Page 89 of Valdemar

But the twenty knights of Valdemar were heavily armored, and so were their horses. And if they were afraid, they weren’t showing it. They made short charges at the packed monsters from the side, using their war lances and their horses’ hooves, and they were taking their toll on the enemy. The fact that not a one of them had fled was remarkable, considering the enemy’s seemingly endless, sheer-horror cackles, screeches, claws, and teeth—alien to anything they had trained for. Then again, in armor on horseback, a feeling of invincibility could come over anybody.

We’re on our own. I can hold shields or attack magically. But a magic attack is what that Adept will be expecting. This whole place is only getting hotter—there’s enough magic use here that it sizzles. Best not to add to that.

Delia—Restil was pretty sure it was Delia—solved his dilemma for him. A barrel sailed over the heads of the monsters and upended itself, pouring a liquid about as viscous as hot honey down on the monsters nearest him.

:Yes!:He pulled his shortbow out of the sheath on his saddle, nocked an arrow to it, and set the bodkin-point head on fire. Normally, of course, a metal arrowhead wasn’t going to burn, but it would with a touch of mage-fire on it. He aimed and released; the arrow hit the nearest monster just below the ear, and flames spread outward from that point, then spread to the next monster, and the next. And while the monsters flailed and bellowed, the ground beneath them churned and boiled again, and the lot of them vanished, just as the wounded maka’ar had. The surface sealed up smooth behind them.

Restil spared a thought. :Thank you, Pebble.:

But a thought was all he could spare, because there were more behind. The guards were holding their spear line. The knights were eating at the edges. The junior mages were reassembling their pyramids, and the senior mages appeared to be working together on something. And the Heralds? Well, they were about to show what they were really good for in a fight.

• • •

Even with Ardatha’s help, Kordas realized that his own strength was fading. He and Isla leaned against each other, supporting each other, as they and everyone else up on the wall tried to keep each other shielded, and at least thin out what seemed to be a never-ending stream of wyrsa and creatures even stranger before they managed to get to the now-wide-open gate beneath them. He was so exhausted that he could scarcely see, and it was actually several moments before he realized that the sound of fighting in front of him had died down.

He staggered to the parapet and looked over it.

He found himself looking down into a familiar face, only half obscured by a helmet.

Lord Legenfall.

His Lordship stood in front of his battalion of fighters, all of them fresh, unwounded, and ready for anything. Kordas could not read his expression, but he was dreadfully afraid that Legenfall could easily read his. And he knew what was written there. Exhaustion. Grief. The face of a man on the verge of defeat. All Legenfall needed to do was lead his fighters in through that gate, and he’d find people on the other side who were just as exhausted—and outnumbered.

And that was when Rothas jumped up onto the parapet, took a huge lungful of air, and began to sing.

“Tell me, oh brothers, just why you are fighting for someone who holds you and yours in disdain? Tell me, oh sisters, just what are you doing, to bear all the suffering for none of the gain?”

As Rothas sang, his Gift expanded his words, not only in meaning, but in scope. It felt to Kordas as if Rothas was singing directly to him, asking him why he was serving the Adept—someone who was tossing away their lives as meaningless, and who certainly would do nothing about taking care of the ones they left behind when they died. With every word, every note, Rothas pounded that home: That they were nothing but arrow-catchers to the Adept. That she would never share Valdemar with them, no matter what she had promised. That they were, in any case, unlikely to survive, because after that fight her monsters were going to be hungry, and would probably need more to feast on than just the bodies of Valdemarans.

Lord Legenfall loaded his crossbow and lifted it to put a shot through Rothas, but halted when he heard the swearing from behind him.

The first fighter that broke and ran was one standing right behind Legenfall. Legenfall turned, to see him bolt—he swore and redirected his crossbow, but it was too late, and the shot went wide.

And that settled it. Seeing their own leader firing on one of their own, the troops broke, and fled—not into the Gate, but into the city.

Until, at last, Lord Legenfall was left standing all alone, with nothing around him but a few monsters, still battling each other, caught in Lythe’s thrall.

• • •

It took a moment for Restil to realize that there were no more enemies in front of him. It took several moments, in fact, and “shivering” his shield to get all of the crap, guts, and blood off it, to see that there were no more enemies on the Palace grounds either. Not even dead ones. Pebble was very efficient at cleanup, it seemed.

There were injured, and many dead, but none of the dead were Heralds. His arms screamed their exhaustion, and he felt hollow and empty inside. Starving without being hungry, which was the sign that his magical reserves were completely depleted. It took magic to use magic, after all, and this was the longest continuous use of combat magic he had ever undertaken in his life. It was so much worse than training.

Movement beside him caught his eye, and he looked up; Starbird carefully put the last—absolutely the last—of her arrows back in the saddle quiver, and her shoulders sagged with weariness. She held up her arm, and her bird landed heavily on it. The sooty buzzard’s talons dripped with blood, and a vague memory of the buzzard ripping open a monstrous eye just as the monster was about to swat at him swam through his mind. But Starbird looked at him gravely. “Is that it?” she said. “That cannot be all. Surely.”

“All for now, it looks like.”

Starbird looked around, dismounted, and began salvaging arrows from the bodies nearby—including from the quivers of fallen Valdemarans. Without a word, she passed a double handful up to Restil before gathering her own. “Tell everyone to wash any fluids from the monsters off, as soon as they can. Some of it is toxic,” she added, “and don’t let it get into any cuts.”

:Advice relayed. Portal magic is gathering,:Darshay said to both of them, and she wasn’t wrong. Restil sensed great energies moving again outside the wall. With only a few breaths of rest, he sat up straighter in his saddle.

:Form up on me beside the gatehouse, Heralds. We still have work to do.:

• • •

Lord Legenfall slowly put his sword on the ground and stood up. He looked Kordas in the eyes and visibly took a deep breath, opening his mouth to speak, no doubt an officious declaration about how he was to be treated as a prisoner.

“Stuff it, you shitbird!” Jonaton screamed at him, and Kordas sensed great energies moving in the direction of the Tayledras Portal. “Get the hell out of the way!”