Authors: Nathan Hawke
‘As long as we can. Will they really take these walls so quickly?’
Gallow looked out over the encamped Lhosir. ‘Yes. There’s only one thing you have in your favour.’
‘One thing?’ she asked.
‘Beyard.’
‘The iron devil?’ She turned to glance up at him as though he was mad.
‘He’ll do his best to break you and he
will
win. But I think he’d be pleased if you somehow beat him.’
The Marroc woman shook her head. Definitely crazy. And maybe he was, and Beyard too, and all the old Lhosir who thought that way. Gallow raised a hand to slap her shoulder, one soldier to another. Paused, as he remembered she was a woman, then did it anyway.
‘Rest well tonight,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow they come.’
V
alaric rolled his eyes. The Marroc was the third messenger from the idiots in Witches’ Reach to get to him. There might have been more, but if there were then they’d fallen to the forkbeards watching the Aulian Bridge or the ones who patrolled the fringes of the Crackmarsh near Issetbridge or, most likely of all, to the ghuldogs. Valaric had no idea how many ghuldogs lived in the Crackmarsh but it was probably thousands and he only had a few of the packs tamed. The wild ones suited him. They all had their territories, loosely marked and understood, and Valaric’s was more or less in the middle. If the forkbeards got ideas about coming in after him they’d have to pass a night amid the wild ghuldogs first. So far that had been enough to keep them away.
Eventually the messenger finished. In a grudging way Valaric admired the man. A Marroc who’d stood up to the forkbeards, who’d fought them and won and more than once. From what the man said, whoever was leading at Witches’ Reach was a true Marroc hero, even if he was doomed. Valaric forced back a laugh. Trapping the forkbeards in a cave and then burning them? No wonder they were like angry hornets.
‘I admire what you’ve done,’ he said. ‘But a horde of forkbeards is about to fall on your stronghold. You ask for my help yet at the same time the forkbeards are strengthening their garrisons all along the Isset valley, from the Crackmarsh to Andhun. The Vathen are mustering. In the spring they’ll come again and the forkbeards know it. They might leave me alone in my swamp but they’re all around it. They’ll know if I come out.’
‘Then what’s the point of you?’
Valaric stiffened. The messenger limped from a cut on his leg that was slowly going bad. Likely as not he faced a slow and miserable death. Maybe that was what gave him courage. ‘The same point as you, you daft bugger, except I’ll still be here a month from now and you won’t.’ He heard Sarvic mutter behind him and wasn’t sure whether it was a murmur of disapproval or of agreement. ‘How loud do you suppose the forkbeards would cheer if they can get rid of all of us before the Vathen sweep across the Isset again?’ He sighed and beckoned the Marroc closer. ‘Do you think I want to sit idly by and do nothing? No, but between me and Witches’ Reach lies the garrison of Issetbridge and then the river itself. I have spies of my own, and what they tell me is the forkbeards have been watching the bridge like eagles ever since you started leaving their severed heads littered about the place. There’s no other way to enter the Varyxhun valley. The forkbeards know this. I’d have to fight past whatever men they put on the bridge and with the Issetbridge garrison at my back. I’d be out in the open. They could slaughter us all. Not one of us would reach you, and then what?’ He shook his head. ‘Do you have a way to take word back to your friends in the tower?’ The Marroc nodded. ‘Then I’ll do this much for you. I’ll take the fight to Issetbridge. That might draw some of them away. If I find the bridge clear, I’ll consider crossing it.’ Not that there was any chance of that.
The messenger didn’t like what he was hearing but it was all he was going to get. Valaric sent him away to be fed and watered and to have one of the Marroc who knew about herbs and things see whether his leg could be saved. The next morning they guided him to the edge of the Crackmarsh, which was as far as Valaric’s men went. The leg, it turned out, was beyond help. In a way that made Valaric feel a little better about what he’d just done.
‘Issetbridge then,’ growled Sarvic eagerly after the Marroc had limped away.
‘Don’t be an idiot. They’ll know we’re coming and they’d shred us.’ Sarvic looked confused. Valaric sighed. Sometimes Sarvic could be a little slow. Brave and deadly these days but still not so bright. ‘Sarvic, how’s he going to get across the Isset, if he even gets that far?’
Sarvic sounded surprised. ‘Across the bridge of course!’
‘Yes. The bridge. The one the forkbeards are watching like eagles. That bridge, and he can’t even run. Maybe he’ll get back to Witches’ Reach but more likely the forkbeards will get him. Not that we’re going to Issetbridge anyway.’
‘But you said we—’
‘Yes, I lied.’ Valaric smiled at Sarvic. Such a lot still to learn, but he’d come a long way in the three years since they’d fought the Vathen at Lostring Hill and then the forkbeards in Andhun. ‘I’ll send a dozen or so men with a pack of ghuldogs to make a nuisance of themselves. See if we can’t provoke the wild packs to come out after us and stir something up. Maybe that’ll draw away as many of the forkbeards as they think they can spare.’
‘And then we’re going to sit here and do nothing?’
‘No. Go back to Fat Jonnic and tell him to muster his men. I’ll be waiting for him at Hrodicslet. I’ll tell Stannic and Modric the same. No, we’re not going to do nothing.’
‘But?’ Sarvic screwed up his face. ‘I thought you said . . . So we
are
crossing the bridge then. Are we?’
‘No, Sarvic, because that way into the Varyxhun valley will just get us all killed, fun as it might be to have a good old spat with the forkbeards out in the open. But we don’t have to go that way any more, do we? Because Gallow said there was another way: out from Hrodicslet and up into the high valleys and across and through some caves.’
Sarvic just stood there looking stupid. Valaric sighed again and shook his head. ‘Just go and tell Fat Jonnic to get his men to Hrodicslet, will you?’
‘Oh!’ Understanding lit up Sarvic’s face. ‘So Gallow came down a different way from the mountains?’
‘Yes.’ Valaric shooed him away. Gallow had come down a different way and had gone back again, and he hadn’t been the only one either. That had probably slipped Sarvic’s mind, but then a lot of things did.
T
he Lhosir came at first light with their ladders. They didn’t try to hide. They spread out, picking their way across the steeper slopes to the northern and western faces until they’d made a ring around Witches’ Reach out of range of the Marroc bows. It took them almost until midday and they arranged themselves slowly and carefully as though they were in no hurry at all. Little fires sprang up here and there. The smell of cooking meat wafted in on the breeze. An old trick, although not much use when the Marroc had such a storehouse beneath their feet. As the sun reached its zenith, Beyard walked out from among the Lhosir barring the road and strode clanking to the gates.
‘Marroc!’ he cried. ‘I promise you one thing. There will be no ravens. You have been brave and I will honour you for that. Your deaths will be quick and sure. Make peace with your gods, Marroc of Witches’ Reach. I know of your tunnels and your caves and I am not interested in your surrender.’ He turned to go and then turned back. ‘Are you in there, Gallow? If you are, we weren’t finished two nights back. Face me as you did then and I’ll let your woman live. I’d do the same for your Aulian friend but he has Lhosir blood on his hands now and so he must hang.’
As he walked away, Achista sprang up behind the battlements over the gates. ‘May you wander the Marches for ever, iron devil!’
Beyard didn’t look back. He raised a hand as he went, and when he dropped it again a horn sounded over the valley. A great roar went up from the Lhosir, and on the western and the northern slopes they began to move, clambering through the rocks with their ladders and shields. The advance swept around the tower like a slow wave. On the steeper slopes they came with caution, taking cover behind the stones and boulders there from the archers on the walls, shields held over their heads. On the flat ground to the east and the south they yelled their battle cries and charged.
Arrows flew from the walls to meet them, but these were warriors in mail, with iron helms and broad round shields, and only a handful fell. The Lhosir reached the walls and the ladders came up. The Marroc pushed them back, but every Marroc pushing at a ladder was a Marroc not shooting a bow and the rain of arrows eased to a drizzle. The Lhosir put more of their men to holding the ladders and fewer to holding shields. They started to climb. As the first man crested the battlements, Gallow howled and raised his axe. The Lhosir lifted his shield to catch the blow and Gallow kicked out instead, blooding the warrior’s face and sending him sprawling down the ladder into the men below. A few feet further on he knelt and heaved with two Marroc at another ladder. A spear stabbed up at him. Its point hit the stone beside his face and struck sparks across his eyes and then the ladder fell back into the sea of men around the walls. Another Lhosir screamed at him and then Gallow had that ladder falling back too, the Lhosir still clinging to it as he fell into the snow. He floundered and the Marroc archers saw an easy target. An arrow hit his head and creased his skin in a flurry of blood. A second hit the snow an inch from his face but then a wall of shields closed around him.
A hand reached up and grabbed a Marroc by the belt, pulled and hurled him over the wall. He screamed pitifully as he fell; a moment later a Lhosir warrior was scrambling onto the battlements. A Marroc swung an axe. The Lhosir caught the man’s arm, twisted and tipped him off the wall. Gallow roared and charged, shield up, axe over his head. The Lhosir saw him coming and the two of them crashed together. Gallow twisted and tried to swing his axe round the Lhosir’s shield. The blade caught the Lhosir on the shoulder, digging into his mail, and Gallow felt him flinch, and then a Marroc came from behind and rammed a spear into the Lhosir’s back, shoving him into Gallow. If he wasn’t already dead, Gallow’s axe smashed into his helm and made sure. The man’s eyes rolled back, his knees buckled, and he tipped sideways off the wall into the yard below.
The air stank of hot pitch. On the far side of the gates the Marroc were scattering. Lhosir carrying bladders on ropes crested the battlements. They hurled the bladders at the nearest Marroc and splattered them with steaming tar. On the western wall soldiers had topped the battlements and were holding Addic and his men at bay while more climbed up. More pitch-throwers climbed over the parapet, threw, and then and barged into the Marroc with their shields, drawing their swords. Gallow yelled at his band to follow and raced to stop them. He spared a glance for the tower steps, where Achista and three Marroc archers were watching for any Lhosir who reached the yard, all the time shooting at the Lhosir on the walls.
‘The horn!’ Gallow cried. ‘Sound the horn!’ The walls were lost. There were so many Lhosir on them now that hardly any Marroc could use their bows any more, and without arrows to keep them under their shields, Beyard’s men were swarming over.
The last Marroc in front of him spun and fell into Gallow with half his face smashed in by a Lhosir axe. The Lhosir shoved him out of the way and swung an overhead cut. Gallow stepped back and levelled a backhand slash of his own but the soldier saw it coming. He was too unbalanced to get out of the way, but he turned his shield enough to catch it and staggered against the parapet. Behind him three ladders were against the wall and more Lhosir were already hauling themselves up. One fell almost before he could stand, an arrow through his neck from Achista’s archers. Gallow slammed into the soldier in front of him and sliced a low cut at the man’s ankles, shattering bone. The Lhosir screamed and swung back, a wild blow, then fell forward. Gallow shouldered him aside, tipping him off the battlements into the yard below, and moved to meet the next who was already lunging with a spear. On the eastern wall Tolvis was holding the Lhosir back, racing up and down the battlements even with the arrow wound in his side, hacking and slashing and shouting at the Marroc.
‘For the love of Modris sound the horn!’
The Lhosir held the wall in two places now. More were on the battlements in front of Gallow, forcing him back with spears and shields, content to block him while others climbed up behind them. Further round they were sweeping the Marroc aside. Some of Achista’s men had already turned to run. Arrows lashed the Lhosir on the battlements and some fell, but not as many as climbed. One Lhosir vaulted over the ramparts and dropped to the yard below. A spear lashed at Gallow’s face and another stabbed at his feet. He hooked one of the shields facing him with his axe and pulled it back, and if there had been another Lhosir beside him with a spear, a lunge would have gone through the gap and struck home. But Gallow’s men were Marroc farmers and hunters, unskilled in war. Another Lhosir jumped down to the yard and then another, and at last Achista blew the horn and everywhere the Marroc turned and fled, even the swordsmen who were supposed to hold the Lhosir back while the others escaped. The Lhosir howled and pressed forward. Terrified Marroc jumped down to the yard, taking their chances with the drop instead of running for the steps. Battle-mad Lhosir leaped after them. Men screamed as legs twisted and ankles snapped. Gallow stepped back and stumbled over the body of a dead Lhosir. One of the spearmen lunged at his face. He lifted his shield, pure instinct. He knew at once that he’d been drawn into leaving an opening, but before he could do more, he felt a second spear point slam into his ribs and something crack. His mail held. He stepped back again. The dead Lhosir slowed the spearmen too. It gave him a moment. He took it and ran.