The Seventh Friend (Book 1) (49 page)

“It changes things,” the Durander colonel added.

“How?” Arbak again.

“To attempt to kill someone, well, you can’t make a challenge plainer than that. If Esh Baradan can get to the mage court Hammerdan has no choice but to meet the challenge on her terms.”

Arbak’s face showed he had not caught up with the argument.

“If she defeats Hammerdan she will be Queen of Durandar.”

Sheyani would not meet Arbak’s eyes. “It does not matter. I would be dead long before I reached the court; Hammerdan has eyes everywhere, and men willing to do his will.”

“So what are we to do with this?” Passerina asked, waving a hand at the crumpled figure of the would-be assassin on the floor.

“Kill him,” the Berashi major suggested. “He’s an assassin.” Skal was inclined to agree, and said so. The Durander shook his head.

“In the eyes of Durander law he has committed no crime, and he is one of my men, bound under that law.”

“And you are bound under your oath to General Arbak,” Passerina said. “The decision is his.”

“Mine?”

They all looked at Arbak, and for a moment he looked like the innkeeper that Skal took him to be, an affable man surprised by responsibility, a man’s life in his hands. It was only a moment, though. His face hardened.

Skal would have had the man killed, for certain. It was a simple matter of discipline. If one man under your command tried to kill another, especially someone of noble birth or officer rank, then the sentence was death. Anything else invited mutiny.

Arbak prodded the culprit with his foot. “What do you say?” he demanded. The man raised his head. Skal could see that he was bleeding from his neck where the wolf had gripped him, and he was pale with the expectation of his death.

“I am the king’s man,” he said. “I do the king’s will.”

Arbak seemed to study his face for a moment. “Then go to your king,” he said. “Major Tragil, put him over the wall. I won’t have him on this side of it.”

“It is a death sentence,” The Durander officer said. “Seth Yarra will kill him.”

“After dark,” Arbak replied. “Put him over when the sun is well set. Then at least he will have a chance. Keep him bound and guarded until then. Give him food and a weapon, but not until he’s on the other side.”

It was clever, Skal thought. The man had little chance of survival, but there was just the slimmest possibility that he would succeed. Hammerdan could not take offence because Arbak had not killed him. Discipline was served because nobody would want to take that chance, and whatever happened to the man he would be unable to do any more harm. It was not an innkeeper’s decision; it was the measured response of a commander. Either that or he had the luckiest thoughts.

Arbak turned to Skal. “Now, you wanted details, I assume?” he asked. “Dusadil! Where’s that food?”

*              *              *              *

Narak found himself once again in the great chamber of the occult court of Hammerdan. He stood beneath the water fire light, before the great stone table, and examined the mages.

“Mighty God of Wolves, I am pleased that you grace us once more with your presence.” Hammerdan greeted him cordially, but he was sensitive enough to know that this was a different presence from the one that had been so easily pleased a month ago.

“Your men serve our cause well at the green road,” Narak said. His voice carried no warmth. Instead there was an edge to it that made a couple of the seated mages shift in their seats as if they wanted to look at his face, but they did not. Hammerdan tried again.

“Will you take the ninth seat?”

“I will not.” It was a flat rejection of what they considered a great honour, and this time one of the mages did turn.

“You are discourteous,” Hammerdan said.

“It is because I am angry, Hammerdan. You act against me.”

“I deny it.”

The denial was too quick, just a little too quick. Narak was silent, and he sensed growing agitation among the mages, and in Hammerdan himself.

“Tell me who accuses me,” the king demanded.

“Does the name Sheyani Esh Baradan al Dasham tickle your memory?”

Now there was a general stirring among the mages. The name clearly meant a great deal to all of them.

“The daughter of the old King,” Hammerdan was dismissive.

“She stands with my army at the gate in Fal Verdan. She deploys her talents in my cause. One of your men tried to kill her. He failed, but in failing he evoked your name to excuse his treachery.”

The king shrugged. “It is internal politics, Great Wolf. For many years …”

“There are no internal politics in this war, Hammerdan. I know your history. I know hers. If you wish to pursue your cowardly vendetta in the midst of this war then I shall accept your challenge on her behalf, and as her champion I will give
you
the choice of weapons.”

Narak could detect a smile on one of the mage’s faces, turned away from the king. A secret smile that said Sheyani still had friends even here. It was not a surprise. Hammerdan blanched at his suggestion.

“There is no need for excess, Wolf Narak. I will rescind the order. She will not be troubled for the duration of the war, as long as she serves your cause.”

“And at the end of the war,” Narak said. “You will honour the challenge that you have issued.”

Hammerdan nodded slowly. “If we have all survived to see it so,” he said.

“You may count on it,” Narak said. A moment later they were looking at a wolf. Narak was gone. The hooded mages looked at their king. Hammerdan did not return their gaze, but stared at a place inside his mind and tugged gently at his lower lip.

Skal was frustrated. He crouched with his sword drawn, one knee on the ground, waiting while the battle raged above his head. He and fifty picked men waited beneath the fighting platform, ready at any moment to rush up the steep stairs and engage the enemy. They were the first reserve, and Skal had thought such a role would be called early, that he would be fighting early, but two hours had passed, and still he waited.

Arbak was no better off. The general paced up and down below the wall, far enough from it that he could see the general ebb and flow of the battle above, but not so far that he could be taken by an arrow. The innkeeper constantly fingered the hilt of his sword and then took his hand away, but he could not keep free of it for long, and his fingers would find their way back to the leather grip, close around it, then release yet again.

Skal had been up on the wall that morning. The rain had stopped during the night, and there was a certainty that Seth Yarra would attack. At first light all the commanders had been on top, looking towards the enemy across a sea of mud. It was the first chance that Skal had been given to examine Arbak’s device. It was a simple thing. Each was a box that fitted more or less around the higher teeth of wall between the crenels, and was extended outward from there by a second box that reached towards the enemy, ending in a heavy bar of hard wood (Arbak had wanted iron or steel, but they had none) and the bar served to make it impossible to lay a ladder against the top of the wall. Either the ladder must rest below the bar, in which case the attacker must climb through the gap, a feat requiring two hands, or it must be rested against the bar, and that meant the attacker must cross a yard of empty space to reach the wall, with a good drop below him.

The device was proving highly effective. Some of the bars had succumbed to sword strokes, but Arbak had carpenters constantly building the boxes, and no sooner was one destroyed than another appeared to take its place. It tipped the balance further in favour of the defenders.

Skal had watched as the attackers had emerged from the woods in good order, shield bearers first, then archers, then lines of men carrying ladders. They looked effective, organised, and determined. Their steps did not falter, but they advanced to the point of bowshot and stopped. There was a flash in the sky above his head and one of the men fell.

“The sparrow takes her tax,” Arbak said beside him. “One man a minute. It is time for us to leave here.”

He followed Arbak down the steep, makeshift steps to where his squad of men waited, and less than a minute later the archery duel began in earnest, with volleys from the Seth Yarra sweeping the walls and the replies cutting into the advancing ranks of fighters and ladder men. He could see none of it, but now and then a man fell from the walls above, injured or dead or dying. He counted them.

The Durander woman, Sheyani, was also beneath the walls, playing her pipes, and Skal was instantly impressed. She played music that strengthened the wall, or that was how it sounded. While she played the wall seemed unbreachable. It seemed higher and somehow steeper than vertical. If the assassin had succeeded it would have been a blow indeed.

Ten men had fallen when the first step was called. It meant that Seth Yarra soldiers had crossed the wall and stood upon the fighting platform. Archers readied themselves below, but the attackers were driven back over the wall again.

The noise was incredible. It was like the battle in Henfray, but much louder. For some reason men seemed to need to shout when they were fighting, and with the thousands on the other side of the wall it was as though a sea of noise lapped at the stone. Just a few yards away through that impenetrable barrier were hundreds of men who wanted to kill him, and Skal rested his hand against the cool stone, then patted it like a favoured hound.

A second step was called, and was closed. Another two men fell from the wall, one dead and one injured. The injured man was dragged to safety and helped as best they could. They propped him up against the wall and he muttered to himself. Skal saw that he was Avilian, one of Arbak’s volunteers. He was wounded beyond use, but not beyond mending. He was in considerable pain, though, and continued to pull faces and grit his teeth while others tended to him until Arbak approached.

“General,” he said, and tried to straighten his back into a sitting approximation of attention. It cost him, but he maintained the position. “Don’t you worry, General,” he said. “We’ve got the measure of them.”

Arbak gave the man a cup of water and exchanged looks with the men around him. They nodded. They thought he would survive.

“You’ve done your part, soldier,” he said. “You leave the rest to us.”

The call went up for a third step, and this time it did not close. More Seth Yarra were on the walls and they fought hard to hold their place. The archers positioned themselves, and at Arbak’s command a horn was sounded. The soldiers on the wall stepped away from the attackers, leaving a clear passage across the wall for them to flood into, and at the same time the archers loosed their arrows, two volleys, three seconds apart. The Seth Yarra on the walls were cut down, and after the second volley the Avilians and Berashi on the walls rushed in on them again, and the step was closed.

“Your men are well drilled, General,” Skal said. “I have never seen men fight in patterns like that.”

“A thing of my own devising,” Arbak said with a shrug. “They do not expect it, so it seems to work. The Seth Yarra adapt very poorly.”

After two hours the enemy withdrew, abandoning the ladders that they had brought, and leaving behind them their heaped dead at the foot of the wall. Tragil came down the steps slowly. He looked very tired, and Skal could see blood on his face and arms, dried and fresh, black and red. His armour was dented in a dozen new places.

“Your assessment?” Arbak asked.

Tragil drank a cup of water before he replied. “It went well,” he said. “They are losing five men to every one of ours. If this continues, we will win.”

Fresh men were marched up from the camp, and those that had held the wall, the two hundred and fifty that remained, were marched back to the camp to rest.

“I want you to rest with the men, Major,” Arbak said, but Tragil shook his head vehemently.

“I am charged with the wall’s defence by my king. I must defend it.”

“If you get tired you will get dead,” Arbak said. “It would be a sacrifice with no purpose. Colonel Hebberd will command the wall at the next assault.”

Skal saw Tragil look at him, and he saw it in his eyes.
Too damned young
. The Berashi didn’t want to trust his wall to an eighteen year old foreigner. In his heart he wondered if the major was right, but his pride brushed the concern aside. He was an Avilian of noble blood. He had fought before and done well enough, even by his own standards. He was a fine swordsman.

“I shall not fail your king, Major,” he said. More than that, he thought, it was a chance to distinguish himself, another step on the path that would raise his blood back to its rightful station.

“I will be here,” Arbak said. “Coyan will be here.”

Tragil nodded. “Well, if you’re going to make it an order…” He stumped off towards the camp, broad shoulders borne down by the weight of exhaustion.

“Get up there, Colonel. Make them pay for every minute, every man they kill.”

The view from the top was ghastly. The sea of mud had become red, and it was punctuated by the bodies of hundreds of men, while hundreds more had built a rampart with their dead bodies and shattered bits of ladder at the foot of the wall.

“Do we have oil?” he asked a Berashi officer.

“Yes, colonel.”

“Are we saving it for anything?”

“We have a lot of oil,” the officer said.

“Then bring some up.”

He watched the enemy. In a short while they would be back at the wall with more ladders and the fighting would resume. Already he could see some movement among the trees. He tried to count the bodies, but all he could do was estimate. Seven hundred, perhaps eight. It was a determined army that could put up with losses like this for more than a couple of days, but they still had a good chance of breaching the wall. If they could get enough men onto the fighting platform and hold it they would overwhelm Arbak’s force. The cavalry would make a good show of it, but if five thousand men came over the wall the odds would simply be too great. Their own army was being whittled away, and its reinforcements were weeks away.

“What are you up to?”

Arbak was standing beside him.

“What do you mean?”

“The oil.”

“There’s a lot of detritus built up under the wall. If we burn it away, it would be difficult for the ladders to straddle a good fire.”

“A funeral pyre,” Arbak said.  “Good thinking.”

It worked well. It worked better than Skal had expected. The oil was poured and the torches thrown down on top of it. The fire stopped the Seth Yarra army. He could see them standing on the edge of the forest, out of Passerina’s range, watching their fallen comrades burn.

It held them back for two hours. Skal had expected the men to be happy at the pause, but they did not relax. There was no card playing, no singing. They stood or sat and mostly looked through the smoke and the fluttering air above the pyre that ran the length of the wall at the distant enemy. It was almost as though they wanted to get on with it, to live or die, and have it behind them.

It was after mid day when they came again. Some of the men had eaten food that they had brought with them, but most had not. Skal himself felt no hunger.

They marched out of the forest with shields and bows and ladders and advanced steadily as before. Passerina’s arrows began to strike.

“Stand ready,” he called. It was unnecessary. The men were already alert, swords drawn, grim faced. They crouched as arrows flew over, clattering against the stone, cutting the air. To Skal’s left a man grunted and fell on his side, a shaft protruding from his neck. The archers on their side of the wall loosed a couple of volleys that fell among the Seth Yarra, adding volume to Passerina’s sniping. Skal risked a look over the wall and saw that many arrows had struck home, then ducked back as another sharp rain fell on the walls.

He heard the ladders thump into place and eased back from the crenels a foot or so, making sure he had room to swing his sword. There were archers on the walls with them, and when the first soldier appeared at the top of the wall he took a shaft in the chest and vanished again, tumbling backwards and to one side. The thick leather armour that he wore was no protection. Then men were coming through the gaps, leaping from the ladder that was so awkwardly held off from the stone. Most that were not cut down by the bowmen landed badly, and were instantly set upon by the defenders. Skal killed one as he stumbled across the fighting platform, watched as another missed the jump and fell back and down. An attacker landed well and swung his blade. Skal parried, but almost at once the man fell forwards, his back opened up by another blade.

It was a slaughter. The Seth Yarra soldiers were brave and determined, but they were badly handicapped. It was half an hour before a couple of them managed to force a gap on the wall, and more rushed into it. It wasn’t close to Skal, but a glance in that direction nearly cost him blood as another came over the wall and swung at him. He was forced back, his foot slipped, and he barely managed to get his knee under him and his sword raised before it was beaten on. Another had come over the wall behind the one he faced, and the defenders around him were split. He rose to his feet, catching his enemy’s blade with his dagger, and lunging with his sword. The man turned, and the tip took his shoulder instead of his heart. A feint to the right, a quick step, and he struck with his dagger. The man went down.

Skal heard the thrum of bowstrings, twice, and knew that the archers below had shot to clear the step. He moved forwards again and killed another attacker as he came through the gap in the wall, cutting at throat height, and spinning the man backwards so that his head smacked into the platform and his blood sprayed back through the gap.