Rules of Ascension: Book One of Winds of the Forelands

by DAVID B. COE

  Which was why Xaver was still standing by the top of the stairs merely watching when the Aneiran swung himself onto the wall from an unseen ladder, landing just beside him. He was just about as tall as Xaver, but far broader in the chest and shoulders. He had a youthful, clean-shaven face, and Xaver had time to note that he couldn’t have been a year or two past his Fating.

  For just an instant, the two of them stared at each other, the Aneiran seeming as surprised to find the boy standing there as Xaver had been by the man’s appearance. Then the soldier hacked at him with his blade and Xaver abruptly found himself battling for his life, his sword absorbing blow after arm-numbing blow. He heard someone grunt and fall to the walkway nearby, but he couldn’t even look away to see if it was Javan or one of the men the duke had been fighting.

  He did see a second Aneiran climbing onto the wall from the same ladder his own foe had used, but he could do nothing about it. The soldier had driven him back against the rampart and was still hewing at him with his blade. Thus far Xaver had managed to block every blow, but the muscles in his shoulder were screaming, and his blade was notched.

  The man raised his shield with his other hand and swung it at Xaver’s head. The boy blocked it with his own shield, his knees buckling under the weight of the blow. But even as he struggled to recover in time to block the man’s sword yet again, Xaver heard a voice in his head. His father’s voice.

  The first thing an inexperienced warrior forgets in the heat of battle, is that he has two hands. Every time you defend with your sword, you miss a chance to strike at your opponent.

  Of course.

  When the Aneiran brought down his blade again, Xaver raised his shield to meet the blow. At the same time, he swung his own sword at the man’s side. The soldier lowered his shield in time, but already Xaver was starting his next attack, this one at the Aneiran’s shoulder. Again, his foe managed to block it. But the man stepped back, as if realizing for the first time that he was truly in a fight. Xaver gave him no time to rest, leaping forward with his sword raised once more. He was still tired. His blade arm ached. But his fear had vanished. In his mind he was in the city ward of Curgh Castle with his father shouting instructions to him.

  Don’t get careless! You should always be most careful when you’re certain the advantage is yours. A man who feels he’s losing is liable to try anything.

  The man parried Xaver’s blow, then raised his blade as if to strike at the boy’s head. Xaver raised his shield, only to find that the soldier had dropped to one knee and was slashing at his legs. It was all he could do to wrench himself out of the way, tumbling hard onto his back so that all the air was forced from his lungs. Still on his knee, the soldier sought to finish him with a chopping blow. Again Xaver raised his shield in time, slashing at the man’s arm with his blade at the same time.

  The soldier cried out in pain and stood again, backing away. Xaver scrambled to his feet. He was breathing hard, and he wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his sword hand. The Aneiran was bleeding from his wrist, just below the edge of his mail sleeve. Their eyes met, and in that moment it seemed to Xaver that the world stood still. This soldier had a name, a life, people who loved him. Xaver could imagine the Aneiran with his mother and father, doing chores outside a small home in the Mertesse countryside. Perhaps he was married already. Perhaps he had children.

  Always remember that you carry more into battle than just a sword and a shield. Any part of the body can be a weapon. Your elbows and shoulders, your legs and feet, even your head. Most soldiers forget this. They think only of their steel. The man who uses all his weapons has a distinct advantage.

  They sprang forward at the same time, swords raised, shields ready. Xaver was staggered by the collision with the larger man. He managed to keep his balance, but once again he found himself forced against the wall. The soldier wasted no time, jumping at him once more. Xaver raised his sword again, but as the Aneiran moved his shield to ward himself, the boy lashed out with his foot, catching the man in the thigh with the toe of his boot.

  It wasn’t enough to knock the man over, but it did throw him off balance long enough for Xaver to hammer his sword into the man’s side. The soldier’s mail kept the blow from drawing blood, but he fell onto his stomach. And without hesitating, without even thinking, Xaver pounced on him, driving the point of his blade into the man’s back. The soldier’s body arched for an instant, as if he were a Revel tumbler in the midst of his performance, and he took a long shuddering breath. Then he collapsed onto the stone, limp and lifeless.

  Xaver didn’t move. He just remained there on his knees, watching the blood flow from the wound into the grey metal circles of the soldier’s chain armor. He had stabbed a man in the back. It wasn’t a proper kill.

  Someone shouted his name in warning and he turned in time to see another Aneiran coming at him, weapon raised, rage in his dark eyes. Xaver didn’t even raise his shield. There was a sharp musical sound, like a bell ringing, and the man’s sword broke in two. The Aneiran stared at what was left of his steel, looking shocked. He spun around and in that moment Fotir stabbed him with his sword. The man grunted and dropped to his knees, sliding off the Qirsi’s bloody steel and lying down almost gently on the stone. The Aneiran had been unarmed. That wasn’t a proper kill either.

  The first minister strode to where he was kneeling and tried to hoist him onto his feet. “Stand up, Xaver, before you get yourself killed!”

  “These weren’t proper kills,” the boy said, shaking his head.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I stabbed him in the back.” Xaver looked at the Qirsi. “And you killed an unarmed man.” He shook his head again. “That’s not the way you’re supposed to do it.”

  “Xaver …” Fotir exhaled, closing his eyes for a moment. Then he lifted the boy to his feet. “This isn’t a tournament, Xaver. This is war. You kill however you can, and you do whatever is necessary to stay alive.”

  “But it wasn’t right.” He felt a tear rolling down his cheek, then another. An instant later he was sobbing, his arms hanging limp by his sides.

  Fotir wore a pained expression and it seemed for just a second that he wanted to put his arms around the boy. But a noise from behind him made him spin, his sword flashing again at yet another Aneiran climbing onto the wall. The soldier blocked Fotir’s sword with his shield and raised his blade to strike. Before he could, however, the minister shattered his sword as well. He pulled back his blade arm as if intending to kill the soldier, but at the last moment appeared to change his mind. He swept his sword low, catching the Aneiran on the side of the knee. The man fell to the ground, clutching his leg, and Fotir slammed the hilt of his sword into the base of the soldier’s skull, knocking him senseless.

  Fotir stepped to the wall and stared over the edge. Xaver didn’t see him move, but after a moment he heard a sound like the rending of wood, and then screams that faded before ending abruptly.

  He faced Xaver again. “I need you now, Master MarCullet.” He gestured toward another Qirsi, who was standing near the top of the stairs, his face as white as Panya. “The underminister and I have to get to the rest of the ladders before any more of Mertesse’s men gain the wall. We’ll need another sword.”

  Xaver was still wiping tears from his face, but he nodded. He returned to the man he had killed and, gripping the hilt of his sword, pulled the steel from the soldier’s back. He desperately wanted to wipe the man’s blood from his blade, but he didn’t know what to use.

  When he turned again, Javan was there, a dark bruise on his brow and blood oozing from a wound on his shoulder. He and Fotir were speaking in low tones. As Xaver approached them, the duke looked at him gravely.

  “The first minister has told me of your battle, Master MarCullet, and of your misgivings. As your duke, I feel I must commend you for both.”

  He felt his color rising and he couldn’t decide whether he was angry with the Qirsi or grateful to him. For the moment
he merely said, “Thank you, my lord,” hoping that would be the end of it. Fortunately, the battle demanded no less.

  With Javan leading them, followed by the two Qirsi and then Xaver, they made their way along the wall, fighting past the Aneiran soldiers they encountered so that the two sorcerers could destroy the siege ladders that hung on the castle like vines. Gradually, men of Kentigern joined them, swelling their numbers to some twenty or more men, and they swept along the walkway like a tide, driving the Aneirans back and slowing the flow of attackers onto the wall.

  Xaver remained in the middle of their small group and though he struck at a few Aneirans with his blade, he hit only steel. The other men around him were older and more seasoned. Most of them were also quite a bit larger than he. But the blood on Xaver’s blade, which had brought him such pain a short time before, now glimmered in the torchlight like a medal, marking him as one of them.

  Within a short time, they had secured the entire west wall and much of the south. But near the towers of the south gate, the army of Mertesse rallied. Xaver could see them still climbing onto the wall on the far side of the castle, fanning out in both directions. He could see as well small groups of Aindreas’s men trying to hold the Aneirans back, but with more of the enemy joining the fight each moment, they were clearly doomed.

  Xaver knew that Javan saw this as well. He lashed his sword at the men of Mertesse like Binthar himself, calling for Fotir and the other Qirsi to shatter their swords. But the ministers were tiring and the sheer numbers of the Aneirans began to turn the battle. Soon Javan and the others were falling back again, giving ground grudgingly, but giving it nevertheless.

  One of Kentigern’s men called out, pointing at something beyond the wall and below. Stepping to the rampart, Xaver felt his blood turn cold. The Aneirans had steered their ram into the outer ward and were pushing it slowly toward the south gate. Much of the fighting thus far had been at the north gate, and Xaver feared that Kentigern’s captain might still have his attention fixed there. It seemed Javan had the same thought.

  “Master MarCullet!” he called over his shoulder, still fighting one of the men in black and gold. “Go back down to the captain! Tell him what we’ve seen! Hurry!”

  Xaver turned to go, but then stopped abruptly. The Aneirans had retaken much of the west wall. But more than that, it seemed they had already found a way to repair or replace the ladders broken by the Qirsi, for they were swarming onto the walkway again. Xaver thought he could just make it to the nearest tower and its stairs before the men of Mertesse reached them. That way at least he could warn the captain. But he feared that if he left the duke and Fotir now he might never see them again. They were trapped on the castle wall.

  Chapter Thirty

  Even having been to war once before, Yaella remained ignorant in the ways of battle. She had been young the first time she rode into battle with Rouel and, mercifully, the fighting had ended quickly with the men of Mertesse being driven back across the Tarbin. It hadn’t truly been a war so much as a skirmish, and an inconsequential one at that. So perhaps she shouldn’t have been surprised to find that her expectations were so wrong in so many ways. But as she watched this battle unfold, she felt as though the lessons of a lifetime were being discredited one by one. War, she had been led to believe, was a disciplined endeavor. Men followed orders. Battle plans unfolded as intended. Large armies defeated smaller ones, and unexpected betrayal led inexorably to defeat. She never imagined that the fortunes of war could change so swiftly or so often, or that the ebb and flow of battle would be as fickle as storm winds in the Scabbard Inlet.

  When the last portcullis in Kentigern’s west gate finally fell, and Rouel’s men rushed through, their weapons held high and a war cry on their lips, she was certain that the castle would be theirs before long. The duke seemed just as confident, going so far as to leave the ram by the outer walls while he and his men attempted to take the inner keep. It didn’t take long, however, for the resistance put up by Kentigern’s men to start to take its toll. Rouel’s hooked ladders allowed some of his men to reach the top of the inner walls, but many more were struck by arrows and crossbow bolts, and several were maimed and killed when Kentigern’s shapers destroyed the ladders.

  Soon the duke was forced to turn once more to his ram, and this time, because Shurik had done nothing to weaken the inner gates, the castle’s defenses proved far more stubborn. Gradually, the fighting atop the walls started to turn Mertesse’s way, not because the duke’s soldiers were any better trained or his captains more adept, but rather because there were simply more Aneirans than there were defenders.

  Seeing the great number of men in black and gold on the ramparts, Yaella felt her initial confidence return. But once more, the Eibitharians managed to deny them a quick victory. They battled fiercely, and when it became clear that they couldn’t stand against Rouel’s men, they still found a way to confound them. Ceding the walls to the Mertesse army, the soldiers of Kentigern retreated to the towers, which were far easier to hold. Denied access to the stairways, the Aneirans became easy targets for Aindreas’s archers, who loosed their darts from the turrets. After several hours of this, the men on the walls began to climb back down to the relative safety of the outer ward. A few tried to stay on the walls and lift their ladders up to the walkways so that they could then use them to descend into the inner ward, but neither Yaella nor her duke believed that they had any chance of succeeding.

  As they watched the fighting go on, Rouel and the minister received word from one of the captains that Javan of Curgh and his formidable Qirsi, Fotir jal Salene, were now commanding the defenders. Far from facing an army with no leader, the duke abruptly found himself at war with a man who was generally believed to be bolder and more cunning than Aindreas.

  Night gave way to a morning that dawned grey and cool, and still the fighting went on. Fires burned throughout the outer ward, some of them set by the army of Mertesse, others by the fire pots dropped by Kentigern’s men. Black smoke poured into the sky, and somehow the winds continued to carry it northward toward the wood and Heneagh.

  The pounding of Rouel’s ram echoed through the castle like waves crashing against the Aneiran shore. The great door of the inner gate had finally fallen shortly before the sky began to lighten, but the first of the portcullises still held firm.

  Men cried out from the top of the inner wall, and though Yaella could still see black and gold heralds from where she stood, she could tell that their numbers were dwindling. Mertesse’s advantages—the size of Rouel’s army and the suddenness of their attack—seemed to be fading with each hour that passed.

  She sensed Rouel’s frustration mounting, and though she was starting to believe that this was just what the Weaver had intended, she couldn’t help but feel sorry for her duke. He had hungered for this war for as long as she had served him, and had truly believed that he could take Kentigern, despite the castle’s deserved renown. No one who wasn’t of the royal family ever ruled Aneira, but that didn’t keep dukes from the other houses from vying with each other for influence. Mertesse was already one of the most important family names in the kingdom, and Rouel hoped that in the wake of this siege it would be second only to the royal house.

  He spent much of his time near the inner gate, overseeing the assault on the two remaining portcullises. But even when the first of these gave way late in the morning, it didn’t seem to cheer him. His men started to celebrate, but he silenced them immediately.

  “Stop your cheering!” he yelled, drawing their stares from beneath the ram’s roof. “We should have been through here hours ago. So keep your silence and get back to work.”

  They eyed him a moment longer but then did as they had been told. Yaella could see, though, that the battle had begun to wear on all of them, including the duke. It had been nearly a full day since they left Mertesse, and longer still since any of them had slept. And as the morning had progressed, the fighting had taken a new, darker turn for the Aneirans. Kenti
gern’s men knew the fortress as well as Rouel’s men knew their own. There was no surprise in that, of course. But the duke and his soldiers were learning that there was even more to Kentigern Castle than they had thought. Using hidden sally ports and unseen passages, Aindreas’s men were attacking from all sides, striking at the army of Mertesse with sudden brief volleys of arrows and bolts before vanishing again. In the time it took them to defeat that first portcullis, the Aneirans lost scores of men.

  From the murder holes above the gate, defenders dropped lime on the ram until its roof was nearly gone. At the same time, archers standing within the walls of the gate loosed more arrows at the ram and the men inside. Rouel’s soldiers tried to fight back, but the arrow loops were small, and most of their arrows bounced off the thick stone walls and fell harmlessly to the ground.

  Yaella couldn’t even set fire to the second portcullis, as she had to the first and to the heavy oak door before that, because Kentigern’s bowmen wouldn’t allow her to get close enough. She tried to raise a concealing mist, but within the narrow confines of the gate, her magic did little good. There were too many archers hiding within the chambered walls; even loosing their arrows blindly into the mist, they kept her from approaching the last portcullis. And failing that, there was little else she could do to aid her duke. She was more a burden than a help, just another life to be guarded by men who should have been protecting themselves. Rouel’s other Qirsi weren’t doing much more. The men of Mertesse were falling so fast that the duke ordered his Qirsi healers to tend only to those whose injuries were slight, so the injured men could return quickly to the fighting. The rest of the wounded were left to die.