by Duncan Lay
Fallon snarled a curse and dropped the empty crossbow, beckoning to Devlin.
Down below, Swane’s horse had collapsed and Swane jumped clear. He was still an easy target as the little group milled around, turning their own beasts to flee or trying to protect themselves.
Devlin smoothly slipped the next crossbow into Fallon’s hand and he sighted again on Swane. He would not miss again.
*
“Get me out of here! Protect me!” Swane shrieked.
Finbar raised his hands then dropped them, his eyes wide. “They are blocking me!” he cried.
Swane could not waste more time on him. He could sense another quarrel was coming soon and Zorva’s power could not stop it either. He had tried to block the last one and felt the terror as it refused to obey him.
He grabbed for Kane’s hand.
“Shield me with your body. Quick!” he ordered.
Kane hesitated and Swane saw the guard captain’s eyes flicker across to Dina before he extended a hand down and began to pull Swane up, behind him, not in front. Swane reacted instinctively, tearing his hand free and dropping down. A heartbeat later, another quarrel smashed into Kane’s back, right where Swane would have been if he had allowed himself to be swung up into the saddle.
The guard captain did not even have time to scream. His body was flung forwards by the brutal impact, going limp as his spine was smashed to shards. Swane grabbed hold of the twitching leg and flipped it out of the stirrup, letting the body drop down on the other side. He swung himself up into the saddle and then released Zorva’s power into the beast, making it break into a mad gallop, faster than it had ever gone before, back towards safety. Behind him, the rest of them were also racing for cover but he did not care about them. His first thought was saving himself, his second was why Kane had acted like that and what signal Dina had given the man—and then he wondered if Fallon had another quarrel. He could not resist turning his head to look.
*
Fallon raised his last crossbow, trying to clear his mind of his two misses. Already there was no chance of making sure Dina was dead. At least he could still get Swane and redeem himself. Strangely, although the foul Prince was more than eighty yards away now and galloping madly, he liked this shot more. It allowed him to think just about where the bolt needed to go, not anything else. But as he nestled the butt into his shoulder and judged where Swane would be, the Prince glanced back. Instantly Fallon’s vision seemed to swim and it felt like he was aiming down at Prince Cavan, not Prince Swane. He was horribly reminded of the night when he thought he was saving Bridgit by killing Swane in the castle garden, only to learn he had murdered his friend and Prince instead.
It took him a heartbeat to crush the guilt and anguish and loose, feeling the butt kick into his shoulder as the poisoned quarrel snapped out. He held his breath while Devlin poked his head up from the battlement to see where it would land. All watched it arc through the air and sweep down—and keep dropping. Fallon cursed himself again. A normal quarrel would have flown higher and truer but the heavy metal quarrel dropped like a stone, aimed right where Swane’s shoulderblades would be—except it fell a yard behind the horse and vanished into the dust, right where Swane would have been a heartbeat earlier.
“Loose! Everyone! Aim at Swane!” Fallon roared down the line.
His men took a moment to snap out of their shock. Their plan had failed. They bent to the giant bows and released but Fallon knew before the quarrels even came down that they would miss. Besides, these were wooden quarrels and Swane turned to use his powers to swat them out of the sky like so many pesky summer flies.
“What the bogging hells do we do now?” Devlin asked.
Fallon tossed down the third empty crossbow.
Swane and the others were disappearing out of range now, beyond the motionless regiment of Kottermanis. Except they were no longer motionless, they were moving, marching swiftly towards the gate. And he did not have a single loaded crossbow left.
“Back! Back to the castle!” he roared, his voice ragged.
“I’ve got the poison. There’s still some left, so we can try that again at the castle gate,” Devlin said.
Fallon forced a smile to his face. There would be no second chance. Swane would not be so foolish. There was only one thing left to do and that was see if he could exchange his men’s lives for his own. He felt sick. How could he had missed? If only he had run with Bridgit …
They clattered down the stairs and hurried back towards the castle. The men along the route watched them approach with hopeful faces, which fell like stones when they saw Fallon shake his head.
“We’ll hold up in the castle and try again. Nothing to worry about, lads,” Fallon told them, hating himself when they smiled back at that.
“Doesn’t look good for us, does it?” Devlin said.
“We could use a joke about now,” Fallon admitted.
The farmer sighed. “I cannot see anything to laugh about now. But at least I’ll be with my friends at the end.”
Brendan slapped him on the back. “We can still beat them. They still have to get into the castle.”
“Stay strong. We can still get through this,” Padraig said. Of all of them, he seemed the most calm. Fallon wondered if he’d found a flask of something.
Fallon exchanged a look with Devlin. “There is still a chance,” he said. “I might be able to get the rest of you out alive. Slaves, but alive.”
“And how can you do that? Hand yourself over to Swane?” Brendan asked. “Piss on that. I would rather die than live like that.”
“Besides, I fear they’re not going to give us the chance. I don’t think Swane liked nearly being turned into a pincushion,” Devlin added.
*
“How did that happen?” Swane screamed, his eyes wild.
Dina reined in her horse, trying to control her hammering heart. She had seen her chance to get rid of Swane out there, given Kane the signal that should have put Swane at Fallon’s mercy. But somehow Swane had sensed that and survived. Now she had to do the same.
“I told you we should not have gone out there. I knew it was a trap!” she declared hotly, matching his fury with some of her own. But it only turned his attention on her.
“What was Kane doing? And what did you tell him?” Swane snarled.
“Nothing! He was an idiot and he paid the price with his life,” she replied swiftly.
“I would have paid the price,” Swane said with a rare fury.
Dina said nothing, seeing he was not to be reasoned with in this mood. Fortunately for her, Durzu rode up at that moment.
“What happened?” he demanded.
“Betrayal!” Swane yelled, froth at the corner of his lips.
Durzu nodded. “Then we shall kill them all,” he said grimly.
“No!” Swane cried.
Durzu turned, the look of surprise on his face almost comical, except Dina knew her own face must look the same.
“Not kill them?”
“I want as many alive as possible. Death is too easy for them. And I don’t want Fallon to die until I am ready.”
Durzu smiled grimly. “Then it shall be as you say.”
He turned to the nearest regiment and roared out a series of orders. Instantly they began to run towards the city, followed by another, then another, while a fourth prepared to follow and a fifth began to line up as well.
CHAPTER 74
“How are we going to defend the castle, sir?” Bran asked.
“Casey, take fifty men and watch the back wall. I think they’ll go for the front gate first. If you see anything, pull back to the main keep and send word to me.”
“What do we do?” Devlin asked.
“We’ll line the walls and try and get Swane to come in close again. If they won’t talk, then we have to make them talk. They can take the outer walls but they’ll struggle to get into the keep. If we hold on for long enough, they’ll have to speak to us. And then I can make a deal. Meanwh
ile, we’ll hit them with everything when they’re in the square. If they bring up archers then we pull back to the towers and gatehouse. These walls were built for a reason. Let’s use them.”
They hurried away, looking purposeful and he strode up onto the wall, keeping his hands behind his back, so nobody could see them shaking. His mistakes had doomed all these men, Gaelland’s best. All that was left was to try and save a few of them.
He spotted Padraig, sipping from a small flask.
“What are you doing?” he snapped. “I thought you said you wouldn’t touch another drop until your dying day?”
Padraig swallowed, his eyes screwed shut with pleasure. “Well, now, I think this probably counts as it,” he said, with a wink. “For me, anyway. But if I have anything to do with it, then not for you.”
“Well, you were the one who came here. You could be sailing off to a life of luxury right now.”
“Are you mad? An island run by my daughter? I’d rather be here!”
They shared a laugh, Fallon enjoying that his men were listening and joining in. The laughter swelled as the joke was retold along the wall—and then it died as the first Kottermanis rushed into the square, shields held high. Fallon watched as they flooded into the open space, spreading left and right to form a long line. Fallon knew the square could hold tens of thousands. But two regiments of Kottermanis seemed to fill it rather rapidly.
“Will they wait and talk?” Padraig wondered.
“No,” Fallon said grimly, as the massed ranks advanced again, shields locked tight.
He turned left and right and waved his arms. “Don’t wait! Loose!” he bellowed.
The rest of the double-sized bows launched their long missiles. Some bounced off the cobbles before slamming into legs, others sailed high over the Kottermani heads—but most thumped home into the packed ranks, driving through shields and armor to send men flying.
The gaps filled up as fast as they opened and Fallon cursed the Kottermani discipline. Regular crossbows began to loose now, the sound of iron heads striking steel helms and wooden shields a mixture of thuds and bangs. A litter of wounded and dead was being left behind but the Kottermanis still kept coming. The big bows had reloaded and again sent their long missiles streaking out into the tight ranks, punching men over two at a time. The Kottermani advance began to slow and he hoped they might turn this back. Then he cursed again.
A third regiment entered the square and this one had bows in their hands, not shields.
“The men behind! Aim at them!” Fallon shouted, cupping his hands around his mouth to be heard over the noise of battle.
But although the crossbowmen responded, their rate of fire was too slow. The Kottermanis ran forwards, catching up to the first two, heavily armed regiments swiftly. They were barely a hundred yards away and Fallon knew what was coming next.
“Into the towers! Quick!” he roared.
A few men paused to loose one more time before breaking apart and heading either to the towers on each corner or the main gatehouse. Fallon made sure all were going before joining them. He saw the Kottermani archers stop and bend their bows and then abandoned all pretence of dignity and sprinted for the open doorway. He slid the last pace, Brendan throwing out a huge arm to stop him. He could hear the ominous rush of the arrows and then it sounded as though hail was striking the castle. He turned to see white-feathered arrows bouncing off the battlement.
“Well, we’re safe enough here—but how do we stop them now?” Devlin asked.
Fallon strode over to the arrow slits, designed to give an arbalester a safe place to aim down. Some faced out across the square, others aimed only downwards, covering the gate itself.
“I want five men to load for me. The rest of you, find yourself one of these and begin to pick them off,” he ordered. “They don’t have a battering ram, so they’re going to struggle to get into those gates.”
“Yet,” Devlin muttered.
Fallon ignored him and accepted a loaded crossbow. He eased forwards to see the Kottermanis break ranks and race towards the gate, no doubt thinking themselves protected from defensive fire by the arrows that still clanged and clattered off the stonework. It would be a lucky arrow indeed that got into one of the downward-facing arrow slits in the gatehouse and, even if they did, the stonework was angled so that an arrow from below would waste itself on the ceiling, rather than strike the man there.
Fallon hefted his borrowed crossbow and suppressed the urge to curse himself for his earlier failure. Nobody had paid the price yet but it was surely a matter of time. The only thing was to hurt these Kottermanis and keep hurting them until they backed off and talked.
He sighted on an officer and released smoothly, watching the quarrel smash the man backwards. He held out the empty crossbow and it was taken by one set of hands, another loaded one pressed into his palm. Again he sighted and this time picked off a tall man with a huge moustache, sending the quarrel into the middle of his face and spreading the moustache across the square.
More Kottermanis were pushing forwards now, big men with axes who swung them furiously at the thick timbers of the gates. Fallon picked them off, one after the other, every shot going exactly where he wanted it to, as if to mock him for his earlier failures. The men behind him reloaded swiftly, so there was a never-ending supply of loaded crossbows. The Kottermanis had to step over their dead and dying comrades now to reach the gates, and even using screens of men with shields held high could not stop Fallon. The round shields did not link together properly and he sent quarrels through seemingly impossible gaps, throwing back yet another man in a spray of blood.
Archers targeted the arrow slits and the sound of steel crashing into the stone was never-ending. But they had to be right at the gate to loose at the arrowslits and there was no room for them there. Fallon ducked as one managed to fly through, but it merely struck the ceiling above him, crushing the arrowhead, then bounced, spent, off his shoulder. He leaned down, sighted and put a quarrel into the space between an archer’s neck and chest. The man sank down but Fallon did not give him a second glance, instead holding out his hand for another weapon.
“This can’t be their only plan,” Padraig said. “They won’t be able to get near the gates soon.”
The thunder of axe blows had changed to a mere patter and Fallon paused, out of targets for a moment.
“We’re beating the bastards, lads!” he shouted, before bowling over yet another axeman.
The axemen fell back then and Fallon straightened up, his earlier fears replaced with exultation, only for Bran to call out a warning.
“They are bringing up rams now!”
Fallon joined him at one of the narrow slits looking out over the square, to see a fourth regiment arrive, dragging along a pair of trees suspended on ropes.
“We’ll pick them off as well,” Fallon said confidently, then grabbed Brendan. “Take ten men and check the gate. We can’t be trapped in here,” he said.
He took over one of the forward-facing slits and loosed at the men carrying the rams, although there were scores of men with shields clustered around them. Crossbows from the gatehouse and the two towers felled a handful of men at the rams, but there were plenty of others to take their place and Fallon changed back to the downward-facing arrowslit as the rams arrived and the Kottermanis raced them up at the gates, swinging them so they crashed together into the wood, a sound that echoed through the gatehouse.
Fallon loosed as fast as men could hand him a crossbow and the swingers soon joined the axemen in screaming piles outside the gate. But each crash was getting louder and he didn’t like the sound the wood was making as it tried to withstand the attacks.
There was a gap between the Kottermani helms and the neckline of their armor. It was a small target but to Fallon it seemed as easy as sinking a knife into a lamb chop on his plate. If he struck at the back of the neck they dropped instantly, if he struck at the side, sinking the shaft deep into the neck and down into the chest cavit
y, they dropped kicking and writhing and if he struck at the front they staggered around, painting their fellow soldiers in crimson before they fell.
“Fallon!” Devlin hit him on the shoulder and he cursed as his quarrel flew wide, sinking into a tree trunk instead.
“What?” he snarled.
“Horns,” Devlin said simply.
Fallon tossed the empty crossbow back to his loader and followed Devlin to the doorway, where the noise from below was not as intense. Sure enough the warning horns were sounding. He risked a look back towards the keep and saw men standing there, waving frantically.
“That’s where that other regiment got to,” he said grimly. “We’ll have to get back to the keep.” He grabbed Padraig. “Send word to Casey to pull back to the keep and barricade the door in from the kitchen garden. They can only fit two men at a time there, so he should be able to hold that easily enough.”
The old wizard nodded and slipped away, picking up one of his magicked birds from where they sat patiently on an arrowslit facing into the courtyard.
“But how do we get back to the keep through that?” Devlin asked, gesturing out to where white-feathered arrows seethed on the battlement and cobbles like a steel-tipped rain. “We’ll lose half our men to those arrows.”
Fallon spat. “Only one thing for it,” he said. “Stop! All stop!”
The crossbowmen at the slits and the loaders all paused, staring at him in surprise.