by Roland Green
It did not, however, take the heart out of the defense. Pirvan never feared that. What he began to fear within hours was defenders so determined to glut their vengeance with the besiegers’ blood that they would in rage leave themselves vulnerable to a cooler opponent.
Tarothin and Nuor together finally explained to him what the plan was for the day of the assault. Pirvan decided his fighters would not be facing a cool-headed opponent at all—at least not for long.
Gildas Aurhinius reined in as his mount approached another curve in this downhill trail. A cloud of dust ascending the trail proved to be Nemyotes, much as he had expected.
They had watered their mounts only an hour ago, so Nemyotes did not bother dismounting. “The going is easier, from another half league onward,” he reported. “Also, we saw a pegasus with a rider.”
“Did they see you?” Aurhinius asked.
With both hands, Nemyotes made his impossible-to-say gesture. He could now control a cantering horse with his knees, whereas ten years ago he had been hard put to stay on a trotting one.
“More, please. If you wish to keep your own counsel, become a spy. If you wish to serve me, speak.”
“The pegasus was staying low above the trees. Within arrow range, which I judge means the rider thought the forest was held by friends. I am sure the rider was a scout, and there have been so many tales of a pegasus at Belkuthas that I doubt we need ask for whom.”
Aurhinius also doubted. He had learned a good deal about the situation at Belkuthas in the last few days, mostly from deserters. The deserters in turn were mostly from Zephros’s companies, one and all half starved, half naked, and less than half armed.
His way of dealing with them was to offer them food, arms, and clothing, in return for information and joining his colors. If they would not join his colors but would talk, he would give them a pardon, but no more.
The few who would neither talk nor serve now decorated pine trees higher up the mountain. Only a few examples had been enough to encourage the rest to be more forthcoming.
“Best we pick a flying column and send it on ahead,” Aurhinius said.
“Indeed,” Nemyotes said. “Floria Desbarres suggested that very thing this morning.”
“She did, did she?”
Aurhinius was hardly surprised. He had come to feel Desbarres was about the best of the sell-swords under his command, and worthy of high rank in the regular host. Not that she would ever receive it—that was not for women—but he could give her something she would value almost equally.
“Tell Floria to pick three other companies besides her own, no more than five hundred horsemen in all, and take them forward to Belkuthas. She suggested it; she shall do it.”
“Yes, my lord.” Nemyotes was grinning as he rode off.
The sun did not write in the dawn sky, in letters of golden fire, any such message as TODAY THE ASSAULT COMES.
It would not have been necessary. The defenders of Belkuthas needed help from neither gods nor men to know what they faced this day.
The walls of the citadel showed two breaches in the walls, each surrounded by barricades and entrenchments against those attackers who might break through. Both breaches were “practicable,” according to the conventions of siege warfare.
Also according to the conventions of such warfare, Belkuthas had been summoned to surrender, or face being stormed and sacked. Pirvan had been allowed to reply to the herald, as he was the one most trusted to keep his temper.
“We have no quarrel with the men of Carolius Migmar, or indeed with anyone else who is lawfully besieging this citadel,” he said. “As we have no quarrel, it is your duty to depart, bringing peace to the land.
“If, however, it is the wish of Carolius Migmar that his honorable soldiers fight shoulder to shoulder with rebels, mutineers, and common thieves, these good men shall pay the penalty for keeping bad company. We shall regret having to administer it, but administer it we shall.”
Pirvan then made an extremely rude gesture he had learned in the back streets of Istar, one that made a good many people on both sides roar with laughter. The herald departed in haste, with an air of affronted dignity.
That night, everyone made their farewells, bequeathing this ring to one comrade and that pair of second-best sandals to another. No one spoke aloud that which was in everyone’s mind, that by the laws of war, Carolius Migmar could sack Belkuthas to the bare walls and put everyone within to the sword.
“Which he probably won’t do,” Pirvan told Haimya. “He has to know that the Silvanesti and the dwarves are out in more strength than he has. Even if he has orders to provoke a war with them, he is unlikely to interpret those orders in a way that will begin the war with two massacres, one by Istarians and one of Istarians.”
“Given a choice, I would rather drink the victory toasts as a living woman than be avenged as a dead one,” Haimya said.
“I agree,” her husband replied. “There is very little that one can do with a dead woman, and much to be done with a living one.”
It would also have been hard to write letters of fire on the sky because the sky that morning was gray from horizon to horizon. It was hot, with a hint of moistness in the air that in this hill country meant more than a hint of rain was to come.
Pirvan had taken his post atop the great hall, the building least battered by the siege engines. He intended to stay up here no more than necessary to make sure that he saw everything and sent all the proper orders. After the death of Krythis, the people on the fighting line would need his orders in person not to run wild among their enemies.
Now drums rolled, trumpets blared, and colored smokes swirled up until they were lost in the clouds. The storming parties marched out of their entrenchments, three of them, each about five hundred strong. Two were Migmar’s people—Istarian regulars in one band and picked sell-swords beside them—and the third, judging from its ragged formation, was plainly Zephros’s men.
Fifteen hundred men, coming against not more than three hundred defenders. More than enough to do the work, if they penetrated the breaches.
To either side of the columns marched archers, covered by men with shields, some so heavy they rolled forward on wheels. The archers lofted their arrows high over shield and wall, both, to plummet down within Belkuthas.
Picked archers replied. Some of them were elven, as the survivors of Lauthin’s embassy guards were now all part of the citadel’s defenders. The honor of the Silvanesti demanded no less, and Pirvan pitied any sell-sword who thought the elves could be persuaded to yield once the fighting came inside.
The elven archers also lofted their arrows, and they knew more about fine shooting than most humans could ever learn. Screams soon rose from behind the shields, and while they continued their advance, they left a trail of writhing or still forms.
Others on the wall were dwarves. Not at their best in fast-moving close combat, because of their short stature and limbs, dwarves still knew how to strike powerful blows. The ones on the wall had fortress crossbows, such as were used against the gryphon the day of Belot’s arrival, and these could send a bolt clear through a shield and the man behind it.
At other times, they used the flat trajectory and high velocity of the fortress bows to send the bolts whistling out five or six hundred paces. Men carrying wounded back or running forward to replace the dead and wounded, died before even reaching the battlefield—died without knowing what hit them, their bodies flung twenty paces through the air.
All of which diminished the numbers and perhaps the ardor of the attackers, but did not slow them enough for Pirvan to take hope. Well, Zephros’s men were even more ragged than usual, but they were still coming on. Pirvan saw one reason for that—a line of Istarian regulars just behind them, with swords and halberds ready to strike down any laggards. Just what Zephros’s men deserved—steel in front and behind.
Pirvan measured distances with his eye. The people on the wall had started shooting at long range. Now the enemy
was within close range.
It was time.
Pirvan signaled to Nuor of the Black Chisel, then pointed with both hands.
The dwarf hefted his axe, turned it, and with the blunt side of the head struck a gong bolted to the stonework.
Before the echoes died, the ground crumbled in a nearly complete circle around Belkuthas. Suddenly Migmar’s two columns were completely bisected by trenches wider than a man’s height and of unknown depth. Pirvan heard screams as unlucky men on the edges overbalanced and fell into the dark, to join their comrades already buried alive.
Then flames roared from the trenches. Men within or close by screamed as they turned into living torches. Some of them ran, trailing smoke.
Down there, in the tunnels dug around Belkuthas by the dwarves under Gran Axesharp, fire spells were at work. The dwarves had loaded the tunnels with grease, rock oil, pitch, dried thundermoss, wood, and other burnable stuff.
Burning naturally, these loads would not last long. Neither would any fire spell that Tarothin could cast. But with a fire spell and burnable stuff to feed the flames, a circle of fire would nearly surround Belkuthas for hours.
Nearly, because in front of Zephros’s men, the ground remained firm and fireless. They had an open path to one of the breaches—if they chose to take it, or if the Istarians in the rear could discourage them from taking the path to safety and flight.
Pirvan was prepared to watch the spectacle with some interest. This was a trick that the citadel could use only once, but with luck it would be needed only once, before the elves arrived. Then, whatever happened, it would not be the citadel falling under fire and sword.
Pirvan saw that he had left matters a trifle too late with the two disciplined columns. They had many men down and more singed and frightened. They also had hundreds who’d been beyond the trench line when the fire blazed up. These included a few with scaling ladders and more with bows. They were coming on, shooting as they went.
It looked rather as if the Belkuthans would have to defend both breaches, and one of them against disciplined soldiers, in spite of the fire spells.
Carolius Migmar did not know how long the Istarian regulars and picked sell-swords close to the wall would be able to hold. He doubted they could storm their breach, but they ought to last long enough to keep the defenders occupied there. He only hoped some would survive to share in the victory.
He was going to have to move everyone outside the fire circle to reinforce Zephros’s column. Reinforcing Zephros was rather like pushing an uncooked sausage; slow going, and with the possibility that the cursed thing would fall apart before it had gone very far. But even uncooked sausage could choke a dog if you shoved enough of it down the dog’s throat. Migmar did not like to fight this way; the lives of his men were a sacred trust.
The victory of virtue was an even more sacred one.
He cut in among the ranks of the Istarian regulars, waving his sword toward Zephros’s men and shouting: “Rally to Zephros’s column. They have open ground clear to the breach! Rally to Zephros’s column and follow me!”
Thunder rumbled in the south, loud enough to be heard over the battle din of shouting. Shouting—and screaming, as men on the walls or the ground fell, with longbow shafts or crossbow bolts tearing their flesh as their screams tore their throats until life fled.
Pirvan wondered if any of the men who died today would come to him in nightmares. He doubted it. This was the kind of fighting where one drew steel with, if not an easy conscience, an unburdened one. Men would not be dying because they had been in the wrong place at the wrong time; they were dying because they had chosen to come to you with murderous intent.
Pirvan was not one of those rare people who could face such a threat without replying in kind. No doubt such people had their uses in the True Gods’ plans—but those plans would have to go forward without Pirvan’s assistance.
Not so the fighting at the breaches. It seemed Carolius Migmar—probably that figure on the big gray war-horse—was trying to shift men around to join Zephros’s column on clear ground. Meanwhile, those inside the ring of fire were mounting their own attack, on the other breach.
The best tactic now would be to hammer the lesser attack flat at once, then move his own men to hold the other breach against the greater one, for as long as necessary.
Which meant it was time for the commander of Belkuthas to show himself on the ground.
Today half his guards were Gryphons, the other half sell-swords under Rugal Nis. He beckoned to them.
“Follow me. We’re going to fight at the lesser breach.”
Tharash had “deserted” to an ill-ordered company of dubious sell-swords under Zephros’s command. There were more men here who hated and feared the “lesser races”, but fewer who asked questions about anyone who joined up and did his share of the work.
It also helped that Tharash had exchanged his elven bow for a human longbow. He thought it was a disgrace to the good name of archery, in truth, but he had used one often enough before that his skill came back. Within a few days he knew he would be able to use any opportunity that came his way, to good purpose.
The problem was finding the opportunity. He had more chances to shoot Zephros than he could count on his fingers and toes, but that would merely warn the enemy. It might even lead to Zephros’s men being broken up and placed under other captains—who might ask more questions about archers with pointed ears.
Thus far, Tharash had been lucky. Those who had noticed his ears reasoned—if one could call it such—that no elf would lower himself to use a human bow.
Now the last battle had come, and since dawn Tharash had been hoping to find himself within range of his principal target. However, the warrior seemed even more reluctant to come around Zephros’s men today than he had been during the siege.
All this changed, however, within minutes after the fire circled Belkuthas. Tharash heard shouts and cheers, then drums and trumpets. He saw banners waving, one of them the standard of his target.
Then, over the helmeted heads of his comrades, he saw the banner approach. The warrior rode up to the head of Zephros’s column and drew rein beside Zephros himself. Tharash could not hear what either said over the shouting, but he could see from gestures what the plan was.
Reinforced, Zephros’s column would have the honor of carrying Belkuthas. Reinforced, and led by Tharash’s target, who would have his face to the foe and his back to his own men throughout the assault. And who also might die without Tharash’s assistance. But with Tharash in the press of battle behind him, the man would die.
Pirvan led a solid body of fighters toward the lesser breach. Overhead, the archers had turned their shooting in the same direction. Zephros’s men were not yet threatening the greater breach, or the wall to either side.
Behind and around Pirvan moved Gryphons, Rugal Nis and the survivors of his half score sell-swords, Solamnic men-at-arms (both Pirvan’s and the newcomers, led by Sir Esthazas), and a double handful of Belkuthans with Tulia at their head. Had anyone told Pirvan that such an unlikely array of fighters would ever follow one man, let alone him, against a common foe, he would have laughed.
But he led, they followed, and he realized that even if only one Belkuthan survived today’s fighting, they would still have won a victory of sorts. That one survivor could say that he or she had seen humans of half a dozen homelands, both men and women, full elves, half-elves, dwarves, kender, pegasi, and centaurs fighting in a common cause, living and dying beside one another.
Every time that tale was told, it would be one more blow to the “lesser races” vileness.
As they approached the smaller breach, Pirvan saw men appearing in it. So did Sir Esthazas—and from the howl of rage he let out, some of them were no pleasant sight. As if his feet had grown wings, he dashed forward, passing through the ranks of the Gryphons and sell-swords ahead of him, leaving Pirvan behind as though the senior knight was rooted to the ground.
“One of my
men is there with the enemy!” the young knight screamed over his shoulder. “He is mine!”
It seemed to Pirvan doubtful who would be whose. But arrows and bolts chose this moment to fall heavily among the enemy’s ragged ranks. They were more ragged still after a dozen men went down.
The burly red-bearded man-at-arms that Sir Esthazas sought was not among the fallen. He stood his ground, with shield and mace, as Sir Esthazas charged him. Then he swung the mace and raised the shield.
He was too clumsy with the first and too slow with the second. The blow barely grazed the knight’s helmet. The knight’s sword found its way around the shield, deep into the flesh over the man-at-arm’s ribs. He reeled, Sir Esthazas opened his thigh, a crossbowman shot Sir Esthazas in the back, and then both the knight and his dishonored foe toppled together down the stony rubble of the breach.
They landed just far enough from Pirvan that before he could reach them, several more attackers leapt down around them. Pirvan started to draw his dagger, then altered his draw and came up with his throwing knife. He was not as deft with it as in his younger days, but one of the men facing him was unarmored. The man fell with Pirvan’s knife in his throat, and a gap opened in the circle around the bodies.
There were still too many for Pirvan alone to wipe aside. There was also as strong a duty as ever not to let a fellow knight’s body fall into enemy hands. That Sir Esthazas had certainly died of his own folly, and perhaps his own wish, made no difference. The Measure was strict.
Pirvan feinted to the left, hoping to draw at least one man into the open and create flanks in the circle. He wanted to break up the circle regardless of the bodies inside anyway. The longer it stood there, the more attackers could shelter behind it, well within the breach and ready to swarm down into the citadel at the least opportunity.
Nobody took his bait, but someone ran past him on the right, straight at the circle. The runner stumbled, regained his footing, and threw himself—no, herself—on the point of both a spear and a sword at once.