A FRESHENING WIND
Defenders on the wall cried out as they were impaled. Karigan ducked behind a merlon, and saw that Rol had done so, too.
Major M’Gyre ran behind them. “Archers! Loose at will!”
Karigan grabbed her bow. It wasn’t a great longbow like Rol and many of the others bore, for she hadn’t the strength in her back and shoulders yet to draw it, nor the expertise. She’d been given, instead, a shorter, easier-to-shoot bow. It lacked in range and power but, if used well, could be just as deadly. She nocked an arrow to the string, aimed, and drew. The ground down below swarmed with Second Empire. Where had they come from? She loosed her arrow. It sailed sideways and tumbled into a tangled garden.
“Damn.” Her archery skills were, she thought, nearly as “good” as her knife-throwing. She could always blame it on being one-eyed and how that altered her vision, but it would not excuse the knife-throwing since she’d had the use of both eyes back when Drent had tried to train her in that particular skill.
Rol laughed at her, then set his arrow loose. She didn’t watch its flight, but was sure it hit the desired target.
Second Empire sent another volley over the wall. It became almost rhythmic—duck, nock, shoot, repeat, but she also knew there was a danger in falling into repetitive actions. It made one predictable to one’s enemy.
After she finally took out an enemy soldier, Rol congratulated her.
“Thanks.” She hadn’t the heart to admit she’d been aiming for someone else. The shot had been a lucky one for her, though, but not so lucky for the fellow she’d inadvertently hit.
Down below, enemy soldiers charged out of the smoke with ladders, while their archers provided them with cover. Arrows hissed over and past Karigan. The challenge for the defenders was to hit the soldiers before they could lean their ladders against the wall and start climbing, and to do so without getting impaled, but there were just too many of them.
It was the east side of the outer wall all over again, and cold fear streaked through her veins, but it was normal fear. Nyssa Starling did not whisper in her ear to augment it.
Soon she set aside her bow to help push a ladder down. She and her comrades grunted and sweated with the effort, and they only succeeded when Major M’Gyre added her strength to theirs. Meanwhile, bouts broke out along the wall walk where they had not succeeded in pushing down ladders.
She turned to Rol. “You should go.”
“Go? Where?”
“Head for the upper city, safety.” He was too young for this, she thought. He did not have a steel cuirass like she did, only a hard leather vest.
He did not answer, but aimed his arrow and loosed it.
She unsheathed her saber when more of Second Empire’s soldiers spilled over the wall. The first one she faced was out of breath and hadn’t even had a chance to grasp the hilt of his sword before she sank hers between his ribs.
It was like the last time, taking on enemy soldiers who were not equal to a swordmaster’s level of skill, but she did not go berserk this time. There was no Nyssa tormenting her. Still, the soldiers were strong and determined, and though her back was healed, she hadn’t regained full strength and remained largely out of practice and condition.
She found she could only concern herself with what was right in front of her, not the many skirmishes happening along the wall, or the enemy soldiers who got past the defenders into the middle city. Those with stronger backs kept trying to push the ladders down, but the enemy simply raised them back up. Horns rang out in urgent blasts on various sections of the wall—it wasn’t just their section that was getting hit. This must be Birch’s big push to take the city.
She hacked off the arm of a soldier reaching from his ladder to pull himself between a pair of merlons. He screamed and lost his balance, gouting blood as he fell. She was ready for the next, and the one after that. Sweat streamed down her face, and the periodic waft of smoke made her eyes burn. She blinked away tears even as she clashed with the enemy, the screams of the dying and shouts of combatants all background noise.
There was a cry nearby, and she saw Rol knocked down by one of the enemy, who raised his sword to plunge into the young archer’s chest. She stabbed him in the back and kicked him off the wall. She didn’t wait to see how Rol was—there was no time—and turned to block a thrust from another soldier.
This one was more skilled than the others, a little quicker, better at handling a sword, and while he kept her occupied, more and more of Second Empire’s soldiers climbed onto the wall walk and fought their way to another ladder or tower that would allow them to descend into the middle city.
She was tiring; her hand wrapped around the hilt of her saber had gone numb. Her back and shoulders ached as she fought with the soldier. He pounded on her blade like he wielded an ax instead of a sword. Sweat stung her eyes, but then she became peripherally aware of a freshening breeze cooling the perspiration on her skin.
Her opponent pushed her into the opening between merlons, their swords locked as he pressed in closer. She hadn’t the strength to push back. If she moved the wrong way, he could slice off her head, or he could toss her over the wall. They were practically nose to nose, he grinning, but then a look of surprise crossed his face, and he lurched away, an arrow in his back.
Rol stood there with another in his hand and jammed it hard into the man’s throat. The man gurgled blood, fell to his knees, and Karigan finished him with a thrust to his gut.
“Thanks,” she told Rol.
He nodded, then went back to work, shooting arrows at Second Empire’s troops.
A lull followed as defenders pushed over the closest ladder, and she needed it to catch her breath. The day was lightening, and the breeze was starting to blow the smoke away.
The respite was brief. All too soon, more of the enemy made their way to her position, and she found she’d lost any finesse she’d had and just did the best she could to stay alive. Her cuirass saved her more than once.
A horn ringing out in the distance caused her current opponent to pause, and she used the moment to slide her blade into his neck.
“Look!” Rol shouted, and he pointed where the soldiers of Second Empire had been based to make their assault on the wall. They were abandoning their posts and running away. Even the soldiers who’d been on the ladders jumped to the ground and ran. The horn had been a signal of retreat.
“Keep shooting those arrows!” Major M’Gyre bellowed. An ugly gash on her cheek bled freely. “Keep fighting.”
Melees continued on the wall, and in the middle city, but Karigan’s section was free. She grabbed her bow, but it had been broken at some point, maybe by someone stepping on it. She glanced out across the city. Much of the smoke had been carried away by the wind, and the sun had fully risen beyond the horizon, leaving a blush of orange in the sky. In the distance, she could see the mass of Second Empire contracting as it pulled its troops together.
To their east was another army. The sun glanced off metal like ripples on a lake. King Zachary had arrived! As the news passed among the defenders, a hurrah rumbled along the wall like building thunder.
When Major M’Gyre’s defenders cleared their section of the wall of Second Empire, Karigan found the major peering through her spyglass toward the two armies. It was too difficult to make out what was happening with the naked eye, just that the two armies had sort of merged.
“What do you see, Major?” Karigan asked.
“Hard to say exactly, even with my glass,” Major M’Gyre replied, “but it would appear King Zachary is hitting the enemy with his heavy cavalry before Birch can organize his defense.”
Karigan felt fierce pride for her king, and much hope. Birch must have put all his plans into the capture of the city. He could try to retreat to the lower city and find some defense there, but then he’d be sandwiched between the city defenders and Zachary, with nowhere to escape.
“Birch is too good an officer to not pull his people together,” the major said, “but at the moment, the battle is in our favor. Have you paper and pen? I’d have you take a message to General Meadows.”
“Yes, Major.” A messenger always had her satchel with her. Almost always, at any rate.
As she rode off with the major’s message, she found the way fraught. Soldiers of Second Empire who had gotten over the wall and had no hope of joining the retreat were at large, and she came across fights in the street and city defenders on the hunt. She rode with her saber bared.
She made it to the castle without incident, and when she reached the throne room, she found the mood there one of intense relief. News of the king’s arrival had already reached her superiors.
“We don’t have enough personnel left to hold the outer wall,” General Meadows was telling the assembled officers and advisors. Estora was nowhere to be seen.
“Maybe just the gate?” Castellan Javien suggested.
General Meadows frowned. “Perhaps. We need an assessment of its condition. Send some of my people, a carpenter, and an engineer.” He looked up at Karigan’s approach. “Rider? You’ve a message?”
“Yes, sir, from Major M’Gyre.”
She slipped it out of her satchel and handed it over.
“Mostly good news,” he muttered when he finished reading. “The king has engaged Second Empire.”
“Do you wish to send a reply, sir?” she asked.
“Not yet. Go get some rest, Rider, something to eat, but don’t go far. We may need you before long.”