Two nights later, Emrael sat around a small table playing cards with Jaina, Halrec, Toravin, and Dorae. Elle and two Imperators had left earlier that morning, accompanied by a squad of men who Toravin swore could get her into the Sagmyn Province without running into any Barros men.
Watching Dorae lay down a card, Emrael took a swig of the dark brown ale in his mug, savoring the rich nutty flavor. “Tell me about the attacks so far. Has Corrande been using his own Legion? Watchers?”
Dorae sipped his wine before responding. “Watchers, mostly. I think he wants to save his own troops as long as he can. He must not trust the High Sentinel all that much. Especially now that you killed the Commander First of the Watchers who was in his pocket, eh?”
“Have your men seen any Malithii or soulbound?” Emrael asked.
Frowning, Dorae shook his head and set his cards facedown on the table. “You say they dress in black robes? We haven’t had any reports of such things. Just Watchers, though they’ve been enough trouble. More than once, I thought the city was lost.”
Toravin clapped Dorae on the shoulder. “Trust me, you’d know about it if your men had encountered any of the foreigners. The bastards are mean, and their soulbound are enough to unnerve a man. Keep coming at you, even if they’re dying.”
Emrael met Jaina’s eyes. “Why wouldn’t the Malithii join the fight? Could we have killed them all?”
“I do not know,” she answered pensively. “It is possible that the Malithii and alai’ahn we faced at the Citadel were the majority of the forces they managed to get into the Provinces, and the rest are being used to influence important people, like the ones who were with Governor Barros. The alai we found were all ancient, I do not believe the Malithii have discovered how to replicate them. We must be very wary of the mentai, however. Whichever Malithii discovered their making could still be using them.”
A few more hands were played with only occasional comments until Halrec asked, “Em, what will you do if our capture of Larreburgh doesn’t convince the other Lords Holder to join us?”
Instead of answering directly, Emrael asked Dorae, “Tell me, Dorae. What do the Lords Holder pay to the Provinces right now?”
The Lord of Whitehall grimaced. “Half. Half of their tax revenue on top of having half of their lands taken from them to be managed by the United Provinces. Each must host—and pay for—the Watcher garrisons in their Holdings, besides. And none of them do anything but complain where their overlords can’t hear.”
“And if I offer them a better arrangement in return for their support? What might they do if offered half the tax rate and their lands back?”
He ducked his head to look at Emrael from under his brows. “Crown you king, maybe?”
Emrael met his stare without blinking. “And you, Dorae? Would you give me your ring? I’ve heard your people have coveted the southern reaches of the Tarelle Holding for some time…”
Dorae’s eyes gleamed, but he was quiet for longer than Emrael would have liked. “If you can deliver on Larreburgh? Aye, I reckon I would give you my ring. I’m in with you up to my tits already, aren’t I?”
Emrael grinned. “Send for the Lords of Iraea, then. After we take Tarelle’s Holding, they won’t have a choice but to answer. Distribute a proclamation that any who join us will be given land, and copper. A new class of nobility will earn their place in our kingdom. That should get their attention.”
Everyone’s heads whipped around as bells clanged first a good distance away from the keep, then around the keep itself.
Whitehall was under attack.
By the time they had pulled on armor and weapons and reconvened in the entry hall, the Ire Legion companies and their assigned pairs of Imperators had formed up in the square outside. Pride swelled within Emrael at seeing his men muster so quickly and form such tight, orderly ranks. The Provincial Legions couldn’t have done it better, and most of these men had been tradesmen a year earlier.
Pendants were set up in the middle of the square, where Halrec, Toravin, Dorae, and Dorae’s senior staff set up with two companies to protect them. They would receive and relay messages, coordinating the battle from Whitehall Keep, where most of the city could be seen.
The gate blocking the mountain road to the Corrande Province had been set ablaze, and Watchers were on the other side working to knock it down. Most likely with some sort of siege engine, judging by the periodic thunderous impact. The Norta guardsmen on the walls above the canyon gate rained boulders and cauldrons of flaming pitch down on the attackers but seemed not to have deterred the attackers much. Several bodies already littered the ramparts, riddled with arrows.
Emrael and Jaina had been assigned to their own company to be held in reserve, so for a time they sat with Dorae and Halrec and watched as their men and Norta guardsmen marched to meet the army on the other side of the gate. Emrael grew more and more anxious to join the fighting, especially when Corrande’s forces broke down the gate. They couldn’t see the ensuing battle from their vantage, but they could hear the din from most of a league away.
From where he sat near the command tent, Emrael could see the blue flash of infusori periodically, but it was impossible to tell whether the Imperators were the source or whether Malithii had finally attacked with Corrande’s forces.
The blue flashes grew closer and closer to the Whitehall square, and finally a messenger arrived at the command table, one arm wrapped in a bloody bandage. “Lords,” he said breathlessly, “we’re holding them near the gates, Lords, but there are more coming down the pass. They … they have monsters with them, Lords.”
Emrael habitually drew in as much infusori as he could hold before pushing it back into his coils, and continually checked his satchel to ensure he had access to more. The Wells up the canyon were much too far away for him to access their power directly. He’d be limited to whatever he could carry, and it looked as if he and Jaina would be needed before much longer.
The highway on the Whitehall side of the gate was surrounded on both sides by a high barricade for several hundred paces, creating a killing ground intended to stop the invading forces. Soon, however, the fighting had progressed into the streets of the city below. Messengers returning from the battle to report grew more and more frantic. Many stopped reporting entirely as the fighting continued.
It was time. Emrael could wait no longer. He turned to the Captain Third leading their company and barked, “Ready the men! We march in five minutes. Lead with two ranks of shields and spears, crossbows right behind.”
He shouldered in next to Halrec to inspect the map, small figures marking the approximate location of both enemy and their own forces. “What’s our best route to the pass? We need to retake the gate or we’ll be overrun.”
“Here,” Halrec said immediately, pointing to a medium-sized avenue that traversed the industrial district between Whitehall and the gate at the pass. “Dorae, is this avenue as straight as the map shows? It looks like the streets branching off it are all small, mostly blocked service alleys. You should have minimal chances of encountering resistance until you hit the highway. We have two companies holding the avenue here, with no reported engagements.”
Dorae nodded, then continued scanning the rest of the map as he spoke. More messengers had arrived, and Dorae’s senior officers were rearranging the models on the map. “Aye, it’s a straight shot. If you get caught in there against a larger force, you’ve no way out but straight back up the hill, though. It’s dangerous.”
Emrael straightened, adjusting his sword belt. “Do we know how many are coming down the pass?”
“Scouts can’t get close, but it’s at least two battalions. We’ve got an equal number heading west and south to meet them head-on on the highway before they can disperse.”
“You’ll need mages to fight the Malithii that will be with the soulbound your men saw. Jaina, what do you say we take another Imperator pair and their company with us down Halrec’s avenue, try to flank them?”
He waited for her nod, and they marched back to where their company waited together. Jaina sent a man running over to where another pair of Imperators—one was Timan, the other a woman with a wide, angular face—waited with their company of Ire Legionmen.
“Broulea,” Jaina supplied, as if reading his thoughts. “Decent Healer.”
When the two companies had formed up, Jaina and Emrael took positions with the crossbows, just behind the double rank of shield-bearing spearmen. As they marched downhill, fewer and fewer infusori coils lit the intersections. Soon they marched in darkness, save for the scant light of the waning moon that managed to sneak through the gaps between slate-tiled rooftops. Light rain drummed their armor as they marched, slicking the cobbled streets.
Now that they were down in the city among the jumble of stone and wood buildings, the din of battle had been damped to near silence. The quiet made Emrael nervous.
A shout sounded in the darkness, and Emrael’s Captain Second called out with the appropriate response to identify themselves to the two companies holding the avenue. After a brief conversation and clearing sections of the hasty barricades that had been erected, they were through and continued on undisturbed.
As they drew close to the main highway, there was still no sign of fighting other than the faint sound of weapons clashing and the distant pulsing orange glow of fire somewhere nearer the gate.
Emrael and Jaina pushed through the ranks of shields to climb the barricade blocking the highway, peering to either side. It looked like there was fighting on the main highway farther into the city—likely the battalions Dorae had sent to stop the enemy reported by the scouts. Toward the pass, near the fires raging at the gate, Emrael saw a mass of men in Watcher blue pour into the city via streets like the one they had just come down. The Watchers must have broken through at least one of the Iraean companies blockading the avenues, and could be threatening Whitehall Keep itself before long. Several companies had been held in reserve, but only a few Imperators remained at the keep. Everyone would be slaughtered if the Watchers and Malithii overwhelmed the defenses.
“Jaina,” he said, pointing. “Looks like they’ve broken through. If they’ve sent Malithii, I would bet they are there.”
She came to stand at his shoulder. “Let us hit them from behind and hope our men near the keep can pressure from above.”
They sent a runner dashing back the way they had come to report their plan to Dorae and Halrec at the command station, and relayed the orders back to their men. Emrael, Jaina, Timan, and Broulea lined up behind the double shield line once more, and their two hundred men marched up the main highway, which had been lit with both infusori coils and bonfires. Before long, the Watchers noticed them, and perhaps a hundred of them began to form shielded ranks of their own at the rear of their force. Thankfully, no infusori-Crafted crossbows were loosed—they must have all been deployed farther up the avenue, where hopefully his friends had managed to stall the Watcher advance.
When he and his men were just short of the Watcher line, he ordered a halt. He couldn’t see any Malithii, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there, somewhere. The flickering orange light of the fires set by the attackers made it difficult to see much beyond the first few ranks of enemy soldiers.
The Watchers made no move to advance toward them, but Emrael couldn’t tell whether Iraeans were holding them on the uphill slope, as the warehouses of the industrial district obscured his view. He’d just have to take a gamble. It would go worse for them if they allowed their enemy to organize further.
“Slow advance, shields together!” he called out, wishing he was in the front shield line. The battle rage and infusori in him clamored to be released.
The front lines crashed together, and Emrael’s men pushed forward, their double shield wall too much for the single line of Watchers. Emrael and the third line of soldiers stepped over and stabbed fallen Watchers as their formation shuffled forward, corralling the Watchers into the side street.
As they pushed into the avenue, Emrael was about to call for another push to break the Watchers when he caught a flicker of motion to his right. The length of highway between here and the gate to the pass lay in partial darkness, the infusori coils that had lit the way torn down and cast to the ground. He pulled back from the battle line to peer up toward the pass.
“Glory take us,” he breathed as his eyes adjusted to the darkness and he saw the shapes moving only a few hundred paces away. While the figures there were hardly more than shadows in the poor light, they moved with the unmistakable shambling gait of soulbound.
“Shield line to the right!” Emrael screamed to be heard over the deafening clash of weapons and cries of dying men. “Second Company to the right, form a wedge! Soulbound up the canyon! Imperators on me! First Company hold the avenue! Second form a wedge!”
After a brief period of confusion, the two companies split, forming a half-square two rows deep. Luckily, the Watchers in the side street seemed to be engaged in a tough uphill battle against a significant number of Iraean soldiers and hadn’t yet rallied to make a push back downhill at Emrael’s meager force.
Emrael, Jaina, and the other two Imperators picked up shields from fallen soldiers behind them so they could join the front rank in the formation to the right.
The soulbound, grey skin sagging, hair missing but for wisps that had not yet rotted away, approached with their fluid, mindless shuffle that turned into an aggressive trot as they came near. There were only a hundred or so of the beasts. These wore scattered armor and bore various weapons that were in relatively good shape compared to most he had seen.
The soulbound didn’t slow as they slammed into the Iraean shield line.
Emrael crouched and held his shield at an angle as a soulbound crashed into him. He drove up and forward with his legs at the moment of impact, using the soulbound’s momentum to lift it off its feet to land behind him, trusting the rank behind him to finish it off.
He was nearly knocked off his feet as a second slavering soulbound slammed into his shield before he could set himself again. As Emrael stumbled, the soulbound tried to hack at him with its sword. In short order, the top of his shield had been hacked to kindling, and he had only narrowly escaped having his head split.
Emrael deflected the next attack and thrust his sword through the soulbound’s neck with a viper-quick thrust. The monster continued to hack wildly despite the killing stroke, however, and Emrael was forced to parry again before chopping at one of the soulbound’s knees and kicking it backward to bleed to death.
He could tell by the desperate grunts next to him that his comrades were in trouble. He slashed sideways into the exposed midsection of the large soulbound to his right. His blade sliced through the soulbound only to lodge in its spine. He still had to raise his splintered shield as it managed an awkward downward swing with its own sword despite being gravely wounded.
The soulbound’s blow knocked Emrael’s shield into his helmeted head, wrenching his shoulder nearly out of its socket and knocking him on his ass. Just barely, he managed to keep his grip on his sword, which he wrenched out of the soulbound’s spine with a pop. The grey monster fell, abruptly unable to use its legs. Its guts hung from the terrible wound in its abdomen, but still it swung its sword feebly. Scrambling to his feet, he pinned the sword arm of the soulbound under one booted foot and stabbed the thing through the chest. He sent a burst of infusori through his weapon and into the monster with the thrust. The soulbound arced its back, eyes wide, then sank to the ground, motionless, as if the infusori had burned out whatever dark power the Malithii had instilled in the creature via the binder used to create it.
Glory, why didn’t Jaina show me that?
Fighting the urge to vomit from exhaustion, he scuttled backward as quickly as he could, shouting “Cover!” and hoping there was a reserve soldier behind him to take his place. His lungs were on fire, his shoulder ached, and he needed to catch his breath. He nearly laughed in relief when one of his men from the second line stepped up to secure the shield wall. He shook the splintered shield from his arm as he surveyed the battle scene.
The Watchers they had attacked had surrendered to five companies of Iraeans—they looked like Dorae’s men—that had been fighting from up the hill. Dorae’s men were recovering their wounded, collecting weapons, and securing prisoners from among the defeated Watchers.
Emrael’s men who had attacked the Watchers from the rear now moved to bolster the ranks fighting the soulbound. Most of the monsters had been killed, but it had cost them dearly. Perhaps half of the two hundred men he and Jaina had brought with them were dead or wounded, including Broulea, who lay motionless in a pool of blood behind the line of men that still fought the last of the alai’ahn.
Nearly a league up the highway in the pass beyond the gate, Emrael could see more shapes milling in the darkness. Hundreds, if not thousands. This must have been just an advance party.
He searched his ranks frantically until he found Jaina, who still fought ferociously where the remaining twenty or so of the first group of soulbound still attacked his men with blind, unthinking rage. He drew his long knife in his left hand and ran to her aid. They had to kill these last soulbound and get into better position before whoever—or whatever—lurked in the pass made it to them.
As he reached her and the knot of men still engaged with the soulbound, he planted a kick directly in the chest of one of the enraged monsters, then stabbed another in the back and fried it with a burst of infusori. A steady stream of his men followed him to encircle the monsters. In short order, all of the soulbound lay decapitated or in heaps of bloody twitching meat—a gruesome necessity with the beasts, which hardly acknowledged killing blows.
Emrael began shouting immediately, panting between sentences. “Get into the avenue, now! Form up at the top of that hill, shield wall all the way across, as deep as we have men. Send a messenger to tell Dorae and Halrec that we need men on the main highway. All of them. We’re about to have more of these soulbound bastards on us.”
Within ten minutes, Emrael, Jaina, and Timan stood at the top of a small hill behind a shield line four ranks deep that blocked the entire avenue that connected to the main highway about two hundred paces downhill.
The sound of hundreds of boots running accompanied by guttural grunts soon echoed from the highway. The soulbound and their Malithii masters came into sight at the mouth of the avenue. Some soulbound continued full speed down the highway, but many spotted Emrael and his forces in formation on top of the small hill and turned aside to attack.
The beasts ran up the incline to slam into Iraean shields with a resounding crash. The Iraeans were ready for the assault, but the sheer force exerted by the soulbound, unconcerned about personal safety as they were, knocked many of the shield-bearers back, disrupting the line. Blades flashed, men and beasts roared with rage and pain. Blood ran, and the Iraean ranks held.
Despite the battle raging just paces in front of him, Emrael’s attention was still on the highway at the bottom of the hill. More and more soulbound packed the avenue, and Malithii now peppered their rear ranks, copper-cable weapons lashing at the backs of the already-seething soulbound.
Emrael’s men still held, though most of the second rank was now at the front, covering for fallen comrades. The soulbound screamed as the Malithii behind them whipped them into a frenzy. The unnatural beasts swung their weapons wildly, chopping through shields and men alike.
Another ten minutes and his men would be overrun … if they didn’t break and run first. Emrael was about to force his way to the front rank of the shield wall to fight alongside them when he realized that the flood of soulbound pouring into the avenue from the main highway had stopped. He and his men still faced too many, but there was a clear portion of street from which he could attack—if he could get there. If he could kill the Malithii directing the crazed beasts, he might disorient the soulbound enough to give his men a chance.
He tapped Jaina and Timan on the shoulder, then tapped the sergeant who led the squad assigned to protect him. The thirteen of them ditched their shields to climb onto the roof of a single-story building to one side of the avenue, climbing from there to the roof of a taller warehouse. They ran across the rooftops, jumping the space between tightly packed warehouses until they were well behind the attacking soulbound and their Malithii masters. So far, none seemed to have noticed them.
Emrael and the others lowered themselves from the rooftop and charged from behind. He put his sword through the back of one of the Malithii before they knew what was happening, his comrades to either side of him cutting down their chosen targets at nearly the same moment.
Then the fight turned ugly.
At least five more Malithii—that Emrael could see—turned to face them after their wounded friends screamed in pain. A dozen soulbound heard the commotion as well and broke away from the main battle to face the new threat.
Emrael jerked his sword free and lunged at the nearest priest, pressuring him so he could not bring his copper-cable weapon to bear.
A burst of infusori through his sword as it came into contact with the Malithii’s blade sent the black-robed priest reeling. Emrael turned to the next foe, a soulbound already swinging its axe.
He parried and darted beneath the grey man’s attack to slide his blade through its ribs, pulsing a flare of infusori through the beast as he did, frying the binder’s hold on it. Two more soulbound died to his blade, and just like that he was in the clear, no enemies immediately near him. None living, anyway. Three Malithii lay motionless at Jaina’s feet, two more at Timan’s. The dozen soulbound who had turned their way were dead as well, but so were most of the Iraeans that had accompanied the mages across the rooftops. Only three of the original ten still stood.
Hundreds of soulbound still seethed twenty paces away, hacking at the Iraeans still holding them back. From the look of things, the shield wall was near the breaking point.
He locked eyes with Jaina, who nodded as she drew in infusori from a coil in her belt pouch until her eyes glowed. Emrael and Timan did the same, exhausting their stores and casting the dull gold coils aside as they ran to engage the remaining soulbound from behind.
They managed to kill several of the mindless beasts with pulses of infusori as their blades met rotten flesh, but soon dozens had turned to meet them. Without shields to effectively fight in cramped quarters against larger numbers, they were forced to flee back toward the highway.
As they reached the dark, now-abandoned highway, they slowed and turned to face the soulbound they had momentarily outrun. But the mindless beasts had lost interest, and turned back to the clamor of the battle raging behind them.
“Shit,” Emrael cursed as he saw the Iraean shield wall buckle then collapse, letting the boiling mass of soulbound through. The beasts barely paid any attention to the Legionmen who now huddled against the sides of buildings in small clumps of locked shields, hurtling toward their objective in an enraged state. Emrael didn’t completely understand how the binders that created and controlled the soulbound worked, but the Malithii must have given an order to attack the Whitehall Keep before he, Jaina, and Timan had killed them. The crazed soulbound seemingly remained compelled to comply, despite the change in circumstances.
Emrael’s breath came in ragged pants, but he forced himself to run after the hundreds of soulbound. They might not have enough men left there to defeat the hundreds of beasts that had just broken through. Before he had gone far, a hand on the neck of his armored vest pulled him up short. He looked back to see Jaina’s blood-streaked face smiling at him.
“Listen,” she said, pointing to her ear.
Emrael did, then smiled with relief. A low rumble quickly turned into a thunderous avalanche of hooves. As he watched, several hundred of his cavalry burst through the mass of soulbound in a long wedge formation, chopping down their unnatural foes as they charged. His grin grew wider when he saw Halrec leading them.
Emrael, Jaina, Timan, and the three survivors from their squad of Legionmen scrambled to huddle against a building as the wave of cavalry swept through and onto the highway, where they reined in. The survivors from the shield wall already followed the mounted soldiers, finishing off soulbound injured in the charge and doing what they could for their own wounded.
Halrec approached and pulled off his helmet to reveal a broad smile. “We came just in the nick of time, eh?”
Emrael smiled back at his friend and joked, “We had them well in hand, just another few minutes and Jaina would have killed every last one.”
Halrec gave Jaina an appraising look. “That, I believe.”
Nearly every inch of her was soaked in blood. She and Timan had already begun collecting the binders from the arms of the dead and dying soulbound, chopping off their wrists as callously as if they were trimming trees.
They shared a look, mirrored frowns of disgust on their faces. Halrec shrugged, then turned his horse. “I need to see to my men. You weren’t the only ones pinned down; we need to keep going.”
Emrael nodded and waved him on. “Go, I’ll take the queen of death over there to see what we can do about sealing the gates at the canyon. If they bring more soulbound before we can, we’re in for a very bad day.”
After Halrec had gone, he rounded up one company to march with them to the gate and sent the rest of the Legionmen back to the keep to care for their wounded and rest. He then pulled Jaina and Timan away from their gruesome butchering of soulbound and led them up the highway toward the pass, their men collecting glowing infusori coils from sconces lining the highway as they passed. They held their weapons at the ready and trod as quietly as possible for fear that there could be more Malithii and soulbound coming down the pass.
When they reached the gates that had been bashed in by the soulbound, Emrael told the Captain Third leading the company of Ire Legionmen with them to wait several hundred paces back. He didn’t want to hurt any of his own men, and his skill with infusori was anything but predictable. Emrael and the two Imperators climbed the stone stairs to the keep that perched above the wall on the river side of the gate—the keep that had been occupied only months before by a garrison of Watchers. It appeared deserted, no Watchers, Malithii, or soulbound in sight. No living Iraeans, either.
After a quick inspection to ensure none of their men remained, they went back down to the roadway. Neither Jaina nor Timan had any skill with stonebreaking, so they stood clear and kept an eye on the pass while Emrael inspected the stonework that supported the keep.
He drew the infusori from every single coil they had gathered until his eyes glowed fiercely. He turned to see Timan staring at him, mouth agape.
“What?” Emrael asked, worried Timan had spotted more soulbound or Malithii.
Timan shook his head, then looked to Jaina. “He really doesn’t know?”
Jaina just shrugged, so Timan turned back to Emrael. “There are very few Imperators—or mages of any kind—that could hold as much infusori as you have in you right now. And you are not shaking, not even sweating as far as I can tell. You are nowhere near your limit.”
Emrael thought about it for a moment. He had certainly held more infusori before. He matched Jaina’s shrug. “I think my mother can too, and Jaina said she knows others who can draw as much. Besides, I might be able to hold a lot, but I can’t do much more than break stone and light small fires yet. I am nearly useless outside of those two tricks.”
“Worse than useless at times,” Jaina murmured.
Timan just shook his head again and muttered to himself as Emrael turned to the wall and pushed as much energy as he could through the stone of the keep’s foundation, breaking the bonds that held it together. It turned to dust with a sharp crack.
“Run!” he shouted, heeding his own advice. After such an outlay of infusori on top of having fought a series of battles in the middle of the night, his feet felt leaden as he tried to run faster than the stone above him could fall. Jaina steadied him when he stumbled, and they ran shoulder to shoulder.
Before they managed to get more than a few hundred paces away, a deafening groan echoed through the canyon as the rock split, spilling the keep and a portion of the mountainside into the opening, blocking the pass from Corrande to Whitehall for good—or as near as made no difference.
A wave of dust and debris flowed over them, and they covered their faces with their arms, ducking for whatever cover they could find.
When the dust had settled enough for them to see—and breathe—Timan turned back to look at the destruction Emrael had wrought. “Silent Sisters save us,” he breathed.
Emrael fell to his knees, retching from exhaustion. “They won’t,” he rasped between heaves of his stomach.