by Roland Green
She was learning war at a frantic pace.
Now all I have to do is live long enough to use the knowledge, she thought dryly.
The sound of axes and saws drifted from the forest on the hot wind. Siege engines? Too late, and the ground too rough on that side. Probably scaling ladders—and it said much about the enemy that they were only now making this vital provision for the final assault.
Granted, scaling ladders were clumsy things to haul through woodland. But five hundred men with shields and ladders, advancing at a run and covered by five hundred archers—they could have had Belkuthas in the time it took a posset cup to cool, knights or no knights.
She wanted to take that thought to heart, to let it warm her and make her believe the battle would be no harder than chasing gully dwarves out of the midden heap. She could not. She had heard too much, seen enough—and besides, this was her home.
Any battle here was accursed by the True Gods.
From the forest, the woodworking din continued, but now a horn blared above it, and drums answered.
Well over a thousand men advanced in three columns through the woods. The largest column was Zephros’s, with his own men, the recruits from the march, and assorted men who had come in numbers too small to have their own captains. Zephros was not such a fool to be ignorant of what that meant about the men. He merely hoped they would be the first to fall.
Zephros led on the right, with Luferinus in the center. He was a captain that many lesser captains would follow, either out of respect or out of hope of gaining favor in the eyes of the kingpriest.
To the left rode assorted men, watched over, rather than led, by the two knights and their men-at-arms. That position had been negotiated between Zephros, Luferinus, and Sir Lewin. This left-hand column was to march around the citadel, keeping out of bow shot, and bar escape for refugees and counterattacks by dwarves. These orders would preserve the lives of the men and the honor of the knights without much risk of bloodshed. Neither refugees nor dwarves were witlings enough to roam around a battlefield.
The army was now just outside bow shot of the outermost wall, or at least the pile of rubble where it had once stood. Zephros studied the successive barriers lying between his men and the inner citadel, looking for hidden archers.
He signaled to Luferinus, and the two captains put their horses to a trot. The laws of war demanded that a fortified place be summoned to yield; Zephros was not ignorant of what it would mean to break that law before the eyes of Knights of Solamnia.
Legal niceties never helped once battle was joined, and this particular law made difficult Zephros’s best chance of victory—swarming the citadel so quickly that no one need be spared to tell tales. Then anyone who objected to its change of ownership would face an accomplished fact, needing a host of his own to unaccomplish it.
“Unaccomplish.” Zephros savored the word like wine as he rode forward at the head of his men. It was a place he once expected never to find himself in again, after Aurhinius’s wrath at the end of Waydol’s War.
As Zephros reached the outermost wall, someone hailed him from the inner citadel.
“Who comes here in arms, where no enemy exists and peace is the wish of all?”
That sounded like a herald rather than a knight. A pity Sir Lewin was off to the other flank. He might recognize Sir Pirvan’s voice.
“I am High Captain Zephros of the host of Istar, lawfully come to make of this citadel a bastion of virtue. We wish it to serve our host, while it brings the Silvanesti to their proper relationship to Istar.”
The reply to that was a good deal of laughter, and several voices speaking a tongue Zephros did not know. It sounded like Silvanesti; it also sounded rude.
“How do you answer?” he called.
“I answer that you have no lawful business in this citadel. It is already host to an embassy of the king of the Silvanesti. If you are empowered to meet with the High Judge Lauthinaradalas to discuss all the outstanding matters between Istar and the realm of the Silvanesti elves, you may enter, with such persons as you wish, and with the same rank as the high judge.
“Otherwise, we must ask you to camp without, and if you seek entry by violence, be warned you shall be treated as enemies.”
“Confident, aren’t they?” Luferinus said. “No water, a mob of peasants on their hands, an elven noble to keep from getting pricked in his bony arse, and they still wish us to the Abyss.”
Zephros tried to find a suitably eloquent way of phrasing his own reply. The silence dragged on, until Zephros realized he would look a fool if it continued longer.
Zeboim drown the knights, he thought. The law is upheld and waiting gives time to our enemies.
Zephros rose in his stirrups. “The citadel of Belkuthas refuses to yield to the hosts of Istar, fighting in the name of virtue. Let all who stand in their path beware!
“Storming parties, forward at a run!”
Pirvan had gone two walls outward from the inner citadel to hold the parley. When Zephros—easily recognizable from the kender description—ordered the attack, Pirvan and his men-at-arms had to retreat with as much haste as was consistent with dignity.
They could have crawled on their hands and knees. The attackers’ idea of a run could hardly have overtaken a child of four. Pirvan rather regretted he had not posted a few bands of archers among the outer ruins. They could have given the attackers a bloody nose some two hundred yards sooner, perhaps stopping them beyond bow shot of the courtyard where the refugees huddled.
“Ought to have” are words that every captain has thought, but the victory goes to those who do not let it unman them. Pirvan had forgotten where he read that, but remembered the good sense it made then—and now.
Honor demanded that the men-at-arms with him climb the ladder first. As he, last, was scrambling up it, an unexpected face appeared on the wall. It was the sell-sword Rugal Nis.
“Me and the lads have been talking,” he said without preamble. “The magic with the well’s unlawful. We’re not bound to stay out of this fight. Most of us want in, on your side. Can we arm up and come out with no trouble?”
Pirvan looked about him. There was no one in hearing range who was worth consulting, save Haimya and Eskaia. Both of them were looking at him, as if expecting him to be a fount of wisdom.
The responsibility of command was a constant joy.
“Very well. But I warn you: stay close to me. I can’t speak for the trust of everyone here until you’ve proven yourself good comrades.”
Rugal Nis grinned and slapped Pirvan on the back. He did the same to Haimya; he tried to kiss Eskaia, but she danced nimbly out of the way, laughing nonetheless.
Pirvan hoped there would be cause for laughter at the end of the day.
Zephros’s men were now marching, or rather swarming, over what had clearly been Sir Pirvan’s camp. When the knight led his men inside the walls, he had also seen to it that they stripped the camp of anything of value. A few tents that had seen their last campaign, firewood, rusty cook pots, the ashes of campfires, and the turned earth of carefully covered midden pits—a gully dwarf would have despaired of finding anything here.
That didn’t keep some of the men from breaking such ranks as they had kept, searching for loot. Zephros rode out to rally the stragglers. He would gladly have gone to Nuitari to find a dozen good sergeants to do the job for him.
Luferinus saw Zephros riding toward him and seemed to think his fellow captain wished another meeting. He turned his own horse toward the camp, with a backward glance toward the far flank. There, Sir Lewin was at least keeping the men from falling into ditches, tripping over their own feet, or maiming themselves with their own weapons.
As the two captains rode toward each other, a small figure rose, seemingly from the ground. Zephros’s first thought was gully dwarf. Then he recognized the slight build of a kender—coming toward him at a run, hoopak raised to stab with its sharp end.
At that moment, Luferinus saw the kender
also, drew his sword, and dug in his spurs. His horses reared in surprise. Others had also seen the kender—archers among Zephros’s men, both in the column and among the would-be looters. They nocked, drew, and shot with admirable speed, but less admirable aim.
The kender went to the ground and, being covered with ashes and filth, was all but invisible when he did. The arrows flew harmlessly above him, and not so harmlessly pierced Luferinus’s horse in several places.
The horse screamed and reared again, twisting in a frenzy of agony. Luferinus also twisted, struggling to keep his seat. He lost the struggle, lost his seat, and crashed to the ground, one foot still caught in the stirrup. Before he could rise, more arrows struck the horse, and it bolted.
Before the appalled eyes of both advancing columns, Luferinus’s horse thundered away in a cloud of dust, dragging the captain with it. Zephros dug in his spurs and gave chase.
In moments the dust swallowed both captains—and also all the men from both columns, mounted and afoot, who followed the captains.
Where there had been an attack formidable at least in numbers, there was suddenly no attack, and as to the numbers, no two men seemed to be doing the same thing.
Pirvan’s first thought as he watched the attack disintegrate was that Tarothin must have found a spell to fog their wits. The Red Robe was atop the keep, where he could see everything, and had all the spellcasting materials and apparatuses his saddlebags and the citadel could provide. No asking him, though, until the battle was over—this was not something where one could use a messenger.
The knight was still watching the confusion in front when he heard a familiar tread behind. Sir Darin walked with amazing lightness for one of his size, but even on solid stone that size made his tread distinctive.
Then Pirvan realized Darin was not alone, and turned to stare not only at the knight but at two elves standing beside him. One looked as if he would rather be hiding behind Sir Darin. The other stepped forward.
“Sir Pirvan. I will not give my name, for I wish no witnesses to my speaking until I have proved myself with words and deeds alike.” His speech, in the common tongue, was fluent, even graceful.
Elven eloquence could sometimes be as ill-timed as kender chatter. Pirvan made an impatient gesture.
“You have offered the words. What deeds do you offer?”
“Some of us wish to stand upon the walls, and let ourselves be seen by those who would doubt we are with you. Perhaps this will make certain foolish men outside the walls think again about coming within them.”
“Will you stand armed?” Pirvan said. “This is a battle, in case you hadn’t noticed. It is no place for gestures by unarmed elves. I would not have your blood on my conscience.”
He was tempted to add that only a fool would give Lord Lauthin cause to complain more than he already did. The elves’ expression halted the knight’s tongue. They looked resolved to face death rather than again stand aside from a battle. In carrying out that resolve, they were committing what in human hosts was commonly named mutiny.
Soldiers died for that offense, more often than not. Pirvan wondered what the Silvanesti punishment was—and prayed he would not learn today.
“Very well. You and those of your mind—take your bows and quivers. Go around to the hillward side of the citadel. I doubt we have much to fear from these folk, but there’s another column working its way around to our rear. They may need a little more discouraging.”
As he had sent off two of his men-at-arms to escort the sell-swords, Pirvan now did the same for the elves. This left him with one man-at-arms, Haimya, and Eskaia. Not much dignity for the commander of a great citadel under siege. Should he ask Krythis for a plume for his helmet, or perhaps a canopy to ward off the sun, which looked as if it would make the rocks hot enough to fry eggs before the day was done?
Perhaps the day would not end without more laughter, either. Then Pirvan licked dusty lips, and remembered the matter of the citadel’s water supply.
Sir Lewin had gradually worked his way toward the head of the column, which he was busily protecting from its own follies. He had ten men with him and the rest distributed along the length of the marchers, with Sir Esthazas riding in the rear guard.
All the Solamnics were keeping well clear of their comrades, if only to avoid riding any of them down. Also, Sir Lewin wanted his men to be free to form up and charge if they found a foe worthy of such a maneuver.
His hope of that, however, was rapidly shrinking. The ground was riddled with animals’ burrows and little ditches cut by rainwater, almost too rough to allow any sort of charge. The walls on this side were also more crumbled, and one could easily find oneself riding through fields of rubble without warning.
It was as he drew rein to find a path through one of those rubble fields, that Sir Lewin happened to look at the wall. His eyes were undimmed by his nearly fifty years, and it was not hard to recognize those standing atop the wall, even at a good bow shot’s distance.
Elves. Their stance, their build, their coloring—all nearly shrieked in Sir Lewin’s ear.
He did not shriek. But his shout was pitched like a battle cry. “The elves have joined the fight for Belkuthas. The embassy is foresworn. Follow me, for the honor of Istar and the name of soldiers of virtue!”
The wolf-pack howl that replied told Sir Lewin the men had very little interest in virtue and much in vice, particularly the kinds practiced with the wine and women they might find within the citadel. He told himself that the citadel’s fall would be a victory worth winning, nonetheless, a victory over elven treachery.
Then he waved to his trumpeter. The great battle horn roared, and all over the battlefield heads turned toward the sound.
Among those who recognized the blast of a battle horn of the Knights of Solamnia were Sir Pirvan and Sir Darin. Pirvan could not see across the citadel as easily as Darin, with his extra height, so it was the younger knight who saw the truth first.
He uttered a word Pirvan had never before heard from his lips. Then he added, “There is a knight leading the rear column. I must ride out and learn what he is doing in such dubious company.”
“You must—?” Pirvan began.
Darin shook his head. “If he is there by design of the orders, well and good. He will not allow me to be harmed. If he is there for other reasons—he must learn what a fool he is, to ride with them against fellow knights.”
Only Sir Darin did not use the word “fool.” He used a much stronger word in the minotaur tongue. Pirvan had heard him use it before, but never applied to another knight, or indeed any person Darin respected.
The older knight was still recovering from his surprise when Darin leapt off the wall, to land halfway down the stairs. He descended the rest of the way three steps at a time, then dashed across the courtyard toward his mount. A moment later, Pirvan heard him roaring.
“Open the gate! Paladine demands that I ride to save a knight’s honor.”
As softly spoken as he commonly was, Darin possessed a voice to match his stature. Pirvan feared he could be heard all the way to the trees, and that he would have a dozen arrows in him before he was twenty paces from the gate.
But Darin was right. The Knights of Solamnia had to look to one another’s honor, when ignorance or folly might strike at it.
Briefly, Pirvan cursed the moment he had accepted command of Belkuthas. His honor demanded that he remain at his post, and leave riding out to save others’ honor to Darin.
Chapter 14
By the time Zephros overtook Luferinus, the sell-sword captain’s own men had surrounded him. None of them were attempting to care for his wounds. No man with his head at that angle to his body could be alive.
Zephros reined in. He saw a ripple of rising heads and raised weapons around Luferinus. His initial impulse, to go and kneel piously beside the body, began to disappear.
Taking its place was an impulse to be elsewhere, if only he could find an excuse and a way to leave without turning his
back on either the enemy or the men who had been his allies until a few moments before. He would not have minded Luferinus’s fall under most circumstances, but these circumstances seemed to have been contrived by Hiddukel the Liar.
He was contemplating this, and it seemed to him that some of Luferinus’s archers were contemplating drawing bow, when a mounted man galloped into sight. His horse was lathered and his own eyes were wild, while from his gaping mouth came a shriek.
“The knights are coming out! The knights are out of the citadel! ’Ware, ’ware!”
That seemed to Zephros as good a reason as any for digging in his spurs. He galloped off, to a brief chorus of jeers, which died when the men saw that he was advancing toward the citadel and the charging knights, not fleeing.
His real reasons for advancing were less than heroic. He wanted to give Luferinus’s men as few excuses as possible for shooting him in the back. He also wanted to see if the knights’ charge was another rumor.
As Zephros rode, he swore a mighty oath that he would kill with his bare hands the next person who spread panic by spreading tales!
Mistaking Sir Darin’s ride out to parley for a charge of the garrison’s knights was understandable. Darin wore armor and carried both sword and lance, and he looked as formidable as any three knights. His horse had been kicking its heels in the Belkuthas stables for two days, so it emerged at a brisk center.
Though they thought Darin was attacking, the first ranks of the soldiers refused the honor of engaging him. He did not even have to couch his lance before they scuttled off in all directions. The knight doubted this was due to a vast abiding respect for the Solamnic orders, and drew his sword, a more effective weapon at close quarters.
This convinced other sell-swords that it was time to face Darin, Solamnic Knight or not. Some thirty of them swarmed toward him on horseback and on foot, at the same moment as he recognized Sir Lewin.