Page 85 of Valdemar

And his heart threatened to break at the idea of his people suffering yet more loss.

He surveyed the “army” below, and even with the addition of the monsters, it was still less than two Imperial battalions in size. Of course, we don’t have monsters—but we do have mages. I don’t think the Adept does.

No, the battle would not last long. If they won, people would be eating luncheon in the Great Hall as usual. If they lost—people had been told to collapse all the hertasi entrances and stay put, unless they heard something digging for them, and wait until dark to trudge to the end of Pebble’s tunnel.

And pray that the gods take pity on them.

He didn’t need Ardatha’s wordless warning to know that Isla had just arrived and was coming up the stairs to stand beside him. This wasn’t like the time they had fought the Red Forest, and Isla had commanded those who had evacuated then into the tunnels. Restil was a man grown, and out here, prepared to fight, as well; Hakkon and Jon were going down into the tunnels and old enough to take care of themselves. Isla had made it abundantly clear, with very few words, that this time she was not going to hide in a tunnel and wait.

Just as she slipped her right hand into his left, Ardatha gave them another update. :The archers are deploying.:

The sounds of dozens of runners sprinting up the stairs behind him confirmed that, and a moment later, fighters spread out on either side of him. Well . . . young fighters. Some were very young, though they had turned back anyone younger than fifteen by calling vrondi to help and asking the age of every volunteer when they turned up to join the defenders. These were not recruits; every one of them was a volunteer from villages and towns all over Valdemar. The Lord Martial had concentrated on honing their skill with the one weapon every one of them had and knew very well—the bow. Even the people living in towns supplemented their food supplies by hunting, and came out to defend against wild animals or Change-creatures.

They had faced intense training from morning to night without much of a break, and not one of them had quit. Though young, they were now very skilled indeed, and the only fear he had was that some of them might snap under the pressure of real combat, and run straight into worse danger.

If they run, I hope they find shelter.

Now that the walls were fully staffed, some of the archers converged on the little wooden sheds along the top of the wall, and dropped their sides to reveal all the Poomers left after the Battle of the Red Forest Siege, and all of the ammunition, divided up exactly among the Poomers. A second lot of marksmen clattered up the stairs to intersperse themselves with the archers. These were the people trained in using the Poomers and Spitters—all the ones they had left as well. On their backs were baskets full of ammunition, and each one carried a Spitter. They had been saving the Poomers and Spitters all this time for a great need . . .

Well, this was it.

Morning light shone thinly down over the horde below, and still there seemed to be more people pouring out of the foggy Gate, as clouds began to boil up above them all. Behind him, an incongruous sound—the sounds of dozens of muffled bells. He knew what it was, despite not turning to look. It was all of the rest of the Companions, both with Heralds and without, their bell-like hoofbeats muffled by the turf.

:Apologies—we did not have time to sharpen our hooves,:Ardatha commented. :Hopefully, hard kicks will serve well enough.:

The Heralds remained below, on their Companions, massing with the Guard at the main gate. Kordas tightened his grip on Isla’s hand; a little too much, it seemed, as he felt her wince, and immediately loosened it. She patted his hand wordlessly, but it didn’t help. Cold dread crept over him. It didn’t matter now what plans they had made. Now was the time when those plans would be tested based upon the progress that had been made up until this morning, and many of those would fall apart.

The monsters were eerily still, even the wyrsa, who were not doing the dodging and weaving he remembered from their attack on the convoy. There were just thousands of eyes staring up at the defenders on the wall, and . . . fewer than that staring down. Inside he felt as tightly stretched as a harp string. From various parts of the creatures, high keening wails rose and fell in staccato notes—a mocking sound, as if the monsters were laughing at what they faced. Some danced side to side in anticipation. They were waiting on something, but Kordas felt no doubt that they’d turn lethal in an instant once that something occurred.

I see no siege weapons, no defense wagons, or towers to gain height advantage. Maybe they do have mages. A war mage could circumvent or break defenses as surely as any machine, if they were prepared well. But there’s also no relief—no Healers, nor even water wagons. Gods, they’re being kicked out against us with nothing but what they’re carrying. They either win, or die here.

Behind the ranks of the enemy were the manors of his highborn, built, half built, and barely begun. He hoped that everyone had deserted those buildings, because at the moment the only purpose they served was to provide the besiegers with something to burn or use for cover.

As for the rest of Haven—well, everyone knew that the Gate was probably where the enemy would invade, and the Gate was between at least a third of Haven and the Palace. That had shot a hole in the plan to evacuate everyone behind the wall in the event of an invasion. There wouldn’t be time. There would just be enough warning to get the gates closed and barred.

It had been an uncomfortable proclamation, one in which he had confessed he could not advise anyone what to do. Some had just uprooted themselves and the things they thought they could not live without and moved back onto the Palace grounds, re-occupying the quarters in the wall and even moving into the living chambers off the tunnels. Others had turned their new homes into small fortresses. Still others had packed up and moved to farms and towns in Valdemar where they had relatives. Haven was mostly deserted, according to the few members of the Watch that still remained.

Now, in an Imperial battle, or in a wonder tale, would be the time when the leader of these creatures would step forward and make a speech, calling on the Valdemarans to surrender and giving them terms, while they all stood there on the wall like a lot of clay statues and listened. And it would be his place in turn to utter a defiant reply, while the rest all stood on the wall and listened.

Well . . . we aren’t going to do that.

Kordas spoke clearly and quickly to the nearest captain, who repeated the orders to a runner as Kordas turned away. Within two minutes, trumpets sang out a single phrase in unison, an Imperial battle call that no one on the enemy side would recognize, except perhaps the defectors. But they were all bunched in the rear of the sea of apparently impatient monsters.

Isla and Kordas dropped each others’ hands, and tapped into one of the ley-lines beneath the Palace. Kordas allowed the line to fill him with power until it felt as if his eyes were going to pop out of his head and his skin was going to split. He tasted blood, and a faint red haze rose between him and the attackers.

On the last note, the massed ranged fighters on the wall attacked.

Kordas winced at the thunder from the Poomers; the Spitters barely made any sound at all in comparison. Arrows didn’t exactly “turn the sky black,” but they certainly looked and sounded like an enormous cloud of angry insects—not unlike the arrowclicks, in fact. They were just as effective as the arrowclicks, too; shrieks and howls marked where arrows and Spitter bolts found their targets, and the Poomer operators launched their scattershot loads into knots of enemies, guaranteeing at least two or three disabling hits per shot as the bodies of creatures human-sized or smaller went flying.

First blood to us—

The mass of monsters raised their voices—or as near to a voice as they might have had—into a cacophony of concentration-splitting shrieks and ululations before the echoes from the Poomers had even subsided. Every call had its own rasp and tempo. Even Kordas found himself rethinking trains of thought due to the monsters’ interference.

Meanwhile, the ragged-edged Gate rose up from its previous spot near the ground, utterly abandoning those combatants terrified by the initial volley who bolted for the Adept’s city. One of the defector soldiers made it halfway through before the Gate lifted up, and only half of the soldier stayed on each side.

And that’s why we use uprights,Kordas thought. The Gate itself is ragged, but—oh! Of course! It’s a Gate spell that’s meant to attach to a permanent receiver. The rough edge is because it’s effectively wandering, but someone is keeping it open anyway. Since it’s wandering, it can be moved while still open—but it’s still unstable. It’ll stay open until it shatters, and I can’t tell when, or who it’ll take with it. Let’s hope it won’t be used to scoop up our forces, or just cut them down with its edge.

Once the Gate settled its climb at half a furlong high, the bird-things they had largely seen at a distance—maka’ar, the Hawkbrothers had called them—shot through the Gate in a flock and headed for the wall. The Gate crackled with arcs of lightning around its perimeter, but stayed open. The faint distortion of the air around the maka’ar, and how they pushed clouds of smoke and the frost from the Poomers away, told Kordas they had protective shields on them. And the fact that he could see them so clearly told him something else. These creatures were big—big enough they might be able to snatch lighter fighters off the wall. Certainly two together could! And their numbers were, in a word, frightening. None of them seemed like they could hold a straight line, so counting them was almost impossible, but there had to be over a hundred.