The hrumm bared its teeth and raised its sword for the killing blow. She threw the hilt at its snarling face and left a lucky trail of fresh blood from cheek to brow, marring its intricate tattoo with a jagged tear of flesh.
It howled, blinking blood out of its eye.
Callagh grabbed the slack guide rope in her fists and pulled it taut, launching herself up at the hrumm and entangling its raised sword-arm before it could recover and strike. It fell back one step, close to the edge and teetering on its back heel, but it did not fall – it hung there on the verge, glaring at her as it sought purchase, and reached for her throat with its free hand.
Callagh prepared to bite the outstretched claws as a last defense, but a sudden flutter of ebon wings came between her and the hrumm. The raven’s furious quork rang in her ears and the hrumm swung wildly at the interloper. The shift in balance was too much, too fast, and it toppled from the bridge, flailing at empty wind as it fell.
Callagh shook with relief, her breath coming in shallow gasps of frigid air. The raven landed on the far side of the bridge, its black eyes fixing her with a midnight stare.
“Right, then,” she decided. “Who needs a bloody unicorn?”
“Hah!”
Callagh felt heat stinging through the fabric at her neck and reached for her brooch, stroking the warm metal absently. Inulf.
“Can’t be having a birdie fight all your battles for ye, eh? Huh?” He strode toward her, his smile wide and his eyes dark, blood soaking his gauntlets up to his elbows and painting his mail in a reckless spatter. “Faeldor holds the South Keep. It’s for us to do what’s to be done here. These hrumm have surprise mor’n numbers.”
Callagh glanced at the three men that followed Inulf, two of them injured, and then at Seth, cowering behind them.
“An’ we’ve got neither,” she observed.
Inulf laughed and offered her his hand. “Don’t be a’feard a dyin’ now, girl. Be a’feard we be too late.”
The timbers of the doors groaned, flexing inward with each successive blow. Calvraign wasn’t sure which door would buckle first, whether death would come from the bailey or from the stairway to the great hall, only that either way they were trapped in between.
“Steady!” called Foss.
The sergeant had positioned his six crossbowmen behind overturned tables in the middle of the kitchen, three men facing each threatened door. The rest of the squad had formed up in a makeshift shield wall, ready to pivot toward the enemy from whichever direction they came, or split into two units if they came from both doors at once.
The rest of the furniture, cooking implements, half-prepared slabs of meat, and baskets of fruits and vegetables had been tossed to the side with the corpses. Osrith and Markus were wrestling a large cauldron of boiling fat off the fire. They hoisted it between them with the incongruous armor of oven mitts over their gauntlets, grimacing at the weight and the stench of the bubbling lard sloshing within.
“Stay behind me,” Osrith grunted to Calvraign. “And get that torch ready.”
Calvraign nodded, and lit a brand in the brazier to his right.
The door to the bailey shuddered one last time before shattering into a spray of wood chunks and flinders. The iron door handle clanged across the stone floor to settle at Calvraign’s feet. Osrith and Markus charged and heaved the cauldron of hot oil onto the remains of the door. The greasy mess splattered across the timbers and the first hrumm to enter the breach.
It screamed as the boiling liquid washed over it, and Calvraign tossed the torch onto the floor in front of the hrumm. Flames erupted up the creature’s legs, igniting it, and then spread along the floor and walls to nibble at the door fragments. Thick smoke billowed out, rolling into the room on the cold wind from the door.
There was a bark in hrummish, and then a leaf-headed spear point erupted from the blazing vanguard’s chest, purchasing silence at the price of a gurgle and a shower of heart blood. The body and the spear were shoved out of the churning black cloud, clearing the bloody debris from the breach.
“They’ll be up at us in a tick,” warned Osrith, nudging Calvraign. “Watch the flanks. They’ll try to power through and come at us from the sides. We need to keep them bottled up as long as we can.”
“How long will that be?” Calvraign asked.
“Well, that all depends on how many of the bastards there are. Now stop talking and get in guard position.”
Calvraign raised his shield and drew his father’s blade, facing the door with a dry mouth and racing pulse.
“Bah!” Markus reached for his own sword, waving his off-hand in front of his face, scowling. “What a stink.”
“All your cooking smells the same to me,” said Osrith, his eyes shining bright from his soot-smeared face. He discarded the kitchen gloves and hefted his long axe in a loose two-handed grip.
The two veterans moved back in the ranks as Foss sent half his men to hold the entrance. With a shout, the soldiers engaged the hrumm at the smoking door. Calvraign looked into the smoldering eye sockets of the dead hrumm, a charred corpse in a bloody pool, still sizzling like a pig on a spit, and tightened the grip on his sword hilt to settle his nerve.
“Just hold your ground,” Osrith advised over his shoulder, as if sensing Calvraign’s unease, “and don’t try any fancy tricks.” He raised his voice over the clamor of swords on shields, never turning. “Hrumm are strong and quick – sometimes too quick. Take the advantage if they give it to you, but don’t press for more – you’ll just tire yourself out. Survive first.”
“Hold that door!” yelled Foss. “Push the brutes back!”
The soldiers swung and parried in methodical cadence, well-practiced if not well-used skill keeping the onslaught at bay. Then one of the men went down, a sword stroke catching him in the neck just over the rim of his shield. The next in file moved to fill the hole, slipping on the oil and blood-wet stones, and a hrumm pushed forward a few short steps into the room behind its dented infantry shield, but the line held.
At the same time, a moaning crack of wood announced the demise of the door to the stairway. Calvraign turned as hrummish boots kicked the stubborn planks of wood free of the frame. Foss signaled his crossbowmen and sent half a dozen quarrels through the gaps. There was a sharp ringing retort as steel pierced steel and thumped into the flesh underneath, followed by a howl of pain. After the briefest pause, the rest of the door came smashing down.
Three hrumm overwhelmed the formation of defenders at the stairs in a bloody rush. There was no fire or smoke to hinder them, and they collapsed the left flank and streamed through to engage the second rank. Osrith took a half step forward.
So, this is battle, Calvraign thought. He was more scared than he imagined he’d be, but tried to draw strength from the steady calm of his men. He parried a high attack, responded with a low counter and lost himself in the rhythm of the fight.
Calvraign ducked in and out of the melee, his shield and sword flashing, defense and attack but separate steps in a larger dance of whirling steel. Men and hrumm struck and parried and fell around him as Foss barked orders to reform the line. He couldn’t distinguish much of the larger fight. The screams and shouts and grunts and horrible gasps of death from friend and foe were a distant buzz in his ears.
Another hrumm bore down on him in a flurry of swift, strong strikes. Its eyes ate into him with a dreadful intensity as it attacked, and Calvraign’s vision narrowed until the snarling grey-skinned beast was all he could see. It beat him back step by step, leveraging its size to dominate the exchange. Calvraign fought a measured defense, matching blows until he could find an advantage.
There, he thought, seeing his chance as he blinked sweat from his eyes. The hrumm’s weakness lay in sloppy footwork – it planted awkwardly with each crossing down-stroke and overextended its balance. That’s it.
Calvraign feinted to draw a strike, and then slipped in under the high swing and drove his sword through the hrumm’s exposed armpit. T
he point of the sword split chain and cut through leather into flesh, penetrating deep into its chest and opening its heart.
Calvraign withdrew the blade, and blood pumped in thick gouts from the open wound. The hrumm fell to its knees, eyes rolling up into its head, and plummeted face-first into the ground. He stared at the corpse, triumph and revulsion warring in his head as hot pinpricks danced on his numb cheeks.
“Watch your left!”
Osrith’s warning startled Calvraign from his momentary fugue. In a panic, he brought his sword and shield back into guard position and turned to face the attack, but he was too slow to block the sword scything down at him.
Osrith threw himself in front of Calvraign and in the path of the blow. The hook of the mercenary’s long axe intercepted the stroke and turned the hrumm’s swing to strike the floor in a shower of sparks. Osrith let the haft of the axe slide through his fingers and put the momentum of the deflection into a backswing that sent the hrumm’s head half off its neck.
“Hells, boy! It’s not fencing,” barked the master-at-arms. He kicked the lifeless, bloody body back into the doorway, choking further ingress. “The fighting’s all around you, not just in front of your fool face.” He pointed at his eyes. “What you don’t see kills you!”
Calvraign didn’t waste the breath to answer. The line of battle had reformed, but the hrumm had gained ground and were pressing them in – forcing them back inch-by-inch toward the middle of the room. The crossbowmen had taken up swords for the close melee, and dragged what wounded they could back to the makeshift fortifications. From what little Calvraign could ascertain as he fought for his life, despite an initial advantage in numbers, there were precious few of his first command left alive.
Osrith fought with crazed precision. With every swing of his long axe, he drew blood or forced distance, never wasting a motion as he maneuvered and struck amongst the foe. He kicked a table into two advancing hrumm, catching them in their midriffs and stalling their rush. He pivoted and dealt with the flanking hrumm in an economy of movement that belied the ferocity of his attacks. The master-at-arms moved with such sureness and fought with such brutal certainty, Calvraign almost believed that he alone might bring victory.
But soon enough Osrith’s brief surge transformed to a defensive struggle. The grizzled mercenary might be the last to fall, but Calvraign saw that without a change in fortune, they would not prevail against the hrumm. The thought of failing the king, failing the kingdom, delivering the world into some living hell prophesied before his birth, filled him with anger.
I will die like my father, he thought, taking a staggering blow to his shield. But I won’t even win the battle first.
Calvraign’s sword was heavier in his hands with every passing moment, his attacks landing with less and less force. The hrumm glaring down at him was tiring also, but its next swing drove him to his knees all the same. Calvraign lunged at its leg and stabbed into the meat of its thigh, but it barely flinched from the shallow wound, leaving Calvraign overextended and vulnerable. The hrumm reared back for a killing blow, but the death-stroke never fell. Its howl of victory died in its throat, punctuated by the whistle and thump of an arrow.
The mighty hrumm dropped.
Calvraign rolled to avoid the falling corpse as more arrows and a fresh battle cry filled the kitchen.
“Luadh má Ciaerhán!”
Calvraign looked up in surprise at the familiar oath; only to find Callagh Breigh standing in the doorway, bow in hand, loosing another shaft into a hrummish back. Swordsmen rushed past from the hall, but Calvraign could only stare at her.
Callagh’s features were partially concealed by a mask of black face paint – or blood – applied in a traditional Cythe pattern over her eyes, nose, and cheeks. He wasn’t sure, but he thought it was the mark of the ravenswohde – a mark that should be reserved for the likes of the madhwr-rwn alone. She looked fierce indeed, regardless of the totem.
Osrith kicked him. “Get up and get moving! That drove ‘em back to the bailey – but they’re not done with us yet. You can blow her a kiss later.”
“Ach, don’t look so surprised,” teased Callagh with a grin, lowering her bow. “Yer not even the first boy I’ve rescued today.” She extended a hand to help him up. “Oh, and just you wait t’see who’s behind me.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
RAINBOWS AT DUSK
ARTYGALLE winced into the fading scintillation of lights, his helm ringing, his body rolling, tangled in the arms of a flailing assailant. As they spun through the dirt, Artygalle lashed out with his forearm, catching the blurry phantasm in the neck with a satisfying wet gurgle. It sprawled backward, and Artygalle gained a knee, straddled the body, and drew his long sword.
There must be some mistake, he thought, confused. Some trick.
The beautiful aulden face snarled back at him as she tried to push him off. Her blue-green chain armor glistened with the reflections of a hundred rainbows. Artygalle impaled her through the chest, instinct denying reason any chance to kill him with misplaced conjecture. She convulsed, but pushed back on the crossbar of his hilt, trying to extricate the blade.
The creatures of Faerie do not die as mortals do, Ghaerieal had once cautioned, even as they had been sent to make peace with the Qeyniir, years ago. The killing of an aulden is brutal butchery, indeed.
Artygalle leaned hard on the blade with his right arm, keeping her pinned beneath him, and raised his shield high above his head with his left. “Ieylulki,” he whispered, and cleaved her head in two with a vicious blow from the edge of his round shield. Her struggle ceased.
Screams rent the air around him as he rose and turned, pulling his sword and shield from the corpse at his feet. He almost tripped on Sir Chadwick’s headless body. A thick ooze of dark blood seeped from the stump of his neck, soaking into the hoof-churned soil. His head lay at an odd angle not far from the body, eyes still staring in wonder.
The aulden. Gods. It’s come to this?
He spoke their tongue, and though he could not place the dialect, he could fully understand the shouts, commands and war cries of the fae as they ran amok through the ranks of knights, nobles, churchmen and spectators. In the initial attack, most fell without even raising a blade in defense.
Inoval ran toward him through the chaos, leading Windthane with one hand and pointing with the other. “Master, look out!”
Artygalle pivoted and ducked under his shield as an aulden sword lashed toward his neck. The force of the impact parted the aulden wraith from her blade and she stumbled back a half step, blinking in surprise, before bending light to dart away to safety.
“Inoval!” he yelled, nudging the fallen faerie sword with his boot. “Take this, and move quickly! Don’t look at them straight on – they are moving through the Veil.”
Artygalle hefted himself into the saddle. “Squire! Run! Go and spread the word – look away to strike true! Look away! They mean to have the king himself!”
Artygalle hoped the boy would make it, at least for a little while, but he could spare no more time here. He kicked Windthane in the flanks and headed at full gallop toward the unraveling rainbow converging on the royal pavilion.
The warhorse plunged into the tumult, shouldering aside human and aulden alike at a deft touch from Artygalle’s knees. Battle was not new to the knight, and he did not flinch from killing simply because his opponents were of the fae. Their beautiful wonderful faces fell away from him bloodied, wounded or dead, and he pressed on. He would pause to grieve the slain after the battle. For now, he fed Pheydryr her due without remorse, repeating the Discipline of Steel in his head as he fought.
As the dragon, firm of stance and right of balance,
As the eagle, keen of sight and sound of judgment,
As the mountain cat, swift and true of aim,
As the gryphon, bold of heart and without fear.
The royal pavilion drew near, aflame but not burning in a magical firestorm the like of which Artygalle had
never seen. Agrylon stood in the midst of the expanding fulguration, one hand on his war-staff and another raised high into the air as if calling down lightning.
Close enough, he thought, whirling Windthane in a tight turn. A golden-helmed aulden avoided the horse’s striking forehooves only to be struck down by Artygalle’s blade. She fell to the ground, twisting and clawing at the gaping wound splitting her chest, her sword landing well out of her reach. A boy stumbled away, turning to look up at Artygalle, his eyes wide and glassy.
“Run!” Artygalle commanded.
“We were running,” the boy responded, hoarse and weak, and stood there, shaking.
Artygalle noted the corpses around him: two grown women, a girl, and a portly man with the heavy chain of a master smith hanging on his thick neck. They’d been cut down as they ran. A trail of bodies led back to the common seating just left of the royal pavilion. The swords of Faerie flashed among them still, unopposed.
Artygalle looked back at the pavilion. He could make out Vaujn and his kin guardsmen surrounding Prince Hiruld, and Vanelorn and the knights in attendance formed a wall of swords and shields around the king and the wizard. Behind him, he saw the Knights Lancer formed a similar defense about the personages of the Holy Quorum and the archbishop.
He heard the cries of the knights and the soldiers, calling on their brethren to defend the king or the church, but his eyes were drawn back to the slaughter of innocents, and he felt a strange peace in the midst of the battle – a certainty that cleansed any doubt from the mire of his conflicted loyalties.
Artygalle made the sign of the moon on his breast. In Your wisdom I trust, and in Your way I follow. “Pick up her sword and follow me,” Artygalle told the smith’s son. “And by the Grace of Illuné, we will not die running.”
Artygalle veered to the right and tapped Windthane with his heels, vaulting the balustrade into the lower stands.
In Siege of Daylight Page 68