“Say,” said Elys, Tongren's eldest son, “why not bring out your wolf? She'll be a more dangerous weapon than any knife, I'd reckon.”
“I don't think so,” said Alythia. “She'd just run around in circles and get in everyone's way.”
“Ha!” laughed Tongren, giving the knife an expert, dangerous twirl. “That's what battle is, girl.”
Palopy was a grand old building, built high on the slope overlooking the first U-bend in Maerler's Way. It had four floors of yellow limestone, and two main faces, one looking down onto the harbour, and the other facing the outer bend in Maerler's Way. A high wall, lined with spikes, separated the lawn and courtyard from the road, its gates barred with steel-reinforced beams. Behind Palopy, the slope rose into a vertical cliff, protecting it from the rear. Downslope, and to the north, were large, heavily defended properties belonging to Families Gelodi and Vailor, the former of the Steiner alliance, the latter of Maerler. The only access presented to the mob was Maerler's Way, and they were giving it everything they had.
Rhillian crouched behind the low wall that lined the roof as her archers waited patiently for the raging mob to charge again. There were two groups, from this vantage-one on the upslope stretch of the Way, the other downslope. The curve of the bend itself was littered with bodies, nearest the archers’ range. Now there were shots flying across the road from the building directly opposite, surrounded within the bend. Men had stormed that building, neutral though its residents were, and Rhillian had seen men, women and children dragged protesting into the street. One man had fought, and been hacked with an axe. The others had been swallowed up by the receding mob. Now, Palopy and its talmaad defenders were constantly under fire from the building.
“Here they come again,” said Terel, peering above the wall, his bow in hand.
“They coordinate through the back alleys,” said Rhillian, watching with narrowed eyes. “The upslope group with the downslope. They'll blow the horn this time, both will come at once.”
At the head of the upslope mob there was indeed a man with a horn. They milled, yelling and chanting, waving weapons in the air. The road was not nearly wide enough, and the crowd stretched out of sight as the Way bent. Many of their number would be rushing off elsewhere, Rhillian knew. Thus the armed crowds had been spreading across Petrodor, congregating at one serrin property, or the property of a serrin sympathiser, and burning and looting until it all became too crowded, and then moving on. So far, the talmaad had managed to stay ahead of the tide. But the tide continued to build.
The horn blew, and with a roar, the forward part of upslope and downslope mob broke free and sprinted toward the Palopy wall. Rhillian rose with her own bow in hand, strained and loosed, knowing that despite not favouring the bow, she could hardly miss. She ducked to fit another arrow as shots from across the road sang past, or clattered off the wall. On her second shot, she could see men falling as they charged, perhaps forty talmaad firing rapidly across the road face of Palopy, from rooftop and windows. Bodies fell in tangles, tripping men behind, cutting swathes across the cobblestones.
A yell came nearby as a serrin took a crossbow bolt through the arm, and then the mob reached the wall. The talmaad continued firing, loosing arrows judiciously into those trailing behind-here a man with a sword fell, there a strong-looking man with an axe screamed and tumbled on the cobbles, while skinny lads, older men, and crazed howlers armed with naught but their fists continued unscathed. The rhythm of blows upon the gates began once more, as the new arrivals took up the hand-carried ram that the previous waves had brought. Those men had held shields, evidence of preplanning, but when the remnants had turned and run, the shields had been left behind.
Down on the garden courtyard, and safe from crossroad fire, three serrin armed with glass bottles ran to the wall. Into the neck of each bottle, a flaming rag had been stuffed. The men reached the wall, braving the occasional flying stone, and lobbed the bottles over the wall-top spikes. Humans made oils that flamed in battle and caused terrible burns, but they were nothing like as hot as serrin oils. The flames that burst and roiled above the wall were blue and green and terrible screams rose with them. The hammering on the gates stopped and now there were men running back the way they'd come, some unscathed, others burning and thrashing. Some stumbled and rolled on the ground, screaming, although they did not appear to be afire at all.
“Save your arrows!” Rhillian yelled, and firing at the retreating mob ceased. In truth, they had more than enough arrows for many days of siege, but it was not mercy she offered. Traumatised men who had seen their comrades burned alive by unholy blue-green flames would spread tales of terror amongst their fellows. Fear drove the mobs. Fear was the archbishop's weapon in sending these fools against the serrin. But fear could be her weapon too.
To Rhillian's left, Kiel risked a brief aim above the wall and loosed a last arrow. A running man took the arrow square between the shoulder blades and fell, his staff and Verenthane star clattering to the road.
Rhillian gave Kiel a glare beneath the wall. “I know you heard me,” she reprimanded him.
“That one was a priest, I think,” said Kiel, coolly fitting another arrow. His grey eyes were calm, as though killing these men troubled him less than plucking flowers. Well, Rhillian thought drily, perhaps it did. “Their gods do little to save them,” Kiel mused. “How interesting. The last one, too, that I killed fell with a most satisfying thud. No hand reached down from the heavens to divert my arrow. I think I'll kill another, just to be sure.”
“That's unworthy, Kiel,” Rhillian muttered. “Even for you.”
Kiel's expressionless grey eyes appraised her as he knelt. “How so?”
“There is such a thing as decorum, even under threat of death.”
“And under threat of the total annihilation of one's people,” Kiel asked mildly, “what does decorum dictate then? I say that we should adopt a new decorum. One more befitting our circumstances.”
“I know what you say, Kiel,” Rhillian snapped. “It's the same thing you always say.” The wounded serrin was moving herself to the nearby trapdoor, cradling her impaled arm. Rhillian wondered how much longer until the ballista downstairs was working. Surely not long now.
Kiel gave a small smile. “I'm nothing if not consistent,” he said.
“If the serrinim are not the brightness that keeps the dark at bay,” said Terel, calmly testing his bowstring tension, “then we shall become the black hole that drinks in all the light.”
“Terel,” said Kiel, sardonically. “Such poetry. What poetry do our enemies compose, do you think?” He cupped a hand to his ear and listened to the screams of agony from the wall, and the chanting fury of the crowds beyond. “Such blissful music. We should first survive, my friend. Poetry can wait.”
Terel gave Kiel a blunt stare. “To be adequate, Kiel, we might measure ourselves to a deer or an elk, a noble grazer on the grassy plains. To be great, we might measure ourselves to the great hunters, the cats or the wolves and bears. You measure us to the worms, Kiel. If you are lucky, you might one day make a toad.”
Most serrin would have given some reaction, perhaps a smile, a shrug, or a furrowed brow of concern, a prelude to a long and continuing argument. “We shall see,” Kiel said instead. His grey eyes were like still pools on an overcast day, betraying nary a ripple of emotion. “We shall see who is right, my friend. And perhaps sooner than later, I feel.”
Rhillian ran crouched to the long trapdoor, and descended the stairs into an ornate hallway. Suddenly her world was all glossy carpets and intricate wall hangings, the screams of the burned and the whistle of arrows far away. Three years she had spent in Petrodor, off and on, and still the crazed extremes of the place made her head spin. She turned into a sitting room, which had been converted into a space for the wounded. Master Deani cared for just two talmaad and Hendri the groundsman, who had been struck in the head by a stone in the opening attack. The woman was Shyan, Rhillian saw, now tended by two huma
n staff who poured her poppy-flavoured water while examining where the crossbow bolt had gone straight through her bicep.
Master Deani seemed more concerned for Yeldaen, who had taken a bolt through the middle and lay mercifully unconscious. Rhillian crouched at Deani's shoulder as he worked, preparing the bolt for removal. And repressed a wince, to see the damage.
“Will he live?” she asked.
“The fates are halved,” said Master Deani, drenching a cloth in a pungent bowl of solution, then pressing it around the protruding bolt. “I shall do all I can.” His aged face was grim, his hands sure and fast. Deani was no Nasi-Keth, but he knew medicine like one. Palopy was not his house-Saalshen owned it-but Deani might as well have done, for how he ran the place. His father had been a friend of Saalshen's in the old days, when such friends were rare, and he had accepted Saalshen's employment since his earliest years. But Deani was no convert to serrin ways and philosophies, however skilled at medicines. He was simply a good man of Petrodor, a devout Verenthane, dedicated to his family and as loyal to his employers as any family soldier to his patachi. “Do they press us hard? I will need more hands if our number of wounded grows.”
“If we spare too many hands we shall be overrun,” Rhillian said grimly. “Best hope our good neighbours defend their neutrality by force if needs be. If the mob gain access to those houses, we'll have them pouring over the walls on two sides, and we've not enough archers to hold them then. These people are crazy, losses deter them not.”
“I can hear,” Deani said drily as he worked. “I doubt our neighbours will fold, however much they love their archbishop. It would be like inviting a rabid beast into your house to solve a mouse problem.”
“The Armadis across the road have discovered so,” Rhillian agreed. “One man caught an axe to the face, I couldn't see who.”
Deani hissed through his teeth. “I sent gifts to Patachi Armadi at the birth of his son. Who are these fools? Riverside?”
“They seem ragged enough,” Rhillian said dubiously. “Aisha says they came mostly up the Saint's Walk, that's close enough to Riverside.”
Deani made a face. “There's only one place in Petrodor to make so many crazy people, and that's Riverside. Backside's big, and plenty poor, but not so poor to make for crazed desperation. And Backside are mostly folks who've been here some years, and know enough to tell a foul, bigoted lie from the word of the gods. Riverside are rag-picking blow-ins, the lot of them. They've got the smarts of old boots and the charm of rotting manure.”
“Our properties were assaulted before this lot even arrived by crowds from midslope,” Rhillian countered.
“Bah.” Deani made a dismissive gesture. “Every crowd has its fools. The problem with you serrin, you're too polite for your own good. Riverside are slime, the Nasi-Keth would have had better luck setting the place on fire than trying to convert them. The damn archbishop got there first, only he didn't waste his coin on clean water and medicines-he's a smart man, that archbishop-he built temples. And those poor, stupid fools loved him for it, they've got so much more hope of the next life than this one. My advice-send them there as fast as you can.”
Rhillian left Master Deani to his work and crossed the hallway into the opposite room facing Maerler's Way. From the outside, the door would have appeared to lead to an innocuous bedchamber, but, instead of a bed, the room housed a great ballista-a giant crossbow elevated at its nose by two wheels. Now, the room stank of a strange, sickly solution. Two serrin were mixing the stuff in a wide basin, empty buckets nearby filled with water, along with other bags and buckets of strange-smelling, bright-coloured substances that Rhillian could not identify. Serrin oils did not keep well in large volumes, and were stored in premixed portions that would not catch fire. Only now, the final mix was made.
The two serrin filled a bucket-careful not to get the sticky, oozing substance on their gloves-and poured the solution into a leather pouch the size of a stonemelon. The pouch was sealed and placed into the ballista's firing sling. The man and woman then began winding the winch handles at the rear, pulling back great arms, each as long as a person. The thick cord groaned, and began to tremble.
“What's first?” asked the man, Arele.
“The Armadi House,” Rhillian said grimly. “Burn it down.”
The winching stopped. The woman, Calia, opened the shuttered windows to the grey day outside. There was no need to aim. Armadi House lay directly ahead, across the wall and the corpse-littered bend of Maerler's Way. Bolt and arrow fire whistled toward them and clattered off the walls. One impaled a neighbouring window shutter with a thud. Arele poured a spoonful of the sticky mixture over the leather pouch and lit it with a wrist-flick of his metal flint. Flame bloomed green about the pouch, and Arele pulled the firing rope. The ballista kicked and leaped like a wild thing. Armadi House disappeared in a brilliant flash, and Rhillian shielded her eyes. When she looked again, a portion of the house's second floor was engulfed in flame. The fire appeared to have mostly missed the windows, but that would soon change. Armadi House was only small compared to Palopy, but Rhillian was glad as she gazed at the blaze that humans did not possess the means to make the oil.
“Once more,” said Rhillian, closing the shutters and locking them, as Calia and Arele set about preparing another shot. “Those walls will get so hot the stone will crack.”
“I'll find a window with the next shot,” Arele assured her, pouring into the next leather pouch. “It'll burn fast enough.” Arrowfire thudded into the shutters. They were heavy, reinforced for the purpose, and even the crossbow fire did not penetrate. Rhillian risked a quick glance around the neighbouring window frame…and she frowned, as her eyes found a new commotion on the upslope stretch of Maerler's Way.
On the last visible portion of road, before it disappeared about a bend, the crowd parted enough to reveal a wooden, cartlike contraption. Only then did Rhillian see the firing arm and the tension ropes.
“We have a new target,” she announced urgently. “They've brought artillery.”
“How big?” asked Calia, sealing the pouch, teeth gritted and nose wrinkled against the stench.
“They're a hundred and fifty paces away, and I think they'll hit us with plenty of room for accuracy.”
“Some weight to haul all the way up Backside,” Arele muttered.
“Oh they've been quite well organised,” Rhillian said darkly, ducking back from the window as a bolt shot through and punched into a big armchair. “If one were suspicious, one might wonder how long something like this has been planned.” She peered again around the window rim. From the Armadi House came desperate yells and the glimpse of figures running past windows. A man leaned out a higher window to dump a bucket of water, and was immediately impaled with four arrows. Rising smoke obscured the view somewhat, but Rhillian could see the winches being worked on the catapult, bare-chested men heaving on the spoke handles.
“How far across?” Arele asked, placing the shot as Calia wound on the winch handles.
“Five hands left,” Rhillian judged, and Arele straddled the ballista body, lifting across even as Calia continued winding. “Another hand. Good.” Rhillian took a last look out the window, measuring distances with her eye. “Up a notch.” She turned and helped Arele lift the front. Calia finished winding, the arms groaning with the strain, and the firing mechanism clicked into place.
Arele poured the igniter oil and lit it, while Rhillian unlatched the window shutters and flung them open. Arrows and bolts whistled through the window, cracking against the far wall, kicking over furniture, ricocheting off the ballista itself. Calia risked a look along the weapon's length as the incoming volley ceased.
“Good,” she said.
Arele pulled the rope. Rhillian ran to a side window this time and peered out in time to see the flaming projectile strike the house wall to the downhill side of the catapult. Flames erupted, and perhaps thirty men disappeared in that terrible glare, a sea of fending arms and desperate dives for cover.
But the flames roared mostly past the catapult, decimating the crowd to one side and behind, but barely singeing the artillery men. And now, those men were lighting a flame of their own.
“Artillery!” Rhillian yelled at the top of her lungs. Fire flared on the end of the catapult arm, and then the arm unwound with a rush. The projectile arced toward them, burning against the dull grey sky. Falling short, Rhillian saw, with satisfaction.
“Come on, reload!” she called to Arele and Calia, who were already doing so. “We'll get one more shot at-”
A mighty flash of flame cut her short, roaring up from the courtyard below. She ducked low, feeling the heat of the rising fireball through the open windows. From the streets beyond, the mob roared its bloodthirsty approval. As the heat died, Rhillian risked a stare down at the courtyard gardens below. They were a mess, bushes and trees ablaze, flowers withering in the heat, and smoke rising everywhere. Another roar, and the mob were charging once more; only this time, she could barely see them come. Again, a storm of serrin arrows resumed from the Palopy rooftop, now a question of aiming and hoping. Many would hit, no doubt, but now the mob had a chance.
Rhillian slammed the shutters closed once more.
“Where did a ragged mob of crazed worshippers acquire serrin oils in that quantity?” Arele muttered as he worked, a new urgency in his hands.
“I don't think it was serrin oil,” Rhillian said grimly, running to the back of the ballista and working the winch herself. “The colour was different. I think they made this themselves.”
“Errollyn warned of this day,” Calia said quietly. “He warned that one day humans would match us in our crafts.”
Rhillian gritted her teeth and winched fast. She could hear new shouts from above, dim though they were above the howls of the crowd at the wall and the resumed hammering at the gate. She finished the winching, and dashed from the room, up the hallway stairs, and up in a crouch on the rooftop. Acrid smoke darkened the air, and there was a foul smell to every breath. Serrin, carrying buckets, dashed behind the talmaad at the firing wall, keeping low as occasional return fire still flew from Armadi House. They were dashing west, upslope…Rhillian looked that way and stared.
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