by David Keck
Durand choked. It would serve him right if something smashed him flat.
There were pinned men all around. Men levering stones. Men transfixed by the “tongues” of espringals. He rounded the corner on the Gates of Sunset as a great stone burst the top of one tower. Men fell under the hail of masonry. In the midst of it all sat the Silent King of Heaven, staring westward from his throne. Hundreds of soldiers fanned across the square at his feet, every eye fixed on the great gates.
With each thunderous boom of Radomor’s ram, blades of sunset flashed from the huge gates. It seemed as if the doors held the Eye of Heaven itself.
Durand swept the crowd for some sign of Lamoric, and heard the man’s voice cry out: “Archers nock. Loose the moment you see a green shirt under that gate.” Durand spotted the black bull of Gireth flapping over the mob at the gate.
He shouldered his way into the press. Coensar had a long shield. “Lads,” Lamoric was saying, “the walls of Acconel have stood since . . . since Gunderic crossed the mere. We have never been taken.” People cleared their hair from their eyes. “The duke asks us to hold this gate with our lives, so our comrades may live through and help reach our loved ones.” The ram boomed, and Lamoric sneered. “Radomor tries to take our homeland—our heritage. He can come and come and come again! But knights of five hundred halls are riding to our rescue. We will throw this upstart back till the hooves of our comrades thunder on every bridge, then we will ride through Ferangore. And Radomor will bleed for every drop of Atthian blood he’s spilled in our city!”
His sneer glinted in hundreds of hard bright eyes. Yellow teeth gleamed.
“Heap them up between those gates, boys!”
The crowd shouted.
The gate boomed.
Durand wrestled close to Lamoric, and the man glanced up. “He has mangled the outer portcullis with that bloody ram. Now he works on the leaves of some carved door . . . an ornament. He’ll be under the gate and at the inner portcullis in no time.”
A stone swatted broken masonry across the square: a scythe to cut men screaming.
Durand blinked. “I have word from His Grace.”
“Is everyone all right? Almora? Deorwen?”
Durand swallowed; he had the excuse of catching his breath. “Yes, Lordship. And Kieren’s done as you asked. There’ll be no one left on the walls in no time, and they’re throwing the Harper’s and Fey Gates wide open.”
Lamoric nodded, sighing. “We’ll stand him off here as long as we’re able, and half the army will be safe and dry behind us.”
“No, Lordship.” Durand touched the man’s shoulder. “You’re to flee for Gunderic’s Tower at once.”
Lamoric batted Durand’s hand away. “I cannot abandon the field before the men who—”
At this instant, the Eye of Heaven flashed over the faces of Lamoric’s men. Timber crashed—the outer portal wrecked—and Radomor’s vanguard roared through. Lamoric turned to his mob—”Shoot! Shoot!”—sending a hundred arrows to dim the sunset.
But Radomor’s vanguard struggled on. They braced oxhide shields against the murder holes’ torrent of glowing sand and scalding water. As screams seared the air, the hard men of that vanguard snapped arrows back through the portcullis grille, to lash Lamoric’s defenders.
One arrowhead flashed in the shadow of Lamoric’s shield.
“Lamoric, the gate will not hold,” snarled Coensar. “We must get you out!”
“We must hold them!”
Another bow hammered a nail through Lamoric’s shield.
“We must get you free of this before it’s too late,” said Coensar.
“Horseshit,” Lamoric said.
“Lordship,” Durand pressed. “I’m charged to tell you, and to bring you back.”
“No!” He panted. “Not after the tournament! Not after what happened. This time I stay.” He looked at both of them, his eyes dark and frantic. “Where did you swear your oaths? To me or my father? My father’s concern for his children will not keep me from doing what must be done.” He waved at the archers and foot soldiers under shields. “These men will die here. Under my command. Do you understand? On my honor, I will be the last man of Gireth alive in the square before I leave it.”
Coensar bared his teeth. “King of far Heaven. We have heard.” He looked Durand square in the face. “And we’ll hold you at your word, Lordship. Durand and me.”
As Coensar spoke his oath, there was a great rush from the gateway arch. Radomor’s men wrestled their ram into the choked archway. Scalding water poured down. Flaming straw. But the hide-shrouded ram still swung in its chains, shrugging off steam as its iron beak crashed against the cage of the portcullis. Eighty men clutched its sides.
“Anytime . . .” said Coensar.
Durand and the captain put Lamoric at their backs as smoke and screams snatched the air away. Arrows flickered up the murder holes, and the gate fell.
Through the narrow rent, a battalion shrieked. Durand saw men screaming against the grille as the mob’s weight drove the giant dragon through.
A footman in green sprinted up and raised a woodsman’s axe, but Durand shot his blade through the fool’s coat. He and the captain fell back tight against Lamoric. And as the pressure settled on them, some part of Durand thought: Here is Deorwen’s husband and I’m fighting to keep him alive. But the mob pressed, and Durand and his comrades hacked and stabbed whomever got near. Coensar was savage, the Champion’s blade flickering like a needle to ruin faces, shins, and groins. There was no chivalry, but there were still soldiers running home behind them.
“That’s it!” Coensar shouted.
The men of Gireth could hold no longer. The press pitched the defenders against the white statue of the Creator. Durand killed untrained men, shearing through padded canvas and bone with fury. He had trained a lifetime, but he could not be quick enough. Blades hammered down. When a mounted axeman wallowed toward them, Durand threw his masters against the ankles of the Creator. The stone folds of the giant’s leggings jammed against his back while the weight of the whole mob balanced on his chest.
Then they were reeling through the crowd. Durand thought of some children’s game: three girls arm in arm across a market. He gulped for air. He chopped a man down. He felt the press of green shields. A blow rang from his skullcap, but he stabbed into the flow with fury and speed, pulling the blade, jabbing it home.
Lamoric roared. The man’s face was stiff, anchored by will alone against the roaring tide of men and fear. There were still living men of Gireth in the square. He would not leave.
Coensar fought and stumbled, bleeding a red slick over his face. He shouted into Lamoric’s ear. “Sound the retreat! Order them out!” Coensar snarled. “We need every man.”
Lamoric tried another glance over the heads of the mob.
Coensar grabbed him. “By the Hells, we will follow them out if that’s what it takes to move you.”
Gulping, Lamoric stood. “Retreat, lads! There’s no more for us here! Back! Back!”
Coensar counted heads at a glance while Durand fought on. They would run the instant the last man left the square. Durand gutted a spearman who had never learned to parry. He chopped down axe-wielding villagers and laborers with spent crossbows in their fists. Between gulps of air, he killed and killed the men Radomor drove into the square.
A hand caught his surcoat.
Coensar was turning away. “Now!” he snarled—and they were running.
Between the walls of the narrow streets, thousands screamed. Soldiers ran past on all sides while archers bounded along the rooftops like apes. Doors broke. Women shrieked. Coensar shoved at the backs of soldiers and refugees, reeling. Durand caught Coensar and, in another few strides, took up the lead. Coensar bore a great number of wounds, and Lamoric was distracted. Durand threw friend and foe aside as he fought to get Lamoric back to Gunderic’s Tower. Men skipped from storefront shutters. He felt bones break over his elbow. Lamoric and Coensar ran in the gap behind
him.
They surged at the castle gate, the marketplace crushed with men and women, standing without room to lift their arms. Their wailing was louder than the cry of the armies.
But, in the lofty stone gatehouse, Durand saw the end of everything: the gate was down. Durand felt Lamoric and Coensar stumble into his back as he came to a halt. He was just another head in the crush. There was nothing he could do.
Coensar was suddenly an old man. His face was yellow and bloody, and Lamoric’s shoulder was all that kept him from the cobbles.
Durand’s head shook in frantic disbelief. He tried to think. “Lamoric, do you know a way into the castle? Is there some secret way?”
Lamoric’s face was blank. “Secret way?”
Seeing only incomprehension, Durand swore.
Sergeants and guardsmen pleaded for the crowd to run for the far gates before it was too late. If they winched up the portcullis, the mob would flood the castle. And with throngs inside, Radomor would starve them out in days. Durand couldn’t believe they’d got through the attack at the gates only to die at the castle wall.
He cast around—and saw a narrow chance: the soldiers still outside might be able to hold the crowd off long enough to get Lamoric and Coensar inside.
“We’ve still got a few men,” Durand said. “Lordship, you must order your men to hold the gates,” Durand panted. “To the gate! Soldiers of Gireth, to the gate!” He seized shoulders and slapped faces, hammering the men into a wall that might hold the mobs off.
As he muscled close, the guardsmen beyond the oak grille stood, horrified. The crowd crushed Durand against the bars and he shouted, “I’m Lamoric’s man!”
And it was Kieren who looked up, hollow-eyed. “It doesn’t matter, Durand!” he said.
“Lamoric’s here!”
Kieren’s mouth opened. He was shaking. “It’s too late.” Kieren would be picturing Almora and Deorwen on pikes. The old duke cut to pieces. Every hall across Gireth hung with corpses if he let that throng inside. Maybe he should leave the gate.
“He’s the duke’s son. He’s the heir!” But he knew there was no hope.
Durand shoved himself a space in the crowd. He glanced up at the grid of oak and iron. He would make a way. “We’re coming in!”
The dozen survivors of the Gates of Sunset snatched incredulous looks at him. “Take hold of the bloody gate!” he said, and, at a second roar, they did, catching hold of old oak and iron. Now, Durand was face-to-face with Kieren through the bars. “Draw the bolts,” he said. “All I ask is draw the bolts, and we’ll hoist the damn thing faster than your windlass can. It’ll be up and down before anyone else can get under.”
“It’s too late,” said Kieren.
Durand felt the weight of the crowd against his back. It was all that kept Coensar on his feet. Lamoric was shaking his head. “Do as you must, Sir Kieren.” They heard trumpets in the streets. Arrows from the castle.
Kieren pulled the long bolts that held the portcullis.
And Durand grinned a wolf’s grin. He turned to Lamoric’s mangled rearguard. “Everything!” he said. “Everything you have. We are dead men if you can’t haul this from the ground. Take hold!” Lamoric took a place at his side. “Now!”
How much did such a thing weigh? A ton? Two? Durand heaved. His bones locked. Hardwood corners dug. He pushed, instantly sure that a man could squeeze himself fully out of Creation, the weight of muscle and bone jamming him down into the blackness under the world. Monstrous sounds escaped his throat.
But the portcullis moved. Iron and oak rocked. The thing’s teeth sucked from their cavities in the roadbed. Durand’s soles slid, but he bulled forward. He pushed. Rung by rung then, he and Lamoric’s dozen men pushed the portcullis up into its own rattling chains.
Though he heard shouts and prayers, Durand couldn’t look. Something battered his knees—desperate people—nearly upsetting his balance. He fought to hold on.
Coensar said, “Durand.” His voice was calm.
Durand found that he couldn’t open his eyes.
“We’re through, Durand,” said Coensar. “The others have the gate. You’ll have to come under, and you must do it now.”
The force balanced on each of his joints would crumple him if he shifted. But, with an effort of will and a gulp of air, Durand tore himself free and he tumbled under the sagging gate.
In an instant, he’d joined the men on the other side, and took his share of the weight once more.
Lamoric was shouting at the scrambling river of bodies. “Get clear! The gate must fall!” But the flood of people would not stop—they would never stop.
“God, I must shoot the bolts,” said Kieren. “If they all come, we won’t save a soul.”
The mobs battered Durand’s legs as he held the gate, straining men on either side. Radomor was behind the crowd. Coensar or Lamoric must give the order: Drop it. Each of them was ready to shoulder the blame.
Before he heard the words, Durand opened his hands and the boom shook the market. Blood sprang from the pavement.
“Again,” Lamoric’s whisper said. “Again you have saved my life. I would be gone now ten times over.”
CARRIED ALONG WITH the mob, Durand fetched up in the back of the tiny sanctuary where he crouched among the duke’s inner circle, breathing and staring through a cordon of bloodied soldiers at the throng in the Painted Hall. A silent multitude crowded out there between the walls: porters, prostitutes, beggars, shopkeepers, and a thousand more gaped without a word. In the vaults over their heads, the howl of the city rang like a living thing—no man could speak in the presence of such despair.
The duke’s sanctuary was as black as a family crypt. Spattered with blood from the gate’s hard fall, Durand could hardly think, and his gaze settled on a pair of large dark eyes in the gloom with him. He realized he was sitting inches from Deorwen, packed in with loyal men and family. Her cheek was smooth as white petals; her breath stirred against his jaw.
“How long can this castle stand when the city has fallen, Sir Kieren?” gasped Abravanal.
Several men flinched at the sound of the duke’s voice, including Kieren. “It has never fallen, Your Grace.”
“No one has ever taken the citadel until today!” snapped Abravanal. “But now this man is in the streets. This man who slew my daughter. Who slew my son! Now he has my city. His fiends stalk the passages of my castle. He comes for us.” There were glances from among the men as the duke clawed his chest, but he subsided.
Deorwen’s hand gripped Durand’s knee, and he remembered things he wished he had forgotten: her skin under his sliding fingers. Other things.
Lamoric was right there, pressing Kieren. “How many men do we have?”
“Fighting men?” The aging knight shook his head, distracted. “Two hundred sixty. Three hundred. That must be all.”
“How many has Radomor got left?”
You could still hear the city’s echo. “Eh?” said the Fox.
“How many has Radomor got? The citadel will have cost him a thousand.”
A baby was crying somewhere in the throng beyond the cordon of soldiers.
“Thousands,” said Kieren. “As many as four or five.” Kieren was staring at the mob. He had allowed them in—he and Durand: too many to feed or house.
“Sir Kieren,” Lamoric pressed, “how many can we raise? If we buy them time to reach us? And with the Duke of Mornaway’s men?”
“Two, Lordship. It might be more.”
“And how long?”
Kieren looked to Heaven.
“How long?”
“The roads are a mire. There are distances. If the Duke of Mornaway is on the sea at Evensands, he won’t learn of this. Not for days. Our own men will be quicker.” If they came at all when the city was lost.
Deorwen was looking up into Durand’s eyes, ignoring anyone else who might see. A thousand lungs breathed the stale air. Her fingers dug into his knee.
A ripple passed over the crowd in
the Painted Hall, drawing eyes.
“Maybe there’s a way we can strike back. Something at night before he’s settled in. I can’t believe this is possible. What is—”
The duke climbed to his feet and forced himself through the ring of guards. Had the howl of the city vanished?
“Father?” said Lamoric, but the old man continued into the throng. Lamoric darted after his father, and Durand wrenched himself to his feet. He had to move, and so he followed. Every head they passed was turned toward the outer gate: two hundred people in the entry stair, five hundred in the narrow inner court, a thousand more in the tiltyard muck, a few hundred who could fight. He even spotted blind Hagon Leech, listening. Tatters of smoke flew over the walls.
In the high tunnel of the castle gate, Durand caught up with Abravanal and his son. The bright exit hung in the gloom before the old man, twilight caught in the portcullis grille.
Durand could see little more of Abravanal than his scarecrow silhouette. The duke and his son had both stopped where a line of guardsmen and refugees stared out through the bars. Durand stepped onto the blood-slick cobbles.
In the market square beyond the gate, a giant figure stood like a shipwreck. Arrows jutted from the thing’s hulking shoulders, and a patriarch’s beard tumbled from its battered helm, black with blood. A sword touched the cobbles, its point dragging and clinking with the wind and distant screams. There were a thousand soldiers on the other side of the square.
Abravanal smeared wisps of hair from his face. “This is what comes to speak with us? This is how he parleys, the man who married my little daughter?”
Across the cobbled square, shadowy men clambered on roofs and upper windows, their hands busy.
Lamoric strode toward the portcullis—ready to snarl. But as the young lord moved, the Champion wrenched its dread blade into the sky. The motion triggered a sudden inferno across the square.
The heat—the light—knocked every man a step. But something was visible in the blaze: obscene letters scrawled across the captured buildings. “Surrender the duke and his blood,” they said, “and live.”