by Tony Daniel
Rainer turned back to see what was going on in the bastion.
“Curse the Sandhaveners!” Otto yelled. “If they burn the town, they get nothing.” He motioned his couriers to gather round. “Tell the captains to send every bowman they have to the wall. Drive those fire archers out of range. Go, go, go!”
Rainer spent the next watch running the hoarding, delivering Otto’s orders. Some townsmen had by now been hit, and they’d bled on the hoarding. Twice he almost slipped on blood-slick boards and tumbled off. If he hadn’t been wearing his hobnail boots, he probably would have. He nearly pushed a man off himself. The fellow had come away from the wall, dropped his pants, and was pissing off the edge of the walkway.
Archers on the wall had a lot better view of what they were shooting at than the enemy below did. Even though most of the militia archers were townsmen with a bow, a lot of them were very good shots. Plenty of townsmen added to the family cook pot by going hunting every few days for quail and turkey, deer and squirrels, in Bear Valley up on Massanutten Mountain or in the forests of the Dragonback Mountains nearest town. There were also hunting clubs that rented property from landholders, including the duke.
The practice was paying off. Their steady rain of arrows was driving the Sandhavener fire archers back. Shooting a flaming arrow was not easy even for someone trained to do it. You couldn’t pull the arrow as far back as you could with a regular shot so your range was less. Also, the operation took at least two people, because someone besides the archer had to set fire to the wrapped tow cloth on the end of the arrow while the bowman held his draw.
Finally the steady shooting from the walls made the Sandhaveners pull back out of range for fire arrows, and they switched back to normal arrows with deadly tips—but no flame.
Chapter Twenty-Eight:
The Black Bolt
When Rainer got back to Otto’s command bastion, he could see the mood had gotten better. Then hundreds of Sandhaveners with siege ladders ran forward together.
Otto sent Rainer for a count of ladders, and he spotted twenty of them along the eastern wall, then doubled back and counted five on the north wall. The hoarding was filled with shouting, frantic men. But they were still working well together. Some teams were dumping stones handed up from the street below down on the ladders. Archers were firing into the sides of the Sandhaveners climbing up, and other groups on the wall were trying to lever the ladders away with pieces of timber shoved between the wall and the top rungs.
The Sandhaveners were just as determined. Once you started up a ladder there was a man behind you and you couldn’t go back down. Some had made it up and had swarmed over and onto the walk, fighting to clear a way for those coming behind them. Rainer’s way was blocked several times by hard fighting. Men of the guard and militia were being wounded and killed. Once a huge Sandhavener slashed at a man who was directly in front of Rainer. Rainer saw the militia man’s helm fly off and then saw the sword bite into the side of the man’s skull. The man clattered to the hoarding.
The attacker, who was well armored, stared down for a moment at what he’d done, and Rainer took the chance to charge over the dead man and swing a vicious blow with his ax into the side of the Sandhavener’s knee between the greave on his shin and the cuisse on his thigh. The man roared with pain. He struck a hard blow with his sword, but Rainer’s helmet and partially raised buckler deflected it, and the blade skittered away. Rainer’s ears rang from the blow, and for a moment he saw black spots.
He shook it off, and charged forward into the man, shoving with his buckler. The Sandhavener’s sliced knee collapsed, and Rainer’s push sent him tumbling off the walk to fall twenty hands to the paving stones below. Rainer looked over the edge and saw the man lying in a tangle, his helmet off and his sword several paces from his body.
It appeared the man was dead, but then Rainer saw the warrior move an arm.
That is one tough guy, Rainer thought.
He was considering whether he should find a way down to finish the guy off when a gang of children emerged from an alleyway with wooden stakes, followed by a pack of mongrel dogs. They gathered around the big man and began to stab him without mercy between his armor. The dogs barked with excitement.
“Tretz receive his soul,” Rainer said, then turned his gaze from the spectacle.
A defender had jammed a spear pole between the wall and the ladder and three men were pulling on the makeshift lever to get the ladder off rim of the wall. Rainer jumped up and grabbed the shaft over the back of the man in front of him. He heard shouting from the ladder on the wall. Sandhaveners were climbing up, though he couldn’t see them from where he was.
“All together now!” someone grunted, and the four defenders gave it everything they had and managed to flip the ladder off the wall. The men who had been climbing up yelled in fear and frustration as they fell backward with it.
Rainer raised a fist in victory to the three men he’d helped, then charged past, working his way against archers and sword and spearmen as he headed back to report north wall ladder numbers to Otto.
He had to stop and catch his breath, and it was then that he saw Otto and his personal guard fighting two Sandhaveners who had gained the eastern hoarding where that wall cornered with the north. From where he stood, Rainer had a perfect view of the fight. The Sandhaveners fought savagely, but they were being hit from both sides and it wasn’t long before someone ran up with a halberd, got the point in, and stabbed one man deep in the side. The attacker wore a hauberk, but it parted at such a sharp blow from the razor-sharp blade. The man collapsed.
The other attacker fought on. Otto himself charged the man. He fended off a blow and quickly made a counter, slicing his sword across the man’s neck. His opponent fell against Otto, and Otto shoved him off the hoarding.
Otto stalked back to his bastion.
Better get over there and report, Rainer thought.
It took him a moment to work his way around a series of defenders. Then just before he got to the command bastion, he caught a whiff of…something horrible.
The death smell. There was plenty of the sharp tang of spilled blood, and smoke from the township fire that had been put out, but there shouldn’t have been the odor of flesh rotting. It was too soon.
He gazed down into the town below and…there! A bit of black, half hidden in a doorway.
It was the draugar. He knew it. He had seemed to Rainer a creature of the night, of a near dream state. What was he doing out in full daylight?
Whatever it was couldn’t be good. Rainer charged toward Otto’s perch to tell him what he’d seen. But he had to wait a moment when he arrived because Otto was shouting orders to two couriers. After a moment the men took off, one shouldering past Rainer, to deliver their messages.
Otto turned to Rainer. His face was sooty, and there was a smear of blood on one cheek, but he was smiling.
“We took those Sandhaveners out, brother!” he said.
“Yeah, you did,” Rainer replied.
Both of them were yelling because you had to in order to be heard above the din. In addition to men yelling, there were trumpets blowing command blasts and drums beating constantly.
“I think that was their worst. We got through it,” Otto said. “Looks like they really were mostly here at the northeast. Everything’s quiet to the south.”
“So we held them off?”
“I think they’ve spent themselves for today,” Otto said. He smiled grimly. “They’ll have to settle for a siege. We’ll win a siege. Last year I beat it into the town council’s heads to be sure the township had good grain stockpiles.”
“And they listened?”
“I made sure each one got a warehouse in his district, and the funds to stock it.”
Otto was good at politics. He had a lot of patience, and knew how to make deals.
“We have wells so we won’t die of thirst. We still control the riverfront. We can stand them off for a long, long time.”
Rainer nodded, then remembered. “M’lord, I saw something. Something bad, I think.”
“What is it?”
But then another courier ran up with urgent news, and Otto held up a hand to tell Rainer to wait while the man delivered his report.
Rainer looked back down into the town. Where was that doorway?
Then there it was again. The draugar held a crossbow.
At that moment, Otto turned back to Rainer.
“What was it you wanted to tell—”
An arrow suddenly caught his foster brother in the shoulder.
No, not an arrow. A bolt. A crossbow bolt.
A fleck of blood spattered across Rainer’s face. Blood welled from Otto where the bolt had penetrated the breast-plate metal. Otto reached up and grabbed the shaft. It wasn’t in deep and, with a cry of satisfaction laced with pain, he worked it out.
The bolt was a short piece of iron. Its tip came out bloody.
“That one came from the town,” he said to Rainer. “Why did it come from—”
He opened his mouth to say more, but instead of words, a red blood bubble emerged. Otto looked at the bolt, still in his hands.
A lumpy black pitch coated the upper portion of the crossbow bolt’s shaft.
Then Otto began to shake violently. His face was an expression of complete shock. He dropped the bolt. He opened his mouth to scream but could make only a gagging sound.
Purple-black bile flowed out, drizzling down his chin.
He raised a hand to his mouth, covering it, trying to stop the bile. Rainer rushed forward, but he was too late.
Otto collapsed, and Rainer knelt at his side.
The bile cleared for a moment, and Otto drew in air noisily. He breathed in and out in gasps, then something seemed to seize up in his throat. He grabbed Rainer’s arm.
“We were ready,” Otto croaked with what was left of his breath.
Then Otto began to convulse. Rainer tried to hold him, but it did no good. His legs twitched and his boot heels bounced up and down on the stones. Then Otto’s shaking stopped and he stared blankly ahead, his eyes fixed.
No.
We need him to not be dead, Rainer thought.
“Otto! Come on Otto!”
But he was gone.
Others had seen what had happened and were shouting, kneeling down to try to revive their leader, pushing past Rainer and, not meaning to, shoving him out of the way. Rainer let them. He was numb.
Otto was dead.
Obviously it had been caused by some kind of poison that the draugar had tipped the arrow with. Even in battle, people did not die that fast from an arrow wound to the shoulder.
“Tretz receive his soul,” Rainer whispered. “Hold my brother in God’s light.”
Rainer crawled over to the edge of the bastion and looked down into the town.
He saw the draugar. It was standing with the crossbow slung at its side, gazing up to see what it had done. From an alley near the draugar a stream of men burst forth. They were not blackened creatures, but were real flesh-and-blood men wearing tabards with the gray goose volant in front of blue and black vertical stripes—the crest of Sandhaven. They carried drawn swords, and they charged into the townpeople below. They began swinging, hewing, cleaving.
Sandhaveners, Rainer thought. Inside the township.
More and more emerged from the alley. They didn’t yell. They didn’t sing. They were completely silent, as if this were another day at a job they knew well.
They moved down the wall in both directions.
They’re going to charge up the ramps, Rainer thought. Nobody is expecting an attack from the rear. We’ll be slaughtered.
He shouted a warning and ran toward the nearest hoarding ramp to try and stop them. Others had seen and fighting had begun at the top of the ramp. It wasn’t enough. The Sandhaveners cut the defenders down and broke through.
We’ve been betrayed, Rainer thought. Somehow we’ve been tricked.
Curse them to cold hell!
Rainer charged toward a Sandhavener. But the man lowered his buckler and met Rainer’s charge dead on. As Rainer was bringing his ax around to hit the man in the head, the Sandhavener twisted his shield and shoved again. Rainer went flying over the edge of the walk. He fell twenty hands to the ground below.
He landed stunned, the wind knocked out of him. His years of training kicked in and he moved even before he was back to full mental awareness. His buckler arm along with the buckler was twisted under his torso. He rolled over and pulled it free. The arm wasn’t broken. He looked around carefully for his ax, but didn’t see it.
Then a body fell in front of him. It was a guardsman, his throat cut. He hadn’t even had a chance to draw his sword. Rainer stumbled over to the body, his head clearing further, and pulled the sword from the man’s scabbard. The man wouldn’t need it anymore.
Armed, he turned to see…Sandhaven soldiers. Everywhere. They wore armor and carried bright swords. These were no recruits from the farms and fields. They were professionals, dozens of them. They were inside the town.
They saw Rainer too, and a couple broke away from the mass streaming toward the wall gangways to take care of him.
There is no way to fight all of them, not now, Rainer thought. They’ll just slaughter me like a pig.
Otto is dead.
My brother.
Rainer felt another wave of emotion rising, but he beat it down.
He would deal with it later.
The best option was to run and live to fight later.
But the two Sandhaveners were after him. One was very fast, faster than he was, and he caught up with Rainer and shoved him to the ground. Rainer fell into a pile of horse manure. He managed to hold onto his sword.
But then the Sandhavener stepped onto his arm with one boot and with the other kicked the sword away. Rainer rolled, his back to the manure, and yanked his arm free. The two Sandhaveners were standing over him, their own swords drawn back, ready to cut him to pieces.
The one who had kicked away the sword was huge and lean. One glance at him told Rainer this would be a hard man to beat even in the best of circumstances. The man shook his head, as if it were a shame to kill Rainer while he was down, but that did not stop the sword from beginning its thrust into Rainer’s throat.
And then a very strange thing happened. The sword stopped in mid-swing. The man held up. For a moment his arm hung there, trembling. Then he withdrew the sword, stepped back, and sheathed it.
“What is it, Captain Rask?” the other soldier asked the man.
“New orders, curse it to cold hell,” he said. “He wants us on the wall.”
The other looked at him curiously. “Well, I didn’t hear any—”
Then that man’s expression froze as if he were a dog that had caught the scent of a deer.
“Oh,” he said. “Right, Captain, sir. But what about this one?” He pointed his sword at Rainer.
“This one?” The other, Rask, took a step forward and swiftly kicked Rainer in the head. The other was about to kick him, too, but saw he was standing in fresh manure and backed away, trying to scrape a sticky piece off his foot.
For Rainer, all was a blur of pain and confusion. He thought he heard someone say “Let’s go.” But where was he supposed to go?
To the castle. He had to get to the castle. Warn them. Protect them.
He made it to his knees before the dizziness was too much for him and he collapsed back onto the cobblestones. Then, after letting the buzzing in his head settle a moment, he tried to get up again, and could this time.
The sword. He needed a weapon.
He found it. It had skittered halfway under a wagon. Bending down to get it almost sent him tumbling again, but he steadied himself with a hand against the wagon’s side. He grabbed the sword. It wouldn’t move. It had jammed under the iron-hooped wheel of the wagon. He pulled harder—and the blade broke. It broke a few fingers from the hilt. There was no way he could use it now.
&
nbsp; He looked at the broken sword stupidly for a moment. Then he threw it aside.
Where was he going again?
To tell the family that Otto was dead. To tell the duchess. Ulla.
Anya.
This was going to be the worst thing he’d ever had to do in his life.
He said a quick prayer. “Tretz, please let them have closed the gate.”
Rainer felt a twinge of guilt, since this was more of a wish than a prayer. But his father, his real father, had told him it was never a mistake to pray.
“God answers prayer,” he could hear Lug Stope saying. “But God also helps those who help themselves, son, and don’t you forget it.”
Rainer looked around and figured out where he was, then made his way at a jog down Market Street toward Raukenrose Castle.
He was too late.
Chapter Twenty-Nine:
The Law-speak
Not all Tier were known, as Wulf’s discovery of Nagel’s nature had shown. Most of the known talking animals in Shenandoah had, over centuries, organized themselves into families, clans, counties, and principalities, depending on how they dealt with territory. Some were attached to a certain area, but others could be found most anywhere. Some usually worked at particular trades. Fauns were in service to humans and, sometimes, bear people. Raccoons were tinkerers and armorer’s assistants. They were also well known as fishers who sold barrels of live trout up and down the river. Beaver people made the flat boats they floated on.
The roaming Tier usually belonged to families and clans that looked out for one another.
The bear people of Shwartzwald County were the most powerful of the Tier. They were on a level with humans in wealth and they were well armed.
Though Tier were often treated as second-class citizens by men—even in the mark—most of the Tier didn’t think of themselves that way at all. They figured that working as hard for a living as men and fighting for the duke when he went to war made them men’s equal.