by Brandon Mull
Rachel had been braced for a large detonation, but the penetrating thunder still made her jump. Snowflake flinched sideways, hoofs stomping, and Rachel murmured comforting words in Edomic. Even at this distance she felt a wave of heat after the blast. The front gate had disappeared; the stonework around it was cracked and blackened. A great curtain of smoke unfurled into the night sky.
A pleasant thrill accompanied the successful mandate, merging with the natural satisfaction of having demolished the gate. One more to go. With a second command Rachel sent another gatecrasher into the gaping blackness beyond where the first gate had stood. The sphere ruptured against the inner gate, the flash momentarily brightening the gap between the walls, and suddenly the way was clear.
Elation surged through Rachel. She had opened the way for Galloran’s troops to invade the keep! If she stopped now, she would have more than proved her worth. Galloran had encouraged her to stop at this point if the effort seemed to be too much. But she had no intention of holding back.
Stones and arrows sleeted down from atop the wall as the attackers charged the gate. Trebuchets flung boulders, and ballistae hurled flurries of weighty iron darts. The heavier projectiles smashed through the upraised shields, opening trenches in the advancing mass of warriors. Some of the smaller projectiles slipped through gaps, dropping scattered invaders among the charging mob.
Driven by painful thoughts of Drake, Rachel dismounted and prepped her will for the heavy work. The potential commands boiled inside her. Maldor wanted to kill her friends? Not without consequences.
A storehouse in the town beside the ferry had contained an abundance of lantern oil. A wagon laden with some of that oil presently waited on the road leading to the gate of West Keep, casks and barrels strapped in place. The attackers raced toward the keep at either side of the road, but not directly on it.
Speaking a word, Rachel set the wagon ablaze, along with the cargo. It was a challenging command, but it almost felt easy. She hardly acknowledged the resulting pleasure. Clenching her fists, she spoke words to push the wagon forward. Exerting her will and chanting additional words, she increased the speed of the wagon while keeping it stable. Stones and arrows bombarded the fiery cart. Casks ruptured, making the flames heave and spread. Rachel kept the portable inferno racing in the proper direction. When the wagon reached the gateless entrance perhaps fifteen yards ahead of the attackers, she gave one last mighty shove, throwing everything she had into the command. The wagon left the ground. Shedding a blizzard of sparks, burning boards snapped apart, and a sprawling wave of flame washed into the yard ahead of the attacking troops.
The effort left Rachel on her knees, gasping, a sharp pain drilling into her side. Her throat was raw, and she felt blood trickling from one nostril. At the same time, pleasure like she had never known coursed through her body, deliciously enlivening every nerve. Buoyed both physically and emotionally, she staggered to her feet, glorying in the triumphant rush of ecstasy. She had never exerted her will so hard.
“Well done,” Galloran said, his blindfold discarded. “You should rest.”
Rachel shook her head. She had launched her boulder into the sky, but Drake was still dead, and she was still standing. She suddenly wanted to throw her will against the wall of the keep, to slam against it with a tsunami of rage that would crush it to rubble. The desire felt compulsive, instinctive. Right now—hurting, exulting—such a command almost felt within her reach. But she knew the exertion would kill her, as surely as it would kill everybody on and behind the wall. Her own soldiers were already streaming through the entrance. Besides, they would need the wall to help defend their army in the coming days. With an effort she turned her attention to her next planned task.
Assistants had set aside twenty regular orantium spheres for her use, in case she still had energy left after the wagon. They would have to suffice. She sent four of them raining down above the gateway to get rid of the defenders harassing the attackers below. Then she propelled a sphere to each of the three visible ballistae. Finally, she sent the remainder sailing far over the wall to land deep in the yard beyond, well ahead of the brawling invaders. The explosions boomed like a string of giant firecrackers.
After hurling the last barrage, Rachel stumbled backward and sat down hard, her head throbbing, her ears ringing, her fingers and toes going numb. She felt dizzy, and her throat burned, the pain peaking each time she swallowed.
“No more,” Galloran ordered.
Rachel heard more orantium exploding beyond the walls. Many of the seedmen had orantium to use at their discretion. They were mostly planning on using the spheres to destroy manglers and to pulverize locked doors.
She fought back to her feet. Her assigned tasks were complete. She felt a little ragged, but she wanted to unleash one more blast. Something big. Gritting her teeth, Rachel focused on the tower on the right side of the wall, where defenders continued to send stones and arrows down on attackers. It would take quite a push to tear off the top of it. Feeling slightly lightheaded, she prepped her will.
Strong hands gripped her arms from behind, pulling her down to her knees. “No, Rachel,” Galloran said in her ear. “Let go. You’re spent. No more.” Holding her close, he followed the urgings with Edomic words of peace and relaxation.
Suddenly Rachel could hardly kneel, let alone stand. Her head spun. She slumped onto her side. Galloran gently released her. She couldn’t even raise her head. Why had she thought she could knock over the tower? She felt empty now, weak, overstretched. After pushing the wagon, the simple effort of hurling the orantium spheres had taken her beyond her limit. But the mighty tower had seemed vulnerable. Had she considered trying to shove over the entire wall? For a moment it had seemed almost fragile. Maybe she had failed to seize the opportunity when she’d had it. Or maybe the euphoric rush after pushing the wagon had made her grossly miscalculate her capacity. Rachel tried to rise but failed. Galloran steadied her. At least she remained conscious.
Drake was still dead. She tried to muster rage but only managed to feel empty and sick. Maldor had tried to kill Jason. He had killed Drake. He wanted to kill all her friends. She felt miserable, but anger was currently out of reach. She wanted to cry, but tears wouldn’t come.
From a great distance the rumbling of other orantium detonations could be heard. All the keeps were under attack. Brin had created launchers for the gatecrashers at the other sites. At East Keep, Ferrin was going to try to open the gates from within, although gatecrashers were on hand as the backup plan.
Galloran helped Rachel sit up. What was he doing? Didn’t he have a battle to oversee? He kept a supportive arm around her shoulders.
“We’ll win tonight,” Rachel said, her teeth chattering.
Galloran studied her with concern. “Are you all right?”
She nodded feebly. “Just tired. We’ll win?” Her throat felt really sore.
“I expect so,” Galloran said. “You were magnificent, but you pushed yourself too hard.”
“Maldor is sorry?”
Galloran brushed her damp hair out of her face. “We gave him something to think about. Thanks to you. And to the orantium. Otherwise, storming these keeps would have cost at least half our strength. A few good men can hold a strong wall against a horde. We should have paid dearly for these strongholds. They were heavily manned and well provisioned. Your contribution here at West Keep made our advantage even more overwhelming. Your Edomic spared hundreds of lives. Perhaps even thousands.”
“Maldor should have left them abandoned,” Rachel said. How many people had she killed tonight? The kettles, the orantium, the wagon . . .
“No,” Galloran said. “He’s too good of a strategist. He didn’t want to fight us at the pass, because we might have turned back. He didn’t want to engage us in the valley, because at present his forces would have been outnumbered by better warriors. But with these keeps he hoped to sap our strength before his armies arrive from the east. He would never have handed them to us. Had
his men repelled us here, we could not have fled.”
Rachel turned to face Galloran. She felt a little less woozy. “His men won’t stop us tonight. Not if the other attacks are anything like this one.”
“Agreed. I do not think Maldor understood the extent of our orantium stores. He knew we had some spheres in our possession. I believe the quantity of orantium has surprised him, as have the gatecrashers, which is why these assaults needed to be simultaneous. Maldor believed these keeps would be a serious obstacle. His defenders were not ready for their gates to disappear at the outset of the attack.”
Rachel listened to the clamor of battle inside the fortress. “What now?”
“We wait for victory.”
* * *
Not long before dawn Rachel ate breakfast inside the dining hall of West Keep. She felt halfway back to normal—her body remained weary, but her mind felt clear. Galloran ate with her. Ferrin sat beside her. Other leaders and friends joined them, including Naman, Ul, Io, Brin, Tark, Lodan, a drinling leader called Obb, and a seedman named Herral. Naman had commanded the attack on North Keep, Obb had supervised the conquest of South Keep, and Herral had overseen the taking of East Keep.
Before Rachel had reunited with Ferrin, she had already heard men singing his praises. Apparently, he had been quite a hero at East Keep, leading hundreds of soldiers past the walls undetected. They had taken the wall and opened the gates, attacking the defenders in the yard from above as the main force rushed through unhindered.
Rachel glanced sideways at Ferrin as she crumbled her biscuits and stirred them together with her eggs. “Tell me about your night. I hear you saved the day.”
“I can share what I didn’t do,” Ferrin said. “I didn’t singlehandedly blow open the gates, ram a wagonload of fire through the breach, then commence with a hailstorm of orantium. How’s your head?”
“Feeling better,” Rachel said. “It was good to stretch myself. Hopefully, I’ll have more endurance next time. But I want details! I keep hearing how well things went at East Keep.”
“We entered belowground. I disposed of some guards silently. We had practically filled the dungeon before we had to blow a door to proceed. The blast announced our presence, but our foes responded poorly. We killed some sentries and made it to the top of the wall before anybody really understood what was happening. Some orantium followed by brawny drinlings went a long way toward clearing the top of the wall. While seedfolk archers rained arrows into the yard, we reached the mechanisms and opened the gates.”
“The displacer offers a humble account,” Herral said. “He slew at least twenty foes, including three displacers, and lost his head leading the charge along the wall.”
“I got it back,” Ferrin clarified.
“He personally opened the gates,” Herral went on. “Then he led a team into the keep proper by another secret way. Without using gatecrashers, we lost fewer than a hundred souls taking East Keep, and we slew better than a thousand.”
“The offensive could not have gone more smoothly,” Naman announced. “Attacking fortifications like these keeps, we should have lost at least five soldiers for every enemy slain. Instead, the balance of casualties was well in our favor. We lost fewer than fifteen hundred fighters in total, including fewer than a hundred at East Keep and fewer than two hundred at West Keep, where we enjoyed the greatest advantages.”
“It was an inspiring victory,” Galloran agreed, his eyes closed. “It will also be our only victory unless we take Felrook soon. The keeps were meant to hinder us, but the fatal trap remains. We will be outnumbered more than twenty to one when Maldor’s armies return from the east.”
Rachel plucked little chunks from her roll, pinching it apart instead of eating it. Last night had been nightmarish, and that had been a victory! What would defeat look like? She wished they had more time to enjoy their success.
“I’ll start walling off the gateless entrances this morning,” Brin said. “We’ll make our captured fortresses as secure as possible. And I’ll get to work on how we might crack Felrook.”
“We must all bend our thoughts toward raiding Felrook,” Galloran said. “We have no time to starve them out. We cannot flee. We cannot resist the coming tide of enemies. We must take Felrook before they arrive or else perish.”
Rachel had already been thinking long and hard about how they might penetrate Felrook. She had come up with no brilliant schemes. She would put more thought into it as Galloran asked, but she hoped they wouldn’t be relying on her to supply the answer.
“Felrook has secret passages,” Ferrin said, “but none that lead in or out. I know of no fortress more secure—no gate less available, no walls less reachable, no defenses more comprehensive. With only one way up the cliffs, we cannot throw numbers at the problem. There is no access for siege towers or ladders. Expert climbers would be hard-pressed to reach the base of the walls under ideal conditions. The best trebuchet ever designed could not fling a stone halfway up the cliffs.”
Ul leaned over and spoke to Obb in Ji, the staccato drinling language.
“We have orantium,” Obb said.
“Which could create opportunities,” Ferrin allowed. “It will be hard to deliver explosives. Even if we destroy the gates, the path up the cliff is rigged to collapse. How do wingless men attack a fortified island in the sky?”
“The task appears impossible,” Galloran said. “It will require all our strength and ingenuity. But there has to be a way to succeed. We know this by prophecy. We must invent a way to accomplish our aim. Not just our lives, but the lives of every man, woman, and child in Lyrian depend on it. Obsess about this problem. Encourage your best men to wrestle with it. And the least of your men. Stay open to strategies never attempted before.”
Ferrin leaned close to Rachel so he could whisper. “Translation? Pray that Lord Jason succeeds in his quest. Try not to lose your sanity in the meanwhile.”
CHAPTER 22
FOUR KEEPS
Under the cover of night Rachel sat astride her mare at the front of a large force. Galloran waited beside her, eyes blindfolded, Io leading his stallion.
The fortress before her was called West Keep. Watch fires burned atop formidable walls packed with restless soldiers. The upcoming assault would not take the defenders by surprise.
Rachel had longed for this moment. Her outrage over Drake’s death had not diminished—if anything it had increased, as her grief turned to anger and as that pent-up fury lacked an outlet. She knew that nothing would bring Drake back, but payback would start tonight, minutes from now.
She had a key role to play. She knew Galloran had alternate plans, in case she failed to fulfill her role, but she did not expect to fail. The part of her that might have been afraid seemed to have died along with Drake.
Conquering and occupying the keeps would provide them some protection from Maldor’s approaching forces. Bad news had followed their march across the valley to Felrook. Some of the scouts who had turned south after the pass had not returned. Those who made it back had reported a host more than ten thousand strong massed at the southern end of the valley. It was a large enough army to give them serious trouble, although probably insufficient to defeat them. Except for leaving scouts behind to watch them, Galloran had ignored the force. He had decided the enemy troops were there solely to take and hold the pass in order to cut off their retreat.
Before they reached Felrook, news arrived that the pass had fallen. A handful of the defenders left behind had escaped up the mountainside. The rest had perished.
Not long afterward, an eagle from Nicholas had told of a coup at Trensicourt. Nedwin had been ousted as regent, and the city was now in the hands of their enemies. Rachel tried not to dwell on how terrible Nedwin probably felt about that mess. At least it sounded like he had survived.
No resistance had awaited their forces on the plains surrounding Felrook. As with the rest of the march, all had remained quiet. The town beside the ferry was abandoned. But the three ke
eps and the wall protecting the ferry were filled beyond capacity.
A drinling ran up to Galloran, saluted, and detailed the readiness of his soldiers. He was a burly man in mismatched armor, his face smudged with dirt, and he spoke English too rapidly to be easily understood. Galloran acknowledged his report and issued a few instructions.
The drinlings had united with the rest of Galloran’s army on schedule. Rachel had been happy to find Io’s father, Ul, among them, leading the wild clan. His hair was now completely white, but he still appeared hearty and strong. According to Ul, the drinlings had met with virtually no opposition during their long, quick march across the continent.
Rachel grimly regarded the solid fortress. It was not the only keep that would come under attack tonight. Once Galloran had organized his forces, Ferrin had schooled the leaders about the keeps. West Keep, North Keep, and East Keep were all of similar design. The big wall around each provided the main line of defense. The tall, thick walls had a single entrance with two sets of gates. The space between the gates passed below trapdoors and arrow loops where defenders could abuse attackers from cover. Rachel could hardly imagine how much courage it would take to charge such strong defenses, armed only with a sword, ax, or bow.
Each keep contained a large yard, along with extensive stables and barracks for horses and soldiers. The commanders lived in the keeps themselves—large, sturdy buildings, but not particularly defensible. If attackers could breach the wall, the rest would be relatively straightforward.
Naman had referred to the defenses around the ferry as the fourth keep. For planning purposes, the name had evolved to South Keep. Although it had no formal keep and contained fewer buildings than the other fortresses around Felrook, the walls of the South Keep were higher.