Chapter Thirty

 

 

They came in the darkness as the shadows always did, seeping out of the distant forest like creeping moss, their individual forms indefinable in the night, and it was as if the Dark itself had come to consume the city.

This city which is counting on you to save it, Alesh thought bitterly as he stared at the hundreds, thousands of shadows emerging into the field outside Valeria’s western gate. This city that believes you to be the light to lead them to safety, but whatever powers you once had are gone now, stripped away to leave nothing but the man, the monster that you truly are.

He stood on the battlements with Captain Nordin, and all the soldiers and volunteers they had been able to gather over the past weeks. Hundreds of people had answered the call, willing to risk their lives to protect all which mattered most to them. It had been heartening, to see so many, yet now, watching the enemy army continue to pour from the tree line with no end in sight, Alesh could feel only despair. Despair that they fought a battle that could not be won, despair that those brave souls standing with him on the walls—afraid, yet putting on the bravest faces of which they were capable as they faced their doom—would inevitably die. And who could be blamed for that but him, the man who had led them to that death?

The Broken and the four guards watching him stood a short distance away, and it was all Alesh could do to keep his eyes on the fields below instead of studying the exiled Ekirani, trying to discern some inkling of his intentions. Katherine and Rion were nowhere to be found, at least not yet, and Alesh was glad of that. He loved Katherine, had known as much for some time now. But despite his feelings for her or, more likely, because of them, she served as a mirror to him, reflecting himself back to himself, and he did not like what that reflection showed.

“Chosen,” Captain Nordin said beside him.

No, not Chosen, Alesh thought, not any longer. But knowing his failing would do the captain no good, would steal from him and the other troops on the battlements what courage they had, so he only turned to the man. “Yes?”

“I believe we should call for archers. If the army continues to press forward, they will soon be in range.”

Hundreds of men lined the battlements with him, bows in hand. Most were of military issue but some were personal weapons, perhaps out of a particular fondness for them or, more likely, because there had simply not been enough weapons to go around. Several hundred firing arrows into an army of thousands, what might have been tens of thousands. Even had the enemy army been willing to only stand still beneath the rain of death, it would matter little, for Valeria’s defenders would run out of arrows long before even a fraction of it was defeated. An unwinnable battle, there was no denying that. Yet, Alesh would fight it just the same. For Olliman and Abigail, for Chorin and all the rest, he would fight it.

“Very well,” he said. Nordin nodded to another man and then the note of a horn was ringing in the air, the archers taking up their positions.

“Prepare to fire!” The cry went out along the battlements, and men fitted arrows to their bowstrings, each of them picking a target out of the milling masses continuing to fill the field.

Alesh noticed movement in the enemy ranks, saw avenues opening up as the enemy soldiers—though, as most had no armor and their weapons were no more than sharpened sticks, “soldiers” seemed too gracious—moved aside. Men carrying long siege ladders made their way through them, a dozen groups of them at least, and more appearing as Alesh watched, all moving toward the wall. It seemed that the army meant to waste no time.

“Tell the archers to aim for the ladder crews,” he said, knowing that if those ladders and the men carrying them gained the wall at the same time, the city’s defenders would have no chance of stemming the tide before it overwhelmed them.

The order was given, shouted along the wall by one voice after another, and the ladder crews moved closer, Alesh’s death and the death of all those sharing the battlements with him moved closer, and with no other option, they watched it come.

Soon the enemy was within range, and Nordin looked to Alesh, waiting for the order. Alesh took a slow, deep breath, looking at the dark sky above them, wondering if he and the others sharing the battlements with him would ever see the sun again and doubting it. But he gritted his teeth, turning to the captain. “Loose.”

The order was passed along, shouted across the battlements from one voice then another, and the air was suddenly alive with the thrumming of bowstrings, with arrows whistling through the air at the horde gathered below.

Below them, a horn sounded amongst the enemy army, and thousands of voices hungry for Valeria’s blood gave a cry, all their shouts mingling together so that they sounded like the great roar of some beast as they charged toward the city walls.

The final battle for Valeria, for the world, had begun.