by D Murray
“Aye. Just a bit,” Kalfinar replied, edging past his cousin and in front of the door to the keep. “No guards on the front,” he mused. “Best be ready for a challenge inside.” He looked back at the party. “Ready?” he asked before turning the large iron handle, placing his shoulder to the door as he twisted. It ground open and revealed a broad, low ceilinged central hallway. Hot air and the scent of pine oil lamps swept over Kalfinar as the door opened. Six Raven Man guards stood to attention before smooth carved stone pillars.
The foremost of the guards turned his head, and stepped out. His spear lowered to partly block Kalfinar. “What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be in camp.”
Kalfinar frowned at the guard. “We’ve been ordered to report the findings of our reconnaissance.” He adopted his best effort at a Solansian accent. “Major Winters ordered us to report to him immediately upon our return.”
The guard eyed him and then looked beyond him to the massing bodies behind Kalfinar.
Kalfinar watched the guard eye the faces to his rear. The blazing eyes worked between the faces, and then the twitch came. It was minuscule, but it was enough to betray the man’s doubt. The man’s mouth sagged as Kalfinar kicked him in the stones. He reached up and drew his sword from the scabbard belted to his back, bringing it down in a flashing overhead blow and slashing laterally across the chest of the next guard. The Raven Man had barely reacted by the time he retched out his last breath and slammed face down on the worn flagstones.
The party behind had burst into action at Kalfinar’s signal. The rush of shouting and clashing metal was only momentary, with the half-dozen guards soon cut down. Murtagh walked up to a guard who had been gut struck and was now crawling away towards the warm drafts of air emanating from the main body of the keep. She stepped over on either side of the long blood smear and hunkered over the shoulders of the wounded guard. She drew a long knife from the sheath on her lower back, and drew it across the guard’s neck. A soft hissing sounded, and she stood.
“Let’s go,” Kalfinar said, pulling his hatchet from its belt loop as he stepped past the pools of blood spreading on the flagstones.
“What about the bodies?” Ferdus asked. “You leaving them behind us?”
“I think the time for subterfuge has passed,” Broden said, resting a hand on the man’s shoulder as he followed Kalfinar. “It’s a game of speed now. Come on, let’s go.”
Kalfinar hurried down the low-ceilinged hallway and came to a large, circular open space. Corridors radiated off a round landing from which wound a spiral staircase. Kalfinar approached the inner edge of the landing and looked down. The round landings and spiralling staircase surrounded a great void that flowed all the way down to blackness. Hot, foetid air wafted up from the space below. Kalfinar looked up, and moved towards the staircase. He bound up the stairs, taking two at a time, before coming to the first landing. He stopped before passing the open passage to the first corridor, and peered down it. It was clear. He closed the distance to the next passage and waited. He looked behind him to see the others following on. Kalfinar glanced at Valus, and saw her nod.
Third level, her voice sounded in his head.
He returned the nod, and darted past the next corridor. He made it around to the next staircase and bounded up the wide, age-worn steps. He waited carefully again, then made his way up towards the third level of the keep. As he approached he heard the soft sounds of boots falling on flagstones. He stopped at the last step, and pressed his back against the warm stone. He waved his hand in towards the wall. The rest of the party pressed themselves tight against the stone and waited.
A young man stepped out of the corridor and turned toward the steps. He came face to face with Kalfinar, then grunted as the hand pressed over his mouth and the point of the sword punched up under his ribs. Kalfinar withdrew his sword, and gently lay the young soldier down. Blood flecked the lad’s lips and with a thin, breathy voice he tried to say something. “Quiet, lad. Just let it come.” The life fled from the boy’s eyes, and Kalfinar stepped out onto the landing.
He looked at the entrance to the corridors and tried to get his bearings. Where are you, love? He looked at the corridor to his right, and hurried along, stopping by a heavy metal door and peering through. He could see the stars of the night sky through the bars of the cell. It was the right place. He hurried along, recalling that Evelyne was towards the far edge of the keep. He rushed past the flickering oil lamps in the sconces until he came to the last cell at the end of the corridor. He looked through the small hatch. “Evelyne,” he whispered. “Evelyne.”
“Kal!” She rushed from the shadows, her face pressing to the hatch. “Kal!” Her fingers probed out of the hatch, winding about his.
Her skin was freezing cold. Her face was puffy from tears, and she was pale. Dark circles surrounded her gaunt face, and her hair was matted.
“What are you doing here? How?”
“We’re going to get you free.”
“No.” Tears streamed from her face. “No. You need to leave this place. You must.”
Kalfinar frowned. “No, we’re here for you.”
“Kalfinar,” Valus hissed as she stepped up beside him. “We must take our chance, and set Dajda free now.”
Kalfinar looked at the woman’s face a moment, seeing an intensity in her ice-cold blue eyes that he had never seen before. “What?”
“We must see Dajda freed. That is our deal. I would take you to Evelyne and we would see Dajda freed. In exchange, the bind upon our gods and our people would be lifted. Do it.”
“Do what?” Kalfinar asked, looking back at Evelyne, their fingers entwined. His heart ached to look at her once again.
“She must die to free Dajda. You must hurry.”
Kalfinar turned to face Valus, his hands still gripping Evelyne’s. Fury brimmed within him, and he bit back his words.
Evelyne’s hands slipped from his, and he looked back at her through the hatch. She stepped backwards into the patch of lamplight, and he saw her swollen belly.
“You must do it,” Valus urged.
Kalfinar ignored Valus’ words, staring at Evelyne’s belly, and then at her tear-streaked face. “You’re pregnant?” She nodded, and dashed the tears from her face.
“Dajda’s power has quickened the child’s growth,” she said, her hand rubbing the curve of her belly. “I tried to free Dajda myself, but Balzath sustained me.”
Kalfinar felt sorrow at how much fear and hopelessness Evelyne must have felt to try and take her own life. He turned to Valus. “There is no scenario here tonight where we take her life. None. You had best push that from your mind.” Her voice screamed in his head. Kalfinar, there was a deal. Dajda must be freed. Her voice raided his mind. Again and again she wailed the words, speaking with such power as to drop him to his knees.
Valus stepped around him and towards the hatch on Evelyne’s cell door.
“Stop.” Kalfinar looked up as the pain faded from his head. He saw Broden’s sword point to the chin of Valus. “Now, like Kal said, there isn’t any scenario tonight where we take Evelyne’s life. Best we find another way.” He peered around Valus and into the cell. “Hello, Evelyne.”
“Hello, Broden,” she replied with a hoarse sliver of a voice.
Ferdus helped Kalfinar to his feet as Valus was moved away from the door.
“Olmat and the Horn are being held downstairs in Balzath’s temple,” Evelyne said. “They’re encased in mineral. It’s sustained by Balzath somehow. If we can free them from that, and Olmat were to die, it would mark the falling of the Third Pillar. Dajda would be freed with the host of the Anulii.” She stepped up to the hatch and peered at Valus. “You’re a Lihedan dedicant. You have the power to counteract the binding on Olmat, and the Horn. Trust in the deal you made. I can feel it, as Dajda speaks to me now. She will honour the deal.”
“Can you do it?” Kalfinar asked Valus. “Broden,” he indicated that Broden’s sword be lowered.
V
alus looked at Evelyne, and back to Kalfinar. “I can try.”
“Can you open the door?” Kalfinar asked, nodding towards the lock.
Valus nodded.
“Don’t try anything with her,” Kalfinar added. “I swear, I’ll cut you down so quick you won’t even see it coming.”
“I won’t,” she replied, her brows furrowing as she stepped up to the door. She closed her eyes and rested her palm over the darkened iron of the keyhole. She muttered wordlessly for a moment, and blue smoke curled up between her fingers and away as the metal of the lock hissed and popped. She took her hand away, and Kalfinar moved her aside and swung open the door. He looked at Evelyne for a moment, swallowing the storm of feelings; joy, relief, sadness, excitement, guilt. He swallowed it all as best he could with his thickening throat, and enveloped her in a tight embrace.
Forty-Two
Sharp Metal
Subath stared in horror as he mounted the upper battlement on the western wall. Bodies thrashed, shrouded in flame, smoke billowing into the light of the morning sun. Bodies lay still, broken and burned. A chorus of pain swarmed the air about him.
“They’re coming!” The words echoed up and down the wall.
“Archers!” Subath roared as he reached the outer parapet of the wall and stared out at the Cannan advance, obscured by the swirling smoke from the pyres. That fucking imbecile Lucius. “Archers, now!” He saw the flood of soldiers and ladders as they burst through the smoke. He saw the battering ram. “Oil!” He looked to his right and saw an older sergeant whose face appeared familiar to him. “Where’s Captain Thaskil? He commands this wall.”
The sergeant turned his head and nodded to the rear wall of the parapet.
Subath turned around and saw the young captain lying back against the wall. Tacky blood streaked from his ears and nose. “Get those archers firing now. Take the ladder bearers first. Oil for the ram.” Subath rushed the short distance to where Thaskil lay and crouched beside him.
The young captain’s eyes flickered open and he raised dirty, trembling fingers to his ears.
“You hurt bad, lad?”
Thaskil frowned at him.
“Lad, you hurt?”
“I can’t hear you,” Thaskil mumbled.
“Ears are blown,” Subath said, mimicking an explosion at the side of Thaskil’s ears. He pointed to the steps down from the battlement and mouthed slowly, “Get yourself away from here. They’re coming.”
Thaskil shoved himself up to his feet, and looked to his left. A young female soldier with half her face all cut up and bloody lay dead. Thaskil drew his sword and unclipped his hatchet. “I’m staying.”
The sound of bowstrings loosing twanged behind Subath. He nodded to Thaskil, and turned towards the rushing Cannan attack. He peered over the parapet and saw the first of the ladders rise up in a slow, inexorable arc to the wall. “Polemen!” Subath roared, stepping aside to allow space for the poleman to raise his forked pole toward the approaching ladder.
The Cannan serker jumped onto the battlement as the poleman’s forked end met the ladder, shoving it sideways and to the ground below. The Cannan swung his curved sword once and took the head from the poleman.
Subath stepped in to meet the serker, dodging back from a swipe aimed to cut out his throat. The serker pressed, one step forward, then a second. The tip of his sword wove a pattern in the air before Subath before the serker jabbed forward in a straight thrust. Subath moved to parry, and then dropped his shoulder as the serker came in with a low lunge with his knife. Subath turned the knife thrust to the side with an inside downward swipe of his hatchet before bringing his sword down hard into the gap between the serker’s black helmet and shoulder plate. The man dropped to the ground, propped up by one hand as the awful rent in his throat gushed dark blood out onto the flagstones. Subath kicked his arm away and faced the next ladder that swung towards him. “Polemen!”
The din of battle was nothing more than muffled impressions as Thaskil claimed a space in the wall. His head ached, and his balance lurched. He gritted his teeth and wiped the sweat from his eyes and the blood from his nose.
The ladders came. The poleman missed; the ladders' wooden ends slapped down onto the stone of the parapet and two Cannan serkers sprung over onto the rampart. One serker cut the poleman down with a diagonal cut from shoulder to hip. The other parried an axe blow from a defender, mouth all agape in an underwater-sounding roar. The axeman took the Cannan’s knife up under his ribcage once, twice, and then across the throat.
Thaskil took the Cannan’s sword arm, the serker’s weapon hitting the flagstones with a low and hollow metallic thunk. The Cannan turned and thrust his knife towards Thaskil’s face, blood gouting from where his other arm now ended. Thaskil dodged the knife thrust and, losing balance, near fell over before he stumbled to the side and cut free the serker’s hand at the wrist.
The Cannan stumbled backwards, shock visible through the gaps in his helmet. Thaskil stepped forward once and kicked out at the serker, sending him tumbling backwards between the merlons and down to the ground in front of the gate. The second serker blindsided Thaskil and shoulder-barged him to the ground. As Thaskil raised his sword to block the downward thrust from the Cannan, a spear punched through the serker’s armpit. The man stiffened and gagged on a vomit of blood, before dropping as the spear was pulled free. The Cannan landed cheek first on the flagstone, the light fading from his dying eyes as he peered at Thaskil.
Jerath, the soldier who’d pissed himself only minutes before, leaned down and hauled Thaskil to his feet.
Another ladder landed against the wall, and three Cannans leapt off and into the mix of defenders. Jerath turned towards the exposed back of one of the Cannans and stepped forward, ramming his spear up into the man’s body.
Thaskil sprang forward, slapping aside a thrust with the face of his hatchet and jabbing his sword point into the visor of the Cannan’s helmet. A sword point deflected from another beside him, glinting past his face, scoring a hot line on his cheek. He lurched away, seeing it was a defender’s blade that had near pierced him through his face. The defender died from a thrust to the back from another flood of Cannans over the wall.
An arrow thumped into the throat of the Cannan who had dropped the defender. The man fell to his knees amid the muffled chaos.
Thaskil engaged a serker. His head ached, and the blood from his cheek ran down his face and neck. The serker was fast. Faster than Thaskil. Another sword came at the Cannan from the side, but he ducked back and cut off the defender's hand. Thaskil saw his opening and lunged. The Cannan grabbed out at the man whose hand he'd just taken and hauled him in Thaskil’s way, his sword piercing the man’s back. They tumbled. Thaskil shoved the man aside, and freed his sword in time to block the slice aimed at his neck. His hatchet swung up and knocked the knife from the Cannan serker’s hand. With a twist of his wrist, Thaskil reversed the hatchet stroke and thumped it into the Cannan’s inner right thigh. The serker fell as blood rushed from the wound. Thaskil scrambled over the Cannan, leaning on the man’s sword arm and jabbing his own sword point into the man’s neck. He stood fully, took a quick breath, and engaged a Cannan regular who was pushing an injured defender. Thaskil thumped his hatchet blade into the nape of the Cannan’s skull and moved on.
A furious rhythm was growing in him, a terrible cadence. He deflected, lashed out, and moved on. He ducked and came up with a driven upward thrust. He shoved the body aside and engaged again. Cannan raiders spilled over the wall now without any resistance from polemen or archers. Thaskil stepped up to the next man, driving his sword point into the Cannan’s armpit as he made to thrust. The man screamed, and Thaskil realised he could hear it. He didn’t hear the Cannan to his left, but he could feel the blow that crashed into his pauldron. He dropped to his knee, a searing pain in his left shoulder. He turned in time to see the Cannan wrestle with a defender, swords waving and glinting in the morning sun. The defender and the Cannan tottered backwards, towards
the inner parapet, and tipped between merlons and over into the city.
Another Cannan swung at Thaskil as he stood up. He caught the sword thrust with his own and made to swing his hatchet up, but realised he couldn't move his left arm. He kicked out at the side of the Cannan’s leg, dropping him to one knee and weakening the resistance in the man’s sword arm. Thaskil kicked the man in the face, and then brought the side of his sword back with a forehand cut to the man’s face.
Cannans flooded the wall with even greater ease.
“Fall back!” Thaskil roared, his voice sounding muffled and his throat aching as he screamed with all his force. “Fall back! Fall back!”
Subath caught his breath for a moment. His chest heaved against the inside of his cuirass. The low morning sun shone golden in the cold air, backlighting the wall of smoke with a corona of fire.
A young Cannan regular jabbered some kind of war cry as he leapt towards Subath, sword coming quick in a double-handed downward stroke.
Amateur. Subath stepped backwards, waiting for the over-commitment to see the Cannan stumble. When he did, Subath booted him in the arse, sending him to the ground, and then stuck him in the back. But this many amateurs is still too many. He pulled back the chainmail coif from his head and stepped toward another knot of flailing steel.
Anger. Fear. Dying. It all sounded around him, a cacophony of the worst things in life. The stink of it flooded Subath’s nostrils. The aroma of man’s hatred for one another. He grinned and slammed a downward blow onto a Cannan whose head appeared at the top of the ladder to his left. The man’s skull clicked, then caved, and he dropped from the ladder. Subath heaved a weary breath. Getting too old for this shit.
A huge serker dropped a defender in front of Subath and tossed the body to the side. The big Cannan pointed his sword at him and crouched.
Subath feinted, but the Cannan was no fool. No time for games. Subath stepped forward and jabbed. The Cannan deflected. He jabbed again, and once more, the Cannan deflected. Subath threw his hatchet, surprising the Cannan. The haft of the weapon thumped into the man’s face, sending him back a step. Subath took two quick steps and pinned the serker through the throat. The serker fell backwards. Sword still in the man’s throat, Subath was drawn down towards the Cannan’s knife. He released his grip and rolled to his side. He rolled again and came up to his feet, knees aching with the motion. He was unarmed. In front of him was a leering Cannan regular, his steel bloody and red speckles across his face.