If the fighting had been bloody before, now it became awful. Soldiers and demons poured out of those strange tall buildings, slashing through their own panic-stricken populace to get at us. More than soldiers died in this swirling madness. I saw Lycanthian women, not in armour, using flails and butcher knives lashed to poles as well as swords and javelins from downed warriors, fighting in the front ranks, and saw them killed. I saw old men, other women and children, unarmed, screaming in fear, trying to run, trying to hide, trying to surrender. I saw them cut down by battle-maddened soldiers - even by my own Guardswomen. My officers and sergeants shouted against this bloodlust and in moments it was gone. The fighting went on all that night and the next day and suddenly, we were in front of another great wall.
This was the sea-castle of the Archons. There they stopped us. Again, the siege was mounted and again almost a year passed. The sea-
castle
's walls withstood assault after assault. Our blood and theirs stained the black, smoking stone. The gates were buckled and blasted, but still held firm. At any moment they could swing open and unleash a surprise attack by warriors made mad by the Archons' spells. Inside those walls we could hear the screams of the wounded and the pitiful moans of the starving. Outside, our army suffered as well. War had denuded the countryside for many miles. Our supply ships were simply not enough to support our land forces and we had, through common humanity, to try to feed those poor Lycanthian civilians who'd not been able to flee into the sea-castle in time; civilians the Archons refused to admit to the castle in the one brief truce we were able to call. Our soldiers were exhausted and plagued by hunger and disease, overflowing the hospital tents with their numbers. Sleep was no release: the air was so fetid with the stink of magic that nightmares constantly stalked our dreams.
But it was the will of the Archons, not the defenders of those walls, that had ground our advance to a halt. The two Wizard-Kings of Lycanth were fighting for their lives with a fury. Our Evocators, though bolstered mightily by spells my brother had brought back from the Far Kingdoms, were blocked by the Archons' counterspells at every turn.
I said the blood-bath of the assault through Lycanth was the worst fighting I've ever known. I wish I had another set of words to describe what a siege is like, because, in some ways, it is more terrible. There is constant boredom, but you must never let yourself relax. One momentary pause in the open and a sharp-eyed archer sends a shaft through your guts. You must never speak too loudly, nor shout, or else the enemy might use that sound to catapult a boulder onto your position. You must keep your ears sharp, or a raiding party might slit your weasand before you see the glint of his steel. You must never leave your shit unburied, or flies will walk first on that, then on your food and the curse of diarrhoea or worse shall be passed. You must try to keep yourself clean, because if you are wounded and dirt from your filthy rags enters the wound, it will fester - although how you're to be so sanitary living in a hole pick-axed through the city's cobbled streets, no one can say. You must try to be cheerful, because a woman who
constantly
complains will weaken herself and those around her. You must
...
...
And so forth. I could go on, but I was reminded by my beady-eyed collaborator this is not a manual intended to instruct soldiers.
As the siege continued, matters became worse between General Jinnah and myself and, therefore, the Guard. We were denied what little glory was to be gained being the first to attempt an assault, or even on what we call a 'futile hope', which is a small part)' seizing a sudden opportunity - a small-scale version of the Scouts' attack on the wall, which now seemed to have happened so long ago it might've been an exploit told to our grandmothers. We were sent into every action; the more bloody, the more likely the Maranon Guard would be at the
forefront. We were slowly whittl
ed away to less than two hundred and it seemed as if no more replacements would ever arrive. At times it appeared that Jinnah wished the Guard to die to the last woman. This I refused to let myself believe, attributing it to the heart-sickness any leader feels, seeing her best die and others replace them and die as well - and to what end? So I said nothing of my thoughts to anyone, not even Corais or Polillo.
There were rumours Jinnah was enriching himself at the army and Orissa's expense, that he had special teams assigned to comb through the city's apartments for gold and riches and secretly take them to his estates outside Orissa. No one had actually seen these looters-by-command, so I spoke harshly to anyone incautious enough to repeat the rumours in my presence. But when I was in conference with the general, I couldn't help but study him closely for some sign of avarice. All I saw on his face, however, was despair that the siege could not be maintained much longer. There was also real fear in his eyes when he heard tales from our spies that the Archons had nearly mastered a death spell that would be the end of Orissa.
Finally, the day of reckoning arrived; although like all such days I have experienced, there were none of the Signs and Symbols I hear are supposed to accompany these events.
General Jinnah gathered us for yet another dawn attack on those impenetrable walls. There was a weary desperation about the whole thing. The sergeants shouted and lashed the men into formation. Bellowed orders followed and the soldiers cursed their officers and their fates as they were driven into battle-lines. Half-starved oxen dragged heavy war machines through the muck. There were rams and wheeled towers and great catapults. Men with scaling ladder
s were rushed to the jumping-off
points, where they nervously eyed the walls. Meanwhile, our enemy prepared as well. Pots of hot oil and molten lead steamed and smoked on the ramparts; rubble was perched to tumble; crossbowmen cranked their bows taut; archers chose their straightest shafts and pikemen made a deadly, sharp-edged forest along th
e breastworks. We were a motl
ey army of twenty thousand. Only a few thousand were professional soldiers now, including my two hundred. The rest were shopkeepers, butchers, labourers and former slaves. As for the enemy, we did not know how many opposed us - perhaps ten thousand; perhaps more.
As the horns sounded and soldiers on both sides tiredly pounded their shields and croaked jeers at the enemy in what had become a routine prelude to
battle
, I led ten women away from the field, on a special mission given us by Jinnah - although he swore Gamelan had as much to do with it as he did, which I doubted.
The diversion we were about to launch bordered on the suicidal. This was why I led the mission that day, with a hand-picked force that included my two top legates. I was determined to bring them all back alive or, if my hopes were dashed, at least I would have the thin comfort that I'd not given the duty to someone I might think less capable or experienced. Besides, no soldier is fit for command if she will not herself go where she proposes to send her charges.
All of us had blackened our faces and any exposed skin with burnt cork and a spell of non-reflection had been cast on our blades. We wore no armour, since its weight could slow us enough to become a target. We wore only dark short tunics, caps and tight-fitting breeches.
We darted from cover to cover, moving easily, by hand-signals, feeling as if we were all one flesh. Our first goal, which we reached without being observed from that curtain-wall that loomed closer and closer, was the ruin of an outer guard-tower that neither side could hold for long. We crouched beside its high wall and Polillo stirruped her hands. I thrust my foot into that brace and she catapulted me upward, to where timbering protruded from the wall that had floored the upper storey. I caught a broken beam in both hands, pulled myself onto its narrowness and flattened - trying not to send debris showering down on my companions. A sharp rock dug into my breast as I turned on my side and unhitched the long rope slung over one shoulder. I double-hitched it around the beam, dropped its end back down and a moment later Corais swarmed up. She had no trouble finding a steady perch; and while I belayed the rope for the others, she steadied them in the last few feet of their climb. The only sound we made during all this was the creak of our leather harness, the scrape of our boots, and the occasional dull thud of a rag-wrapped weapon.
The last woman up was Polillo. I strained against her weight - she was easily twice the weight of any two of us - and a few agonizing seconds later she was on the shelf of rotting wood. She unslung the heavy leather bag that was her charge and dumped it on the stones. She grinned.
'Now, for a
little
sip of Lycanthian blood,' she said. She patted the beaked axe at her side. 'Precious is hungry, poor thing.'
'We are supposed to create a diversion, Legate,' I reminded her. 'Killing Lycanthians rates way down the ladder of our duties.'
Polillo sulked, those lovely full lips of hers making a childish pout.
Corais gave her a slap on the back to boost her suddenly sour mood. 'I'll catch one for you,' she promised, 'so you can break his
little
neck.' She made a snapping gesture with her two hands and clicked her small sharp teeth to approximate the sound of broken bone.
Polillo started to boom laughter, then caught herself, with a guilty glance at the
castle
walls now very high and close beside. 'Oh, Corais, what would I do without your cheer?'
'If
that
cheers you, my sw
eet, I'll catch two of them and really put the shine in your eyes.'
I paid no attention to this pre-battle jawing, but peered carefully first at the sea-castle's main wall -
I
could see no signs that we'd been spotted - then back at the battlefield from whence we'd come. Our Evocators had mounted a small platform near the centre of our lines. On it I could see half a dozen of them, busy chanting and casting spells, with great and meaningful gestures. In their centre was Gamelan. Suddenly he flung up his hands. His shout, magically amplified, thundered across the field.
From behind the castle walls I heard an equally loud roar from the brazenly magnified throats of the Archons. The air crackled with the roar and then shattered. Then came a chorus of howls so piercing we all ducked our heads, eyes forced shut and ears clamped to avoid the pain.
As we realized we were behaving as foolishly as any raw recruit seeing the first flight of arrows arching towards ttie
battle
-line, knowing each is aimed directly at her heart, and recovered, the spectral part of the battle commenced. The morning sky was night and magical fires raged overhead and demon legions howled and clashed. On the ground, all-too-human men lurched forward.
This was our cue - we slid
through a n
arrow port, and now we were inside the ruin. I tossed our rope into what had been the guard-tower's central room and slid down. There was no far wall standing that'd keep us from being seen by an alert soldier atop the castle's curtain-wall. I shivered. This was closer than I'd ever been to this dreadful haunt. Here Amalric had been imprisoned, he and Janos Greycloak, first in an apartment high in the castle's battlements in an attempt to break them with magic; then deep underground in its dripping dungeons. I collected myself - my purpose, the purpose for us all, was to destroy this evil, from its huge, nitrous stones to the Archons who ruled from within. Mooning about, feeling evil emanations as if I were a market wife scared out of her girdle by a fortune-teller's cant, accomplished nothing.
The ruined guard-tower had blocked our way to a narrow lava ledge that began a few dozen yards away and ran around the perimeter of the castle wall. The shelf was no more than a spear-length at its narrowest and twice that at its widest, or so my observations had suggested in the two days I'd spent reconnoitring the mission from afar. Do not think this shelf was in any way a weak point our army could exploit. To one side, as I've said, was the castle wall, going straight up with not a place to be seen to which we could spike or lash an assault ladder. On the other, it fell away, a vertical glass-like cliff two hundred feet or more to the harbour and bottled-up ships rotting at anchor below.
I motioned and Corais and three others slipped away onto the ledge itself. I heard a muffled cry and the remaining six of us had our weapons bared - there must've been a sentry or even a roving patrol. Polillo dropped the sack and reached for her axe. I held her back with an angry frown - Corais would chance a shout if she needed us. Polillo muttered as we heard the clash of weapons and I knew her hot blood was rising. There was silence. A few breaths later Corais rushed into view and beckoned us forward. Polillo growled with jealousy seeing her bloody sword. Corais made a small smile, then shrugged. What could she do? Duty and all. I hissed at them - quit the by-play. Pay attention. Then we hitched up our harness and ran out onto the shelf, around the
castle
.
We crept almost halfway around the
castle
before reaching the spot I'd picked for the diversio.n. Here the shelf widened briefly, room enough for perhaps half a company to assemble and then be crushed from above - since there'd be no way a full assault could be mounted from this position, nor any troops reinforced once the defenders on the walls realized their presence. But the shelf s width was not the reason I'd picked this place for the diversion: I thought I'd seen and a minor vision-enhancing spell had confirmed the sight, that gates had once been cut into the curtain-wall here, at a corner tower. I'd wondered for what purpose at the time and considered the thought once more. I thought I saw, just at the cliff-edge, a splintered stone foundation where a derrick might've been set a long time ago. Possibly this would have been a secret entry to deliver items to the Archons, hoisting them straight up the cliff" and hurrying them into hiding. I shuddered, not able to conceive anything so awful that the Archons would fear discovery by their completely subjugated people.