by Matthew Ward
"Edric?" bellowed Torev, the consternation in his dark eyes giving way to joy. "By the Lady, what brings you here? And how did you breach my perimeter?"
"It's not much of a perimeter," I pointed out, returning his grin. I'd forgotten the sheer, unassailable joy Torev provoked. From his manner, you'd never guess he was facing certain death. The same could not be said for his companions, whose expressions were dour in the extreme.
Without ado, Torev dismissed the sergeant and his men, restored our weapons, then introduced his companions. The officer was a Captain Dasharov. I recognised the name, but not the man. He was stiffly polite, and I sensed whatever conversation we had interrupted had not been going well. The third member of the group was Torev's squire, a young noblewoman named Emmeline Orova.
Her identity took me a little by surprise, not because she seemed barely out of childhood – although the boyish cut of her blonde hair didn't help that – but because I hadn't known, until that moment, that Torev had a squire. I knew he'd intended to rebuild his order, but I hadn't realised he'd begun. Moreover, I was a little bemused to that a member of so noble a house would consider a vocation so far from the splendour of their mansions. But though Emmeline possessed the patrician nose and fine features for which her bloodline was known, her expression and greeting contained none of the hauteur.
"So much for the quiet winter," I observed when the introductions were concluded.
"Not by my choice, I can assure you." Torev smoothed back his beard – or rather he tried to. Even in civilisation, it was an unruly black nest. While on the march? It was a tangle thicker than any outside Fellhallow. "This merry band of fallen marched out of Ardovo a fortnight ago, and have been running riot ever since. They've already laid waste to Edrost, Teravor and Salkard, and we really couldn't wait for spring before we did something about them."
Now was not the time to tell Torev of Salkard's true fate. "Do they have a plan?" I asked instead.
"Not so it's been obvious," said Dasharov. "This army's the same as those we faced in the summer. It's driven by malice and very little else."
Torev gestured out across the hill top. "One march they stole on us – one! – and then they found reinforcements from somewhere, and we didn't. We're barely half what marched out. The rest are dead or fled, and I can't say I blame them."
"You've had no help from the Empire?" asked Calda.
"I sent messengers. With the ambassador gone, that's all I could do. Look, not that it isn't a pleasure to see any of you, but why in the Lady's name did you come here?"
"It's..." I broke off as a deep-throated horn blast echoed across the hilltop. "We don't have time for the full story. Trust me. Help's coming."
A frown crept over Dasharov's thin face. "The Hadari are too far away reach us, even if our messengers did get through."
"Not the Hadari army," I said. "I'm talking about serathi."
"Angels?" Emmeline's tone held amusement and pity. Her blue eyes sparkled. "You're asking us to believe angels are coming to save us?"
Torev turned his intense stare on me, taking the measure of my words and my poise. "That does seem a little unlikely, Edric."
Fine words, I thought, from a man preparing to fight an army of reincarnated damned. I hoped I'd have been quicker to believe were our positions reversed.
Another horn blast sounded from the valley.
"You don't have to believe, but we don't have time to argue," I said testily. "Tell your soldiers that if they see an angel, it's on our side."
Torev snorted. "That we can do. After all, what harm is there?"
The horn blared again. A Tressian sergeant shouted a warning from the wall. "Sir! They're on the move!"
Torev waved acknowledgement, and turned to Dasharov. "I'll need you on the south wall. I wonder, Warleader Cadvar, if you'd take command of the east – the west side of the hill's a sheer cliff, so they can't get in there – Dasharov will find you a tabard and a few sergeants to relay your orders."
Calda broke into a vicious grin. "My honour, commander." She looked up at Dasharov. "Can that horse carry two?"
"When necessary."
"Good." Calda hauled herself up behind his saddle. A moment later, the two vanished eastwards in a flurry of hooves, mud and snow.
Torev turned to face his squire. "Emmeline? Let's assume the ambassador's not mad. Spread the word. It would be a terrible shame to fight our rescuers by mistake."
"At once, master." With a twitch of her reins, the squire was on her way. I saw from her expression that she still didn't believe me, but she knew better than to argue the point with Torev.
"I hope you're right about this," Torev muttered. "Dasharov wanted to fight our way out. I think he'd rather make one glorious stand than starve to death up here. Can't say I blame him."
"The serathi will be here," rumbled Jamar.
"If you say so. And if not, then at least I've gained three more defenders. Even if they are posturing easterners." He grinned.
"I'm not the one still on my horse when all my men are fighting on foot," I pointed out.
Torev laughed. "Harsh words Edric, harsh words. I'm the commander; I have to see, and be seen, more clearly than everyone else. Besides, if I catch sight of whichever damned soul's giving this lot their orders, I'll ride the bastard down and fillet him. I can't do that so easily on my own two feet."
He'd spoken matter-of-factly, but I knew that he meant every word – even if that meant riding alone into a massed regiment of fallen.
"Let us hope it doesn't come to that," said Jamar.
"Indeed." Torev stared moodily downhill. "It looks like our moment has come."
The assault came as a great wedge of fallen legionnaires, a mass of dark armour and pale flesh, surging up the hill like a tide along the shore, their locked shield held high against the defenders' fire. The air filled of the whine of speeding bolts and the rattle of cranks as the Tressians fired and then desperately reloaded. The crossbow was a slow weapon, and a crude one at that, but it required less talent than the longbows of my countrymen. Many warleaders mocked it as the weapon of a simpleton, but few had done so after fighting uphill into a hail of bolts.
I felt a moment's sympathy for the fallen. It wasn't so long ago that I'd made an assault up that very slope. Most of the shots thudded into the wall of shields, but plenty found gaps and the softer flesh beyond. It wasn't enough. Fallen didn't feel pain or fear as the living did, and would fight on through appalling losses. Here and there, an pale attacker tumbled into the snow, but still the wedge pressed quickly on, trailing its dead.
"How many?" I asked Torev.
"Maybe a few hundred? It's a fraction of what's been lurking down there. Either they're trying to make us exhaust ammunition, or they're busy on the other approaches as well." He glanced back over his shoulder. "Where has Emmeline gotten to?"
"I can go and look for her?"
Torev shook his head. "She'll be back, and I don't have time to rescue you if you get lost."
He watched as a young crossbowman tracked his target for a moment before firing. Through luck or judgement, the bolt sped through the air to find a gap in the advancing shields and buried itself in the skull of a fallen behind.
"Good, lad," Torev reached down from his saddle and patted the man on the shoulder. "Don't waste your shots! A bolt buried in a shield's no good to anyone."
An anarchic mix of archers and crossbowmen emerged from behind the wedge of black shields to return fire. Screams rang out, and Tressians toppled backwards into the snow. Our numbers, already thin, were dwindling.
"Your promised me reinforcements, Edric," Torev breathed. "Where are they?"
"I don't know."
A breathless Emmeline arrived, the hooves of her steed churning the mud and the snow. "Master, Warleader Cadvar sends word of a second column moving against the east wall."
"How many?" Torev demanded.
"At least twice as many as here."
Torev swore under his brea
th and began bellowing orders. Sergeants took up the cry, and a quarter of the Tressian soldiers arrayed around the gatehouse and marched smartly away. Tired and nervous they might have been, but not a man or woman in those ranks dropped step. Tressia had always produced disciplined soldiers. These, it seemed, were no exception.
"Jamar?" I said, my eyes still on the departing warriors. "You go as well. Do what you can to stop Calda doing something... impulsive. One near-death experience in a week should be enough for her but, in case that it isn't..."
For once, Jamar didn't argue, and clapped a massive hand on my shoulder. "Of course, my prince. Lady Emmeline? I leave him in your care. Do not give me cause to regret it."
Jamar had no official standing, and had spoken jovially, but from Emmeline's expression, she took his words as seriously as she would have done if Sidara herself had spoken. "It would be an honour."
"It may not be," Torev put in drily, "because if anything happens to you, it's coming out of the ambassador's hide. I assume you're staying here, Edric?"
"I am indeed. Someone has to stop you from hurting yourself, like you did at Darka."
Emmeline shot me a wary look, but Torev roared with laughter and slapped me on the back, forgetting, I'm sure, that a mail-clad hand lands with considerably more force than an unburdened one.
"So that's the way of it?" He shot out a hand to correct my stagger. "You know full well that legionnaire would never have landed a blow had I not been busy stopping his rotting comrade from splitting you like a stump."
I struck a defiant pose. "All I remember is killing the fellow before he finished you off." I was still embarrassed by the whole episode. The first time I'd been on a battlefield for months, and I'd nearly been killed within minutes. Torev had indeed saved my life, but he hadn't saved me from a pair of eerily similar lectures from Arianwyn and Jamar.
"Master, people are staring," Emmeline's tone held a mild rebuke.
She wasn't wrong. Tressians had turned to see what had amused their commander so. They couldn't have heard much, but they saw that Torev had clearly put the useless foreigner – me – in his place, and laughed along with him.
"Let them stare!" Torev declared, then continued in a voice too quiet for any but Emmeline and I to hear. "Leadership, my dear Emmeline, sometimes requires you remain serene when disaster lurks outside your door. I am seldom serene, but laughter serves well enough."
"It's undignified," Emmeline objected.
"That it is, and I'm grateful for it. You can't have dignity without pride, and thousands have died in that squalid cause. I often think the Republic would be in a better state if dignity were less slavishly valued."
Emmeline fell silent, doubtless thinking Torev's words a criticism of her family.
"Face front!" Torev bellowed. "I don't want to die today because you're all making eyes at me!" His tone lacked the rebuke of his words, but the defenders turned outward all the same.
"Emmeline," Torev was speaking quietly again. "Please present my compliments to Captain Dasharov and Warleader Cadvar, and ask them to keep me advised of their status. I've had my fill of surprises."
"I'm supposed to be safeguarding the ambassador," Emmeline objected.
"He'll be safe enough in my company for a few minutes, I daresay," Torev said drily. "Go on, be off with you."
"Yes master." Emmeline turned her steed and galloped off.
"She'll be a fine paladin one day," Torev said conversationally. "I just have to unburden her of the nonsense her family's put in her head... Oh, hello."
A chorus of angry horns sounded from further down the slope, echoed by a booming, wordless war-cry as the fallen unlocked their shields and charge full pelt for the ruined walls.
"Ready my lads and lasses!" Torev made his way to the front of the gatehouse's defenders, and drew his sword. "Let's send them back into the darkness!"
Crossbows sang one last time, and were abandoned in favour of swords. The fallen were now too close for it to be worth reloading. I walked to the edge of the battered wall, and stared downhill. The fallen were charging home in a line not only deeper than ours, but that also overlapped us at either end. Had we a proper defence to work with, or twice the swords, victory could yet have been ours. Instead, the only question at hand was whether we'd be overwhelmed before or after the east wall fell. Without the serathi, we were doomed.
It was then, as if in answer to my thoughts, that a brilliant clarion split the cold air. It came again, and the sky filled with black wings and golden spears.
The frontmost fallen skidded to a halt. Harsh voices called out orders, gathering their strung-out formation into something that could defend against the oncoming host. The attackers' flanks drew inward, but never really gained cohesion. There were simply too many fallen milling around, getting in each others' way. They hadn't expected this turn, and who could blame them?
The first wave of serathi struck without slowing. They carried their spears like lances, the impetus of their charge driving the weapons deep. Here and there spears shattered against shields, but most blades sank deep into pale, dead flesh.
As the screams of fallen split the air, the first wave of serathi released their spears and soared high. One of the fallen grabbed at an attacker, hauling her down into a mass of his fellows. Steel gleamed, and dark bodies thumped into the muddy snows, but the serathi was surrounded. I couldn't see how she'd survive long against such adversity. As it transpired, she didn't have to. A second wave struck mere moments after the first. The fallen ranks shuddered as fresh spears struck home. Azyra was at their forefront, a dozen graces clustered close, and she led their spears to her grounded sister's aid.
One grace, spear abandoned after the first strike, rose up out of the fray. Wings straining, she soared skyward, each of her hands locked tight about a pale throat. A wing beat later, she opened her hands, flung back her wings and dived into the fray once more. Bereft of support, her victims plummeted, slamming into the mass of bodies pushing their way over the wall.
Azyra's attack wave fought on foot now, driving the enemy back with sword and outswept wings. As when I'd seen Adanika fight Scarface and his men, the serathi battled with a fluidity that I knew I'd never master. Every strike, every parry, every riposte flowed effortlessly into the next. Were it not for the blood and the screams, I could have been watching a perfectly judged theatrical performance – which, in a way, I supposed it was.
The serathi Azyra's attack had rescued was on her feet once more. Amber light shone through rents in her armour, and it reminded me of the flash heralding Irina's death. She didn't seem to be at all slowed by her injuries, but ran to rejoin the fight. Her sword flashed out at waist height, splitting a fallen almost into two. Whipping the blade back, she spun into a crouch and hamstrung another.
I shook my head in wonder. All stresses and suspicions of dealing with the serathi these last few days now seemed well worth the effort. Scarce three hundred serathi were slicing their way through the dark horde like a farmer scything through wheat. It was a glorious sight.
"I told you there'd be reinforcements!" I had to shout to be heard.
Torev shook his head. "On this occasion, at least, you don't disappoint," he bellowed back.
I wished he'd chosen a different form of words. I still felt a pang of guilt that he'd received no aid from my people. Then I reminded myself that it was Torev's mistake that had seen him stranded upon this hilltop, not my absence.
As yet another wave of serathi swooped into the fray, a trickle of black-clad warriors fled downhill, abandoning their comrades to their fate. With that, the formation collapsed, and the trickle became a flood. A handful of fallen fought on, driven by rage or desperation, but they were too few to prevail against the righteous onslaught of the serathi. Not that those who fled fared any better, for Azyra seemed determined that no fallen would leave the field alive. Heavenly trumpets sounded once again, and the host streamed off in pursuit.
How the Tressians cheered! Men and
women who had thought themselves doomed minutes before now saw salvation delivered from on high and rejoiced.
The approach to the gatehouse lay thick with bodies, the trail stretching through the snows like a livid black scar. A thousand fallen, at least, had been slain upon the crest, and the serathi now hunted at least twice as many on the slopes below. I hadn't even drawn my sword.
*******
As it turned out, the attack on the eastern wall had been larger than the one I'd witnessed. It had also actually reached the defenders, and casualties there had been heavy. Gladly, Calda and Jamar were not amongst them. In fact, neither had suffered even so much as a scratch. To start with, I assumed that this was because Jamar had successfully kept Calda out of the fighting, as I'd asked. But, I soon discovered Calda had fought in the front lines for the entire battle, and had been hailed as much a hero as the host of serathi who had descended upon the east wall whilst Azyra had led the attack on the north.
When I asked Jamar about this, he shrugged and said "I tried."
By contrast, not so much as a single fallen had attacked Dasharov's wall, so the captain had sent nearly all his forces east to aid Calda. Without his quick thinking, and his reinforcements, it was unlikely she'd have held out – not that any of us pointed that out to Calda, of course.
The serathi did not return from their pursuit, but there was no doubt that they'd made the impression they'd intended. There wasn't a soldier on the hilltop who didn't have his or her own tale to tell about the avenging angels. I heard many Tressians attribute the intervention to Sidara – too many for my taste – but that was a problem for another day.