by Tim Stead
“It wasn’t me,” she said. “But if she’s anywhere we can find her. Callista was in her favour, so there’s a link there. We can follow it.”
“And if she’s dead?” Jidian had to ask. He had to know.
“Then we’ll know,” Pascha said. “Callista?”
Callista stepped forward and Pascha took both her hands in her own.
“What do you want me to do?” Callista asked.
“Just think of Sithmaree.”
Silence fell. Pascha closed her eyes and stood motionless. Time crawled by and gradually a frown appeared on the god mage’s face. Not a good sign, or perhaps it was. Jidian didn’t know.
She opened her eyes.
“She’s… not there.” Pascha sounded puzzled.
“Dead, then?” Jidian asked.
“No, not dead,” Pascha shook her head. “Just not there – not dead, not alive. I can’t explain it.”
“How can she be not there?”
“I don’t know.” Pascha sat down again. “The link with Callista is like a thread, or a beam of light. You can follow it. If she was dead it would be broken, but it just sort of fades, like it’s going somewhere I can’t follow, somewhere that can’t be. I’m sorry.”
“But you’re saying she’s alive?”
“I think so.”
That was enough for Jidian. Sithmaree was alive. Somewhere she was still alive and he could go on. He would find her again. Somehow, he would. But now was the time for revenge.
“Send me back,” he said to Pascha. She read his tone.
“You plan to kill Anjasari,” she said.
“It is my right.”
Pascha sighed. “It is.”
“I’ll take him back,” Callista said. “The fight for the city has begun. I want to witness it.”
“As you wish, but Jidian, I want you to know that if you had not survived, I would have killed the duke myself.”
Jidian nodded. “I know,” he said. He closed his eyes. “I’m ready.”
39 The Gateway
Cain walked the walls as evening fell. He was pleased with the morale of the men. They had seen Alwain’s camp torn apart, or been told about it by those that had, and he could sense a new respect for the Wolfen. There was confidence, too, more than there had been. The men were sure that they could hold out.
Cain wasn’t so sure.
The problem was food. Bas Erinor was the largest city in Avilian. It had not been expecting a siege and food stocks were about what they usually were at this time of year. With all the additional men coming in from the north he guessed that they could carry on for about four weeks before people went hungry. It took a lot to feed a hundred thousand men, women and children.
It had been a mistake. He had known about the gateway and assumed that he could bring food in that way, and of course they could. He doubted that they could bring enough.
He stopped over the main gate and looked out towards the flickering fires of Alwain’s new camp. It was almost a mile from the walls, and even the great bows couldn’t reach it. Alwain didn’t have Cain’s problem. He could send out parties of men to strip the countryside of supplies. He controlled all the roads and could bring in convoys of wagons loaded with grain and meat, fruit and wine. Anything that came through the Farheim gates would have to be carried on men’s backs. He couldn’t even bring horses through.
The other problem was distance. There was another gate here in the south, but it was within the area that Alwain could forage, and the last thing he wanted was to have it be discovered. Alwain couldn’t use the gate, but he could shut it down, guard it so that Cain’s people couldn’t use it.
There were only two other gates in Avilian, and they were both in the north. Northern lands were friendly, but agriculturally they were poor. He doubted that they could feed themselves as well as keeping Bas Erinor supplied.
Cain walked down past the main gate and wandered up the royal road. Catto and Spans shadowed him. Since he’d recruited the two there had been no further attempts on his life but he felt more comfortable with them there. He had never doubted Spans. The big man was serious, quiet and diligent. But Catto, too, had settled into his new life. Both seemed useful with any weapon they picked up.
He turned left. The streets were quiet. Now that the siege was real the people of Bas Erinor had withdrawn from a lot of public life. The taverns were mostly empty after dark. People seemed to want to spend their time with family.
He pushed open the door of The Seventh Friend and stepped inside. Here was the exception. About fifty people, most of them in uniform, were scattered around the main room. The room hushed a little when he came in, but he’d already made it clear that he didn’t expect the men to stand or salute in the tavern, and the noise quickly picked up again.
Cain passed through to the private rooms. The largest of the three was packed. Apart from Lord Dunsandel, the captain of the Wolfen Pledge and the regimental colonels, Caster and Sheyani were here, too. Cain took his seat at the head of the table and his bodyguards flanked the door.
“Alwain seems to be taking his time,” Sandaray commented.
Colonel Karran laughed. “After the bloody nose the Wolfen gave him I’d be surprised if he attacks at all.”
There was a murmur of agreement around the room.
“He will, though,” Cain said. “And soon, even though he doesn’t have to.”
“What do you mean?” Caster asked.
“Do the sums. We’ve got a hundred thousand to feed and one door to bring it through. It can’t be done.”
“We can stretch it out, though,” Sheyani said.
“We can,” Cain agreed. “But there’s no help coming. We have to win, and the only way we can do that is on the walls, killing Alwain’s men. If he sits out there and waits, we’ll starve.”
“We could sally,” Karran said. “Take him by surprise.”
“It’s too far,” the Wolfen Captain said. “The only way we could surprise him is to use the Farheim Gates, and then we’d be on foot. He’d catch us.”
“But you’ve got that thing you use against horses,” Colonel Vandermay said.
Dantillia shook his head. “Not enough to keep four or five regiments at bay for two days.”
There was a long silence. Cain realised that they were looking at him, waiting for him to tell them the solution, as though he was a school teacher who’d set them an intractable problem. The truth was, he didn’t have that answer. Even with the Wolfen’s tricks he could see no way of defeating Alwain’s army other than wearing them down on Bas Erinor’s walls. He couldn’t meet them in the field – they were too numerous. He couldn’t outwait them and, as he’d told them, there was no force out there to help them. The Berashi’s wouldn’t cross the border and Afael was a mess.
“Sheyani, I want you to organise food supplies through the gateway.”
“I’ll need help,” she said.
“The Wolfen will help,” Dantillia said.
“I need another Farheim,” Sheyani said. “We proved that bringing the regiments here. One to hold each door open.”
Cain remembered. The first door took you to a chamber under the Dragon’s Back. In that chamber there were other doors. One led to Bas Erinor, others to locations scattered across the kingdoms. If you held both doors open you could have a continuous stream of people passing through.
“Caster,” he said.
“I came here to fight,” the sword master protested. “You need me on the walls.”
“The only other Farheim we have is me,” Cain said.
Caster scratched his head. The logic was inescapable. “If there’s an attack, you will send for me at once,” he said.
“I will,” Cain said. He looked around the others in the room. These were the commanders of regiments, and yet none seemed to be willing to offer any ideas. “Suggestions?” he asked. He saw Sandaray look around at the others and shift in his seat. They were like schoolboys, he thought. Not one of them was over
sixty, but Cain was nearly a hundred years past that. “Sandaray?”
The colonel smiled. “Well,” he said. “That trick you used at Fal Verdan, using archers to sweep the walls if the enemy made a step. We could use it here, but put the archers on buildings instead. It would give them a better angle.”
“Where there’s a convenient building,” Cain said. “Good.”
“How much oil do we have?” Karran asked.
“Not enough to defend the walls. The city’s too big.”
“The gates are wooden, so you won’t use it there,” Karran said. “And the river runs along the wall for a quarter of a mile.” There was a map of the city on the table. Karran stood and pointed to other areas. “Here, and here. If I were assaulting the city, I would try the gates and then here. Put the oil here.”
“And if they bring up a ram?” Colonel Yelland asked. “You need oil at the gate to burn it.”
“There’s a portcullis on the river gate,” Karran said.
The argument went on. Cain sat down and watched. They were started now, behaving like the men they were. Ideas would come, and some of them would be good. It was Cain’s job to pick the good ones, to give the orders. He glanced across at Sheyani and saw that she was smiling. He poured himself a cup of wine.
*
A fist thumping on the door dragged Cain back from sleep. He was out of bed in a moment. It was still dark, the windows showed only lamp light in the street below.
“What is it?” he asked through the wood.
“Begging your pardon, My Lord, but Colonel Sandaray thinks you ought to see.”
“See what?” But he was already dragging on his trousers, feeling around in the dark for his belt and sword.
“Mist, My Lord.”
Mist? Mist. Sandaray was no fool. Cain had relied on the distance between Alwain’s camp and the city to provide adequate warning, but a thick mist would hide them from his sentries’ eyes and muffle any sound they might make as they approached.
“Tell him I’ll be there,” he said.
He glanced longingly back at the bed. He was still tired. Sheyani had left through the Farheim Gate late last night with Caster and fifty Wolfen. He’d had trouble sleeping after that.
He pulled his boots on, buckled on his sword, picked up a shield and slung it on his back. He was ready. Outside he saw that Spans and Catto were already waiting.
“An attack, sir?” Catto asked.
“We’ll see,” he replied. They hurried downstairs and through the now deserted tavern. In the street Catto walked alongside and passed him something. It was a bun and, by the smell of it, it was filled with honey.
“Just to get you started,” the bodyguard said. Cain bit into it and his mouth was filled with sweetness.
“Thank you, Sergeant,” he said.
Sandaray was pacing his section of the wall, peering out into the dark. It was impossible to see anything out there. The mist swirled around them, smelling of sea and corruption. Sandaray had lamps lit along the wall, but put down behind so that they couldn’t be seen from out there. The men were silent, mostly sitting with their backs against the wall. They looked ready.
“Anything?” Cain whispered.
Sandaray shrugged. “Tisban thought he heard something, a clank, a stick breaking, but nothing for minutes now.”
Cain nodded. He put his head over the wall and looked into the murk. He listened. Nothing. He waited. After a while he thought he could detect the faintest glimmer of light in the sky. Dawn at last. If there were men out there, they would attack in minutes. They needed the light as much as Cain’s men did. He plucked a handful of copper coins from his pocket. If they were out there he wondered how close. Very close, he guessed. He cocked his arm and flung the coins, scattering them in a broad arc out into the mist. He listened.
Whatever the coins hit, it wasn’t grass or water. It sounded, distantly, like an accident in a tinker’s shop.
“Bows up,” he said. “Swords drawn. Heads down. Someone sound the horn.”
There was a curse from somewhere out there. A man shouted something and a flight of arrows came out of the dark. Mostly they missed. Nearby a plaintive horn sounded. That was the alarm that would alert the defenders of Bas Erinor. He heard it echoed up and down the wall.
“Wait for the ladders,” Cain said. There was no point shooting back until they had a target. Now the need for silence was gone it was obvious that a large number of soldiers was approaching the walls. He could hear their feet, their armour, even the grunts of effort as they carried ladders to the wall’s base. There had to be something he could do about ladders, Cain thought, something that would sweep them away.
The first ladder thumped against the stonework and thoughts of the future vanished. The ladder was long, and that made it easy. One of Sandaray’s men hooked the top rung with a Y-shaped spear and pushed it out from the wall. It fell backwards into the mist. They were not so lucky with others. More ladders rattled into place. One of Sandaray’s archers leaned over and shot down the line of the ladder, but a moment later an arrow carried him back over the parapet.
A man’s hand appeared on the wall next to Cain. He cut at it with his blade and was rewarded with a scream. Another man came over the wall a moment later. This one jumped up and stood for a moment, sword in hand, swinging wildly over the heads of people who were crouched down. Cain stabbed him in the thigh and he crumpled, falling back onto his fellows below.
The third man wasn’t a fool. He came up shield first – a difficult trick on a ladder – and that got him over the wall and onto the rampart. He turned to face Cain, perhaps sensing the greater danger there. Cain cut at his shield, hewing a chunk the size of a man’s hand from the edge of it. The man struck back cutting downwards at Cain’s neck, but the blow was parried, and a moment later one of Sandaray’s men cut the invader down from behind.
Another easy win, but the man had bought his comrades time, and now two had made it onto the wall and Cain was forced to step back as one of them rushed at him. He had flashbacks to Fal Verdan, but Cain was a different creature now. He was a Farheim Lord and, for all his inferiority to artists like Caster and Narak, he was still just about the deadliest man on the walls. He hammered the man with his shield, throwing him clear over the wall, and slashed at the head that stuck up invitingly.
Cain was not a man who enjoyed killing, but there’s a pleasure in doing something you’re good at, and Cain was good at this now. He fought mechanically, killing men as they appeared before him. He was aware of Catto and Spans at his back, but he had no time to watch or protect them. He just fought, keeping the wall, defending the city.
It seemed to go on for a very long time. The sky lightened, but it wasn’t until the mist began to burn off that the attack slackened and Alwain’s men began to withdraw. Cain wasn’t tired. That was one of the benefits of being Farheim. He could fight for hours without a break. But now there were no more ladders and Sandaray’s men picked up their bows again and shot at the retreating soldiers below.
Cain looked around him. There were dozens of bodies in the street below the wall, and many injured men. There were more dead on the other side of the wall – a couple of hundred at a guess. Catto was sitting against the wall, his face running with sweat, his body spattered with blood. He grinned at Cain.
“Bit of a fight, sir,” he said. “Any chance we can break for breakfast now?”
Spans was still standing, but even the big man was leaning against the wall.
“I think we’ve earned a break, sergeant,” Cain said.
A Wolfen messenger came along the wall. He, too, showed the signs of recent mayhem. He was bleeding from a cut to his cheek.
“Captain’s regards, My Lord,” he said. “He reports that the enemy has been engaged and thrown back with heavy losses, but we were unable to use the caches on the approach to the gate and one of the great bows has been destroyed.”
“No breaches?”
“None, My Lord.”
/>
“Tell your Captain I am well pleased and ask if he will send me a couple of his artificers. I will be talking to the city’s smiths and rope makers. I think I have another surprise for Alwain.”
“Yes, My Lord.”
The man hurried away, eager to deliver his message. Cain turned back to Catto and Spans to find that Sandaray was there.
“I’m rotating the men, sir,” he said. “We’ll have fresh faces on the wall if they try again.”
Cain nodded, but his mind was elsewhere. He was thinking ropes and weights. How long? How heavy? He’d have to test the idea, but he was already sure it was a good one.
40 Stranger
Ivo Calpot was mending nets. It was a slow job, and he could do it almost without thinking. His hand took the place of his eyes and only the most severe damage required his undivided attention, so he saw the ship when it tacked.
He was used to ships. Traders sailed a few miles off shore and if you sat down by the boats you saw them every day. When he was out fishing they often passed by, sometimes with a friendly hail, sometimes in silent indifference. Ivo didn’t really care either way as long as they left Berrit Bay to itself. He didn’t like foreigners, even less since the incident with Alwain’s soldiers, and he saw the boat turn and begin a run towards shore with a feeling of annoyance. Even so he waited until he was sure, and then he rang the bell on the post next to him. He might be mending nets, but he was still the watchman on the beach.
He didn’t recognise the ship, but it was big, bigger than most of the vessels that passed by. There could be a lot of men on board.
People started to arrive, answering the bell. His father, Bram, among them.
“She’s not Avilian,” Ivo said, pointing at the approaching vessel. “Not Berashi either, and I ain’t seen a Telan that looks that way.”
Bram squinted out to sea and stroked his white beard.
“Best get the militia boys lined up,” he said. “I know her, right enough. She’s Seth Yarra.”
Ivo swore and put down his nets. “I thought we chased ‘em back home a hundred year ago,” he said.