side, up and down. “There! Down… blasted black spirits! What’s in that direction?” She pointed down through the floor. “I see beads flying like mad.”
Liam closed his eyes a moment. “Kitchens. Servants’ hall. Could be anyone.”
“They’re getting closer,” Amira said, her voice rising a little. She’d backed against Razh’s desk, her hands clamped white on the edge. Dardan could hear booted footsteps approaching. “Up the stairs… the hall…” Amira’s eyes tracked along until she looked straight out through the door. The footsteps came to a halt.
A moment’s silence passed. Then the door shook, but not from a mage’s blow; someone had kicked it. Another strike, and another. Every muscle in Dardan’s body felt tensed.
“They’re blocking me!” Amira hissed, and Dardan realized she was on the attack as well.
With a bang, the hinges splintered and the door fell inward as Jack Penrose leapt into the room, sword flashing.
CHAPTER 38
AMIRA