Destiny: Child Of Sky (20 page)

At the wall Stephen was utilizing one of the rampart archers to pull some of the people gathering near the bulwark over the top to safety. Once the process was working the Duke of Navarne stepped back from the wall, shielded his eyes for a moment, and shouted something to the soldiers atop the rampart. One disappeared, returning a moment later with a handful of weapons, which he tossed clear of the wall.

Stephen scooped the blades from the snowy ground and began quickly passing them out to the men and women standing in wait. He trotted over to Tristan and tossed him a longsword.

'I guess we'll see if Oelendra's training stayed with us, cousin," he said calmly, though his eyes gleamed. Tristan nodded, turning once more to the oncoming column.

With a thunderous roar a second wave of cavalrymen from Navarne's northern barracks came into sight, joining with the tail end of the first wave from the eastern quarters. The two mounted lines galloped forth, charging to engage the Sorbold horsemen while Stephen's foot soldiers hurried, amid a furious clanking of armor and clanging weapons, to interpose themselves between the oncoming infantry.

Scattered huddles of men and women stood, armed with whatever they could scrounge and frozen in panic, watching the ebb and flow of the mob struggling to squeeze through the eastern gate, the last desperate line of defense between the townspeople and the wall.

'I'll face the charge,“ Tristan shouted to Stephen. "You rally the people—there are hundreds of able-bodied who can defend the wall."

Stephen nodded and the two noblemen parted, Tristan running forward toward the oncoming column, Stephen toward the makeshift dais upon which he had been sitting only a few moments before.

'You!“ the duke called to a clump of heavyset men, sledge-race participants most likely, hovering near the wall, axes and spades in hand, steeling themselves for the coming charge. "Seize those platforms! Throw a few obstacles in their way—set up some barricades!"

Like a spell shattering, the trance in which they had been rooted vanished. With a swell of shouting, the men took hold of the makeshift dais and splintered it apart, smashing the bracing boards with axes, barrels, bare fists, whatever was within reach. In moments the enormous platform was broken into sections of pallets, which the townsfolk hauled forward and planted at the wall's edge and across the field, directly in the path of the line of thundering chargers riding the wall.

The randomly strewn pallets served as partial cover for the hailstorm of arrows and crossbow bolts slamming forth now from the Sorbold force. The air was rent with the screams of the missiles as they tore forward in waves. A sickening staccato of popping and thudding sounds erupted, followed by cries of agony or shuddering gasps as the bodies of the festivalgoers began to fall rapidly, littering the once-pristine racing field.

'Halt—hold your position!“ Tristan shouted to the double line of foot soldiers from Stephen's northern barracks, the pikes in front, the bowmen in back. "Train your crossbows on the front line and wait until they crest the field. Pikemen—keep down! Hold this line against the charge!" He looked away, his stomach turning at the looks on the faces of the conscripted peasants as realization took hold of what they were facing.

Stephen felt the wind grow colder; it stung his cheeks and eyes, kicking up a veil of sharp snowy crystals from the ground. He glanced in the direction of the two gates in his wall; the throng was still clamoring to move inside, but it was thinning as the soldiers Tristan had assigned to manage the crowd maintained a fragile order. Children were running in terror, following adults dashing blindly around the wall to the northern gate. The snow-devils in the wind spun around them, hurling some of them to the ground.

He turned and looked toward the oncoming army. Like a smoothly flowing river the Sorbold soldiers marched forward, relentlessly, unhurried. One catapult came to a halt in an unlikely place and began training on the scattered crowd of defenders manning the wall. Stephen's brow furrowed, and then his throat closed in the realization that the enemy was not positioning to attack the keep, but rather to wreak as much death among the attendees as possible.

Behind him the wind grew sharper, more insistent. Stephen shielded his eyes and turned. The look of consternation on his face melted in astonishment.

Llauron the Invoker stood in the middle of the field that had been the sledge arena, atop the small rise of packed snow where the timekeeper had stood to start the races. He was alone in the distance except for Gavin, his chief forester, who was crouched on one knee, his heavy bow far out of range of the advancing army, positioned to defend Llauron, standing as his only guard.

The Invoker seemed unaware of the cacophony all around him. His expression was calm, almost serene, his arms at his sides, the white oaken staff of his office in one hand. Llauron's eyes were closed, his face turned toward the late-afternoon sun, which would soon vanish into the long darkness of night.

Llauron raised his empty hand; Stephen looked above. The wind picked up strongly, shrieking with a moaning howl across the wide fields, whisking more sheets of frozen crystals into the swirling air. The duke closed his eyes against the blast of cold that stung his face as the wind slapped him hard.

He put his hand to his brow and looked to Tristan. The Lord Roland had not noticed the Invoker; he was instead struggling to stand and keep his soldiers trained on the approaching column.

The light of day surged, then diminished quickly. Dark clouds formed over the sun; suddenly, the hazy light of afternoon vanished into the gray of dusk as the snow began to fall rapidly stronger, coating the air thickly, rising and falling in twisting patterns on the moaning wind.

The Invoker raised his other hand, holding his staff high. The gold leaf atop the white wood gleamed like a beacon in the coming darkness. Stephen thought he could hear Llauron chanting an invocation, but the sound of it was lost in the keening music that screamed in his ears. He looked to Tristan again, who now stood erect, staring directly in front of him. Stephen ran to his cousin, pulling the front of the hood of his cape down to shield his eyes from the bite of the wind.

'What is it?" he shouted.

The Lord Roland said nothing. Stephen followed his gaze to the approaching horsemen riding Navarne's wall.

Alongside the galloping steeds the snow swirled menacingly, the wind howling wild and shrill. From within the clouds of twisting white a staccato growling sound emerged, echoing over the field, in a thousand earsplitting barks.

The snow itself rose up, took form. The men of Roland watched in amazement as it slapped at the legs of the horses like a claw, snapped like a snout, growled.

First one, then a dozen, then a score, then a hundred of them, ephemeral wolves white as winter seemed to form from the snow itself, rise up and slash at the legs of the now-frightened horses. The wind screamed in deafening, feral howls; one of the Sorbold soldiers yanked back on the reins as his horse reared in fright.

A shattering blast of air blew through again, spinning the ice crystals of snow aloft.

As it rose more lupine forms rose with it, rampant, angry, snapping, tearing at the Sorbold chargers. The frosty blanket of white that had cloaked the meadow swirled viciously into a thousand more feral wolves, clawing and savaging the horses and foot soldiers in a horrific chorus of snarling howls that matched the screaming wind. A contrapuntal cry of fear blazed up from the startled army, wailing discordantly in the wind. “Dearest All-God," the Lord Roland whispered.

The Sorbold cavalry charge broke into chaos as the horses reared frantically, twisting and dodging to escape the phantom wolves. The prince and the duke stared as soldiers were thrown, some into the rampart itself, tossed on the boiling sea of confusion and trampling hooves.

On the eastern flank the neat lines of the column crumpled into jagged rows.

Tristan laughed harshly in amazement as the oncoming infantry broke ranks, some ignoring the biting snow that tore at their heels, others succumbing to the Invoker's magic and giving in to the frenzy around them, swatting and slashing at the swirling snow-devils in lupine form. Navarne's cavalry charged in, slashing ferociously.

The Lord Roland squeezed Stephen's arm tightly. “He's done it! Stephen, he's done it't't Llauron's broken the charge!" The gruesome sound of ratcheting metal broke through the keening of the wind. A moment later the air was rent by the repeated noise of catapults firing, and the lines of defending bowmen and foot soldiers erupted in caustic fire. Stephen and Tristan were blown back by the impact as clouds of oily smoke exploded in front of them, followed immediately by shrieks of agony and the bright flash of fire as it consumed the impacted soldiers.

Tristan gripped Stephen's arm violently as a scarlet shower of blood sprayed into the air. He struggled to his feet, coughing. “Hold the line!" he screamed at the peasants frantically rolling their burning comrades in the snow.

He turned toward the wall as shattering explosions tore through the air and into the rampart, the impact of the catapults sending shards of stone flying in all directions.

His throat constricted in horror at the sight of Stephen desperately trying to extinguish the fire on a peasant woman who had stood with the defenders and was now being consumed in the pitch flames. The clothes on Stephen's back were on fire as well.

'Stephen! Drop!"

As he lunged toward his cousin Tristan caught a glimmer of gold out of the corner of his eye. The wind screamed; with a howl a pocket of the storm broke loose, drenching him and those around him with icy rain. A blast of sleet in frozen sheets poured down from above. In a twinkling the flames all round them were snuffed, leaving behind no fire but roiling clouds of thick, oily smoke. Through his soaked hair and lashes Tristan looked behind him at the sledge arena, where Llauron stood. The Invoker was pointing the golden oak-leaf staff at Stephen; he stumbled forward slightly into Gavin and leaned on the forester's shoulder, shaken, then lowered the staff, grasping it with both hands. The cloudburst abated as quickly as it had come.

A clarion call of retreat rang forth over Navarne's wall; both Cymrian noblemen looked westward. The vast bulk of the crowd had been pulled within the walls of the keep, or shepherded around the rampart to the northern gate. The Master of the Wall was signaling that what people could be saved had been taken into shelter.

The archers were in place.

'All right; horsemen, fall back!" Tristan called to his commander. The man raised a horn to his lips and blew the retreat. The horse soldiers of Navarne, locked in heated battle with the Sorbold cavalry, struggled to break free, leaving behind the bodies of their dead, the riderless horses, and the enemy dodging the snow wolves that tore at their mounts. As the horse soldiers galloped around the broken barricades and the common people standing in wait behind them, Stephen's archers atop the wall let fly a windstorm of arrows into the Sorbold lines, covering their retreat.

The numbness that was giving Tristan clarity was starting to recede. “Fire!" he shouted at his broken line of crossbowmen. The soldiers loosed their bolts into the jagged lines of the Sorbold infantry, many of which whom were now writhing on the ground, battling the attacks of the wolf spectres. The wind picked up, fanning the heavy smoke and filling the air with stinging sleet that fell like needles.

'To the gate!“ Stephen shouted. "Withdraw, Tristan! The archers will cover you!"

Ten score and five men now lined the top of the rampart, methodically raining arrows down at the two flanks of the Sorbold column. Tristan signaled frantically to the leaders, the calm of training beginning to give way to the horror of the reality around him.

'Fall back! Fall back! Get inside the wall!" he screamed. In the distance he could hear the sound of the catapults being reloaded.

Time became suspended; everything around him seemed to move with painful slowness. His limbs were suddenly heavy, his head thick with sound and a mad buzzing in his ears. Tristan shook his head to try to clear his mind.

All around him lay bodies of the dead and dying, soldiers, but more often mere citizens of Roland, and even of Sorbold, children and old people, men and women, moaning in agony or lying silent, their blood staining the snow a rosy pink, their flesh burned away. Tristan coughed, trying to clear the taste of pitch from his mouth, only to find that in his flight he had inhaled some poor dying bastard's blood, and it was clotting in his throat. His stomach lurched, rushed into his mouth, and he retched, falling to his knees in the gory snow.

His head lurched as Stephen seized his arm and dragged him violently to his feet.

'Tristan, come! Come!

Behind them a high pile of haybales ripped into flame and torched fiery orange with thin lines of black withering straw, like mountains of burning birdcages. The heat sent waves of shock through the Lord Roland, and he felt a sudden burst of energy as his cousin dragged him toward the gate in the rampart. Distantly he was aware of the rhythmic twang of bowstrings in unison; he saw Gavin dragging the exhausted Invoker inside the rampart ahead of them. The last of the conscripted peasantry, the common folk who stood to defend the wall and let the others make their escape, were hurrying inside to safety now. Tristan felt a surge of fondness as he saw them go. Good people, he thought as Stephen pulled him around the battered barricades that had only a short time ago been the comfort of a reviewing stand for the nobility. My people.

The gates loomed before his eyes, large chunks of stone in the nearby walls missing from the impact of the catapults, but still sound. Tristan closed his eyes and pulled free of Stephen's grasp.

'Unhand me,“ he said sternly. "I can make it on my own."

Once inside the shelter of the walls Stephen waded through the crowd, shouting.

'Out of the way! Back, get back from the wall!"

He shut out the ferocious noise all around him—the moaning of the injured, the cries of joy from family members reunited, the frantic calls of parents searching for lost children, the shouted orders from the various regimental captains, the scream of wood and metal as the enormous gates were closed—and quickly scaled the rampart, pulling himself atop the wall next to a guard tower that had been shattered by a catapult blast.