Reign of Ash

by Gail Z. Martin

  Niklas had a small number of talishte fighters, far too few to risk in hand-to-hand combat if it could be avoided. Instead, he had matched the talishte with his best mortal archers to make aerial attack expensive. Striking the tents and hiding them in the stone cellars meant the camp became far less vulnerable to fire.

  Now it’s time to see if it all works the way it’s supposed to work, Niklas thought as he strode down the lines. His soldiers were the final defense, and they were ready.

  “Pull!” Across the camp, the command echoed as one after the other, the catapult teams lobbed their missiles at the dark shapes just beyond the abatis line. Niklas heard the whirr and squeal of the mechanisms, the thunk as the central wooden rod slammed against the wooden mechanism, sending its deadly contents flying through the air.

  High overhead, Niklas could make out more of the dark shapes. Arrows sang through the air as the talishte archers let fly and reloaded almost faster than mortal sight could follow. Both the archers and the catapult soldiers had a second round of defense, with oil-soaked rags and chunks of wood that could turn arrows and catapult rocks into fiery projectiles.

  “They’re attacking from the west, sir.” The messenger was Taras, one of Niklas’s men.

  Niklas nodded, still watching the sky warily as volleys of arrows disappeared into the darkness. “How many?”

  “Hard to say, Captain. Estimate about seventy-five on horseback, and at least as many on foot.”

  “Damn,” Niklas muttered. “Are the battlements holding?”

  Taras nodded. “For now.”

  “Has Glenreith seen the warning lantern?” Niklas asked, casting a worried glance toward the dark outline of the walled manor on the hill behind them.

  “Aye. They’ve readied themselves.” Niklas could see that, despite the hour, torchlight blazed along the archers’ walks around the top of Glenreith’s walls.

  “Sir, you’d better see this!” Niklas and Taras both turned to follow the voice. Ayers pointed toward the western fortifications, where one line of the abatis had been set aflame.

  “It was just a matter of time,” Niklas muttered. “Did the men soak the wood first?”

  Ayers nodded. “Most of the trees were still green when we felled them, so they won’t take like tinder. But sooner or later, they’ll take.”

  Niklas sighed. He’d never thought Pollard a fool, and any decent military man knew that fire and grappling hooks could dismantle even the best-laid abatis. All it took was time.

  Ayers seemed to guess his thoughts. “We’ve moved the catapults, so we’re making it difficult for them. They may be able to set the fires from a distance, but the grappling hooks will bring them out into the open where we can pound them.” Satisfaction gleamed in his eyes, and a cold chill went down Niklas’s back.

  Does Pollard have any idea who he’s taken on? Niklas wondered. My men may not have been the king’s crack troops, but they’ve been beaten and gotten back up again, marched across half a continent, and lived to tell the tale. They’d like nothing better than to give someone the whipping they couldn’t deliver in person to Meroven.

  A man’s scream echoed in the darkness. There was the sound of flapping cloth, and a sickening thud as a body fell from the sky with several arrows protruding from his back. A few yards farther, another body fell, and a cheer rose from Niklas’s men. Two soldiers ran out with torches and lit the downed bodies of enemy talishte, which caught fire like dry leaves and burned with the smell of putrid meat, flashing into flame and then dissolving into cinders. Niklas watched the burning corpses with a mixture of satisfaction and dismay.

  What do our talishte allies think? Niklas wondered. Yet he could not disavow his own feral pleasure at seeing such a nearly invincible opponent brought down. And it was not lost on him that the arrows were most likely fired by the undead fighters who had been assigned to protect his camp. Reese and Penhallow have been enemies for a long time, he thought. Maybe they were itching for a reason to fight, and we just offered a convenient excuse.

  Two large sections of the abatis were on fire, with flames reaching high into the night sky. As Niklas watched, three other sections caught fire. Taras and Ayers returned to the line, but one after another, more runners came bearing news. Niklas squinted, trying to make out anything on the horizon, but Pollard’s men were still too far away. For now, Niklas thought darkly. Pollard’s not the type to give up. But with luck, by the time he manages to break through, we’ll have whittled his forces down to size.

  Niklas knew he was supposed to remain visible by pacing along the lines, cheering on his men. Yet he itched for hand-to-hand combat, the sheer physical release that came with launching himself into the fray and working out his anger with the blade of his sword.

  The only warning Niklas had was the sound of rushing air, enough to cause his battle-heightened nerves to throw him sideways as a round object fell from the sky. The sphere exploded on impact, sending a rain of fire and shards in a wide burst. Another explosion sounded seconds later, then another and another, with a deadly hail of broken pottery and flame.

  “What in Raka is that? Where are the archers?” Niklas shouted, beating out the places where his cloak had caught fire. One of the catapult crews had taken a direct hit; the men rolled on the ground, trying to douse the fires that burned their flesh while the catapult itself was a total loss.

  “The archers are still firing, but Reese’s talishte are dropping those godsdamned fire bombs from so high up, our arrows can’t reach them!” Gennedy shouted.

  Niklas stooped to examine the remains of the nearest bomb. Charred shards told him all he needed to know. Some kind of pottery vessel, filled with oil, with a rag for a wick and lit just before it’s dropped. When the flames hit the oil, it burns and spreads.

  Niklas helped drag the survivors free of the fires, then joined the men shoveling dirt and rocks onto the patches of still-flaming oil. Thanks to the precaution of striking the camp at the first sign of attack, the main area was free of nearly everything except catapults, archers’ blinds, and a few shielded campfires. Their tents, provisions, and other materials awaited them in the underground storage chambers. If we survive to retrieve them, Niklas thought.

  He stared up at the night sky, watching for the next round of firebombs. By now, his men knew to watch overhead, spot the falling objects, and scatter. Even so, fires flared across the inner camp, and men screamed in agony as the splattered oil set them aflame.

  Niklas cast a worried glance toward Arengarte. Thank Mother Esthrane that we thought to stable the horses in the granary threshing floor instead of out in the open. Arengarte, with its stone walls, is likely to survive. We’ll have plenty of food and enough water from the mill to outlast the siege.

  “Look up!” one of the soldiers shouted. Niklas dodged for cover and looked skyward.

  In the moonlight, he could just make out a dark shape streaking up, as a smaller shadow fell toward the ground. Before the pottery bomb could hit the ground, a man’s silhouette snatched it from the air, doused its wick, then levitated gently down to land a few feet away from Niklas.

  Gennedy was grinning broadly, his eyeteeth prominent. In his hands he carried one of the lethal oil bombs. “Can’t promise we’ll get all of them, but we’ll catch as many as we can,” he said. He handed off the sphere to Niklas. “You might want to keep these – could come in handy if we get to return the favor and besiege those sorry sons of bitches.” With that he streaked upward, deftly evading the hail of arrows.

  “Mind where you’re shooting!” Niklas shouted to the archers. “Those are our men going up after the bombs!”

  By now, a length of abatis along the right side of the camp was on fire. Inside the rows of brushy obstacles, wooden fence sections with pointed pikes would slow down the invasion, but if the force against them was sufficient, Niklas knew Pollard could afford to sacrifice troops to clear a path. If the fences were breeched, the trench and embankment hiding the archers was the camp’s last
defense.

  Niklas lost all track of time as the night slipped past. He helped Ordel and the other healers triage the burn victims and gave his blessing for the healers to administer a toxic sleeping potion to those too severely injured to recover. Thanks to Gennedy and the other talishte, fewer of the firebombs struck the ground, but when they did, the damage was considerable.

  “If we can make it to dawn, the sun will ground Pollard’s talishte as well as ours,” Niklas said as he carried an injured man to the triage area. “I prefer a fair fight with an enemy we can see.”

  Ordel wiped his brow with his sleeve. “That depends,” he said, “on how many of the enemy there are to see.”

  “Perhaps it’s time to get an idea of what we’re facing,” Niklas replied.

  In the center of the camp, Niklas’s men had built a wooden spy tower that rose two stories into the air. It was little more than an enclosed staircase with archer slits, but it afforded a better view than could be had from ground level. Not to mention the fact that it also makes a nice target, Niklas thought as he began to make his way up the narrow steps. Twice already the tower had been struck by oil bombs, but the quick reactions of nearby soldiers doused the flames with buckets of water.

  At the top, he pulled his spyglass from his belt and waited for the clouds to clear. Moonlight shone across the plain, clearly illuminating the protected land that stretched from Arengarte to Glenreith. Niklas could make out a sea of shadows, some moving as if on horseback, most on foot. They appeared to outnumber his own regiment.

  He swore under his breath, mentally combing through all the tactics he had witnessed on the battlefield for a way to repel the enemy. Nothing came to mind. Even from a distance, Niklas could see the smaller force at Glenreith on the archers’ walk, catapults rolled into position on the manor’s highest roofs. Blaine’s depending on us to keep Pollard at bay, Niklas thought. It’s all for naught if we can’t drive them back.

  The next moments happened in a blur. Niklas heard a warning shout from outside the tower as he saw two dark shapes streaking toward where he stood. He heard a crash as pottery smashed against the wooden tower. Burning oil covered the top section, catching quickly in the rough-hewn wood and filling the observation post with smoke. Niklas covered his mouth and nose with his sleeve and hurtled down the steps, slamming against the sides of the narrow stairs in his haste to outrun the smoke. He heard the smash of a second bomb hitting near the bottom and more smoke rushed in, making it difficult to see or breathe. Niklas tumbled down the last length of stairs and ran for the door.

  A sea of burning oil greeted him where the bomb had soaked the ground at the exit. Niklas could hear the flames eating at the top portion of the tower, and he knew it would not be long before the tower’s roof fell in. Hot cinders were already falling in a fiery rain around him, burning his neck and shoulders.

  Is this what it was like the night the Great Fire fell? he wondered. I have a choice: Stay and burn, or see if I can outrun the flames.

  Just as he resolved to take his chances crossing the burning patch of oil, he spotted Ayers, who was holding a bucket of water.

  “Captain! I’ll make a path!” Ayers hurled the water across the burning oil, dousing a thin path to safety.

  Niklas did not hesitate. He lurched from the tower door even as he could hear portions of the roof beginning to fall behind him. Flames licked at his trousers as he ran, and he hoped that his high leather boots and thick cloak would protect him. As he reached the safety of the other side, he heard the shouts of a bucket brigade rallying to contain the damage to the burning tower.

  Niklas looked up at the flaming structure. It would be impossible to save the tower, but with luck, the soldiers could keep the fire from spreading.

  “You all right, Captain?” Ayers asked with a worried expression. “You’re covered with soot, dark as a coal miner, you are!”

  Niklas managed a relieved grin and dragged a sleeve across his face, noting that it came away black with grime. “Thanks for the path. I didn’t fancy lighting up like a torch!”

  Before long, the soldiers had the tower fire under control. Ayers and Niklas paused to drink a few dippers of water and wipe the soot and sweat from their faces. “We can’t hold them off forever, sir. You know that.”

  Niklas nodded. “I know. But from what I saw in the tower, we can’t take them head-on, either.”

  A runner came bounding up to where Niklas stood. Peters was one of the soldiers who had been under Niklas’s direct command in the war, unlike the many stragglers who had joined up with them on the long march home. Despite the cold, the young man’s dark hair was slicked back with sweat. His face was grimy, and the edges of his torn coat were singed.

  “Something’s going on out there, sir,” Peters reported. “Can’t rightly say what, but something’s pulling the attack off our flank.”

  “Show me!” Niklas said and took off after the lieutenant.

  Niklas scrambled to the makeshift observation post his men had constructed on the stone roof of a small storage building. “Look there, sir,” Peters said, gesturing toward the shadows beyond the abatis wall.

  Niklas peered into the darkness. Clouds streamed across the moon, so that the light waxed and waned. Between the distance and the darkness, it was difficult to see. Yet as Niklas adjusted his spyglass, it seemed as though the shadows were roiling. He could hear the shouts of men carried on the night wind, along with the clang of steel and the frightened cries of horses.

  “Someone – or something – is attacking them,” Peters said.

  Niklas gave a cold smile. “Then let’s take the offensive to them, shall we?”

  Invigorated by the new advantage, Niklas was already shouting orders as he climbed down from the roof. “Catapults! Change your aim. Gennedy and the talishte – let’s send those oil bombs back where they came from. Pound their rear flank, and let’s drive them into the pikes and the trench where we can give them a proper battering!”

  This was the part of soldiering that Niklas truly loved, the moment when a battle changed in a heartbeat and the odds shifted from impossible to probable.

  “Who’s out there, Captain? Are they for us or against us?” Peters asked, dogging Niklas.

  “No idea, Lieutenant,” Niklas replied as he moved down the lines, repeating his orders. He saw the dark shapes of talishte take flight and watched as they repositioned themselves and the catapult gunners dragged their war machines for a new vantage point. “All I care about is that they’re fighting our enemy.”

  Peters moved to help one of the catapult crews with their heavy burden. “And if they come after us once they’re done with Pollard? What then?”

  Niklas’s expression was grim. “Then we’ll take them with us to Raka, soldier. By all that’s holy to whatever gods exist, we’re going to hold this ground.”

  All through the night, the catapults thumped and arrows sang through the air. Niklas continued working his way up and down through the ranks of the defenders, adjusting their aim, exhorting them to stay on their feet despite the long hours of assault. In the distance, Niklas could see flames light up the night where his talishte dropped the oil bombs. But as the night sky began to fade with the coming dawn, it became clear that his soldiers had not only held their position, but the new attackers had succeeded in severely damaging Pollard’s strike force.

  “They’re retreating, sir!” Ayers shouted with jubilation, and a cheer echoed down the line.

  “What of the strangers, the newcomers?” Niklas asked. He scrambled to the top of one of the catapult rigs for a better view.

  “There’s a man coming this direction under a white flag,” Ayers reported.

  Niklas glanced over his shoulder at the sky. “We’ve still got a bit before dawn breaks. Send Gennedy and another talishte to guide the soldier in. Let’s find out if they’re friends or whether we’ve got another fight coming.”

  Before long, two talishte returned with a third man. Niklas’s eyes nar
rowed as he attempted to identify the man. From the way the talishte soldiers landed, it appeared that the emissary was also talishte because he touched down on his own accord, as if he had not been supported by his two escorts. The man was not remarkably tall but he was stocky, and he wore a cloak and uniform of military cut. Whoever he is, he walks as if he owns the camp. I wonder if we’ve gotten rid of one threat just to greet another?

  “Captain Theilsson,” the newcomer said before Niklas had a chance to speak. “I am Nidhud. I bring you congratulations from Lanyon Penhallow and offer you the support of my troops, the Knights of Esthrane.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  “B

  loody hell,” Piran murmured under his breath. “They’re ghosts, I tell you. Nobody’s seen the Knights of Esthrane for generations.”

  “They’re not ghosts,” Kestel said, motioning for Piran to pipe down. “We’ve been through this before, at the lyceum. They’ve just been in hiding for a while.”