A Crown Imperiled

  Suddenly the two visiting versions of Lord John vanished from sight leaving only a faint grey smoke hanging in the air. Franciezka pulled her head away from the window and without hesitation leapt from the balcony and sprinted for the outside wall. She had no idea how she was going to find Jim and get word to him, but someone was about to try to kill his king and he might be the only man in the Isles who could save him.

  With almost effortless ease, as the stress of the moment made her heart pound and her limbs feel light, she leapt onto a trellis and from there to the branch of a tree near the wall, then on top of the wall, avoiding the iron spikes, and over the wall to the cobbles on the other side.

  Within seconds the Lady Franciezka Sorboz was lost in the darkness.

  • CHAPTER TWELVE •

  Onslaught

  MARTIN SHOUTED.

  ‘Damn!’ He slammed his fist against the table.

  Brendan shook his head at his brother’s frustration as they sat alone in the kitchen of the mayor’s house.

  Martin’s vexation was self-directed, but he managed to get the attention of everyone in the room. Brendan signalled to the two cooks and their three helpers that he needed time alone with his brother. They exchanged glances; then the head cook nodded and they left through the back door.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Brendan.

  After the water demon assault, Martin had been reorganizing the city’s meagre defences, while Miranda and Nakor had been interrogating the rogue magician, Akesh. Brendan had spent that time inventorying the city’s remaining resources and had given Martin the list to read a half-hour ago.

  Martin appeared lost in thought and didn’t answer his brother’s question.

  In the three days since that assault, the Keshian commander had been obviously content to take his time and return to a more mundane approach to siegecraft. He was constructing massive trebuchets on the crest of the western road, and it was obvious he would soon begin pounding at the gates of the city.

  Bolton had made a thorough investigation of the old keep above the city and the escape tunnel that led to a short distance behind the Keshians’ position. Martin was desperately trying to concoct a plan to send men through that tunnel and assault the trebuchets, set them ablaze and then escape, but he was convinced there was no way to do that without losing every man on the raid, as well as having no guarantee that the siege engines would be destroyed.

  ‘What’d I’d give for one company of heavy horse right now,’ he said. In his mind he could see them cutting through the Keshian defences, enabling the raid against the trebuchets to work. Then the absurdity of his position struck him and he said, ‘If I’m wasting wishes, I should wish for the bulk of the King’s Armies of the West to be marching up from the south.’

  Brendan pushed away a now-empty lunch plate. Stores were beginning to be a problem, so Martin had ordered rationing. Bethany had successfully argued for full rations for those fighting and half-rations for the rest. When Miranda and Nakor told him about the wagon caravan parked outside the city, he had sent out a detail to bring them in only to discover they had turned back toward Zün when the last attack had begun. He now was questioning his own ability to protect this city.

  He had nearly had a stroke from anger when he learned how easily the Keshian demon-summoners had infiltrated the city, and had put Bolton in charge of interrogating every traveller still incarcerated in the inn at the city gate and a nearby store converted to housing. He wasn’t certain how effective the young captain might be in ferreting out more Keshian agents, but it was better than just waiting for one to reveal himself to the detriment of the city.

  Martin felt overwhelmed, and was doing his best to hide that, but both Brendan and Bethany knew he was approaching his limit. It was one thing to study tactics, strategy, siegecraft, and the other military subjects, and to command a garrison for a short time as field experience, but it was quite another to bear responsibility for a city at war. Granted, most of the inhabitants had fled, but there were still women and children within these walls and while everything he had studied said the same thing – focus on the military aspects and let the civilians fend for themselves – still he could not bring himself to pretend they were not here, not a responsibility, not his responsibility.

  Brendan waited for his brother to relax slightly before he said, ‘We have what we have.’

  Martin nodded, pushing aside the list. Food was not critical yet, but it would be. Water was not a problem due to the numerous wells inside the walls. Arrows were becoming important, mostly because the finely fashioned ones had all been spent and now they were relying on those fashioned by boys pressed into acting as fletchers, using whatever feathers could be found for each flight. Weapons were not yet critical, either, but uninjured men to wield them was his most pressing need.

  Earlier in the day he had seen the Keshians moving at the ridge line, the first sign the Keshian commander was getting ready for a conventional attack.

  At last he said, ‘An attack through the tunnel from the keep to take out those siege engines risks too much. I think we’d lose too many men and might gain nothing tangible from it. Moreover, we’d have to block the tunnel to prevent the Keshians from using it and I’d like it available to us against future need.’

  Brendan couldn’t find any reason to disagree so he merely nodded.

  Glancing around, Martin realized they were alone in the kitchen. ‘Where is everybody?’

  ‘Giving us a little privacy.’

  Martin grunted. He waved his hand in the general direction of the front gate to the city. ‘The Keshians still mount a superior force, despite that fiasco with the demons. Even with their magician neutralized by Miranda and Nakor, they have the strength to beat down the door eventually and walk right in. We’re beginning to run low on supplies and in another week, we’ll be at less than half-rations.’ His voice lowered. ‘And then the real panic begins. If we’re still here defending. And to defend the city we have an untried boy with delusions of military genius.’

  Brendan laughed.

  ‘What?’ barked Martin, looking annoyed.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Brendan, ‘really, I am, but for a moment you were again the angry brother who couldn’t quite beat Hal at a game. You used to pout like a little girl.’

  Martin’s eyes widened. ‘I did not!’

  ‘You did so,’ said Brendan. ‘And you were doing it again. Look, be kind to yourself a moment, and stop wading in pity. If the King’s Marshall was here, with only what you have to defend with, nothing more, do you think he would have managed any better? What would he do? Gather everyone in the city square and with a rousing speech, get them all fired up so they’d charge out the gate and thrash the Keshians to the last, man and boy?’

  Martin started to chuckle. ‘All right, a little pity if you must.’

  ‘You’re doing as well as any man, I reckon.’

  Miranda and Nakor came into the kitchen. Between them was a very obviously beaten Keshian magician. Both of his eyes were swollen, the left completely shut, and he couldn’t manage to put his weight on his left foot without wincing. ‘We have wrung everything from him we could,’ Miranda said to Martin.

  Nakor said, ‘It’s not his fault, really. It seems someone put some ideas in his head.’

  ‘Magic?’ inquired Martin.

  Miranda nodded, while Nakor said, ‘It’s a very subtle trick. I think it’s been there in his head a very long time, years perhaps, so that he thinks everything he did was his own idea, but really, someone else made him do it.’

  Brendan said, ‘I’m not sure I understand. You’re saying he’s some sort of dupe?’

  ‘Hard to say,’ replied Nakor. ‘He may have been thinking bad things before this trick, or he might have been thinking good things, and the trick turned him bad.’ He grinned apologetically.

  ‘Either way he’s a traitor,’ said Miranda.

  ‘To whom?’ said Martin. ‘He’s Keshian. How is he a traitor?’
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  Miranda realized that one fault with having dual memories was that she sometimes forgot the context of things, certain nuances. Martin was ignorant of the Conclave so he would have no notion of Akesh’s disloyalty to Pug. Improvising, she went on, ‘I was speaking of the Assembly of Magicians at Stardock. They are pledged to neutrality, no matter where they are born.’

  Before another word was spoken, a loud crashing from the direction of the front gate was followed by alarm bells and horns. ‘Damn,’ said Martin. ‘The attack is starting.’

  He stood, grabbed his sword belt from where it hung on the back of a chair, and watched in shock as Miranda reached out and seized Akesh by the throat and with a squeeze effortlessly crushed his windpipe. The magician fell to the stone floor, gasping for breath that would not come and in a moment his face turned blue and he died, eyes open.

  ‘Why?’ demanded Martin.

  ‘Because,’ said Miranda, ‘he was a traitor. And who can you spare to guard him? He may have been beaten within an inch of his life, but you have no one besides Nakor and me who could deal with his magic once he recovered.’

  Nakor nodded. ‘I knew him; he was not what I would call powerful, but he had tricks that would hurt you if he used them behind your lines.’

  ‘What would you have us do, stand over him so that if you somehow survive this war we can take him back to Stardock so he can be tried and executed there?’ asked Miranda.

  Her eyes fixed on Martin and suddenly he knew fear. There was something behind those eyes that was powerful and unnatural and he wished no part of it. ‘Fine,’ he said sharply. He could not be distracted by this now. He turned to Brendan and said, ‘Find someone on the staff to dispose of this body. I fear we’re going to have many more to add to the pile before this fight is over.’

  Brendan nodded, turned and headed to the rear of the kitchen just as the alarmed-looking staff began to return. He pointed to the corpse of the traitor and said, ‘See to that, then get ready to care for the wounded!’

  Then the two brothers raced toward the coming battle.

  Martin ordered the men off the wall and stationed two lookouts on rooftops behind it. The Keshian trebuchets were merciless. At this distance they looked almost like child’s toys, but there was nothing remotely amusing about them. Large towers with an asymmetrical swinging arm and a basket full of heavy rocks at the short end, and a sling at the long end, they could hurl a boulder it took four men to lift as a child would throw a pebble.

  There were four of them on the crest of the road, and they flung their heavy missiles in order, the farthest to the left first: one, two, three, four; then over again, the first being reloaded by the time the fourth had released a massive stone. To those in the city it felt like an endless barrage. Those stones that struck the wall bounced away, showering the ground before the city with masonry dust, dirt, and shattered builder’s blocks. Those that hit the gate caused the metal hinges to protest with a shriek while the wood groaned as ancient grain was parted and splintered.

  A few stones topped the wall to bounce into buildings or careen down boulevards and an unwary defender was lucky to be spared a shattered leg or crushed skull as the boulder bounded by. A few were not so lucky and were carried to the mayor’s house or the inn across the street, where those detailed to receive the wounded waited to care for them.

  Brendan and Martin stood exposed and wary in the main street, ready to duck around the corner should they have to avoid a boulder. Martin had ordered Bethany and Lily to care for the wounded and protect them should the Keshians get that far into the city. Bethany had appeared ready to be defiant, but at the last had merely nodded and left to do as asked. Martin couldn’t be sure that would last. He also knew it futile to order her out of the city. She was her father’s daughter and she would fight until the last. She also would be disinclined to let the Keshians take her alive; she knew what happened to attractive young women taken in war; if she and Lily survived the rape of the city, they would be bound for a slaver’s pen in Durbin. It would be a miracle if anyone informed the commander that she was the daughter of nobility and worth a ransom, and Bethany would certainly not say a word while others around her faced such a fate.

  A stone smashed into the gate and the entire front of the wall trembled. ‘A few more of those and they’ll come charging in,’ said Brendan.

  Martin shouted up to the closest lookout, high on the rooftop above, ‘Do you see horse?’

  ‘Just now, my lord,’ he replied. ‘They’re riding slowly around the siege engines and taking up position. They do not appear to be in any hurry.’

  ‘They can wait,’ said Brendan. He glanced at the sun and said, ‘Why wait until noon to begin the assault? Why not attack at dawn?’

  ‘Darkness means confusion and terror, and that benefits the Keshians. Had he begun at dawn, the gates would be down now and we’d have had time to organize defensives throughout the city. Now if we try that, it’s in the dark.’

  ‘How long can we hold?’

  Martin said, ‘I don’t know. Every man and boy is willing; this is their home they’re defending and the Keshians lost many men with that demon attack. If we can wear them down between here and the city square . . .’ He was silent for a minute, then said, ‘Get a company. Go find anything, furniture, shelving, storage crates, whatever is at hand and build a barrier in the square.’ He knelt and drew a semi-circle in the earth. ‘Here is that weaver’s shop, the one with the green door? Start here and stretch it across to here, the butcher’s. I want it twelve feet high with whatever you can stand on behind it, so that it’s a breastwork.’

  ‘The miller’s!’ Brendan exclaimed suddenly. ‘There are hundreds of bags of grain spoiled for sitting there and no way to get it out of the city! That’ll make a sturdy breastwork, Martin!’

  Martin smiled. ‘Good. Build steps behind so a man can fire a bow over it. When I give the order here, I want the archers to fall back and be ready there to shoot crossing the square. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Brendan.

  As he was about to leave, Martin seized him by the arm. ‘That odd little ballista from LaMut, where is it?’

  ‘We moved it a couple of times. I’ll find Sergeant Ruther, he’ll know. Why?’

  ‘Take a wagon and put it in the middle and if you see any heavy horse ride into that square, use it on them. They’ll be bunched up and unable to spread out, so that might prove a nasty surprise. Go, and spread the word.’

  Brendan nodded once then dashed off.

  Boulders thundered into the walls and the air became thicker with stone and mortar dust. Hours dragged on and the sun crawled across the sky.

  Martin waited patiently until with an ear-shattering twist of wood, the gate on the right pulled loose from its upper hinges. Martin shouted, ‘Return to the walls!’

  He saw the two elves and waved them over. There was something he couldn’t quite put his finger on about the one called Arkan, but Calis had been a family friend since the time of his great-grandfather and namesake. When they reached him he said, ‘I have a favour to ask of you.’

  Arkan said nothing, studying the young leader. Calis said, ‘Ask.’

  ‘I plan on leaving that wall quickly and retreating to a secondary position within the city square. We have many inexperienced youngsters up on the wall. If you would each take one side of the gate to ensure they do not waste arrows or freeze and do nothing, and then make sure they leave quickly when the order is given, I would be in your debt.’

  Calis said, ‘Of course.’ Arkan looked at Martin and something akin to approval crossed his face briefly, and he nodded.

  They hurried off to opposite sides of the main boulevard into the city, while Martin reviewed his strategy. His plan was to bleed the Keshians with two or three volleys of arrows as they charged the gate, confident he’d have enough time to retreat to the barricade Brendan was now finishing. He had dispatched runners with his final plan. He hadn’t really had a plan until a s
hort time before, but he told the men he didn’t want to confuse the orders until the last minute. Sergeants Magwin and Ruther were both positioned with flying companies at the first intersection of streets behind Martin’s position, to encourage the Keshians along the path of least resistance.

  Then Martin heard the horns. The Keshian commander was ordering the advance.

  ‘Archers! To the walls!’ Martin bellowed and his own voice sounded strong and confident to his own ears, which surprised him as he felt anything but strong and confident.

  He hurried forward through a cloud of dust and saw that the gate on the right was almost off its hinges and realized that the Keshian commander had made his first mistake. It was a natural choke point as no more than two or three men at a time could climb into the city through the gap between the edge of the gate and the wall. The Keshians would try to flood the breech, for to wait for horse and chain to drag away the gate risked losing it to a defenders’ rally. As Martin hurried up the steps to the wall, the nearest lookout shouted, ‘They’re bringing a ram, my lord!’

  As he topped the shattered palisade, half crumbled and littered with rubble, he saw a hooded ram being propelled by a company of riders. It was tented, providing the men inside with protection from arrow fire and burning oil.

  Calis said, ‘I can’t see anyone inside it.’

  The elf’s eyesight was superior to Martin’s own, for at this distance he couldn’t tell. Soon, the ram picked up enough speed he knew no man could run and push that fast. Instead the riders were pulling it with ropes and were starting to pick up speed. Suddenly Martin had an idea what was happening and shouted, ‘Off the walls! Everyone off!’

  They didn’t need to be told twice. Martin ran down the stairs, crying, ‘Archers to the square! Man the barricade! Runners to me!’

  Two boys, almost comical in oversized helmets and huge quilted vests appeared, stern expressions on their faces. ‘You,’ he pointed to one, ‘find Sergeant Ruther. You,’ he said to the other, ‘find Sergeant Magwin. Tell them to pull back out of sight and wait until the Keshians are into the square, then hit them from behind.’ He jabbed his two fists together for emphasis. ‘Like the horns of a bull! At their discretion they are to pull back, circle around the side streets and get behind the barricade if needs be. Do you understand?’