First Lord's Fury

Chapter 47~48

Chapter 47
Isana meant to stay awake all night, but found she couldn't. The continuous, unchanging lighting of the hive had made it impossible for her body to be certain whether it was night or day. She had slept fitfully, here and there, for what she suspected had been two weeks. Here, at the end, when she most needed to be alert, she found sleep creeping up on her - and by the time she realized what it was up to, it was too late to do anything about it.
She started awake with a small jerk, and swept her gaze silently around the hive without moving her head, careful to do nothing else to draw attention to herself.
All was quiet. The vord Queen stood in the alcove in that awful old gown, staring steadily up into the green light, her long white hair spilling in a fine sheet down her back and over her breasts. She paid no attention to Isana, though that was hardly unusual.
Still...
Something was different. Something she could neither identify nor define pressed upon Isana's senses. A shiver went down her spine.
There was death in the air.
Invidia entered the hive. The burned woman looked exhausted. She strode across the hive with a nod in the Queen's direction and was ignored as thoroughly as Isana had been.
Invidia walked straight to Isana and crouched. A slight motion of one finger and a tightening of the pressure around Isana's eardrums warned her that there was a very small, very subtle windcrafting in effect.
Invidia wanted this to be a private conversation.
"In moments," Invidia whispered, her back to the Queen, "things will change."
Isana's eyes widened. She glanced past Invidia to the Queen and nodded very slightly.
"She's hearing something different than I'm saying," Invidia said. "So far as she is concerned, I am gloating over your predicament."
Isana schooled her expression and made no motion, watching Invidia's face.
"Tell me what and where this cure is," Invidia said. "And I give you my word that I will do everything in my power to take you and Araris out alive."
Isana studied her quietly, then asked, "And if I do not?"
One of her eyelids twitched. "Neither of you will get out of here alive, Isana. Not without my help."
Isana took a slow breath. It had worked - at least, she had given Invidia enough hope that she had taken action of some kind, perhaps during her un-supervised scouting mission the day before. Isana felt her heart begin to pound. Had she truly gone to the High Lords?
"Once I give them to you," Isana whispered, "what is to stop you from seeing to our deaths?"
"I told you. My word."
Isana met her eyes and felt a swift, brief stab of pity for the woman as she slowly shook her head. "You don't have that anymore, Invidia. You cannot give me what you do not have."
Invida stared at Isana without expression. Then she said, "What would you have of me, then?"
"Your sword," Isana said calmly.
Invidia's head tilted slightly. "Why? You're hardly a threat, Isana, even armed."
"If I have it, you don't," Isana said.
The burned woman's eyes narrowed suspiciously.
"Does it matter?" Isana asked. "You said there isn't much time. After any sort of battle, your cure won't be left whole. Do you really have time to debate with me? Do you have any choice?"
Invidia pressed her lips together. Then she started unbuckling her sword, and said, "A certain amount of drama will be required."
"The means in question is a mushroomlike growth found in hives like this one," Isana said. "The Marat call it the Blessing of Night. Unlike most fungus, it apparently has thorns. I would look for it concealed around the edges of the pool or within the Queen's alcove."
Invidia took her sword, in its scabbard, in hand, and asked, "How is it used?"
"Eaten, according to Octavian, or squeezed, and its juices applied to wounds."
Invidia stared at her for a moment. Then she frowned, and said, slowly, "I cannot tell if you are lying to me."
"Things are never true because we want them to be, Invidia," Isana said. "Or because we don't want them to be. They simply are."
Her spine stiffened. "And what is that supposed to mean?"
"That it is not surprising someone who has so thoroughly deceived herself about the truth can't recognize it when it is spoken to her."
Invidia's face turned cold. She drew back her hand and struck Isana's face with her palm. Quick, sharp pain expanded and dissipated almost immediately, leaving a harsh tingling in Isana's cheek. As the blow landed, the windcrafting concealing their speech vanished.
Invidia threw her sword at Isana's chest. "So pleasant to be lectured by a self-righteous camp whore who has stumbled into power." She sneered, and Isana felt the lash of Invidia's hatred against her skin like an unseen riding crop. "If you're so convinced of your cause, draw it. Challenge me to the juris macto. If you can take me, perhaps you will be allowed to rule a Realm of ashes and graves."
Isana gathered in the slender sword and held it against her stomach without ever looking up at the burned woman. The fire of her emotions was no act - and Isana knew with a sudden chill that while Invidia may have been manipulated into action against the Queen, she had no intention of letting Isana leave alive. "I never wanted a struggle with you, Invidia. All I ever wanted was for my family to be left in peace."
"Keep it," Invidia spat. "In case you change your mind."
Isana looked past the other woman to the vord Queen. Black, alien eyes had focused upon them both. They stayed there for a long moment, then, without comment, returned to the ceiling above.
Invidia literally spat upon Isana. Then she turned and began walking toward the exit. "There have been no troubles moving enough troops onto the bluffs, I trust?"
The vord Queen ignored her.
Isana felt a horrible suspicion begin to grow in her thoughts. The Queen had said nothing about Invidia's giving her the weapon. At the very least, she would have expected some sort of comment along the lines of how irrational the act was.
But the Queen said nothing.
Evidently, Invidia had been struck by a similar impression, but she seemed to brush it aside. Her steps slowed for an instant, and she slowed in midstride, perhaps poised on the precipice of some decision. Then her eyes narrowed, and her steps quickened. She went to the hive's entrance and, with a flick of her hand, sent a ball of stuttering red-and-blue light into the world outside.
The hive exploded into motion and violence.
Isana simply couldn't believe how fast everything had suddenly become. It seemed that for an instant, she could focus on absolutely everything in her field of vision, all at once, no matter where it was.
The hive's walls vomited forth a horde of wax spiders, the ones that were constantly in attendance, yet managed to remain all but invisible most of the time. She had expected that. It made their sudden appearance, all leathery, translucent bodies and legs and fangs and gently luminescent eyes no less hideous, no less terrifying - and it certainly made the venom on their fangs no less poisonous. But, at least she had expected them.
She had not expected the four creatures that came dropping neatly out of the ceiling - what looked at first like... she wasn't sure what. Some kind of bizarre furylamp fixture, perhaps. They were spheres, essentially, with blades of gleaming steel standing out in ridges from the inner surface of each sphere, smoothly beautiful - until the bodies of the forms began to unfold with delicate grace into the long legs of creatures that resembled wax spiders - but which were ten times the size, and whose limbs were graced with blades of what was obviously furycrafted steel.
Vord. Made of steel. Isana felt fairly sure that didn't bode well for whatever Invidia had planned.
Invidia turned as the initial wave of wax spiders leapt at her. Her hand twitched, as if to move toward her sword, then reversed itself, sweeping in an arc with her fingers spread. Blue-white fire slewed forth in a liquidlike spray from her open hand, splashing upon leaping spiders and clinging to them like hot oil, causing them to curl up into lumps of flaming, withered flesh. In an instant, two dozen of the leaping figures were destroyed - but there were far more than two dozen surging toward the burned woman. She swept one leg easily into the air, kicking a leaping spider aside, and brought her heel and foot straight down with a cry, a furycrafting movement that sent a violent jolt through the earth in a wave that spread out from her foot, knocking small and large spiders alike into one another, sending them tumbling over the floor and bringing dust and gravel falling from the holes in the ceiling where the great spiders had landed.
Except for one. One of the large, bladed spiders had already flung itself into the air before the shock wave could shake it, and two of its bladed legs snapped forward from its body, striking with the speed and precision of serpents.
Even then, the former High Lady was not to be undone. One of her hands moved with impossible speed, her chitin-covered forearm catching the blades, sliding them aside - almost. One of the swordlike limbs plunged through the chitin-armor covering her other arm, and emerged from the back of it in a small fountain of blood.
Invidia cried out, seized the weapon-limb, and tore it free of her arm by dint of pure, furycrafted strength, ducking aside as another half dozen weapons flashed toward her from different directions. She fell back toward the entrance, seized another leaping wax spider, and flung it at the blade-thing with such strength that it was slammed several feet back across the floor, staggering under the impact.
Isana could only remain in place, motionless, hoping to avoid any attention, stunned at the display. Invidia's power had, for an instant, stemmed the tide of hostile vord.
That instant was all that was required.
Blue-white lightning streaked through the entrance to the hive, twin lances arching around Invidia and converging upon the blade-thing in front of her. They struck in a hideously bright flash of light and a roar of sound that was physically painful. Isana felt the breath sucked from her lungs at the sudden change in air pressure. When she could see again a few seconds later, a blackened patch of ground remained where the first blade-thing had been standing, scorched free of vord and croach alike. Scattered pieces of sharp steel littered the ground, all that remained of the creature.
There was a roar of wind and two armored figures rode in on windstreams, miniature gales that carried them down the incline, growing weaker as they descended into the hive, and let both men land on their feet, blazing swords in hand. One weapon burned with cold blue fire, the other blazed with scarlet heat - High Lords Phrygius and Antillus, respectively, Isana thought.
Once more, wax spiders leapt forward, trilling their cries - but this time they faced master metalcrafters with steel in their hands. Quivering, scorched pieces fell to the floor as the two men strode forward, untouched, through the rain of screaming wax spiders.
"In the alcove!" Invidia cried.
Phrygius spun toward the alcove just in time to raise his blade and intercept the dark weapon of the vord Queen. Her sword, a weapon of gleaming dark green-black chitin, met the blazing steel of the High Lord and flexed with unnatural tensile strength, not so much blocking the weapon outright as catching it and flinging it back. The motion surprised Phrygius, who recovered swiftly, but not before the Queen's sword had left a deep slice in the steel plates of his lorica, the split steel bubbling with frothing green poison. They exchanged a series of blows too swiftly for Isana to keep track of them, circling around one another, darting through short passes. Neither seemed able to gain an advantage.
The three remaining blade-beasts rushed forward through the crowd of wax spiders at Antillus. He met them boldly - and within seconds found himself driven back. A dozen blades came darting in at him from every angle, and when his sword met one of the beast's limbs, there was an explosion of scarlet sparks against vord green.
Furycraft. By the furies, Isana thought, these things could use furycraft.
"Placida!" Antillus choked out. His sword became a blur of scarlet light, his steps as light as a dancer's despite the steel that encased him, as he weaved and dodged before and between the blade-beasts. "Bloody crows, I need a hand here!"
High Lady Placidus Aria darted in from outside the hive, cut several approaching wax spiders from the air without seeming to notice, and sized up the situation with a sweep of her eyes. Her nostrils flared as she tested the air in the hive and apparently found it suitable. She lifted her hand, and a spark leapt from her fingers to kindle into the familiar form of her fury, a fierce, fiery falcon. She gestured with one hand and let out a sharp whistle, and the fire fury streaked forth to slam into one of the blade-beasts fighting Antillus. There was a blast of intense flame no larger than the mouth of a steadholt's milking pail, but the force of it ripped the blade-beast off of the ground and slammed it into the wall not seven feet from Isana's head.
Aria lifted her hand again, and the falcon was reborn upon her wrist, its flaming wings already raised and eager to fly. Aria's mouth lifted into a chill little smile as she sent the thing flashing forth again, and in another roar of intertwined fire and wind embedded the broken remains of a second blade-beast into the far wall of the hive.
"Thank you!" called Raucus in a calm, workmanlike tone, and suddenly shifted his motion, darting forward under the last blade-beast's weaponry and striking its two foremost limbs from its body where they joined the trunk and were nothing but smooth chitin. The blade-beast recoiled, but Raucous took a spinning, dancelike step forward, to stay in close and build momentum for a thrust of his blade that struck into the unguarded area of the vord's head and upper body, plunging deep into both. The High Lord's mouth split into a ferocious, snarling grin, and he let out a sudden cry of effort.
For an instant, light seemed to pour from the joints of the blade-beast, from where its limbs joined its body, then the creature quite literally exploded, the red fire of Antillus's burning sword expanding into a firecrafter's sphere within the beast's body. Pieces flew everywhere, and an instant later, the High Lord of Antillus stood alone, scorched ichor plastered all over his armor. He whipped his head around and winked at Aria.
"Show-off," Aria sniffed. She turned to Isana, and said, "Isana. Are you well?"
Isana managed a brief and jerky nod. "Aria, this isn't right!"
"Stay down and out of the way! We'll talk about Invidia after," Aria responded, and fell into step with Raucus as he turned to approach the battle in the alcove. The two of them moved lightly up to the edges of the fight, hesitated like a pair of dancers looking for the beat before they stepped onto the crowded floor, then flung themselves into the battle against the vord Queen.
"People!" bellowed a voice from outside - Lord Placida. There was the boom of a nearby firecrafting. "The bitch has called in her pets! Hurry!"
Isana looked up to see Placidus Sandos backing down the incline, step by step, his legs spread widely, anchoring him to the ground like tree trunks. That enormous sword was in his hands - in fact, often he wielded it in a single hand - whipping back and forth. He looked like a man hacking his way through underbrush: black chitinous... parts, for Isana could identify them no more specifically than that, scattered to the floor with each swing. Only in this case, the underbrush proved to be pursuing him. Isana could see a thicket of mantis limbs on the ground above Lord Placida as he backed step by step away from the pressure of the attack.
Isana's eyes went back to the alcove, where the three Citizens had trapped the vord Queen between them. Blades darted and bodies moved, all almost too quickly to be seen. Each combatant was little more than a blur - the result of windcrafting, it had to be. Sparks raged in blinding clouds. Isana had no idea how the participants could even see through them, much less continue the battle. She tried to scream to them over the chorus of miniature explosions and vord shrieks coming from outside, but to no avail.
Then there was a brassy, metallic scream that cut over everything, shocking the world into an abrupt silence.
Isana's eyes widened as the battle in the alcove froze in place. The vord Queen stood pinned against one wall, with the hilt of Antillus's sword standing out from her heart. She let out another scream and swept her sword in a futile slash at the unarmed man, but Aria caught the blow on her own sword in a last, feeble cascade of sparks, and as she did, the cold fire of Phrygius's sword struck the Queen's head from her neck.
"No!" Isana screamed. "That - "
Invidia was moving, after having hovered in the background during the whole of the battle. She reached out with one hand, and the scattered bits of steely blade-beast, all around the hive, abruptly rose up from the floor.
" - is not - "
The former High Lady of Aquitaine flicked her hand - and a cloud of broken, deadly blades hurtled toward the alcove, a lethal storm of steel.
" - the true vord Queen!" Isana screamed.
Aria's head whipped around just as hundreds of bits of razor-sharp flying metal hurtled into the alcove. Her sword flashed up and steel chimed, but no one could have defeated every single threatening blade with nothing more than a sword in hand. Their armor offered some protection, but it was far from perfect.
Antillus managed to lift an arm to shield his face and neck, but Phrygius was too slow. Metal fragments slashed into his face, and Isana saw, with sickening clarity, the way his eyes were sliced from his head. Antillus reeled against the wall, his face bloodied. Scarlet droplets scattered the wall.
The true vord Queen, naked but for her dark cloak, plummeted from the roof of the alcove. The first stroke of her blazing green sword echoed Phrygius's own strike with sinister irony, and the High Lord's head flew from his neck. Raucus reached for his sword, trapped in the wall, but the second motion of the Queen's attack struck his arm from his body at the shoulder. The third strike shattered his armor in a burst of ugly fire, slicing through his body just below his ribs and sweeping almost all the way to his spine. Never stopping, the Queen whirled, her sword describing a deadly arc aimed at Aria's neck as Raucus crumpled to the floor.
Aria's face was cut to bloody ribbons, and one of her eyes was shut with flowing blood. She did not even attempt to block the attack, but threw herself to one side in a roll and came up on her feet, the motion smooth and swift - but not swift enough to prevent the vord Queen from altering the sweep of her blazing sword to slash through the back of Aria's left thigh. Lady Placida let out a cry as her left leg buckled. She caught herself with her empty hand and began scrambling toward Isana, her leg dragging uselessly. She shook her head left and right, trying to clear her eyes of blood as she went. "Sandos!" she screamed.
The vord Queen's head snapped toward the entrance, and she made a gesture with one hand. The entire mouth of the hive suddenly fell, as abruptly as if it had been a nail driven down by the blow of a titan's hammer. One moment it gaped open, showing them Lord Placida's wild-eyed, panicked face, and the next it was a wall of granite.
Aria continued retreating, until her fingertips touched the hem of Isana's filthy gown. She swiped at her eyes a few more times, then hoisted herself to lift her sword into an awkward guard position, her left leg hanging lifelessly beneath her.
There was a quiet rustle of sound - and no fewer than eight more blade-beasts dropped from the ceiling all around the vord Queen and slowly rose. Their gently glowing eyes focused on the Alerans, and the vord creations lifted their sword-limbs, ready to strike, as they rustled closer.
"Crows take you," Aria choked, her voice shaking. "Crows take you, Invidia."
Invidia stared at the vord Queen from one side, her face bloodless. It made her scars stand out purple and hideous. "I didn't... I thought that..."
"You thought," the Queen said, "that you would allow the High Lords to exterminate me. Then you, in turn, would exterminate them - disposing of nearly every Aleran still alive who could match your power." She shook her head as she looked at Invidia. "Did you think me a fool?"
Invidia licked her lips and took a step back. Blood ran down her wounded arm and dripped to the croach in a quiet, steady patter.
"You have no need to fear me," the Queen told her. "It is a weakness over which you have no control, Invidia. I simply planned to take your shortcomings into account. It was not difficult to remove a junior queen's higher functions and reshape her into the lure for the trap. I regard your treachery as a minor shortcoming of character, in the greater scheme."
Invidia stared at the vord Queen, and whispered, "You aren't going to kill me?"
"I do not condemn a slive for its venom, a hare for its cowardice, an ox for its stupidity - nor you for your treason. It is simply what you are. There is still a place for you here. If you wish it."
"Traitor," hissed Lady Placida.
Invidia bowed her head. She shook silently for a moment.
"Invidia," Isana said gently, "you don't have to do this. You can still fight. You can still defeat her. Aria will help you. Sandos will find a way in, soon. And my son is coming. Fight."
The woman shuddered.
"Isana was not lying about the Blessing of Night," the Queen said. "Serve me until Alera has been put in order, and I will grant it to you when I release you to rule what remains."
"When, Invidia?" Isana said urgently, leaning toward her. "When is the price too high? How much innocent blood must be spilled to slake your thirst for power? Fight."
The Queen looked at Isana, then at the former High Lady. "Choose." Invidia's eyes flicked to the two unmoving forms in the alcove, then to Lady Placida. She shuddered, and Isana saw something in her break. Her shoulders slumped. She bowed forward slightly. Though nothing about her changed, her face, Isana thought, suddenly looked ten years older.
Invidia turned to the vord Queen, and said, her voice bitter and weary, "What would you have me do?"
The Queen smiled slightly. Then she gestured with a hand, and a trio of wax spiders came walking over the croach, carrying with them the sword of the fallen Phrygia. They stopped at Invidia's feet.
"Take the weapon," the Queen said quietly. "And kill them all."
Chapter 48
"Bloody crows, Frederic," Ehren complained, as they moved into the hall. "You don't have to carry me. I can walk."
The hulking young Knight Terra grunted as the little Cursor elbowed him and stepped a bit away. "I'm sorry," he said, "It's just that Harger said - "
Frederic was interrupted as Count Calderon rounded the corner at a brisk walk and slammed into the young man. Frederic let out a grunt at the impact and fell backward.
Count Calderon scowled ferociously. "Frederic! What the crows are you doing in the citadel?" He looked at Ehren. "And you. You're..." His eyebrows went up. "I thought you were dead."
Ehren leaned on his cane and tried not to let too much wince leak into his smile. "Yes, Your Excellency. And so did Lord Aquitaine. Which was the point."
Bernard drew in a slow breath. "Get up."
The young Knight Terra hurried to obey.
"Frederic?" Bernard said.
"Yes, sir?"
"You're not hearing any of this."
"No, sir."
Bernard nodded and turned to Ehren. "Amara said that he suspected you had manipulated him into that stunt at Riva."
Ehren nodded. "I didn't want to be within reach when he figured it out. And the best way to do that was to be tucked safely into a grave." He shifted his weight and winced at his injuries. "Granted, I hadn't intended my exit to be quite that... authentic. The original plan was for Frederic to find me at the end of the battle."
"Wait," Frederic blurted, his eyes almost comically wide. "Wait. Count, sir, you didn't know about this?"
Count Calderon narrowed his eyes and eyed Ehren.
Ehren smiled thinly. "Sir Frederic, Tribune Harger, and Lord Gram may have been operating under the impression that they were acting under your direct and confidential orders, sir."
"And what would have given them that impression?" Calderon asked.
"Signed orders!" Frederic said. "In your own hand, sir! I saw them!"
Calderon made a rumbling sound in his chest. "Sir Ehren?"
"When I was learning forgery, I used to use your letters to Tavi for practice, Your Excellency."
"He gave you those letters?" Calderon asked.
"I burgled them, sir." Ehren coughed. "For another course."
Calderon made a disgusted sound.
"I - I don't understand," the young Knight said.
"Keep it that way, Frederic," Calderon said.
"Yessir."
"Leave."
"Yessir." The brawny young Knight saluted and hurried away.
Calderon stepped closer to Ehren. Then he said, very quietly, his voice hard, "You're telling me, to my face, that you conspired to murder a Princeps of the Realm?"
"No," Ehren said, just as quietly, and with just as much stone in his voice, "I'm telling you that I made sure a man who absolutely would have killed your nephew could never hurt him." He didn't let his gaze waver. "You can have me arrested, Your Excellency. Or you could kill me, I suppose. But I think the Realm would be better served if we sorted it out later."
Count Calderon's expression didn't waver. "What," he said finally, "gave you the right to deal with Aquitaine that way? What makes you think one of us wouldn't have handled it?"
"He was ready for any of you," Ehren said simply. "He barely looked twice at me until it was too late." He shrugged. "And I was acting under orders."
"Whose orders?" Bernard demanded.
"Gaius Sextus's orders, sir. His final letter to Aquitaine contained a hidden cipher for me, sir."
Calderon took a deep breath, eyeing Ehren. "What you've done," he said quietly, "orders from Sextus or not, could be considered an act of treason against the Realm."
Ehren arched an eyebrow. He looked down at the stone floor of the fortress beneath him and tapped it experimentally with his cane. Then he looked up at Calderon again. "Did you have orders from Gaius Sextus, sir?"
Bernard grunted. "Point." He exhaled. "You're Tavi's friend."
"Yes, I am, sir," Ehren said. "If it makes it easier for you, I could just vanish. You wouldn't have to make the call."
"No, Cursor," Bernard said, heavily. "I've reached the limits of my tolerance for intrigue. What you did was wrong."
"Yes, sir," Ehren said.
"And smooth," Bernard said. "Very smooth. There's nothing to link his death to you but a dying man's babbling suspicions. And only Amara and I know about that."
Ehren waited, saying nothing.
"Sir Ehren," Bernard said, slowly. He took a deep breath, as if readying himself to plunge into cold water. "What a relief that your injuries were less serious than we believed. I will, of course, expect you to resume your duties at once. Right beside me." He growled, beneath his breath, "Where I can keep an eye on you."
Ehren almost sagged with relief. The only thing that prevented it was that it would have hurt a very great deal. The injuries to his body had been closed and stabilized, but it would be weeks before he could move normally again. "Yes, sir," he said. He found his eyes clouding up, and he blinked them several times until they were clear again. "Thank you, sir."
Bernard put an arm on his shoulder, and said, "Easy, there, young man. Come on. Let's get to work."
The view of the battle from the little citadel's tower was spectacular, even at night. Large furylamps, on the walls and towers of both the defensive ramparts and the citadel, illuminated the Calderon Valley for half a mile. Originally, the Valley's trees and brush had grown up to within a bowshot of the old fortress at Garrison, but they had long since been cleared, for the expanding little city, then cleared back more, to the edge of the range of the mules. It left the ground utterly devoid of features an attacking force could use for cover.
The vord covered that ground like a turbulent black sea. Despite the efforts of the firecrafters and the crews of the mules, which had been spread out on rooftops behind the first wall, the vord had finally covered the ground and were fighting their way up the walls, hacking out climbing holds and coming up in lots of a dozen creatures at a time, until the Legion engineers could earthcraft the holds out of the wall's surface, returning it to unbroken smoothness. Men fought and bled atop the wall, but nowhere near so ruinously as they had only a day or two before. The frontage of the entire fortification was less than three-quarters of a mile, and the sides of the Valley were no wider, there. The vord had to pack themselves in to reach the walls, to the point where their advantage of numbers did them the least amount of good.
Though, Ehren reflected, that was quite a bit different than counting for nothing.
Even though the Legions could face the vord at a point of maximum concentration, where the firecrafting of the Citizens and the freemen's mules could do the most harm, the Aleran Legions remained badly outnumbered. Ehren watched as one segment of the wall rotated weary legionares out for a fresh cohort. The vord needed no such cooperation. They simply kept coming, an endless tide. Ehren counted, out of habit, noting that only six men of the eighty-man century had been lost during their hourlong rotation on the walls. And yet it was entirely possible that their losses, proportionately, were worse than those being inflicted upon the vord.
The hollow booms of firecraftings continued to rumble irregularly through the night, accompanied by the scattered popping sounds of the occasional launch of fire-spheres from a mule, but even those were infrequent. Ehren asked Count Calderon about it.
"The firecrafters are resting in rotation," he said quietly. "They're exhausted. There are just a few of them on duty to prevent any breaches of the wall. And we're running low on ammunition for the mules. Right now, there are workshops being established in the refugee camp east of the city to manufacture more fire-spheres, but it isn't coming along as fast as we'd like."
"How fast would we like it?" Ehren asked dubiously. A stray sphere from the last mule launch had come down inside the ramparts, and a supply wagon was burning enthusiastically.
"Twelve million of them an hour would be ideal," Calderon replied.
Ehren choked. "Twelve mil - An hour?"
"That would be enough for one hundred mules to loose two-hundred-shot loads at their maximum rate of fire, nonstop," Bernard said. He squinted out at the battle. "With that, I could kill every vord in this swarm without losing a man. We're going to have to figure out a way to manufacture these things more quickly."
Ehren shook his head. "Seems so unbelievable. When Tavi showed me the sketches for this idea, I thought he'd gone insane." He paused. "More insane."
Two more mules launched their payloads, and a column of fire brought more vord screams to the predawn darkness.
Suddenly there were sharp, high-pitched whistles drifting down from the bluffs on either side of the little city. Bernard looked up sharply and swallowed. "There. Here it comes."
"Here what comes?"
"The enemy's flanking attack. It's the weakest part of this position, defending against an attack from the west." Bernard gestured at the two bluffs. "The vord are going to try to take the heights, then come down on us."
"The Marat are stationed there, I believe," Ehren said.
"Yes," Calderon said. "But if the vord have reinforced their flankers..." He bit his lip and beckoned Centurion Giraldi. "Signal the Marat."
Giraldi saluted and stomped off to dispatch a messenger as the battle upon the bluffs resumed, with the screams and howls and cries of the Marat, their beasts, and their foes echoing down into the Valley.
"It would be nice to be able to see what's happening up there," Ehren said.
"Probably why they did it at night," Calderon replied. "Show up with a much larger force and try to hammer through before anyone realizes there are a whole lot more of them this time." He shook his head. "Did it ever once occur to whoever is in charge over there that they aren't the only ones who can furycraft a decent trail up onto the bluffs?"
Ehren turned with the Count in time to see three bright white signal-fire arrows launched into the air over each bluff. There was a brief pause, then the sounding of horns somewhere out on the plains.
And then there was a low, rumbling thunder.
As Ehren listened, it began to grow closer - and much, much louder. He hurried to fumble a farseeing into existence between his hands, to let him look out east onto the plains beyond Garrison. And there he saw, surging toward the west, an enormous mass.
Horses.
Thousands and thousands of horses, and pale barbarians armed with spear and axe and bow and sword riding upon their backs.
"Hashat would have killed me if I hadn't let her in on the fun," Calderon confided. "And it was something of a challenge to work out a battle plan that included a reasonable use of cavalry in a bloody wall battle."
The horses split into two columns, flowing around Garrison like a river, then surged up what sounded like plank-lined earthworks leading onto the bluffs on either side of the city. Moments later, Marat cavalry horns caroled brazenly through the dark, and the sounds of thundering hooves and fighting continued on the heights. For a few moments, there was nothing but noise and confusion, but then the trumpets started calling more excitedly and from farther west upon the bluffs - the Marat were again driving the enemy back.
Bernard nodded once in satisfaction, and said, "My Valley."
And then a low, throbbing bellow rolled through the air and made the soles of Ehren's feet vibrate. A second one, from vaguely the other direction, rose and slowly fell again as the first call died away.
"Bloody crows," Bernard snarled. "Signal Knights Aeris," he called to Giraldi. "I need lights on those bluffs!"
It took only a few moments for the orders to be relayed and the Knights Aeris and Citizens to overfly the bluffs, dropping spherical firecraftings in clusters of blazing light. Count Calderon stood watching as they fell, and the light illuminated the vast, shadowy mass of vordbulks, one of them upon each section of high ground, so heavily surrounded with vordknights that they resembled animated carcasses surrounded by buzzing flies.
Ehren stared at them for a second, unable to believe his own eyes. "Those," he heard himself say through a dry mouth, "are quite large."
Giraldi spat. "Bloody crows. But those things can't attack us from up there, can they?"
"They don't have to attack us," Bernard replied. "They just have to walk up and fall on us."
"Oh, dear," Ehren said.
"We have to hold them off," Bernard breathed. "Slow them down. If we can slow them down..." He gave himself a shake. "Giraldi. Tell Cereus to concentrate his forces on the northern bluff. Set the trees on fire, create spines of stone to wound their feet - whatever he can think of. Kill them if he can, but he is to slow that bulk down."
"Yes, sir!" Giraldi snapped, and went about carrying out Bernard's orders.
"Slow them down?" Ehren said, bewildered. "Not kill them?"
"It'll be worse if they arrive simultaneously. And they're so heavily armored - and just so crowbegotten big - that I'm not sure if we can kill them," he replied. "But I think we just have to hold a little longer."
"Why?" Ehren asked, blinking. "What difference is it going to make if they're here in half an hour instead of ten minutes?"
"Because, Sir Ehren," Calderon said, "like your own demise, not everything here is as it seems."