All but one. Like the rest of the southern realm, Sallner’s district was a slum. Efforts had been made over the centuries to bring the district up to modern standards, but few, save patrols of Wardsmen charged with monitoring the south’s activities, set foot there. Most Sallnerians lived in communities on the Territory Bridge, anyway, a strip of land bordered by the Great Sea and connecting the main body of Crotaria to the southern realm. What remained of the southern realm.
“What reconnaissance do we have?” Aidan asked, studying a map of the city.
“Tyrnen’s student contact inside Sharem estimates the force within the city to be thirty strong. If we—”
“How did such a small force take one of our key cities from us so easily?”
Edmund gaped at him as if the answer should be obvious. “We believed Darinia to be our friends, Aidan. The Wardsmen in Torel District would not have been prepared for an attack orchestrated by former allies.”
“Leaston and Sallner Districts?” Aidan asked. “Are they under Darinia’s control?”
“We should assume as much. Tyrnen’s sources said that the gates have not opened since the Darinians took the city—no one in, no one out. They could smuggle clansmen across the border into each district until they’re ready for a large-scale attack.”
“Dawn’s light,” Aidan cursed. “We only brought two hundred men. You’re telling me we could be marching into battle against all the clans?”
Edmund shook his head. “Unlikely. Romen’s death has thrown the clans into turmoil. The chiefs are probably fighting amongst themselves to determine who will ascend to war chief. Nichel is the most likely candidate, but she has not yet come of age. That’s why we need to strike now, while the wildlanders sort themselves out.”
Aidan flinched. The slur stung like a blow. Until the day his mother had declared war on the west, he had only heard the term muttered by drunken tavern dwellers, and they had been promptly booted from the establishment. Hearing it twice in the span of as many days was a sharp reminder of just how quickly his life had spun out of control.
“There is still time to reconsider this,” he said. “We could—”
Edmund yawned and covered his mouth with a fist. “I’m quite tired. You can show yourself out.”
At mid-morning of the eighth day, when Sharem was three leagues away, snow began to fall. Aidan called for a final stop and looked at his father’s tent. A soft ball of light glowed within. He set his shoulders and trudged forward. Deep snow encouraged his reluctance. He nodded to the guards out front and went through the flap. Edmund stood poring over his maps. A squat lamp sat in one corner of the table.
“What is our plan?” Edmund asked as Aidan joined him.
Aidan hesitated. That depends on which plan you mean. “I’ll strike here,” he said, pointing to Sharem’s northern wall. “I don’t want to march up to the front gates, no matter how small the attack party inside the walls is rumored to be. I will not squander lives.” From either side, he wanted to add.
He took a breath and rushed on. “Once the wall falls, the Wardsmen will enter the city, and I will give the Darinians a chance to surrender peacefully.”
Edmund’s face tightened. “Aidan—”
“Bloodshed should be a last resort,” the prince cut in, keeping his eyes fixed on the map. “You taught me that. The clans have been allies for hundreds of years. If I can find a way to resolve this conflict here, today, I will take it.”
He looked up to meet Edmund’s gaze, refusing to drop his eyes. To his surprise, Edmund shrugged.
“What you suggest might work to our advantage.”
Aidan frowned, surprised and more than a little cautious. “How so?”
“We need to hold the city until your mother arrives with all of Torel’s Ward. From there, we—”
“What do you mean? Why is she leading the army here?” But Aidan thought he knew.
Edmund gave a low, rumbling growl. Aidan realized it was supposed to be a laugh.
“Sharem is the perfect staging ground for the war. Our troops will have access to all the food, water, shelter, and supplies they could ever need.” He looked up at his son’s shocked face and smiled. His eyes remained devoid of humor, of light. “This is a war effort, Aidan. Sharem is but one phase of that war. Negotiation, bloodshed... Use any approach you like to take Sharem. Just don’t fail.”
Aidan turned back to the maps. “What about the Leastonians?”
“They’re probably captives, too. Freeing them all but assures the merchant guild’s cooperation. And if not...” He shrugged.
Aidan’s eyes widened. “You want to fight them, too?”
“I didn’t want to fight the clans, yet here we are. What we do is for the good of all Crotaria. Adding the Leastonian navy to our effort protects their realm from the wildlanders, too. If they can’t see that, then we must consider them an enemy, as reviled as the snakes in the south.”
“What is wrong with you?” Aidan said, voice trembling. He could feel his emotions boiling over, but he couldn’t stop them. Either his father had gone mad, or he’d never awoken from his first nightmare. He suppressed a shudder and forced the visions of his parents—staring at him with eyeless sockets, their mouths open in unending screams—from his mind. “The friendship we shared with Darinia was prosperous for both realms, for all of Crotaria! War will deplete our resources—money and lives. There must be a way to fix this without more violence. Please, let me find a way.”
“What’s done is done.” Edmund’s tone left no room for argument. He turned away. “You have a battle to prepare for, son. I suggest you get ready.”
In a daze, Aidan went to the tent flap.
“Aidan.”
He hesitated, glanced over his shoulder.
“What?”
Edmund’s eyes burned with intensity brighter than the lantern on the desk. “Will you be able to go through with this? This is only the first strike in a war we must win. You gave your word, son. I must be certain of your cooperation.”
“I will do what I have to do only because I have to do it.”
“Your kingdom needs you, Aidan. The outcome of this battle is crucial.”
Aidan stormed out of the tent.
Snow leaked from the clouds as the Lady continued her slow flight through the sky. The Wardsmen stood waiting, nine rows of twenty men, at the top of a hill that overlooked Sharem’s northern wall. The hill flowed down to a flat stretch of white earth that ended at the north wall of the trade city, bordered on one side by a thick forest buried under a glistening canopy of snow and ice.
The silence was interrupted by a single trebuchet lumbering forward, creaking as twenty Wardsmen Aidan had plucked from his force rolled it to the top of the hill. The long arm of the trebuchet was cocked back; the large sling at the far end was empty and dangled over the ground. The men grunted into the stillness of the afternoon as they stopped and lifted a boulder into the sling. Ten knotted ropes dangled from the short end of the cocked arm, brushing polished helmets. After dropping the boulder into the sling, the Wardsmen hurried under the trebuchet and took hold of the ropes, two men to each rope. Then they turned and looked at Aidan, waiting.
Stroking his mount’s neck nervously, Aidan breathed in the crisp air and looked at his father, beside him atop his own steed. His gaze was pleading. Give me a chance. Let me talk to her. Edmund was studying Sharem, pointedly avoiding his son. Sighing, Aidan signaled to a lieutenant several rows up. The man nodded and shouted at the Wardsmen operating the catapult. As one, the twenty Wardsmen heaved on their ropes. The long end of the arm shot upward and the boulder flew down toward the city.
The boulder slammed into the center of the wall, shattering heavy stone. Seconds after the echoes of the first strike faded, another boulder rocketed downward and slammed home with a thunderous crash. Broken stone fell away from the wall. Through the gap, Aidan could see people scrambling away, screaming as they fled. He raised his hand to signal a halt to the barrage and considered
his next move as the twenty Wardsmen abandoned their post and fell into place at the rear of his force. He could do it. He could ride forward now, enter the city, find Nichel or whoever had led the attack, and—
One of his scouts sounded a note of alarm. Below, a group of perhaps forty clansmen stormed through the eastern gate and curved to the north. Plated mail covered the tattoos that decorated the clansmen’s bodies. The helms they wore—steel fashioned in the form of wolf, bear, and ram heads, fiendish masks capped with horns and fangs and painted in streaks of colors—made them look like half-human beasts.
Cursing inwardly, ignoring his father’s smirk, Aidan raised his right hand. The back two rows of Wardsmen drew their longbows. Lieutenants shouted trajectories. Forty bowstrings went taut. The front lines hefted swords and spears in one hand, raised shields in the other.
Aidan’s right hand dropped. The Wardsmen let fly; arrows whistled as they took flight. They fell in a hail. Screams rang out as half a dozen clansmen fell. The rear line of Darinians responded with a volley of their own while the rest charged forward, racing across the flat ground and hefting axes as tall as stalks of corn in fists the size of a small man’s head. Aidan shouted an order. Every Wardsmen not holding a bow dropped to one knee and raised their shields, forming a wall of wood and steel. Missiles thudded and snapped against the wall like hail on a rooftop.
His archers dipped their hands smoothly into quivers, nocked a fresh round of arrows, and loosed. A third round leaped from bowstrings while the second was still in flight. The Darinians returned fire. Arrows filled the sky like flocks of crows streaking at one another. Several of the projectiles collided and plummeted in jumbles of splinters and sharpened heads. Below, the clansmen surged forward like a single arrow intent on flying up the hill and shattering Aidan’s men.
“Forward!” Aidan bellowed.
Aidan’s men charged down the hill. Halfway down, they split like a stream breaking around a rock. The unbroken mass of men had become a pincer designed to crush the Darinians. Meanwhile, the archers split, flanking the divided infantry, and continued their storm of arrows. The Darinian bowmen responded in turn, dividing into two groups and spitting arrows at Aidan’s divided force. This time the Wardsmen continued running as they raised their shields. Not every man raised his in time.
Aidan kindled and wove a flat, invisible barrier that hung over the heads of his infantry and archers. It was as if someone had lowered a dome of thick, polished glass over their heads. Arrows snapped and slid harmlessly to the ground. Still sprinting, the Wardsmen lowered their shields just slightly, holding them in front. The two forces collided in a thunderous crash.
“All goes well,” Edmund said from where he and Aidan watched at the top of the hill. Steel rang against steel. Shouts turned to shrill cries as blade bit through armor and tasted flesh.
Aidan chose not to reply. Well was not how he would have defined the battle. The Darinians, proficient fighters though they were, could not beat the numbers game. The Wardsmen cleaved through them, spilling their blood across the snow. For every Wardsman who fell, three Darinians crumpled. But fighting was still his least desirable course of action. He hadn’t been given even a moment to enter the city without bloodshed. The clansmen had stormed out almost immediately.
Aidan narrowed his eyes. As if they had been waiting for an attack.
He turned the thought over and decided it wasn’t too farfetched. Any party that took a city by force would expect resistance eventually. Still...
A horn sounded from within Sharem. Aidan turned to his father, confused. Edmund wore a flat, emotionless expression. A roar erupted from the forest to the east of Sharem. Hordes of clansmen burst through the trees and poured forth, a swarm of pagan faces, steel, and a mail hide crafted using techniques known only by Darinia’s finest blacksmiths—form-fitting, yet as strong as plate mail—and mounted atop armored horses.
Aidan’s mouth hung open as clansmen continued pouring from the trees like wasps from an upset hive. Less than half a mile separated his men from the horde rushing toward them, a wave of steel that would sweep away everything in its path.
“They’ll all die,” Aidan whispered. His men had turned to brace themselves against the surprise charge, but Aidan knew it would not be enough. Many from the smaller attack force that had charged out from Sharem—a decoy, he understood now—were still alive and rallying, sending ululating war cries at the scores of brethren rumbling to their aid.
“You can save them, Aidan,” Edmund said.
“You said this wasn’t possible,” Aidan said, as if he hadn’t heard. “You said a force this size couldn’t possibly—”
“I was mistaken. You can save them.”
Aidan looked at him, face ashen.
“You haven’t lifted a finger in this conflict, Aidan,” Edmund said. “You’ve been content to simply issue orders, convincing yourself that you were only doing what had to be done, that the blood of your enemies would stain the hands of your Wardsmen instead of your own. Prove your worth, boy. Your gift is more than enough to prevent this slaughter.”
A line of sweat oozed down Aidan’s forehead. He didn’t want his men to be killed, of course he didn’t. But if he acted, he would spill the blood of a people he believed to be innocent. Raising his palms, Aidan quickly replayed the tale his mother had told the day the war had been announced. It still did not ring true. His hands lowered.
“The enemy outnumbers us at least four to one, Aidan,” Edmund said, his voice tight.
He didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t leave his people to die—and they surely would; clansmen continued to rush from the forest. The Wardsmen would make a stand, but it would not last long. But Aidan could not convince himself of the Darinians’ guilt. He wished he could just sit down and let his father figure everything out.
—The time is now, Aidan. Make your choice.
He had never been so thankful to hear from Heritage. Tell me what to do! Please!
But the sword had gone silent.
“The lives of our people, Aidan. What will you do?” his father said.
Breathing heavily, Aidan swept his eyes across the battle below. The clansmen—there had to be close to a thousand, their masks and armor making them appear like wild animals —would cross the road and wash over his men in seconds.
—What will you do, Aidan? Heritage asked.
“Make your choice, boy! Now!” his father said.
Aidan swore and drank in the light, raised clenched fists, shouted a prayer. The spell his confused and terrified mind latched onto was a difficult one and required a large amount of light. But the Lady heard his plea, and the results were suitably devastating.
The road in front of the approaching Darinian force exploded. Masses of rock, ice, and gravel rained down on the clansmen, crushing heads and bodies. The gash ripped through the roadway as Aidan kindled again. A pallid fire shot from his left palm and sparked through the first line of trees in the forest. The magical inferno melted through ice and snow to light wet branches as if they were dry. The remaining lines of trees followed suit, bursting into fiery existence one after the other. The forest became a funeral pyre. Tortured screams and terrified whinnies emanated from the blaze as flesh melted from bone and bone withered to ashes.
Aidan kindled a third time, gorging on the Lady’s light until he felt drunk, and spit out a third prayer. A bolt of lightning pierced the ground, shattering Darinians. Blood and limbs sprayed across the battlefield like sparks from a fire. More bolts stabbed down. Crackling energy spread outward like ripples from a pebble cast into a pond, shredding earth, flesh, and bone. The earth heaved like the deck of a ship caught in a storm, scattering what remained of the clansmen’s resistance.
Aidan slipped from his horse and fell to his knees, tears streaming down his cheeks. He kindled one last time. The fire chewing through the forest dissipated, leaving piles of ash and bloody slop. Silence resumed its hold on the day, broken only by the moans of the wound
ed and dying from below and Aidan’s deep, full-body retches. Snow drifted down, knitting a blanket to hide the gore smeared over the muddy ground.
Edmund stood over Aidan, oblivious to the scent of roasted flesh carried on the afternoon breeze. “You did what you had to do. You saved your men, Aidan. They would have died had you not acted.” Edmund raised his eyes to the smoldering, torn battlefield. “I’m proud of you,” he added, as if in afterthought. He galloped down the hill to round up the Wardsmen.
Aidan didn’t look up. He looked instead at the snow falling onto his hands. Hands that were stained with blood only he could see. Blood that could never wash away.
Edmund approached the guards outside his tent and gave orders not to be disturbed under any circumstances. He strode to the table and whispered a word, low and guttural, into the lantern.
The flame went low for a moment. A pair of eyes appeared.
“Is it done?” a voice asked.
“Yes, master,” Edmund said. “The boy passed the test, though not without a great deal of hesitation. Almost a pity, actually. I would have happily killed him right there.”
“If he passed, then he is still useful to us.”
“He used pure-fire, my lord,” Edmund said, his voice quivering with excitement. “It was magnificent. You should have heard the screams. And the lightning ripples... the blood...” Edmund shivered in ecstasy. He forced himself to take a calming breath. “What of the sword?”
“The tests continue to prove too dangerous, but there is still a chance the blade will accept Aidan. It is still useful to us.”
The flame flared as if in anger, causing Edmund to shrink back.
“Annalyn returned it to the chamber at no small risk,” the voice continued. “Her injuries were too grievous to go unnoticed. I discarded the body and replaced it. I fear the sword would react poorly to you as it did to her. It will remain in the chamber until the boy has use for it.”
“And if he uses it against us?”
“Aidan will either be tamed, or...” The voice trailed away for a moment. “Or he will die before he has the chance to raise Heritage,” it went on. Edmund blinked. It sounded conflicted. It continued, firm once more. “Should that come to pass, the sword must be destroyed. We—”
Heritage: Book One of the Gairden Chronicles Page 9