Vashti followed his gaze. “It must be. There’s no other force of ravagers that large west of the Spine.”
“I know that, you worm. But why? He’s supposed to be sweeping into Arvada ahead of the pasha’s assault. Why the devil is he back here?”
The lead riders had reached the barbican and begun to ride through and into the courtyard. There were maybe ten or fifteen within the walls when Hamid stiffened, and his face changed from irritation to alarm.
Nathaliey’s hands were still bound behind her back, stiff and numb and useless, but she’d been bracing herself ever since she figured out that the men riding toward the castle were not marauders. All of Hamid’s attention was on the riders, and he leaned toward the inner courtyard to shout his warning at the troops below, who stood around idly while enemies poured into their midst.
She lowered her shoulder and slammed into the marauder captain. He still held Soultrup in hand, and grabbed instinctively for Nathaliey to either hold himself up or pull her down with him, but that was the arm with the stump, and it pushed her backward, even as he went over the edge, flailing. He dropped twenty feet or more to the flagstones and struck hard.
The supposed marauders threw back their gray cloaks to reveal helms and breastplates, and they attacked the soldiers around them with long, gleaming Eriscoban swords. Wolfram was in their midst, hacking and killing, as a warning cry went up from the surprised troops within the castle.
“Captain!” Nathaliey shouted. “Up here!”
Wolfram turned about, found her on the wall walk, and lifted his sword in acknowledgment. By now, fully half the Blackshields were within the castle walls, with the rest galloping beneath the lifted metal gate of the barbican. They’d killed numerous enemies, cutting them down where they stood, and still the Veyrians seemed scarcely able to recognize that they were under attack.
Someone belatedly attempted to close the gates and seal the castle, but paladins seized control of the barbican before they could. Paladins peeled off from the main force, jumped from their mounts, and came storming up the stairs to seize the wall walk. Sir Marissa led the group, her sword a blur as she cut down enemies. Nathaliey was about to be rescued. She worked her wrists to get her hands free of the ropes.
Two Veyrian soldiers dragged her back before she could get loose of the ropes, seeking to gain one of the bastion towers built into the castle wall. They met Vashti, who stood overlooking the courtyard, his eyes closed, a twisted incantation rising on his lips. Nathaliey struggled desperately to free her hands, thinking if she could just get them loose, she could disrupt his spell before he cast it. The knots were too tight.
A wave of dark energy pushed out from Vashti, and the paladins tumbled back down the stairs. This bit of sorcery had gained the men on the wall walk some time, and Vashti joined the soldiers hauling Nathaliey into the tower.
There were several Veyrians inside the tower already, loading crossbows and firing through arrow loops into the chaotic battle that raged across the castle courtyard. As soon as the Veyrians released her, Nathaliey pressed her face to one of the slits in the stone to watch.
The attack had been a bold stroke, but it was already faltering. There were too many enemies above Wolfram’s forces, and Vashti’s spell, which had seemed a gambit to buy his own escape and nothing more, proved to have strategic consequences. By the time Marissa organized another assault, the defenders on the wall had moved to defend the staircases. They beat back two attempts to scale the heights.
At that moment, Wolfram seemed to recognize that his attempt to seize the castle had failed, and settled for the next best thing. Someone got a torch into the barrels of oil, and they went up with a series of thumping explosions, followed by blasts of heat and smoke. Using this as cover, he ordered the Blackshields to pull back, and the paladins were soon outside the castle, safe but having abandoned any hope of winning a complete victory.
Nathaliey rushed to the other side of the tower and pressed her face to another arrow slit. Wolfram hacked his way through the encampment outside the walls, even as the defenders threw men at the paladins. Half the village was on fire before the Veyrians had organized enough to force the attackers to retreat. The whole battle had lasted less than a half hour.
The courtyard was still burning when Vashti ordered Nathaliey dragged back to the wall walk. Bucket brigades had isolated the fire away from the wooden buildings in the bailey, while others dragged food supplies to safety, but much of the other stockpiled war materiel burned in an oily fire that shot flames fifteen feet into the air. More fires raged outside the walls as the village continued to burn.
And there were dead everywhere, the vast majority Veyrians. Wolfram may not have taken the castle, but it had been a brutally effective raid.
Alas, Hamid was not among the dead, but had survived the fall. The marauder captain limped up the stairs from the bailey, his face a glowering mask of fury. His sword arm hung limp and broken. Someone must have sheathed Soultrup for him, because it was strapped to his back.
And he’d suffered other injuries, too. Hamid’s lower lip was a bloody, dangling mass of flesh, and his right cheekbone had caved in from the fall. Blood streamed from a broken nose. His wounds were horrific, but his body already seemed to be healing itself, and Vashti muttered an incantation and cast it on the captain.
“There will be heads on pikes because of this,” Hamid said, his words slurred.
Vashti shielded Nathaliey with his body. “But not this one. She is mine by command of the high king. Anyway, she didn’t cause this disaster.”
“No, she didn’t. But this is a setback, and make no mistake. The pasha has already sent riders to recall the armies, and we’ll halt work on the highway until we rebuild the stores that were destroyed today. We must defend this castle at all costs. It’s our toehold in the barbarian lands. But the pasha won’t have your treacherous prisoner here.”
Vashti dug his fingers into the flesh of Nathaliey’s arm. “I’ll take her east. Jasmeen has other prisoners. This one can join them in the mountains.”
“That is your business, not mine. Only take her far from here, and do so at once. Let us deal with this setback.”
Everything Nathaliey had overheard sounded like more than a setback. The enemy had left itself exposed, and it seemed that Eriscoba was rousing itself for full-out war. Toth’s pashas could bring their forces to Estmor, but could the castle withstand a siege after Wolfram’s raid?
The marauder captain descended the stairs and stood in the courtyard talking to a man in flowing robes with a jeweled turban. The pasha, she supposed. Marauders dragged in several Veyrian soldiers and threw them to the ground in front of the pasha, who pointed at them and shouted. One of the pasha’s personal guard drew his sword while marauders forced the disgraced soldiers to their hands and knees. After the first head came off, the others screamed for mercy, but to no avail. A dozen men lost their heads in short order.
Still on the wall walk, Vashti pushed Nathaliey against the crenelations until she was leaning over the edge. The other dark acolyte appeared with a glass vial in her hand. A thick yellow liquid the consistency of mucus filled it halfway. She handed it to Vashti, who uncorked the vial and tilted it to make the substance ooze back and forth while he held it up to the light.
“I promised to cure your hunger,” he said. “And now I will.”
Nathaliey almost laughed. “With that? An elixir of thrall, is that what you have? That’s how you plan to turn me to sorcery?”
Vashti’s gaunt smile was chilling. There was no humor in it, only cruel mockery. And confidence. He seemed certain of his ability to bend her mind to serve the dark wizard. For the first time, she felt a twinge of doubt.
A soldier grabbed her by the throat. Another yanked her hair to force her head back. Vashti gripped her chin and pried at her jaw with a grip like iron. As he did so, he spoke an incantation, and her will to resist faded.
When he lifted the vial of bitter, burning liquid to h
er lips, she sputtered and spit, but most of it went down her throat.
Chapter Eleven
Captain Wolfram fought down his resentment as the four warlords rode into the captured Veyrian camp. His paladins were hard at work, caring for injuries, grooming horses, preparing breakfast, taking dispatches from scouts, and organizing a picket line defense using several dozen former Estmor soldiers who’d been rescued from King Toth’s slave gangs as the Blackshields overran the village outside the castle.
In comparison to Wolfram’s men and women, the four Eriscoban lords—two earls, a baron, and a baroness—were clean, their breastplates and helms shining in the late afternoon sun, their horses fresh. They hadn’t ridden up the captured highway alone, not with hundreds of enemy soldiers still loose in the countryside. Instead, a company of hard-faced riders attended them, numbering some fifty or sixty warriors in all.
If Wolfram had counted those riders in his company two hours earlier, he’d have seized Castle Estmor. He’d been so close to victory, so close to recovering Nathaliey; she was only a few feet away, guarded by a handful of enemies atop the wall walk, but he hadn’t brought quite enough forces to bear to complete the assault. The ruse had worked to get him inside, but as soon as the marauders and Veyrian soldiers retreated to their towers, he couldn’t hold onto his gains. As a result, the enemy still held its fortress in Eriscoban lands, with their highway and mountain castles offering an easy way to bring reinforcements forward.
He gestured to his scout to put away the map of the Estmor swamps and waited with his arms folded as the warlords arrived. Wolfram’s own father, Lord Arvada, was at their head, and there was pride in his eyes as he took in the captured encampment, with its supplies, defensive palisades, and the heaps of enemy dead being prepared for immolation.
“Word reached us of your victory,” his father said. “You have our congratulations.”
“It was no victory. The enemy remains in his castle, and we failed to rescue an important prisoner. Perhaps if we’d had your men . . .” Wolfram gestured down the road at the riders who’d accompanied Lord Arvada and the others.
“We had no way of knowing. Anyway, we had a fight of our own. We fought hard at Sleptstock against nearly two hundred enemy footmen.”
Wolfram nodded. That was something. That small enemy force had overrun the mill village on the river and had still controlled the crossing when the Blackshields battled their way across.
“I hope you left them good and bloodied.”
“We did a good deal more than that.” Arvada gave a wolfish grin that reminded Wolfram that his father was an experienced warrior himself. “Eighty enemy dead. The rest taken prisoner. Our troops are crossing the river even as we speak.”
Wolfram took in the others. He didn’t recognize the woman—a baroness from the far west, by her colors—but the other two were from Engelfeld and Renholm, and controlled rich farmlands with plenty of villages to draw from. If they had, indeed, fully entered the war.
“How many men?”
“Arvada pledges three thousand two hundred troops. Engelfeld a thousand, Renholm fourteen hundred, and Hillhold Terrace nearly two thousand.”
“Hillhold pledges nineteen hundred men-at-arms,” the baroness said proudly. “Including six hundred with horse.”
Now Wolfram recognized her colors. At least three of his paladins had come from Hillhold Terrace, an upland plateau near the western ranges filled with hardy hill country folk and known for its warhorses and skilled riders.
Now the earl of Engelfeld spoke up. “We may be smaller in fighting numbers than these others, but I count sappers and engineers in my army. You’ll want them if you lay siege to Castle Estmor.”
“It amounts to a proper army,” Arvada said. “I have the numbers, Hillhold the horse, Engelfeld the miners and sappers, and Renholm the archers. Baron Knightsbridge will arrive soon with five hundred more, and he’s respected by all.
“We only need a commander to lead them,” his father added. “A man who has proven his bravery, who already has victories over the sorcerer’s armies. A commander the Eriscobans trust and respect.” Arvada clenched his jaw, and Wolfram saw mixed emotions crossing his father’s face. “What better than a man who is willing to dispossess his own fortune to dedicate himself to the defense of his lands and people?”
“What about Knightsbridge?” Wolfram asked. “You said yourself that he’s respected. He could lead the army.”
“He can lead in battle, yes,” Arvada said, “but to hold them together, to inspire. That’s your duty, Son.”
Wolfram glanced at the other three. “And you’re all agreed? These aren’t the words of a proud father?”
The others gave firm nods. The baroness clenched her fist and touched her opposite shoulder, a sign of fealty in the westernmost kingdoms.
A year ago Wolfram would have balked at such a request, if it could be called a request and not a command. Even a few weeks ago he might have demurred, might have suggested that his war was with the marauders, and others would have to raise the troops and supplies to expel the Veyrian army and its hordes of road-building slaves from the free kingdoms.
But he had notched several victories, some mere skirmishes, and some regular battles, and while none had been decisive, he understood the strengths and weaknesses of the so-called high king of Veyre and his armies. The first stirrings of an idea came to mind.
“How soon will these forces arrive?” Wolfram asked.
“The first troops should be here by morning,” his father said. “They’re accompanying supply wagons, and I left a hundred men to hold the bridge, all of which constrains their pace, but I’m bringing them forward as fast as I can. It will take at least a week to have the bulk of the army assembled. Another few days for Knightsbridge to arrive.”
“My best engineer is with them,” Engelfeld said. “If we can surround the castle with Arvada’s men, we’ll start mining the walls right away.”
“I’ve got an even better idea,” Wolfram said. “Ride back to the army and bring me this engineer and some of his sappers. I have work for him, and I don’t want to wait.”
#
It was early afternoon the following day before Wolfram felt ready to march on Castle Estmor. Engelfeld’s engineer had been busy during the night, and the evidence of his work was already visible as thirty Blackshields, twenty other men on horse, and nearly four hundred men came marching up the Tothian Way toward the castle.
Water lapped at the edges of the highway in the lower spots, and in one place was deep enough to carry floating bodies onto the road. Remembering the pestilence that had devastated Estmor when the enemy first broke the dikes, the footmen, especially, were anxious tromping through the rising marshes, and expressed relief when the Tothian Way rose above the water level a few minutes later.
Wolfram wondered if the water kept rising and rising if it would destroy the highway, but Nathaliey and Markal had told him that the necromancer’s sorcery was too powerful, bound as it was with the lashes and suffering of thousands of slaves. He’d experimented already, ordering Engelfeld’s engineer to pull up a few stones before it became clear that such an effort was futile. The cobbles would not give way.
Estmor Castle had a gloomy, deserted air as they approached. The water was several feet higher up the hill than it had been, and had submerged the road beyond as it dipped before climbing into the foothills. The castle village had burned to smoldering ruins, and smoke trickled from the castle as well, collecting in a pall overhead.
Sir Marissa rode at Wolfram’s side as their horses trotted ahead of the noise and odor of four hundred footmen and a hundred riders and mounts. Only a pair of scouts led them, and these waited just outside the ruined village.
“You don’t suppose they’ve pulled out and left us alone?” Marissa asked. “We burned the village and set fire to their castle—there couldn’t have been much left to salvage.”
“That’s not what I see,” Wolfram said. “I see an
intact fortress and a village that was allowed to burn—or maybe even encouraged to burn—so that we’d have nothing to use as cover to mine the walls.”
Indeed, as they left the highway and rode toward the castle gates, faces peered over the parapets. Some of the Veyrians had crossbows, so Wolfram ordered a halt at a safe distance. Sorcery might extend the range of a crossbow bolt, and he had no intention of being taken out by carelessness, so he kept his shield in hand just in case.
He raised his most booming voice. “I will speak to Hamid of Veyre.”
A man appeared on the wall a moment later and shouted down that it would be impossible to speak to the marauder captain, but that the speaker was the pasha in command, and what did the barbarian want? A parlay, Wolfram said, but not via shouts, at which point the man said Wolfram was welcome to enter the castle unmolested.
“Don’t go in there,” Marissa said. “They’re a nest of vipers—the next we see of you will be a head on a pike.”
Wolfram nodded. He lifted his hands to his mouth to shout his answer. “You are the one under siege. Come to me, and I will guarantee your safety.”
“I’ve seen your treachery already,” the pasha said, “and I won’t have you charging in the moment I open the gates. Order your forces to dismount and retreat to the highway, and I’ll come out once I’m convinced you’ll behave honorably.”
“That we’ll behave honorably,” Marissa muttered bitterly as soon as Wolfram had agreed to the terms. “Never mind their invasion, their murdering and pillaging, the extermination and enslavement of the entire population of Estmor, we’ve raised their ire by trying to take back one of our castles by subterfuge. Because that’s the treachery.”
“The pasha probably believes it,” Wolfram said. “The wicked often believe their own lies. Did you spot Nathaliey on the walls?”
“No. They’ve probably got her in the dungeon.”
Wolfram ordered the others to fall back from the gutted village and form defensive ranks. Unless the enemy had received secret reinforcements that belied how they’d turtled themselves inside the castle walls, he doubted they had enough strength to charge out and force a battle against the small Eriscoban army, but caution was a big part of mounting a successful siege.
The Emerald Crown (The Red Sword Trilogy Book 3) Page 10