“Rally,” I called. “A weapon. Rally here!”
“Take mine,” the next yellow-sheathed southerner spat and stabbed his poleaxe hard into my side. I was knocked onto my back and lost my breath.
“Evand!” the Hemari there cried, but I could not get my bearings. The world spun and tingled.
I heard a clang and ping. And then a dozen more. I batted at my broken armor, but could not find any of the straps.
A man with a knife knelt down upon me and worked to get it into my armpit.
I managed a straight punch that caught him on the chin.
“Rot your hide, man. It’s me, Kalyn. Hold still! You breastplate has been caved in.”
He cut the straps, and I got a breath of beautiful air as he lifted the mangled metal away.
The pain registered in a long stab that bit me from the soles of my feet to the tips of my fingers.
I had three broken ribs, perhaps five.
Kalyn hefted me up. The Hurdu attack upon the north side of our breastworks had been beaten back. The bang and ping I’d heard made sense when I saw the pavement stones littered around the motionless Hurdu at the bottom of our trench.
I turned with hopes that the healers had finished their work and that the wounded were ready to move. They were not. The exhausted healers lay upon the ground between the rows of broken men.
Down the slope of the hill, a fresh body of Hurdu was forming up. Our breastworks were in tatters from their sustained attack.
“On the line,” I called, and every able man took his place. Kalyn handed me a poleaxe.
A pop and crackle drew all eyes toward the fallen Tanayon. A bright flash and then a second colored the smoke above the Treasury Keep and the Chancellery.
The Hurdu started up—two fresh brigades. I had no more than 900 fit men.
The senior priest stumbled across to us. His face was swollen and bloody from the stab of a spear or poleaxe through his left cheek. He was a lucky man. He was also shaking.
“Lord Prince, I—”
“I am no longer a prince of the Zoviyan Empire. What troubles you?”
“My lord, the Hurdu … they will kill us all. We must flee.”
“We are not leaving our wounded to be murdered. Heal them or take up a spear.”
He was a man who’d not felt pain before. He wept from it, but he did not step back.
An old sergeant handed him a spear.
A feeling moved through me. It defied all previous experience. All at once it was the caress of the sun, the press of Liv’s sweet lips, and the arrival of bread and wine into a starved belly.
The weeping priest let out a happy laugh. I hugged him and laughed long and loud.
Clean.
The world seemed clean.
The Hemari and Hurdu were all smiling. Some wept. One man began to sing. The old sergeant leaned back, and with the biggest voice I’d ever heard he asked, “What’s the difference between pink and purple?”
“The grip,” shouted back a quarter of the field, and laughter reigned.
The priest had stopped smiling. “What is happening to me?” he asked, as he began to shake. Blood poured from his nose, and I had to hold him up.
He pushed away from me and ran toward the wounded men.
“Bessradi, hear me,” he cried loud and long, and then he sang. It was the healing song, but longer somehow—greater.
The brightest blue light shone upon one man after another. He kept right on singing, too. We watched with awe, each man hoping the priest’s magic would make it around to him. The priest finished with the wounded and painted those of us standing upon the wall with his blue light. I hardly had time to register that he meant to sing to me as well, when a terrifying heat tore through me. My many small wounds closed, and the sting of my broken ribs vanished.
The priests and trampled men of the 3rd began to stand. Some of the healers clutched at their ears.
The healer sang to the last of us and fell. He’d healed us all, flesh and bone. My Hemari were renewed! A cheer went up, and the other healers lifted the man who’d done it. But something was wrong. They gathered close around him, and one man sang to him. The blue light would not take hold of him.
“He’s dead,” one of them said to me.
Such sacrifice.
I did not like a world with magic, I decided.
“Sir,” Kalyn said. “They are forming up again.”
The last of our easy happiness fell away. Upon the rising face of the hill, the full division of Hurdu was being aimed at us.
“To the horses,” I ordered. The men moved like boys who’d just finished their fifty. We mounted, two to a horse, and I turned us south. Our healer-recruits did not mind being taken out of harm’s way.
“Kalyn, any sign of my brother’s ship?”
“No, sir. This is a horrible vantage, though. To the tithe tower?”
I nodded but did not like the idea of climbing up a tower that I could be trapped in.
What is your plan, Rahan?
I got a good look back down the hill before we abandoned our position. The Hurdu officers were yelling the dismounted division back to their horses. It would take them some time, and I decided to take the risk.
We found the tithe tower surrounded by a crowd. They’d gathered perhaps, to wail and moan about the fall of the Tanayon, but the unexplained magic from earlier must have affected them as well. They were wandering away, smiling and laughing, and gave us no trouble.
Kalyn and I raced up through the deserted tower. The wide space beneath the cupola at the top of the stair stank of lavender and was a spectacle of padded sedans, pillows, and colorful silks. Wide braziers ringed the space, and a well-stocked wine cabinet stood off to one side.
“I knew it,” I said as I crossed the decadent scene and wished that I had time to piss on their pillows. I slowed a half beat, realizing that the man who enjoyed that space was very likely the same one who just killed himself healing my men.
I’d never before in my life considered the reason for the Edict of the Renewal, but here it was as plain as day. The Ministry had restricted magic to simple healing. In just the one season since, I’d seen more magic than should be allowed upon the earth. What would it be like in a year?
I set the thought aside and had a look at the city.
The view was dizzying—and not as hazy as the distant vista I’d grown up with. I tried to collect facts. The Chancellery and all the buildings of the treasury poured smoke high above the city, and the dust of the fallen Tanayon obscured the Priests’ Quarter. Crowds gathered in the neighborhoods of the Servants’ Quarter, and several thousand militia were headed due west toward us.
I ran around to the south side of the tower and saw even larger crowds in the streets of the Merchants’ Quarter, and near Ash Row a regiment of 1st division Hemari was assembling. General Sonsol, undoubtedly.
Back north, the Hurdu had started moving south around the earthen square we’d defended. We did not have much time.
“Any sign of Rahan?” I asked, still searching for his pennant.
“There,” Kalyn cried and pointed me to a burning ship.
My heart sank until I realized that the ship and a second were moving with purpose downriver. Was it burning intentionally? My heart began to pound as I tried to put myself in Rahan’s head aboard that ship.
What are you doing, man? Tell me so that I can help you!
The ships went beneath the Palace Bridge, and the entire bridge caught fire—hot and fast, propelled by something. More magic, I supposed.
“Is he fleeing the city?” Kalyn asked.
“Never,” I said and searched the river for his destination. “The arsenal fortress. The war galleys! There! He’ll put in at the park on the west bank above the fortress and storm it if he can. If he succeeds he’ll control the entire river. We need to get across.”
There were two bridges left. Sonsol’s Hemari moving up from Ash Row would block the southern of the two. Rahan’s f
ire ship was already on its way toward the first. It would have to do. I searched for a clear route to the bridge through the zigzag of streets. Hurdu, militia, and Hemari were closing in.
“It will be a race,” I said and sprinted back down. I emerged onto the street and shouted, “Quick order, make ready. We must be across the river. Move. Move!”
I wheeled us around the tower to the street that had seemed least congested. We passed the first intersection, and I caught a glimpse of the burning ship down a cross street. He was halfway to my bridge already. So were the Hurdu.
“Come on, Marrow,” I said, and called to the rest, “Let your horses fly, boys. We make it across, or we die!”
Marrow shrieked with happiness as I slacked the reins, and she blazed a trail ahead of the rest. Kalyn’s fine mare and three others kept pace. The rest did their best with two riders to a horse.
We made the tricky turn onto the smooth stones of Bessradi’s broadest avenue and started west. The burning ship was closing in, and the Hurdu were starting to appear at the intersection between us and the bridge.
“We must clear the way,” I shouted to my small band as we surged forward once again. “Kalyn, give me your sword!”
He drew it, caught it mid-blade like a juggler, and extended the hilt toward me. I got hold of the heavy broadsword, and he readied a spear.
Twenty Hurdu blocked the intersection. They hollered for others and turned to face us.
The four guardsmen with us struck them head on, while Kalyn went right and I raced in on their left across the grassy edge of a park. Marrow made the sharp turn allowed by the turf, and we got around behind them.
I smashed open one man’s helmet above the ear, and then it was my great horse’s turn. She killed one courser with a kick to the head, then reared and smashed her front hooves down upon a rider’s leg. His hip cracked like a tree branch, and he fell to the ground screaming. My good old girl danced left as another pair came on, and with a tap of my heels she darted forward between them and two more. None of them were ready for her speed, and a man to my left and one to my right paid with their lives.
Kalyn had his spear caught in one man’s belly. Three other Hurdu were down around him, and in the center, the guardsmen had traded two for two. The gutted man screamed as loud as the man with the broken hip, and the rest fled north. A second group of twenty got a look up the street and decided to go with them.
My Hemari were almost there. The rest of the Hurdu were not much farther up the river. To the south, Sonsol had marched his brigade out of Ash Row and was nearing the other bridge.
Ash Row.
Rot! Liv is on the wrong side of the river!
“Kalyn,” I said, “Get Liv to the barge. Get her across if you can. Flee the city if you do not see Rahan’s pennant flying above the fortress.”
He saluted me and started south into the crooked streets without a word. I turned and started Marrow west once more. My Hemari surged up around me.
The fire ship was close.
“Here we go men!” I cried, and we charged out onto the wide bridge. The Hurdu made the turn behind us and were close on our heels.
A crackling roar filled my ears as we thundered across. Smoke boiled up through the old dirty planks and then flames. The greases and resins began to sizzle. The horses screamed and ran for their lives.
The cool air on the far side was like a kiss. We were across!
A few Hurdu made it, but many were taken by the flames. We dispensed with the stragglers, and I took in the scene.
A wide park stood between us and the keep. Rahan’s ship was headed toward the shore. To the west, a small militia had gathered in a corner of the park.
“Rahan!” I yelled at them, and to my surprise, they returned the call. I waved them on, and we made our way through the park.
Our Exaltier was there, charging on foot up to the gatehouse tower, while his fire ship cut the fortress off from the east side of the city.
“Genius. Pure genius!” I cried as we emerged from the trees.
Rahan and his men turned, weapons up. “Evand?”
We met there while battle was joined just paces away. I dismounted and shook his hand. “I saw you on your way here and figured you could use a hand. I’ve 1,700 loyal Hemari and 300 militia. Best I could do short notice.”
“You are out of uniform,” he said with a laugh I remembered so well, and I realized that I was still without a helmet or armor. “You’ve saved the day, brother, come let’s see how much fight the garrison commander has in him.”
“For the Exaltier!” I cried, and together we stormed the keep.
89
Admiral Soma O’Nropeel
The 1st of Autumn, 1196
I opened my mouth to give the order to abandon ship.
A wave of smoke from the bridge had me coughing instead. The layer of grime and birds’ nests beneath it had caught fire, and like the other bridges we’d burned, the flames raced along the network of supports and curled up though the timbers.
“Rot!” I spat as I looked up at the smoke-shrouded gatehouse. The fire would take it too if I left the Whittle to burn beneath the bridge. The fortress would not be worth much to Rahan if it was on fire.
Can you make it a bit longer, darling girl?
“All hands to the anchor and pumps,” I called to the men. “Haul us back up the anchor line. Give me all you have left, men. The Spirit of the Earth is watching you. Make ready! And heave!”
They pulled hard upon anchor line and pump chains. The Whittle withdrew slowly back from the bridge, and water poured through the hoses.
A man covered in a half-dozen wet tarps ran forward into the burning forecastle with an iron rod. He jammed it down between the blackened floorboards at the cost of the top layer of his tarps and threw all his weight upon the rod. One deck timber popped up and its neighbor broke and fell inward. Bright flames poured out at him. He leapt back and scrambled out of the fire. He’d fashioned gloves and boot covers from the uniform sleeves of a greencoat. He worked to shed it all while I doused him with water.
It was Arilas Kiel, and I could not have been more surprised to see him back aboard.
“Oenry?” I asked as he knelt in next to me. “I’d heard the Arilas of Havish was a madman. What are you doing?”
He pointed at the hole he’d opened in the floor, “I started working the bucket brigade as soon as the Kingfisher tied on. The fire is in the forward wardroom, Soma. We can’t get any water on the fire there from below. If we hurry, we can still save her.”
“Brilliant, man!” I said, grabbed him by the collar, and kissed him.
He grinned like a fool, took command of the second hose, and we aimed the water down into the inferno.
“Bucket brigade here,” I called over my shoulder. “We’ll save her yet!”
The opened deck above the wardroom vented steam and heat like a stove with its top half cut away. The water from hoses and buckets poured in, and the hot core of the fire lost its fury. A cheer from below told me the result. The heavy forecastle above was nearly consumed and eager to fall.
“Oars,” I called. “Push the forecastle over with the long oars.”
Thirty appeared around me. The men set them against the burning forecastle like a line of spears. “Ready. Heave. Heave. Heave!”
On the third great push, the blackened triangle of the burning forecastle collapsed forward and dove into the river with a blast of steam and screaming timber. The forward quarter of the Whittle was an utter wreck, but the heat trapped below escaped up, and the hoses and buckets made quick work of the rest. The men got a line run out to the shore and pulled us in south of the Kingfisher.
The Whittle had been saved.
Boatswain Rindsfar appeared at my arm. His brutalized face was black with ash and smoke. The backs of his hands were burned, and ash-colored water poured from his uniform. Oenry and he shook hands and hugged liked old friends. They’d fought the fire together below.
�
�A cheer for the Whittle’s saviors!” I cried. The crew thundered their approval once and again.
I stood up straight for the first time since the battle with the fire began, and my back let me know what it thought of me. Rahan’s tall black pennant flew high atop the gatehouse tower of the arsenal fortress, battle no longer sounded from inside, and greencoats stood upon its walls. Rahan was its master.
North of us, the wounded from the Kingfisher were going ashore. Barok was stumbling along under his own power beside the stretchers that bore Geart and the rest. I was glad to see Errati, though he looked like he should be lying down, too.
Along the far side of the river, the Hurdu were gathering toward the piers and boat landings.
“The day’s not over yet,” I said to Rindsfar. “I’m going ashore. Get both ships moving around to the harbor entrance. I’ll secure the boat chain so that you can get safely inside. I’ll find a healer for you, as well.”
“I’ll be fine, ma’am,” he said, and the lads got to work for him at once.
Oenry and I went ashore with my personal guard of greencoats, and we made our way around the tower and up the brief slope to the gates. Hemari littered the ground there. They looked too much like the boys from Enhedu—young men with bright faces and smart uniforms. I tried to content myself that I’d mended their souls before they’d died.
The Chaukai there opened the gates for us, and I took one look back north before I stepped inside.
All three bridges across the river burned savagely, and on the far side of the palace, black smoke rose in two solid columns from the Treasury Keep and Chancellery.
Bessradi would long remember the return of Rahan Yentif.
We made our way through the massive tower and onto the plaza behind the walls. The fortress proved far more formidable than it looked from the river. The walls were thick, with broad parapets and stout towers. The battle to take it had left bodies everywhere. Barok and the wounded from the Kingfisher had joined the scores of wounded men that occupied the wide flat sheet of stones behind the gatehouse. Greencoat healers and men who looked to be the Hemari equivalent were tending to them. The better part of a thousand Hemari were organizing themselves between the gatehouse and the northwest tower. Someone had convinced them to join us.
Tanayon Born Page 13