Nothing but Tombs

by Tim Stead

  And she had seen its face.

  62 The Walls

  Alwain was no fool. Or perhaps it was Haliman. Whoever had done the thinking it had been done well. Major Fargas had heard the men from Alwain’s camp talking about their previous attempts on the walls and the gate. The last attempt had been disastrous thanks to the huge swinging stones that Cain Arbak had put on the walls, but now they had an answer to that. He watched the men on their flanks move forwards carrying the trimmed trunks of trees. The plan was the jam the stones, to put the trees up like ladders and stop the ropes from swinging. If they did it right the weight of the stones themselves would act in their favour, jamming the trunks firmly in place.

  Fargas looked up at the walls. He could see men there, the glint of drawn weapons. High above in Bas Erinor Castle there were more men, archers, and they already had the range. Arrows fell among the waiting soldiers. Most hit the ground or were caught on raised shields but every now and then a man would cry out and fall.

  It wasn’t numerically significant, but it played on the nerves of the men. Fargas looked back towards the camp. He wanted to get on with this, to live or die. The waiting was beginning to chafe. They should have advanced by now. He could see Alwain. The Duke was sitting on his horse talking to somebody. He decided he didn’t like Alwain all that much. Men were dying while he told some fatuous story to a hanger-on. A good general wouldn’t do that, would he? He was prepared to bet that Arbak wouldn’t.

  A horn sounded. It was a single blast. That was the signal to prepare to advance. Didn’t they think his men were already prepared?

  An arrow hit a man standing in the row behind Fargas and the injured man shouted and dropped his shield. He was hit in the shoulder – not a fatal blow, but he’d play no part in the fight.

  Two blasts sounded. That was it. Fargas stepped forwards and felt the army surge around him, beginning their advance. He raised his shield high to cover the men behind him who were carrying a ladder and settled into a steady walk, watching his feet to make sure he didn’t trip on the uneven ground. Now was not the time to look at the enemy.

  An arrow hit his shield. The volleys from the wall had begun. They were more deadly than those from higher in the city, the arrows flying in a lower arc. A few more men fell. Fargas’s shield was hit a second time, but lower, tipping it forwards for a moment. He corrected the angle and continued to walk.

  The man next to him stumbled. It was easy to do, even easier for those who followed who had to step over their dead and injured comrades. He steadied him with his spare hand and received a look of thanks in return.

  Fargas wasn’t afraid. He knew his business and would do the best he could, even though the odds were against him surviving. In the front rank of an attack every minute you lived was a victory, and so far, he was winning.

  The wall loomed before him. The rain of arrows slackened. Alwain’s own archers were within bowshot now and those above were keeping their heads down, shooting at the soldiers further back. Fargas stepped aside and the ladder men behind rushed their charge forwards, laying it against the stone. He looked up apprehensively at the great weight perched on the wall and saw that the men with the log had already jammed it. How long that would hold it back was anyone’s guess, but it would probably be safer to climb now rather than wait.

  The men who’d carried the ladder rushed up it. Now was the time. He was supposed to be in the first rank and there were already ten men ahead of him. He put his foot on the first rung and looked upwards. A man fell screaming from the wall. Fargas couldn’t have said if he was friend or foe.

  He began to climb.

  *

  Cain watched Alwain’s army assemble. This was going to be a serious assault. There were over five thousand men out there. But not the ten it should be. He understood that Alwain would keep back a reserve, and there would be men to guard the camp, but even so the numbers didn’t add up.

  “Catto, send someone round the walls,” he said. “If they see anything out there I want to know.”

  “You’re expecting something, My Lord?” Catto asked. Catto always asked questions. With Spans it was different. Spans just nodded and did what you asked.

  “Yes,” he said. “The numbers are wrong. What we see here is Alwain’s right hand, but his left is hidden.”

  “I will send word, My Lord.”

  Catto hurried down the stairs from the tower and a minute later men went running off in both directions along the walls. Catto came back and took his place behind Cain.

  Alwain’s men were still holding, and they were within range of the archers in the castle. Even as he watched, Cain saw a man fall and the ripple of discomfort it caused spread across the waiting army. Another went down over to the left.

  A horn sounded. The waiting soldiers stirred, and along the wall, too, Cain saw men fitting arrows to the string, flexing their sword arms.

  Two blasts on a horn and they began their advance. Cain had to admit that it was impressive in its own way, but he had faced bigger armies than this from weaker positions. This would be a bitter fight, though. It was brother against brother.

  Looking along the walls he saw a figure in full plate armour walking the parapet behind the men, encouraging them. That was Caster. Cain was glad to have Narak’s sword master on the walls. It put heart into the men to see him there and just as much terror into the enemy. He was almost a match for Sheyani’s pipes and, even as the thought occurred, he heard her begin to play. She was safe enough. He had insisted that she station herself in one of the houses behind the wall, easily within hearing of the men on the ramparts, but with a wall between her and Alwain’s archers.

  The effect of her music was instant and visible. Men stood straighter. Nervous movements vanished. The men looked confident.

  Catto and Spans moved themselves so that their shields were between Cain and Alwain’s archers, and the first ladders rose to the walls. There were seven weights on this stretch of the wall and three of them released and swung, scattering men and ladders, but the others failed to move.

  Sheyani had been right. Alwain had found a way to block them. There were tree trunks rammed under the weights and his men didn’t have the strength to push them over the obstacles. Alwain’s men were wedging the bottom of the trunks so they couldn’t be pushed away while the weight held them in place.

  It was clever. It was a problem.

  He could ask Caster to use his Farheim strength to free the weights, but he was more use fighting on the walls and even if one weight was freed it could easily be wedged again. He saw that. As one of the three that had already swung was hauled up, Alwain’s men jammed it. At this rate they would all be useless in a couple of minutes and it would be down to blood and muscle.

  Men began to top the walls. Cain watched as the battle began in earnest. He still had his archers set back on the roofs of nearby houses to clear the walls, but they were taking casualties. The archers outside the walls were deliberately shooting long.

  Caster waded in, and all around him the attackers fell. His twin blades hacked through mail and flesh like some kind of deadly windmill. Cain could see no particular skill to it, but then no skill was needed. His armour protected him from all but the most doughty blows and those few that cut him he shrugged off.

  Even with Caster fully engaged a lot of men were getting to the top of the ladders and they were gaining a foothold. The attack was along a front of three hundred paces and Caster could not be everywhere.

  A group of twelve men had secured the top of a ladder, and they quickly became twenty, then thirty. Cain’s men fell back and the archers in the city shot two quick volleys. The invaders were reduced to a half dozen and Cain’s men closed in again.

  Looking out he could see thousands of men pushing forwards, eager to reach the walls. This was going to take a long time, one way or the other. At some stage he would have to fight, but not yet. He touched the hilt of his blade. He wished that Narak was here.

  *

>   Colonel Sandaray paced. Already he could hear the sounds of battle drifting up from the east wall. Men were dying down there but he understood his orders. He was to wait and watch. He itched to be in the fight.

  Major Willan stood in the centre of their regiment’s deployment. He didn’t fidget but stood staring out at the land beyond. He, too, was waiting, but apparently he was better at it.

  “Nothing yet?” Sandaray asked.

  “Nothing, sir,” Willan replied. “But I’m suspicious of that forest over there. I thought I saw dust rising above the trees.”

  “You could hide a lot of men in that.”

  “You could, sir.”

  If there were men in that forest it would take them a while to emerge, form up and launch an attack. Five or ten minutes, he guessed.

  “Runners to our neighbour regiments, Major,” Sandaray said. “Tell them we believe an attack is imminent.”

  It was a hunch, and he might look a fool, but Sandaray was a man to trust his hunches, especially when Cain Arbak’s man had told him to expect an attack. He stood for a moment and peered out at the woods. They were about half a mile from the wall at this point and nothing but open ground lay between them and the city.

  He couldn’t see anything – no movement, no dust, no giveaway glint of steel. Even so he didn’t doubt that the attack would come. He could feel it. He fingered the hilt of his sword and waited.

  It was ten minutes before he saw it. Men in amongst the trees – hundreds of them. They were coming quickly, so quickly that they must have formed up while still out of sight in the trees. Their broken formations melded as they emerged and they marched straight at his section of wall.

  Sandaray drew his sword. “Here they come,” he said. “Message to General Arbak, Major, we are under attack.”

  He watched them come. There were a lot of them – perhaps a full regiment – two thousand men. They had ladders. Sandaray drew his blade and watched his men follow suit. The archers readied themselves. They all knew his style. He would not retreat to some distant tower and send runners to his men. Sandaray stood behind them, prowled behind them, lending his blade wherever it was needed, giving orders when he had to.

  The enemy came closer. The colonel waited until they were well within bowshot before he gave the order.

  “Shoot! Then shoot at will, fast as you can, lads.” They would get perhaps ten arrows each before the attackers were too close to the wall, then it would be heads down and blades out.

  The arrows flew out and men fell. It was a gesture, really. The fight would be decided on the wall itself. Sandaray knew the theory, but he had never seriously defended a wall before Bas Erinor. He was fond of cavalry and the mobility that came with it. There were no surprises on a wall. Alwain’s men would climb their ladders and Sandaray’s would wait for them. He had no room to manoeuvre, to be creative, and he felt a little trapped.

  “Get those weights ready,” he called. He knew that the attackers would try to jam them. Arbak’s man had told him as much, but every swing, every shattered ladder would be a bonus. He moved forward, risked a look over the wall. The time was right. “Now!”

  The weights swung, or all but one of them did. The result was satisfactory by the sound of it. Men screamed. Wood shattered. They began to haul them up again ready for the next try and as they did the first men came over the wall. The only ladders to be raised were those in the place where the one stone had been blocked, so the few men who climbed them were quickly dispatched, but they kept coming, each dead man replaced as soon as he fell. Sandaray moved to where the fighting was. The parapet wasn’t wide enough for him to stay detached from it, so he waded in, blocking blows where he could, slashing at an attacker when he saw an opening. It was irresponsible, really. He knew that. He should be staying back, watching how the battle unfolded.

  He disengaged again. Now four of the weights had been jammed and men were coming over all down the wall. He worked his way north to the nearest jammed weight. The men were trying to lift it over the log end that was holding it in the crenel, but the thing was too heavy and they didn’t have enough purchase to lift it.

  A lever, Sandaray thought, or a rope from the other side – something that half a dozen men could get a good grip on. The problem was that the crenel wasn’t wide enough. Only two men could get their full weight behind it.

  He needed another rope. Or perhaps he didn’t. He ran through a mass of ideas in his head, trying to reason which one would work in reality. Most dismissed themselves, others presented problems that he could not solve in so short a time. Yes. He needed a rope.

  He caught a man by the arm. “Go and find me a rope, a thick one, no shorter than twenty feet. Do it now.”

  The man nodded and ran off.

  It was probably too late. If he was on a ladder coming up these walls, he’d use his sword on the ropes holding the stones. Once they were cut, they’d be almost useless.

  A group of attackers had made a piece of the wall their own and were pushing his men back. It was time to try something else, an adaptation of Arbak’s tactics at Fal Verdan.

  “Step!” he shouted.

  His men began to pull back from the enemy in that section, but after a dozen steps, both north and south, Sandaray’s men set their shields in a line, blocking the parapet. The men behind them brought their shields over the top, forming a temporary wooden wall a good seven feet high. The men between the two shield walls attacked them, hacking at the wooden barrier, but to little effect.

  “Shoot!” Sandaray shouted. The archers on the building behind the walls responded with a volley. By this time there were around fifty of Alwain’s men in the trap, and they had nowhere to hide. The archers were no more than fifty feet away, and by the third volley most of the insurgent force was dead or dying.

  “In!” His men dismantled their walls and rushed forwards again. They had rehearsed the move many times, and this was the point at which it could fail, but to Sandaray’s delight it worked perfectly. His men swarmed the body-strewn parapet before the attackers had enough men to hold it.

  It was a victory – a small one to be sure, but still a victory. He was tempted to do it again, deliberately this time. He could let Alwain’s men onto the wall, pull back and shoot them down. But it wasn’t without risk. Best if they never got onto the wall.

  “Sir!”

  The man he’d sent for the rope was back. The rope he’d brought looked like an off-cut from the ropes that had been made for the weights. It would do.

  “Follow me,” he said.

  He pushed and fought his way to the nearest weight. The men there were still trying to push it free, but the best they could do was make it rock to-and-fro. Sandaray went to the next crenel, rope in hand. This was the dangerous bit. He leaned out as far as he could and threaded the new rope around the rope attached to the weight. An arrow chipped the stone next to his face as he ducked back in. He felt the sting on his face, a warm trickle of blood.

  “Hold this.” He gave one end to the man who’d brought the rope. “You other men, come here. Three on each end of this. When I say pull, you pull hard. When I say let go, do it quick or you’ll be over the walls.”

  The men gathered round and took the strain.

  “You others, you push that rock when I say pull. Got it?” They nodded.

  Sandaray took a deep breath.

  “Pull!”

  It was almost easy. The weight rode up onto the top of the obstacle jamming it and began to fall. Sandaray felt the rope pull back.

  “Let go!”

  He held on himself and was dragged a foot towards the wall before the new rope unwound from the old and came free. The weight swung down below the walls and once again he heard the pleasing sound of mayhem amongst the enemy.

  Now for the next one.

  *

  Major Fargas climbed the last stretch of the ladder one handed, his blade clutched in the other. It was obvious now that several of the men that had preceded him were alre
ady dead. He wanted to postpone that state of non-being as long as possible.

  He came to the top and thanked his good fortune. At least one of the ladder men had made it over the top and was fighting. That meant he didn’t have to fight his way onto the parapet. He jumped over the wall and set himself beside the man. He was engaged at once, but Fargas was a decent hand with a sword and could hold his own. A couple of other men joined him. A couple more died. They were just about holding their own.

  Another ladder came up and more men climbed it. Fargas moved his struggling group to cover them, too, and in a minute they were more than holding their own. A section of the wall became theirs and men rushed up the ladders, uncontested, to join them.

  Archers. Fargas knew that Arbak used archers. He paused and looked around. He saw them.

  “Shields!” he shouted, but he was too late. He got his own shield up and a couple of the men around him did the same, but most of them were confused. They set their shields along the line of the wall and many were cut down in the first volley. A second and third volley followed and a few more of his men fell, but the damage had been done, and Arbak’s soldiers rushed back at them.

  Fargas fought on. He was getting tired. His sword arm ached and he could barely keep his shield up. He decided that he hated fighting on walls. There was nowhere to fall back, nowhere to rest and let others take the strain.

  He blocked a blow aimed at his head and tried a counter, but it was weak and was easily pushed aside. The man thrust his shield forwards and Fargas went back a step. That was lucky. The man on Fargas’s left cut at the defender and scored a hit. The shield dropped a fraction and Fargas stabbed over the top of it, cutting the man’s face. He went down and Fargas moved forward again.

  That was when he saw a vision out of hell.

  It was Narak, moving relentlessly along the wall, cutting down men like a hawk among chickens. He froze for a moment. It couldn’t be. Narak was in Golt with the king. But the man on the wall was in full plate armour and wielding two swords with awesome power and exquisite skill.