Codex Alera 01 - Furies of Calderon

by Jim Butcher

  The wind began to blow from the north, bringing to Amara the scent of the distant Sea of Ice and of men and of steel. For a time, as distant light began to brush against the eastern horizon, all was silent. Tense anticipation settled over those inside the walls. In one of the barracks buildings, emptied now of men and filled with the children from the outbuildings and the town, children sang a lullaby together, the sound of it sweet and gentle.

  Amara pushed away from her darkened patch of wall and paced forward, toward the gates that faced out into the Marat lands beyond Garrison. The guards at the base of the walls stopped her, but Centurion Giraldi saw her and waved her past them. She mounted a ladder that led up to the battlements above the gate, where archers and firecrafters had gathered the most thickly, prepared to rain death down on anyone attempting to storm the gates of the town.

  Giraldi stood beside Pirellus, now decked out in armor of gleaming steel. The Parcian swordsman glanced at her and then out at the darkness. “There’s been no sign,” he said. “No balefires lit by the watchtowers.”

  Giraldi said quietly, “One of my men saw something earlier. A scout went to look.”

  Amara swallowed. “Has he come back?”

  “Not yet, Lady,” Giraldi said, his expression worried. “Not yet.”

  “Quiet,” said one of the legionares abruptly, a lanky young man with large ears. He leaned out, one hand lifting to his ear, and Cirrus stirred gently against Amara, telling her of the windcrafting the young man was working to listen.

  “A horse,” he said. “A horseman.”

  “Lights,” said Pirellus, and the command echoed down the walls. One by one, furylamps, brilliant and blue and cold lit along the walls, casting a glare out onto the predawn darkness beyond.

  For a long moment, nothing moved on the snow. And then they could all hear it, the sound of galloping hoof beats. Seconds later, Bernard plunged into the light atop a hard-ridden grey, with foam on its withers and blood on its flanks, torn flaps of skin hanging from the terrified beast where something had raked at it. Even as Bernard rode closer, the horse bucked and screamed, and Amara could scarcely understand how the Steadholder kept his seat and kept the animal streaking toward Garrison.

  “Open the gates!” Bernard shouted. “Let me in!”

  Giraldi waited until the last possible moment before barking a command, and the gates were thrown open and then shut again behind the frantic horse, almost before it was through them. A groom came to take the animal, but it reared and screamed, panicked.

  Bernard slid off the horse and swiftly away, but the frenzied animal slipped on the icy stones of the courtyard and collapsed onto its side, bleeding, wheezing. Amara could see the long rents in the beast’s flesh, where knives or claws had torn at it.

  “Get ready,” Bernard panted, turning and swiftly mounting the ladder to the battlements above the gates. The Steadholder, his eyes wide, face pale said, “The Cursor was right. There’s a horde out there. And about ten thousand of them are coming right behind me.”

  CHAPTER 36

  Amara swept her gaze out over the ground before the walls, stark and white and cold in the blue-white furylights, and then looked back at Bernard. “Are you all right?”

  The big Steadholder held up a hand to her, his breathing still heavy, and addressed Giraldi and Pirellus. “I couldn’t get close enough to tell much. Light troops, moving fast. A lot of them had bows, and I thought I saw some scaling poles.”

  Giraldi grimaced and nodded once. “Which clans?”

  “Wolf, Herdbane,” Bernard said. He leaned a shoulder against one of the battlements. Amara turned to a bucket of water hanging on a hook nearby and scooped out a drinking ladle, passing it to Bernard. He nodded to her and drank the ladle away. “Giraldi, I’ll need a sword, mail, arrows if you’ve any to spare.”

  “No,” Pirellus said, stepping forward. “Giraldi, you shouldn’t have given this civilian a horse, much less let him be on the walls when we’re expecting an attack.”

  Bernard squinted at the Knight Commander. “Young man, how long have you been in the Legions?”

  Pirellus faced Bernard squarely. “What matters is that I am in them now, sir. You are not. It is the purpose of the Legions to protect the people of the Realm. Now get off the wall and let us do our job.”

  “He stays,” Amara said, firmly. “Centurion, if there’s any mail that might fit me, have it brought as well.”

  Giraldi turned and pointed a finger at one of the legionares on the wall. The man immediately leapt down a ladder and dashed into one of the guardhouses. Both Bernard and Pirellus turned to blink at Amara.

  “No,” Bernard said.

  “I think not.”

  Both men frowned at one another.

  Amara let out an impatient breath. “Commander, you have sent your Knights Aeris to bring reinforcements, and those that remain are flying patrol overhead. They’re under strength and may need whatever help they can get. The Steadholder is a furycrafter of considerable strength and has military experience. He is within his rights as a Citizen to stand in defense of his steadholt.”

  Bernard scowled at Amara and said, “I don’t like it.”

  Pirellus nodded. “I must agree, Countess. You presumably do not have military experience beyond personal defense. I don’t like it either.”

  “Fortunately, I do not need either of you to like it.” Amara arched an eyebrow at Bernard as the legionare came running back up, both shoulders draped with coats of mail, one arm loaded down with weaponry. She took the mail he offered her, a long vest of interlocking rings, and took off her cloak to shove her arms into its padded undervest, and then into the mail itself. She started fumbling with the buckles, only to have Bernard push her fingers away and start cinching the buckles tight with practiced speed.

  “You shouldn’t be up here,” he said.

  “Because I’m a woman?” Amara pulled a cloak on over her shoulders again and buckled on a belt with a clip for her sword’s scabbard.

  “Because you’re green. Unblooded. It’s got nothing to do with you being a woman.”

  She glanced at him, arching an eyebrow.

  Bernard shrugged, tugging another buckle closed. “Almost nothing. Here, move your arms a bit, so that this will settle.”

  By the time she’d finished, Bernard had dumped his cloak in exchange for a mail shirt of his own and a steel cap whose flanges spread down over the back of his neck, while the metal guard pressed down over his nose. He strapped on the sword belt, while his eyes swept the ground outside the walls, then took up his bow.

  “Quiet,” said the big-eared legionare again, from down the wall. He tilted his head for a moment, then swallowed. The man looked down the wall at Pirellus and nodded. “Sir? Here they come.”

  Pirellus gave the man a nod, then said to Bernard and Amara, “Help if you wish, then. It’s your blood. But stay out of my way.” He looked up and down the wall and said, “Archers.”

  Amara watched as centurions repeated the command down the length of the wall on either side of her and men stepped up to the battlements, bows in hand, arrows resting on quivers beside them. They set arrows to the strings, eyes focused intently at the edge of the area lit by Garrison’s furylights, and held their bows half-raised. Tension made their forms gaunt, the harsh lights behind them casting their eyes into shadow, making them faceless. Amara heard a soldier not far away take in a deep breath and blow it out, as though impatient for it all to be finished.

  Her heart pounded faster, and she had to work to keep her breath from racing out of control. The mail on her shoulders had a solid, comforting weight to it, but something about the smell of the metal set her on edge and made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She put a hand on the hilt of the sword at her belt and felt her fingers shake. She wrapped them hard around the weapon’s hilt to stop anyone from noticing.

  Bernard stared thoughtfully out at the darkness, having not yet drawn an arrow to his bow. He shrugged one shoulder
, as though trying to settle the mail on it more comfortably. He took a step closer to her and said, quietly, “Afraid?”

  She frowned at him and shook her head. Even that gesture was too jerky. “Where are they?”

  “Out there. Outside the light. They’ll come into it as soon as they’ve massed for their charge.”

  “Ten thousand.” She pressed her lips together. “Ten thousand.”

  “Don’t focus on the numbers,” he said, in that same low tone. “This is a simple, solid defense. We have the wall, the light, the ground in front of us. They built Garrison here because it’s the best point of defense anywhere in the Valley. It gives us an enormous advantage.”

  Amara looked up at him again, then up and down the length of the wall. She couldn’t stop her voice from shaking. “But there are so few legionares.”

  “Easy,” Bernard rumbled. “That’s all right. Pirellus has his most experienced troops on the walls. Career fighting men, most of them with families behind them. The compulsory terms are down in the courtyard as reserves. These troops can fight ten times their number from this position with a good chance of victory, even without the Knights here. Pirellus and his men are the ones who are really going to win this battle. The legionares just have to hold the horde off of them until the Knights can bring their furies to bear on the Marat. We’ll bloody their noses, and as soon as we can determine who is leading them, the Knights will take him down.”

  “They’ll kill their hordemaster,” Amara said.

  “It discourages new hordemasters,” Bernard said. “Or that’s the idea. Once enough Marat are dead and their leader is gone, and they’ve not managed to break our defense, they won’t have the stomach for any more fighting.”

  She nodded, pressing her lips together. “All right. What can I do to help?”

  “Look for their leader. They don’t wear anything much beyond what a normal warrior does, so you just have to look for someone shouting orders near the center.”

  “And when I’ve found him?”

  Bernard drew an arrow and set it to the string of his bow, finally. “Point me at him. They should come in any moment now. Good fortune, Cursor.”

  “And you, Steadholder.”

  On her other side, Pirellus leaned a hand against a merlon and leaned a bit forward. “Ready,” he whispered. “Come on. We’re ready.”

  They came without warning. The Marat surged forward, thousands of screaming throats with one voice, plunging into the cold furylight like a sudden, living tide of muscle and bone. Their battle roar washed over Amara, deafening, terrifying, more sound than she would have believed could happen. Before she realized what she was doing, she was screaming, too, shouting out her fear and defiance, her sword in her hand, though she didn’t remember drawing it—and beside her, Pirellus, sword held high, did the same.

  “Archers!” he thundered, voice stentorian on the wall. “Loose!”

  And with the thrum of a hundred heavy bows, death went flying into the ranks of the charging Marat.

  Amara watched as the first rank of the enemy bucked and went down, only to be crushed by those coming behind them. Twice more, Pirellus cried to the archers, and twice more arrows flickered into their ranks, sending Marat sprawling and screaming, but doing nothing to stop the tide of bodies flooding toward Garrison’s walls.

  “Spears!” Pirellus barked, and along the walls the archers stepped back, while legionares bearing heavy shields and long, wickedly pointed spears stepped forward.

  Arrows driven by short, heavy Marat bows began to flicker over the tops of the walls, and Amara had to jerk her head to one side while a stone-tipped shaft flew past her face. Her heart surged with terror, and she crouched down enough to take her head from view as a prime target, while Pirellus, in his helmet, stood staring down at the oncoming Marat, ignoring the arrows that buzzed past him.

  The ground shook as the Marat reached the wall, a physical trembling that traveled up through the stones to Amara’s feet. She could see them, a sea of wild, inhuman eyes, teeth that stretched into animal’s fangs, and wolves ran beside them, among them, like great, gaunt shadows. The Marat reached the wall, where the gate suddenly shook with the blow of a tree trunk being held by a dozen hands, used as a ram. Several long, slender poles arched up into the air, studded along their lengths with short spikes, and once they came to rest against the walls, Marat began to climb the poles, nimble and swift, their weapons held in their hands, while companions beneath them fired arrows up at the defenders on the walls.

  It was too loud to be believed, screams splitting the air, making any kind of communication nearly impossible. Arrows flew thicker than raindrops in a storm, their dark heads gleaming in the furylight, shattering where they struck stone or good Aleran steel—but Amara watched as one grizzled old veteran pitched back from the wall, the dark shaft of an arrow piercing his throat, and another man dropped motionless in his tracks, six inches of haft and fletching showing from the burst socket of his eye.

  “Hold!” Pirellus bellowed. “Hold!”

  The legionares fought with ruthless efficiency. Regardless of the incredible grace of the Marat rushing up the scaling poles, they thrust home spears with deadly accuracy into Marat flesh. Pale barbarians fell from the walls, back into the savage throng beneath, drawing further cries from those below. Again and again, Legion spearmen repelled the Marat assaults, shoving the scaling poles back down, driving the warriors clambering up them back with cold steel. The legionares fought together, each man with his shield partner, so that while one would engage the enemy’s weapon, the other would drive a spear home with a short, hard thrust at the vitals or a leg, toppling the attacker from their precarious position atop the walls. Blood stained the Aleran spears, the legionares’ shields and armor, and spattered thick on the battlements, mute testimony to the courage of the Marat attackers.

  Below Amara’s feet, she could hear the steady thud and thump of the ram being driven at the gates — but suddenly found herself whirling to the walls as a savage-eyed Marat swung himself up between two merlons from a scaling pole and swept a heavy wooden club at her head.

  Amara ducked the blow, dodged a second swipe that came straight down at her shoulder and whirled to whip her blade across the Marat’s heavy thighs, opening the pale flesh in a sudden river of blood. The Marat screamed and toppled toward her, club flailing. Amara moved lightly to one side, thrusting her short blade at the Marat’s ribs as he fell past, feeling the weapon sink home, the quivering, twisting jerk of the Marat’s scream something that coursed through the metal and into her hands. Half revolted, exultant at having survived the exchange, she let out a scream and jerked the sword back, leaping back from the Marat warrior as he tumbled limply down to the courtyard beneath the wall.

  She looked up, panting, to find Pirellus staring at her. He nodded, once, and then called, “Try to throw them back down the wall on the outside. We don’t want clutter where our own troops are moving around.” Then he turned back to his study of the ground below, almost absently frowning when a stone arrow-tip shattered against the crest of his helmet.

  Amara chanced a look over the wall, out at the chaos below, and arrows whistled through the air toward her as soon as she did. She jerked her head back and down, to find Bernard crouched next to her. The Steadholder, too, took a glance over the wall, before half rising to a crouch, to lift his bow, drawing the arrow back to his cheek. He aimed for a breath, then loosed the arrow, which threaded its way between a pair of legionares to sink into the ribs of a Marat with a steel axe who had gained the wall over a stunned legionare with a dent in his helmet. The force of the arrow’s impact drove the Marat back over the wall, and he vanished as he fell.

  “Spotted their general yet?” Bernard called to her.

  “I can’t see anything!” Amara shouted. “They shoot whenever I look!”

  “No helmet,” Bernard said. “I’d shoot at you, too.”

  “That’s a comfort, thanks,” Amara said, wry, and the S
teadholder grinned at her, before standing up to loose another arrow into the crowd below and drop back down behind the wall again.

  Amara stood up to take another look — but Bernard caught her wrist. “Don’t,” he said. “They’re getting packed in down there. Keep your head down.”

  “What?”

  In answer, he nodded toward Pirellus. Amara turned her head to look at the man and saw him point a finger off to one side at a pair of men, standing behind heavy ceramic pots, and three armored Knights who stood behind them, with no weapons in their hands.

  “Firepots?” Amara asked, and Bernard nodded. She watched, as Pirellus lifted his sword and then dropped it, a swift signal.

  The two men with the firepots—earthcrafters, surely, for only they could lift the man-sized pots of coals so easily— heaved them up and over the wall, to crash down into the Marat on either side of the gate.

  Pirellus signaled the three men behind them, and the Knights, as one, lifted their arms and faces to the sky, crying out over the screams and din of battle.

  The fire answered them in a roar that deafened Amara and rattled her teeth against one another. Heat swept up, and sudden, brilliant light, scarlet and murderous in contrast to the cool blue furylights, a wind that roared upward, lifting Amara’s hair up off her neck. A column of fire shaped like some huge winged serpent rose above the battlements, curled back down, and crashed to the earth below.